aLately I find myself juggling finances, whether it is the checkbook from my jobs, my Paypal monies or my credit card. Not to mention the various transfers between them. So for this week’s FreewareFrenzy I went on the hunt for a freeware finance program and found Money Manager V2.3.30. This program requires Microsoft’s .NET framework, either 1.1 or 2.0. You can pick that up here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/ Warning, 22MB download. And for another disclaimer, none of the numbers in my screenshots reflect my actual finances, they are merely for illustration.
As a part of the install process, Money Manager asks for a start menu entry, desktop icon and/or a quick launch icon. I chose the desktop icon only, to keep my program menu simple. I was disappointed when I first opened MM; there is no wizard to get started. I would have appreciated this as a way to familiarize myself with Money Manager and to setup my accounts. As it stands though, the program was not terribly difficult to understand. It uses an Outlook-esque interface, so navigation is easy to pick up.
The first thing you’ll want to do is click “Add Account”. You can choose from Bank, which is your everyday checking and savings accounts, Fixed Deposit for CDs, and Investment Portfolio to keep track of stocks and bonds. After you choose an account type, you can add details such as account number, current balance, contact info, passwords and PINs etc. Once the account is entered, you work within it by clicking on it in the left-hand folder tree. Each individual account you add is categorized under the three main types.
Working within a checking account was similar to the paper register in an actual checkbook. Click on New to enter a transaction, whether it is a deposit, withdrawal or transfer. Enter who the money is paid to, a category, notes, check number, date, and amount. There is handy calendar and calculator if you need them. The program has dozens of built-in large categories such as Bills, Education, and Income, each with a few sub-categories such as Bills: TV, Bills: Electricity, etc. These will be useful later on for not only recording expenses but also running reports for budgeting.
The Portfolio area lets you keep track of your stock and bond holdings. Simply enter the symbol and Money Manager downloads the latest share prices from the web. You can buy and sell stocks in a manner of speaking. By entering a buy or sell into MM, your portfolio will adjust its report. You will need an actual broker to buy and sell in the real world.
The Bills and Deposits heading lets you setup automatic transactions that occur perhaps bi-weekly or monthly. This is useful to keep your account up to date without adding in your salary twice a month or deducting your cable bill every month.
Money Manager has two types of reports you may find useful. The aptly named “Where Money Goes” report breaks down your expenses by category. “Categories over Time” lets you specify a date range and one category to see how much is spent and how often. Note the various categories in the following screenshot.
There are few customization options, mainly to change the currency type and to edit the date range for the Expenses & Income graph on the Money Manager homepage. The online help is non-existent as of this writing, but small text boxes at the bottom of the program tell you what to do in each of the program areas. Adding more thorough explanations to these boxes, as well as a startup wizard, would have given Money Manager bonus points. Money Manager does have a built-in updater to keep your release current.
Money Manager is certainly not Microsoft Money, but it is a fairly capable basic financial program. People with complex finances will need to find something more robust, but Money Manager can be useful for a younger audience with a limited budget to learn the importance of good financial habits.
http://www.thezeal.com/software/index.php?Money_Manager_%28.NET%29
