CdEarth: Personal Finance Software makes money sense

Does anyone actually balance their checkbook? The chore has to be up there with programming the VCR clock and flossing. We know we should do it but we'll get to it tomorrow.

The problem is made worse when we realize we have multiple checking and savings accounts to keep track of. Throw in the retirement accounts (hopefully we have some) and other investments (hopefully they're up) and suddenly we realize we have no idea what is where and, most importantly, how much.

Luckily, inexpensive or free personal finance software can help you organize your finances and keeps track of where, when and how the money goes. It is also a great tool to get a big picture of your financial net worth.

There are some excellent products on the market including the two most popular retail packages, Quicken Intuit and Microsoft Money. The inexpensive and even free personal finance software surprisingly have most of the features of these more expensive retail products.

When looking for a personal finance software, some of the features you will want to look for:

• Manage Multiple Accounts - Create and maintain an electronic checkbook - Checking, Savings, Credit Card or Loans, Stock Investment Accounts, Assets

• Track your Bills and Deposits - Create bills & deposits to be reminded of your upcoming bills and deposits so you never miss a payment or deposit

• Importing, Exporting and Printing - Ability to import, export and print your account information
• Account Summary Views and Navigation - An easy to use tree view navigator to navigate across accounts and summarized views of your accounts, upcoming bills & deposits and income vs. expenses
• Reporting - Generate reports so you can easily view your spending/expenses in a wide variety of ways. View spending by category over a date range for specific or all accounts. View spending on a single category over time. View income vs expenses. View spending by payee. View expenses and how you are doing on a budget.

CD Earth has an excellent Personal Wealth Manager you might want to check out.