Checks and balances: balance your checkbook and manage your finances with these personal finance managers - evaluations of five programs - includes related
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Balance Your Checkbook and Manage Your Finances With These Personal Finance Managers

The days of banking in your bathrobe are here at last! Although personal finance management software has been on the market for several years, electronic bill paying through the Web has finally matured into a mustperform task each month. With a little discipline, the programs in this review will help you better track your finances and maybe, just maybe, keep more of your money as well. Personal finance managers such as Quicken and Managing Your Money for both Windows and Mac and MS Money for Windows can reduce the time you spend writing checks, reconciling account statements, totaling your account balances, and fixing the inevitable calculation errors that result from banking by hand. The programs offer robust report writing that provides quick answers to such thorny questions as "Where's the receivables to cover this month's payables?" Thanks to reminders and features for recurring payments (your mortgage, for example), these programs can greatly simplify bill paying. If you sign up for electronic banking and bill paying, you'll reduce those costs in addition to lowering your bank charges and avoiding those late-afternoon dashes to your bank.

Quicken established the personal finance manager market and competitors followed suit by adopting Quicken's checkbook and account balance sheet metaphor. Many of the programs have adopted other features as well, such as AutoFill (just type in the letters "gen" and the program enters "General Motors," complete with the amount of last month's car loan payment). With a click of a button, these programs display a breakdown of your monthly and yearly finances, with charts highlighting food, rent or mortgage, entertainment, credit cards, savings, and so on.