Microsoft money, Quiken etc - which is the best software?

boswell99

Hi,

I was hoping people would have some advice as to which is the best software for tracking your spending.

I've just tried wesabe, an online version. It's great in that you can automatically upload all your bank statements and tag outgoings and income (which is then automatically tagged in the future). But there are a couple of features I don't like and it's not quite as sophisticated as I'd like.

So I was thinking of buying some software to use. Any recommendations? I'd really like something that has the convenient features of wesabe - eg automatic uploading of statements rather than having to type all expenditure in and a tagging feature would also be great.

Thanks.

bigstoo

Personally, I have used Microsoft Money for several years and love it. I particularly like the spending forecasts based on past trends that it does - I couldn't find a similar feature in Quicken.

I only require tracking my personal bank accounts, savings, that sort of thing so I can't comment on the more advanced features.

Intuit (the people who make Quicken - or at least they did) stopped making a version of Quicken for the UK market. Although saying that, I think the last UK version of Money was 4 years ago.

RayWolfe

Try a search on this. Lots of useful posts.

torbrex

Microsoft Money for me as well, I have been using it from 1997 and I attribute my current relaxed financial status to it as well as full credit for setting me on course to paying off my mortgage 9 years early using the forecasting tools.

savingforoz

I like Moneydance - have been happily using it for a year now. Upgrades are free and the software can handle investments as well as savings/credit cards/bank accounts. It is cross platform as well. I also use it for forward planning using the subaccounts as virtual envelopes, a version of the envelope style of money planning.

I'm not connected with the company in any way, just a satisfied customer.

boswell99

Great advice, thanks guys. Are you able to automatically upload statements and set permanent tags (eg have anything that's from Amazon always tagged as books) with this software? My dad uses quick books and has to manually enter everything.

bigstoo

My experience with Money suggests there is no automatic statement upload.

(By "automatic" I assume you mean that you enter you login details in to Money and it goes off in the backgroud to retrieve statements).

It is able to import most of the standard electronic statement formats, though (although I've found that it's often the banks that don't adhere correctly to the statement format standards).

As far as tagging your expenditure - it will simply remember the last category (Money's name for tags) that you used for a particular vendor and prepopulate it when you are entering data.

sutton111

To buy Microsoft Money do you have to purchase Microsoft Accounting?

RayWolfe

No. But don't bother buying a current (American) version. A second hand 2004 or 2005 - the last UK editions - work perfectly with XP and VISTA.

Dinah93

I was reading today about personal accounts home edition or personal accountz, these seem highly rated but like most of these pieces of software, about 3 years old. Anyone know if it is any good or if it is worth getting being a bit out of date? Just as an alternative to microsoft money which also seems not to have updated in a couple of years.