Software for Manging Finances?

osaddict

Do any of you guys use specific softwre to keep track of your savings, income etc?

I was about to begin an Excel document with a few tabs to look at income from various sources and try to keep track of this moving forward, however, as much as I like Excel and I'm wondering if some decicated software is the way forward?

At work we use Sage (and previously Microsoft Accounting), I don't want to touch Sage with a barge pole, my situation isn't that complex - money via a salery, a couple of dividends here and there and a few bank accounts (mainly instant access savings).

Your thoughts are much appreciated, I've just downloaded some Microsoft Money Plus Sunset thing or something!

savingforoz

I use Moneydance and love it. A friend uses Ace Money and thinks that's great. Hope this helps.

Microsoft Money Plus Sunset is no longer supported whereas both the above are.

osaddict

So what does this software do for you then? I was thinking I'd write down the date of various transactions and state whether it was net or gross etc and go from there. Quite a manual task but I still want to maintain control over it.

The ones you suggest, what's the 'workflow' if you like compared to what I'm doing?

Thanks for your suggestions

Gromitt

I use Moneydance as well and I just enter transactions as I think they should be (eg, cash withdrawal, spent on cc, etc) and then match them to my statement when I get it. Every account is on MD, so I don't need to login to OLB to check my balances as I can easily say where every penny is and why. Its also perfect for budgeting as I can easily state how much I spent over the year on my various hobbies/etc.

Anything on my statement that isn't on MD I analyse in greater detail - so far only a billing error by Sky has been noticed (billed once, charged twice)

Lokolo

I have a spreadsheet, 1 tab for Overview, whereby I sections on Savings, split into accounts (ISA, SAV1, SAV2 etc.) and Investments (split into the different investments).

I have a pie chart to show where my money is, whether it be in my ISA, Savings, Growth Portfolio or Income Portfolio.

I then have tabs for every year (so 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and now 2012). In these yearly tabs I split by monthly columns. And the legend on the left has a list of catagories. It is split across the middle, top being income, second being outgoings.

mr_fishbulb

Still using Money 2005 for my bank accounts (it still works, but isn't updated any more).

I use Morningstar and Trustnet online portfolio tracking tools for my S&S ISA and for my Standard Life pension.

But for my Fidelity pension I have to settle for their site as some of the funds don't show on morningstar and trustnet

buffman

I still use Quicken. Nothing in the market is a patch on it even though the software is 8 years old!

bobthedambuilder

buffman wrote: »

I still use Quicken. Nothing in the market is a patch on it even though the software is 8 years old!

I agree. You should be able to locate a 2nd hand copy somewhere. It tracks everything (bank and savings accounts. loans, investments), and makes entries and reports simplicity itself. It can track expenditure by category, and allows you to budget and monitor against your budget. You have an immediately visible net worth. If you run a simple business, there's also a facility to monitor this separately, produce invoices and track VAT etc.

It's a great pity it was phased out. I'm using Quicken 2004 without any problems (except I can't update share and trust prices online, but it's no hardship to do manually).

Linton

I am very happy with MS Money 2004/V12. It continues to work despite it no longer being supported by MS.

I can download all my bank acount transactions directly into it, and get them mostly correctly categorised. Also I can download the latest prices of my 40 or so investments from the FT website for both shares and funds. There is a large range of reports that can be generated covering both money transactions and investment progress.

Finally, in planning and monitoring my retirement finances I have found the Lifetime Planner essential. It provides a reasonably detailed financial modeller covering future income and expenditure, inflation and investment returns.

calypso_rhapsody

Excel spreadsheets do it for me - but i don't want to track every penny spent - but what i need for tax return plus a handle on my assets. My broker provides me with a quarterly spreadsheet with investments and i maintain a list of savings accounts which i update whenever i move funds about - i also use this to track bonus expiry dates etc.

I did try using Money some time ago but found it wanted more detail than i needed or could be bothered to input ...

droopsnoot

You guys with your modern software, I have MS Money 2000 and it's pretty good, though it would be nice to have some better reporting and there's a few irritating things about it, as with any software. I have some spreadsheets too, as I wanted to be able to analyse stuff like projected interest income and effects of moving stuff around to see if it's worth it. I don't do any on-line stuff with it, never even tried to.