Financial Software

KungFuSquirrel

<div class="IPBDescription">What's best?</div> Well, with the whole marriage thing, Maggie and I now have a joint bank account. However, she prefers the old fashioned checks and check register stuff, where I lean more towards electronic banking, online bill payments, etc. Thus, I think it would be a good idea to get a computerized money management program - creating a nice bridge between the two.

Any of you here have recommendations on which software to get? I've used Money in the past, back in the day, but I really have no knowledge of 'productive' computer software. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

BigMadSteve

I've heard of a program called "Sage" but I think that's geared more towards accountants and the like.

Sycophant

I've tried both Money and Quicken, but I really just couldn't get into it. I'm sure they're great programs once you've got it all set up the way you want and you're used to the interface, but these programs don't seem to be very good at tracking every single dollar and cent.

After trying both these programs out for a few weeks each, the data ended up becoming incredibly inaccurate. Yes, for both programs. Inaccurate, as in, the program would say "neat, you have $750.00 in your bank account!!", but bank statements would show it should actually be more like "$7.50". <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Meanwhile, all I'm doing is what the program wanted me to do - download my transaction details from all my accounts maybe twice a month and import the data files into the program.

I'm sure there's a way to use the programs so they show <i>accurate</i> data, but I really didn't find Money/Quicken to be much use for my day-to-day accounts.

If you're only planning on managing major transactions (ie: bills, mortgage, RRSP, investments, etc), then I'm sure these programs will work wonderfully. Just don't expect miracles if you want to keep track of everything.

Now, all I've got a simple Excel spreadsheet done up which I update manually every Friday. All it is is end-of-week balances from my bank accounts, credit cards, RRSP, and investments, and it's working out a lot better than these bloated programs did, IMHO. Takes maybe five minutes to bring up all my accounts online, type in the numbers, and print off the graphs and reports which both update themselves automatically.

pardzh

My friend's dad uses Quicken obsessively. I don't know much about it though.