Money management Software

le_loup

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Also, most of the 'modern' ones seem to be struggling with more than a couple of accounts and don't really have any concept of investments (as opposed to savings).

Agreed with all your post but thought this point was particularly important.


The bank account/savings recording things that the current finance software does is little more than could be done on a reasonably simple spread sheet.

No_6

MS Money still working fine for me, would be lost with out it.


6

Kendall80

I've built up a decent spreadsheet which I update on the 14th of each month. It contains my 11 current accounts, all credit card balances, all investments and various 'difference' calcs along with associated graphs.


The workbook also contains a lot of other information such as utilities usage, future plans, rate expiry dates etc.


If you set one up for yourself you can tailor it to your specific needs. I find it very useful to keep all my essential info in one password protected file (with backup ofc).

TrustyOven

What about the free and open source applications such as GnuCash and KMyMoney?

I want to try MoneyDance sometime when I get a chance.

block10

If only Quicken would re-release a UK version. It looks pretty impressive.

http://www.quicken.com/whats-new-quicken

ermine

TrustyOven wrote: »

What about the free and open source applications such as GnuCash and KMyMoney?

Although I am generally a fan of FOSS, GnuCash showed me its limitations. It's dreadful. It is right- in the wrong way. Geeky, and overcomplicated. I really wanted to like it. GnuCash showed me why I srtill use Quicken 2004. Proprietary, cranky, needs massive sweet-talking to download prices. But works....

Deneb

block10 wrote: »

If only Quicken would re-release a UK version. It looks pretty impressive.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, as I have mentioned this before, I have been using Quicken US for the last 4 years, having converted my data file from UK 2004XG.

If you are happy with using it as an offline register and are used to Quicken, it does all that XG did and more.

Caveats - you need the US Deluxe version as a minimum, or you won't get multicurrency support and won't be able to set the default currency as UK Pounds. I use Premier as I need the portfolio support.

You need to set English(United States) as the language for non-unicode programmes in Windows Control Panel, enable multi-currency support in Quicken Prefs and set UK Pounds as the default currency in the Quicken currency list before importing or creating any accounts or you will be stuck with USD as the default currency in accounts already opened or created.

I think Intuit will allow you to purchase direct from them as a foreign customer, but you have to go through support - probably to agree that you realise the software is not officially supported outside of the US. I buy as a digital download from Amazon US, but you need to enter a US address to be able to purchase from them. I won't say exactly how that can be achieved, but google is useful as always ;-)

If you're starting afresh with a new file, that's about it. Converting an existing data file from a UK version is however not for the feint hearted. You can't do it directly through Quicken. I had to convert mine from 2004XG to MS Money Sunset Edition (still freely available on the net) and then import as a Money file into Quicken US. Even then, there was an great deal of tidying up to do, and some heartache. Took me quite a while, but now I think it was worth it.

If you have a version of Windows that has Hyper-V built in, you can also do what I have done and install Windows XP and Quicken 2004XG on a virtual machine, then you still have access to your old data file as well.

Wurst

I use Gnucash and I love it. Free, powerful, works on Linux too. But it's not for everyone.

I think the big thing with Gnucash is it doesn't shield you from the process of double-entry book-keeping. I like that, because that's how I think.

If someone hasn't used computerised accounts software before, then I think they might find MS Money or Quicken to be more intuitive and accessible.

TheTracker

I use MoneyWiz. It's fairly basic especially in the area of investments but it all works. I have a decade of data and some 100+ accounts.

anotheruser

I'm surprised at the amount of people who trust programs to log on to their bank accounts and do whatever.
Unless said programs can only "read" data? But even then, they could be sending that data elsewhere.