Microsoft Money or Equivelent Programme?

does anyone use a personal financial package?

I use a combination of Microsoft Money and excel - but then i am addicted to spreadsheets!  I don't know of other packages?

quicken?  but i think they stopped supporting the UK recently.

do you have the 2005 version?  how do you find it when dealing with both US & UK accounts, etc?

do you use it for just your accounts or for your joint ones as well (assuming you have both?)

i'm playing around with their free online demo- but it's a US version and not finding it the most intutitive.

Not sure what version i'm on...(yikes, i'm so ignorant about these things)...but it must be older than 2005 because the computer is older than that.

I use it for UK bank accounts only (I'm the brit) but i use it for 3 bank accounts (bills, current and joint 'basic account' I use excel for my credit card and to consolidate everything - i'm also a freak and do cash flow forecasts!!!

To be honest, i much prefer using excel as it's easier to reconcile bank statements to, but i like that you can transfer between accounts and set up monthly transactions (even though that knocks the balance out so i can never agree the balances until the statements are in)

I'd be interested in hearing about other packages especially since my husband is about to start his own business (anyone need a tiler?) and microsoft money just won't do for a business account.

carol- glad it's not just me who can't get the accounts to reconcile.  i've just downloaded my current/checking accounts, and they're showing in the red for some reason.

Added to that there's also the problem each month of being sure i have way more money than that in the account but no software programme is ever going to help me with that...must get shorter arms, must get shorter arms!

To be honest, i much prefer using excel as it's easier to reconcile bank statements to

I'm with you on this one Carol, a lot more freedom with Excel.  I started with Excel then moved to Quicken and then switched to Microsoft Money when that came free with a computer.  Now I'm back to Excel because neither Quicken nor Money were as easy to work with as Excel.

Having said that, those not used to spreadsheets would probably fair better with Quicken/Money.  Also, I'm sure there's a significant price difference.

Hi there,

I used to work for Intuit and was a product specialist for all 3 of their software products-Quickbooks, Quicken and TaxCalc (TaxCalc being the UK equivalent of TurboTax) and I have a 'insiders' viewpoint on Financial software.

Quicken is what I use - I'm semi biased becuase of course I know the software inside out! but MS Money is pretty much on level terms with it (in terms of functionality and performance). Quicken has the edge in terms of running a small business capabilities - I think it was only the US version of MS Money which has/had the small business capabilities.

Excel of course is possible to use, but involves alot of customising for what you want it to do - fine if you're proficient with Excel. I found most 'excel' spreadsheet users were mainly those who liked to track stocks and shares, - excel's reporting is where it falls down compared to bespoke software.

Intuit pulled the plug on the development of the UK version of Quicken, and Microsoft haven't released a UK version since 2005 -there are murmurings of a forthcoming UK update release for MS Money that will be Vista compatible - but nothing official yet.

There are 'smaller' financial software companies with packages that have pretty much the same functionality as Money/Quicken - take a look at those (accountz and the new Tesco software and something called personal accounts) they're all nicely priced too.

I've mentioned on this board a few times that I'm working on a business unit for myself offering continued Quicken consulting and financial advice using Quicken and other similar solutions - and although it's going slowly, I'm at the stage of testing out functionality of my site and it's back end processes - so hopefully soon I can announce its live!

I used to speak with many people over from the USA and quicken can in a limited fashion support US Dollar accounts. There's some tricks I know of and theres some extensions to that I'm thinking of which could prove useful in terms of US people here and Brits over there - leave my brain to work on those!

Lastly, CarolW - for about £20 (if that!) on ebay, you can pick up say Quicken 2002, and be up and running the small business records for your hubby's new business in about 30 minutes! as it grows, there is the easy upgrade route to go to Quickbooks if/when needed! message me if you want more info on this.

there's lots more but not enough room to write it here -

Good luck!

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Lastly, CarolW - for about £20 (if that!) on ebay, you can pick up say Quicken 2002, and be up and running the small business records for your hubby's new business in about 30 minutes! as it grows, there is the easy upgrade route to go to Quickbooks if/when needed! message me if you want more info on this.

Thanks DtM - i'll pm you when we're ready to go (fingers crossed sept should see the start) if you don't mind, any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thats cool CarolW

I dont mind giving out pre sales advice for free here or on the phone - I just tend to find I need to limit it as these things to have the tendancy to become quite indepth and specialised to each business quite quickly so it beomes difficult to keep emailing back and forth and/or getting lots of phone calls - that said, good pre sales in terms of finding a good fit with customers requirements can be found relatively quickly, especially since I was a specialist with all 3 of Intuit's UK products and have had some exposure to the US versions as well.

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!