Good Quicken-like program?

[Zaurusman]

Hi all,

I'm looking for software to essentially be my "Quicken" for the 5mx that's en route to me in the mail. Just to handle my personal finances, though currency conversion would be a nice feature. I don't want to be reliant on a PC to handle of my finance tracking at all, but do want to be able to import and especially export (backup) .qif files.

What's everyone's favorite for this?

TIA

[stefank60]

Hiya

I have used Palmtop Money for some years on my 3mx and the 5mx I recently purchased on ebay also had Palmtop Money as part of the package (partly the reason I bid on this particular one).

I have no other Psion equivalent to measure it against as I have only ever used this (I do use Quicken on my PC).

Quick rundown of features/abilities:

Categories.
Budgets
Accounts covering Bank accounts (current and Savings), cash, credit cards and assets.
Standing orders
VAT
Different currencies (flexible use thereof as in you can enter in for eg Euros and it will convert to £ and show balances in £ OR running balances can be shown in Euros or whichever currency)
Can import .qif files
split transactions
more reports and graphs than you can shake a stick at
Pretty configureable
pretty darn intuiative (never cud spell that word)

Oh and I think somewhere there's a setting to make you a cup of coffee, some toast and start your car for you so you can get off to work :-)

Do I like it ? Yeah it's pretty good ..no I don't work for palmtop.

As I say I have no other Psion one to compare against and there are others out there both shareware and freeware.

So I would suggest wait for more replies, maybe check online reviews and have a general look around on the net and hopefully this post will be of some help.

It does more than I need and I'm happy with it - if you want anymore info pls ask and i'll see if I can answer.

HTH and good luck and hope you'll be happy with whatever you go for.

Stef

[Zaurusman]

LOL! "intuitive." The start-your-car feature sounds very useful in the winter! ;-)

With the different currencies, do you know if it would allow me to input, say, a paycheck in U.S. dollars and then key in a credit charge in Canadian dollars and keep them straight? Sounds like it does everything I could ever need, especially if the exchanges are that well integrated; thanks for the detailed reply! I'll wait to see what others have too.

[stefank60]

Not sure I 100% understand what yr asking (hey I've had a tough day at the office OK) but I'll say the following and see if it helps.

OK 1st off I'm not too hot on this side of things as I have only played with it a little on the 3mx version.

You can set SEVERAL currencies and have them to convert to your own.

If you are asking if in the same file (you can have multi files) can you have transactions in differing currencies I'm FAIRLY confident that yes you can, I'm here basing this answer on the series 3 version but am fairly confident that the series 5 version will do as much and maybe even more. From recollection you can even set something up that accounts for slight exchange rate differencies.

The multi file thing is quite useful too - I use it when I go on vacation (hey I've been to the US and know some of the language diffs with here in UK LOL) to keep tabs on my spends - this allows me to have dif categories and currency options - I tend to run 2 files when away : 1. with all transactions and balances shown in the local currency and 2. One with transactions and balances converted to £ sterling.

As for the car starting feature..darned useful this morning when it was icy , but didn't stop my windshield from cracking !! :mad: so thats $75 I'll have to shell out - ah well something else to enter im money !

BTW the drugs I'm on are available on the following website .....

Just kidding

Check out the following google search result for info on this software

http://www.google.com/search?q=palmtop+money+%2Bfeatures&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

All the best

Stef

:)

[stefank60]

Just noticed on second link you can download demo version of this software so you could do that and have a play once your series 5 arrives :-)

Shows screenshots on the link too.

Worth checking out

Stef

[Zaurusman]

Great, Stef, I'll download and play around with it. Thanks for all the details.

[stefank60]

You're very welcome, let us know what you think and how you get on.

Ah well time for bed it's 10:23 pm here and I need a lot of sleep :-)

Take Care

Stef

[netBookBabe]

Hi Tibor

Glad to hear you took the plunge and decided on the 5mx :)

I am a Quicken user, but don't actually have the need to use it on Psion, so I can't offer any personal experience on this. I can however point you to useful listing of all the different available financial programs for EPOC:

http://www.foxpop.ndirect.co.uk/thirdparty/apps10.htm

I believe RMR Bank comes well recommended as a Quicken-compatible app, so I'm sure that's worth a look, and it is considerably cheaper than Palmtop Money. There's an excellent series of in-depth tutorials for RMR Bank here:

http://www.foxpop.ndirect.co.uk/rmrbank/tutorialindex.htm

Hope that helps
Julie

[WolfUK]

You might also want to have a look at Eric Lindsay's list of banking applications ... http://www.ericlindsay.com/epoc/sibank5.htm

BTW, Eric's site is usually a good place to start if you want to find an application for a purpose and want an overview of what is available.

[struesda]

I'd like to put in a good word for ABP. I used it for a long time before I splurged for Money.

It's free.

It's fast.

It runs on the emulator.

It is the most up-to-date (Money is more picky about the newer (post Y2K) QIF formats where ABP can handle them no problem.)

It can match imported QIF entries to your existing entries and automatically reconcile (and categorize) them. - No other Psion banking app does this!

It also can track investments.

BUT...
It's not as fast as Money.
It's GUI is not as pretty as Money.
It has far fewer graphing functions than Money.

Give it a spin on the emulator and see what you think..

Steve T.

[Zaurusman]

Thank-you, everyone! I'll follow the links and test-drive the apps to see which one I like best, and post back here when I've picked one!