Microsoft 'Money' Have you used it ?

Turning_into_scrooge

Yep, daily, couldn't be without it.

speedyjoe

I had an older version and found it useful if buggy and annoying to use.

I now have a later version, 2005 maybe? and I gave up on it - too much hassle and I was not at all happy trusting my financial information to a piece of software so tightly bound to Internet Explorer.

I now download my bank statements as CSV files and import them into Excel 2000 - another piece of software that I'm not totally happy about the security of but at least better than IE.

CIS

Does anyome know of any digital downlaod sites selling money 2005 ?

westernpromise

Money 2004 is reportedly better than Money 2005 - in fact, if you look at what they go for second-hand on eBay, the 2004 one often fetches more than 2005.

The issue with 2005, AIUI, is that it is excessively integrated into Internet Explorer to the extent that it's more like a browser with finance features attached than a proper personal financial tool. I know a couple of people who've tried it and then gone back to older versions.

The trouble with using spreadsheets instead is that they become very labour-intensive and error-prone if you have credit card activity to track. It's not the transactions that take ages, it's keeping the formulae correct.

I had an Excel spreadsheet where I tracked my current account balance on the front tab, and my regular spending on a series of subsidiary tabs behind that. So there was one for the utility bills, another for the cars, and so on. There was also one each for credit cards.

The idea was that in the current account tab, each day was a row, and a cell in that row would look up any payments due on that day from the equivalent cells in the other tabs. So in theory, as long as I updated the subsidiary tabs, the current account balance would always be correct, for as far ahead as I felt like planning.

The trouble was that I had to keep inserting rows to the credit card tabs to reflect spending on those, and I also had to add rows to the current account tab. Some months you use your credit card 50 times and some months you only use it 10 times. And of course your regular debits don't go out on the exact same day every month either, owing to weekends. So I found that, with a spreadsheet, I was forever hunting down errors and rewriting formulae to make the thing agree retrospectively with the bank, which is not a lot of use when you are trying to use it to look ahead.

What you really need is an Access database, which if I am not mistaken is te software that Money is actually based on. It is a huge improvement over spreadsheets, to the point where you can see reports on everything you spend money on, sliced and diced almost any way you like, and kept for ever.

AFAIK, only Nationwide accounts (all types) and Barclays current accounts will download directly into Money. Amex credit cards can also be downloaded though it is slightly more laborious.

Very much recommended though. In particular, it does away with that problem of "I didn't know that £20 cheque hadn't been presented, so I spent another £20, and then when it was presented, I went £20 overdrawn". In Money, you'd just enter cheques you've written as debits in 3 days' time. If they are not presented in 3 days' time, you will see that fact in your current account because your record of the payment will show as unreconciled with the bank's. You then keep moving it back a day at a time until it is presented.

You will thus always know it hasn't yet been paid and you will always know that £20 of your balance is in fact already spent.

simtan_2

I would recommend Personal Accounts 5 from Accountz, only £19
A bit like an Excel spreadsheet when you first set it up - but dedicated to accounts.
Does not have an import facility at the moment - but on the plus side has no adverts or unwanted online features.
The one feature that you can set up easily in PA5 that Money/Quicken don't do is a form of "envelope" budgeting, where your salary is split into various subaccounts of your choosing. I can keep all my money in my current account (offset against mortgage) but just looking at PA5 shows how that balance breaks down - so much for regular expenses, so much left for groceries or "fun" money. It also has the usual reconcile feature - so the left hand column shows the statement balance, the middle column with all transactions incluced, and a right hand column that forecasts up to the end of the month (or further, your choosing)
If anyone downloads a trial version I can send you my demo file to show the way I configure it.

Sim

westernpromise

Al_Mac wrote:

My opinion. That business about moving a cheque is mad. I put a cheque in on the day it is written. My balance shows what it should be on that day. Moving things around for when they eventually clear would be error prone

If a cheque is not presented immediately your balance in Money would then be £20 at odds with your balance at the bank, so it is actually easier to put it in a few days ahead and move it back if its doesn't who. It just makes it easier to reconcile.

Turning_into_scrooge

westernpromise wrote:

If a cheque is not presented immediately your balance in Money would then be £20 at odds with your balance at the bank, so it is actually easier to put it in a few days ahead and move it back if its doesn't who. It just makes it easier to reconcile.

but with MS money you can mark the cheque as void then un void it when it has cleared so you get a true balance

MPH80

but with MS money you can mark the cheque as void then un void it when it has cleared so you get a true balance

Your problem there is that you don't get a reflection of what your balance should be.

For example - I use Money to tell me how much money I've got for spending. I do this by placing all bills for the coming month into the system just before I get paid. The result is that I see I will have £xx to spend in that month. As I spend it, I can see the ending balance dropping and I know I need to move money from savings if I see it getting near 0 - even if the actual balance in my account is £x hundred.

Now - if I voided the cheque - my ending balance would be artifically increased by the value of the cheque.

By pushing the date forward until it is presented (or even leaving it at a date very far into the future until then) I see a balance which is representative of how much I have to spend before I go below 0 and start incurring charges.

I really believe I would have paid quite a lot in charges had I not been using MS Money this way. I can't make a mistake providing I know all the bills and cheques are entered here.

M.

mbailey

I couldn't live with out MS Money.

I really wish a few more banks would support it.

Currently I use Natwest as I like the OFX statement download facility on their website. It makes checking your account very easy.

Only thing I would like added to MS Money is a way to put 2 dates on a transfer between 2 accounts. If you do a BACS transfer then it takes 3 days before it appears in the other account. It would be useful is Money could take this into account automatically.

(A work around would be to create a dummy transfer account and every time you add a transfer you would need to add it twice Main Account to Transfer Account and Transfer Account to Second Account a few days later. I haven't bothered to do this myself.)

someone

I use it. The only problem is how each bank differs in support. i.e. Nationwide statements can be downloaded automatically. Other banks tend to make you go to there site and download a file for the statements.


I want to switch to a Mac but this is the only program I don't know of a good alternative to.