OH GREAT QGL ORACLES PLEASE HELP

anyone use any of these packages and/or have suggestion and recommendations? mainly for household budgeting to keep track of rental property income and expenses, vehicle expenses, general ins and outs and when bills are due. something that can print me a report for the tax man would be good to.

i tried a trial of Quicken which is supposed to link to your bank and download and update info but they only had USA banks in their list?

cheers

wifey does ours in excel with hella clever forumlas and a keen eye for detail

try gnucash, http://www.gnucash.org/

last time I checked it supported export formats for a few aussie banks

MYOB is pretty much the standard out there. you can get cheaper home licenses.

something like this is only $199.

I've tried Quicken and dumped it in favour of Excel. I used to use MYOB all the time for work and that's really overkill for home budget (unless they make a stripped down home budget version)

They just seem to over complicate a fairly uncomlicated process.

My Excel spreadsheet is set-up over several tabs with formula's etc to make the tracking easy.

For bill reminder - pay them when they come in so you don't forget or use Outlook calender.

last edited by mission at 16:43:50 13/Oct/09

yeah we've used various excel configurations, outlook, google calendar, even played around with an MS Access system, etc etc
but I just cbf any more and want to try some real off the shelf software for a change

Excel - some simple formulas and conditional formatting and you're sweet.

myob

mint.com? Although you might find a few of the features heavily geared towards American banks

few? try all.

mint is the s***, but they need .au support.

ok so i'm looking at mint but how do you start if you don't have a US bank?

something that can print me a report for the tax man would be good to.

the family accountant made me one.

considering how f***ing much he costs he should have used some color in there.


/jokes


you need an excel spreadsheet dude. a good accountant can churn this out for you. they don't all live in 2009 yet, but they're getting there with computers. ask one to do one when they do your tax.

no - don't pay extra for it.



last edited by koopz at 19:58:21 13/Oct/09

i use quickbooks.

pretty straight forward and prints many handy reports.

didnt do tutorial or read any manuals.

just learn as you go pick it up pretty quick.

Quickbooks is much simpler than MYOB (so bookkeepers say).

I have Quickbooks for work and couldn't figure it out until I got a bookkeeper to set it up, then it's piss easy - well worth the investment. They cost about $60 an hour.

http://www.citysoftware.com.au/Browse/72f754ed02e64e96b1750eb43d7aab95001ItemDetail.aspx

myob business basics for $139

Bump.

I've been looking online for an alternative to mint.com after I stupidly recommended it without even looking at it properly.

I've come across a service that looks very very similar but works with australian bank accounts. https://money.strands.com/

I read through their privacy policy and it seems pretty solid.

You can also import transaction records into your account if you don't want to hook into your account(s) automagically.

I've only been using it for 30 minutes so far but it looks quite good. I'm loving how it automatically groups spending into specific categories and graphs it (Everybody loves graphs).

I'm still a little dubious of a third party site having access to my records, but we'll see how it goes.

I used gnucash for a while as trog suggested, it's good for home finance.

I use QuickBooks for work - their support s***s me, and their price (and lack of improvements) s*** me further.

I was talking to Kat about KMyMoney once (if Linux is your thang), might be worth a look.

I wouldn't recommend spreadsheet - you want double-entry accounting, even for personal finances.

jadz0r, that site 404'd for me - should you be worried? :-P

jadz0r, that site 404'd for me - should you be worried? :-P

It's ausgamers gay code for trying to convert links =] I'll edit my post

see that you do, jadzor - see that you do.

I've been using www.indybudget.com for quite a while and it has all the tools necessary to manage a household budget. You can sign up for a free account to check it out. The pro version is only like $5 US a year.

I got lifetime pro cause i signed up when it was first started ages ago by one of the guys that posts on Something Awful forums. Its not as polished as the likes of MYOB and what not but for setting up recurring bills / the monthly budget and projections its quite good. Has amortisation/debt payoff calcs as well so you can see the difference in paying an extra $100 towards a debt makes to the life / total interest paid on the debt.

Lol i just called MYOB polished! I guess it depends on who you talk to - accountants or the poor I.T. bastard that has to support it. And by support I mean spend the day deleting lock files :P

Excel or Open Office Calc ?

Excel or Open Office Calc ?

Please, dear God, ignore these suggestions.

This is the most amateur way possible to do personal finance - especially if you have things like a home loan (or other loan), share portfolio, etc. And more especially if you have things like some automatic credit card charges (e.g., mobile phone, gym, internet).

Spreadsheet is just such a terrible suggestion it makes my head hurt.

Excel or Open Office Calc ?

Please, dear God, ignore these suggestions.

Excel can do any math that a off-the-shelf application can. You obviously don't know how to write formulas.

Spreadsheet is just such a terrible suggestion it makes my head hurt.

Why ?
The CFO here at work manages to prepare a $30,000,000 a year budget annual projections going out 25 years using only Excel.

Excel offers you a level of flexibility the other packages don't.

That said you actually have to know what you are doing.

http://www.anzmoneymanager.com/

I wouldn't recommend spreadsheet - you want double-entry accounting, even for personal finances.

wait, wat?!

you use double entry accounting for your personal finances? as in A = L + E? you have ledgers/accounts set up for all your personal finances? do you do up a personal balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement as well? el oh el that's pretty hard out for personal finances.

This is the most amateur way possible to do personal finance - especially if you have things like a home loan (or other loan), share portfolio, etc. And more especially if you have things like some automatic credit card charges (e.g., mobile phone, gym, internet).

It's really not that hard if you are perceptive with that sort of stuff. Excel gives you a lot more control as well.

I have made my own spreadsheets to log my equity transactions, provide up-to-date view of my assets, etc. Easy to manage, easy to set up.

last edited by Alt_F4 at 10:57:04 21/Oct/09

you use double entry accounting for your personal finances? as in A = L + E? you have ledgers/accounts set up for all your personal finances? do you do up a personal balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement as well? el oh el that's pretty hard out for personal finances.

I don't personally now, but I did for a long while.

You obviously don't know how to write formulas.

Hahaha.

On flexibility, yes, there is no doubt a spreadsheet provides the most flexible option.

I have written VB macros to download share data and so on and ended up with really useful spreadsheets that do precisely what I want.

Seriously, though, how much flexibility does one need to do personal finances?

I'm just saying I think it's a poor option.

I just find excel faster (once you set it up) and more flexible.

You can just copy the workbook to create different scenarios without upsetting your base etc etc

I only tried Quickbooks (I think it was 'QB Personal' or something) and while it initially looked promising, it was a pain in the arse.

Yeah it's not double entry but it's not hard to set-up account account balances that will tie back to your back statements etc

I use kmymoney for our personal accounts. I have used gnucash but I found it didn't let me split transactions, so went with kmymoney.

I am a bookkeeper, so yes, I do our personal accounts as I would a clients. I'm a freak :D

last edited by Kat at 12:21:03 21/Oct/09

but I found it didn't let me split transactions

Does now. I'm not a salesman for gnucash but it's pretty handy, def worth checking out.

^ Hmm maybe I'll check those ones out ^

Check out MoneyDance. They have a fully functional demo for 100 transactions.