Microsoft Money

STMJob

Can anyone give me some good pointers about making the most of this software programme?

I bought this yesterday in a bid to tackle my budget and get my finances in check in 2007, and although I've set up the basics (like setting up the budget) I am quite confused by all that I can do with the programme.

I want to set my budget up from the middle of the month (as that's when my main income is paid in) but the software only seems to allow a budget from the 1st of each month.

Also I have linked my current account to the programme but the amount seems to be way out (thinking it may be due to my overdraft) but it's out by £1100.

I would be soooooo grateful if anyone can give me some good tips on how to get this working to my advantage.

dudleyboy

Hi, i use Microsoft Money and find it invaluable. The most difficult part was actually setting it up and getting started. Did you use the set up wizard when you first used it (to create your accounts) or did you just dive in and do it manually?

As far as the software system goes, I do find some aspects of it lacking. As you say, all planners start from the beginning of the month, which is somewhat restrictive if you don't get paid in the first week of a new month. The best thing I find about Money is that it categorises all my expenditure and remembers these for all future transactions, so that each month I can see how much has been spent on what, allowing me to budget mentally for the next.

I think the best thing to do is start with the basics and gradually discover more of its functionality over time rather than setting it up to do everything from the start.

Download or manually input your (online) bank statement, assigning each transaction to a category, comparing the figures to see if any duplicates have occurred. Once your regular transactions are recorded, you'll be able to assign a budget to each of these corresponding regular categories. It does take a while but only has to be done the once.

I don't know if that helps at all. It's a good piece of software, just a little daunting and confusing until you become familiar and recognise it's quirks.

csarina

I use microsoft money, I set up the accounts manually using my bank satement, that way you can start from whatever date you want.....I enter mine forward 3 months so I can see if I am going to run into trouble and how the payments in and out are affected........I find it very useful for prediciting the state of the account at certain times of the month. If you write a cheque etc enter it straight away, so you can see what your true balance is...I check my bank account every day and open another window when in money so I can check backwards and forewards and verify the balance. I set as many of my direct debit payments as close to our 'pay day' as I can. We do have an overdraft facility, but its free up to £250 so we keep within that, the way the money runs through the account means that at certain times of the month we do go into it, but its usually only for a couple of days.

I also do the same with my savings account, holiday account, car account and the account for our allotment and my husbands bowls fees.......enter money cheques etc as soon as they are paid in and watch the money grow...

Gemmzie

Love this programme.

The debt reduction planner is brilliant, exactly like the snowballing, you can even add overpayments and it will tell you who to pay it to.

Setting it up is definitely the longest process but it is well worth it.

I don't use the auto links so can't really help with the being out by £1100 issue sorry

STMJob

Hi thanks everyone for the advice.

I was so keen to get started with this that I just jumped right in and didn't even realise there was a startup wizard to make the process easier :rolleyes:
(guess I can blame that on being blonde and female)

Will try and spent some time going through it and making it work the right way for me, starting back at the beginning with the startup wizard.

Cheers for all the pointers.

AT1

This is a great program for managing your finances but it is only as good as the user. I have made some errors in the past by adding enteries which shouldn't be there or not including some which should be there. I have now mastered this and I manually clear the funds when they leave my accounts etc.

hbl_2

I've been using MS Money for about three years which is great for tracking your own spending habits (which must be worth a few hundred to marketing companies...).

The software is not always intuitive and hasn't been updated by MS for a couple of years (even though they roll it out yearly in the US). This is a bit annoying as it's not without it limitations. i.e. on my debt reduction planner it assumes that in the first month I'm going to pay off about £8000 and I can't convince it otherwise, so that feature is pretty much worthless right now (i use a spreadsheet instead, so if anyone knows where I went wrong?).

One of the features that I roundly ignored till about a month ago is the BILLS AND DEPOSIT menu. This allows you to plan ahead, enter regular incomings and outgoings, and then the "cash flow forecast" graph at the bottom of each register actually works. When you enter items into the B&D menu, be sure to fill it in as best you can, and realise that the information isn't hard and fast. It will then make projections based on this data and when these things get entered into your register it will ask you "is this transaction the same as this one from your bills and deposits?" even if it's slightly out of date or not the right amount. This is a nice touch for payments which vary amounts (like a phone bill) and dates (due to weekends/bank holidays etc).

When you've been using it long enough, and you have enough spending data, you'll find the "reports" useful. My favourite is "current net worth" in the "what am I worth" list. It's nice to see it finally going up rather than further down! As you can see I put this figure in my sig.

Also, another tip that help me out no end, is when you enter a transaction you have three fields. PAYEE, CATAGORY and MEMO. Payee is going to be "tesco" "hmv" etc, catagory will be the catagory you chose for it, but memo it doesn't matter what you enter. I find Memo useful for entering what it actually was I bought, especially useful if you split catagories. It will save you a lot of brain racking later on it you look back and think "what the hell did I spend £60 on in [some unfamilar payee]?" - "oh yeah, haberdashery!"

Well have fun with it.

Also, should run on newer intel macs with the right virtual software underneath, but there's a freeware app called Ka-Ching! or something which looks really nice and is in development.

hbl_2

Oh yeah, and be sure to check out the "monthly reports". They compare the month's spending to the previous month's spending, as well as updating your current net worth, your budget goals and debt repayment plan. I only discovered them about a month ago too. It was cool to go back over three years worth of monthly reports. Well, interesting anyway.