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Looking for finance app

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moerl:
I'm looking for a simple to use but powerful finance app. I need to keep track of my expenses. What I'd like to be able to do and what doesn't seem to be possible with AceMoney, which I otherwise like, but refuse to use due to lack of this one feature... is to select multiple transaction items from a long list of transactions, and then label them with a "category". AceMoney has categories and that's great, but I find it appalling that I don't seem able to search by a keyword, display a list of found items in a new window, then select the desired items and put them all in one category in one step! The search feature does exist in AceMoney.. all that's missing is the last part of categorizing all in one step, but that's crucial. I'm not going to label every single item by hand even though I have the list right in front of me.. it seems like such a logical feature to be in the application, but it's not, AFAIK. If it is and I'm too dumb to find it, someone please show me how :)

Otherwise, suggestions for alternatives are highly welcome. Remember, I'd like to keep track of my expenses to better understand where my money goes.. but that doesn't mean I need a huge, bloated app with investment features and tax help and whatnot.. I like pie-charts and all that because it's a great way to see at one glance what the finances look like. Basically, I like a simple but powerful app that's aimed at the personal home user with no interest in running a business or being an investor or whatever. I'm just a student who'd like to know what's up with the cash-flow.

Thanks :)

zridling:
I figure Microsoft Money and Quicken would have just about every base covered in this respect, even if Quicken is poorly coded and has some weaknesses. But Moneydance looks somewhat similar to AceMoney.

mouser:
although they may be a bit bloated, id give quicken and ms money a good hard look;
these are serious programs with lots of room for you to grow into using the full features over time.

moerl:
I went with MS Money 2006. I tried MoneyDance and it's quite nice, but it pales in comparison to an established monster tool like Money. Money's interface is very smooth, perhaps not something mouser would appreciate, but it looks very nice and is very effective and easy to use. One thing I can't get to work yet is to have Money connect directly to my bank's account to automatically download the latest info for my account. It seems I need to set up something separate for that to work. I emailed Bank of America support about it and await an answer from them sometime soon. I won't get one until sometime next week I assume, since it's the weekend.

Thanks guys

BTW, Money doesn't have that feature I was talking about earlier either, but it's too good to drop just for not having it. At least I haven't figured out how to do that, so I went through and manually assigned categories to everything today using Money.

momonan:
I'm sorry I didn't get to this in time to help the originator of this thread  :( .. but maybe in time to head others away from MS Money, which suffers from the ailments of all microsoft products in that it decides what you (the ignorant user) must want, rather than allowing you to mold it to your shape.

Quicken will make you rich (I promise), and I can guarantee that it is more user friendly and infinitely more configurable than MSMoney.  From the beginning (when it cost $11 in the face of over $100 for competing products), Quicken has been a great value (right now it is priced at $49.95, which may be too much for some, but a bargain for peace of mind).  I not only track EVERYTHING, but can tell at a glance how much I paid for oil last year, how much I spend on frivolous items (alas), how much a particular project cost me, whether or not I already contributed to Nature Conservancy this year, projection into the future to see if I'll ever have enough to retire, and, of course, it helps with income tax preparation.

It took a little doing, but I see that Quicken also allows what Shangnyun wanted:  ability to add (or change) categories for multiple items.  For you users, here's how:

Open a account where you have the transactions you want to change.  At the top of the page, click "find."  This allows you to search by such things as payee, amount, date, check number, category.  Unfortunately, it won't let you search for a blank field.

It won't let you search for a blank field.  If you already have categories entered that you want to change, click on category and enter the name.  If you haven't entered any categories yet, there are several ways to trick it.  If everything was entered in 2005, for example, just click on date, enter the number 5, and it will look up every date with a 5 in it.  Or, if you have issued checks that all start with a 1, click on check number and enter the number 1.  You see where I'm going.

Then ask it to "find all" and you will see them all listed, with the "category" row either blank or containing the category you entered.

At the bottom click on "edit transaction"

Chose "category" to edit.

Just put in the category you want for all the listed transactions.  It will let you change to an existing category or create one on the spot.  Voila, you have your desired category (or changed category, or any other wholesale changes you want to make) in all the transactions.

This is just one of the many examples I could mention.  Having kneaded this product for many years, I would be happy to answer any other questions about using it.  quicken.com also has a user forum, of course.

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