Managing Your MoneyThere are more things to do with numbers than just crunch them. You can organize them, track them as expenses, convert them from one unit to another, and invest them. I've attempted to divide these "Money Programs" up into a logical order, shown below. Note that there are a number of excellent list programs and information managers that I have not included in this list of financial programs. Although they could be used to organize and track financial data, I decided to limit this article to programs that were more focused on financial data. The categories are as follows:
Conversion
Can make over 200 different types of conversions, including currencies. Because currency conversions go out of date quickly, you can download an updated conversion file from the developer's company Web site. You can customize the conversion tab layout to place your frequently used conversion types into the most easily accessible location. Also includes a built-in calculator. Conversions In Hand is priced at $20 and is available for H/PCs and Ps/PCs. Demo is available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Burr Oak Software; E-mail: info@ burroak.on.ca; Web: www.burroak.on.ca
A metric conversion tool that lets engineers convert many units from a variety of sources. A setup utility helps configure units for convention of the selected source. The user can select the different sources. Dyna Metric is freeware and is available for H/PCs and Ps/PCs. Download it at www.palmix.itil.com.
A simple calculator that also has the additional facility of showing the currency conversions between the common European currency EURO and the other eleven participating countries. Euro Calculator is freeware and is available for the H/PC. Download it at www.itil.com/.
Conversion program for over 110 different units, including currency, length, area, volume, mass, temperature, power, energy, speed, frequency, pressure, force, dB-Uout/Uin, and time. Euro conversion is fully supported and contains fixed exchange rates. Exchange rates can also be changed and are stored in an internal database. Converting results can be exported with copy and paste to other programs (Screen 1). METAconverter is freeware and is available for H/PCs. Download is at www.cemonster.com or the developer's Web site. Contact: META TOOLS GmbH; Web: www.metatools.de/ (German language site)
Pocket Convert for Windows CE converts between currencies, language phrases, abbreviations, or user-defined information and other data. Price: œ15 ($24) Download from company Web site listed below; Contact: Surerange Analysis Ltd; Fax: 44 (0) 1483 304960; E-mail: info@surerange.com; or from MobileSoft at www.mobilesoft.com; Web: www.surerange.com/wince.
A simple European currency conversion utility. SwEuro is freeware and is available for H/PCs. Download it at www.sw4you.de/.
Financial Trackers
Tracks all financial transactions including checking, ATM, savings, credit cards, and investments. Includes Budgets and Reports features. Note: Some handhelds need the MFC file to run this application. Cashman is shareware (registration fee: $39.95) and is available for H/PCs. A free demo
is available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Handheld Data Systems;
Keeps track of your personal or business account expenditures (Screen 2). BalanceBook calculates the account balance and allows you to enter future repeating entries - with a specified interval in months - which are updated automatically on the appropriate date. You can export files to a *.TXT format, these files can consequently be imported into Microsoft Excel for printing or further processing. BalanceBook is priced at $11.95 and is available for the Ps/PC. A free demo is
available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Portable Projects; E-mail: info@portablepro jects.com;
Customizable financial tracker for your Ps/PC. DMoney is freeware and is available for the Ps/PC. It can be downloaded at www.cemonster.com.
A personal finances manager for Windows CE 2.0 that supports multiple accounts, transfers, repeating transactions, running totals, and minimum and maximum balance displays. Other features include automatic tip entry for restaurants, online help, export to CSV, TXT, QIF, and TSV files, resizable and movable columns. Dollars and CEnts is freeware (Beta demo) and is available for H/PCs. It can be downloaded at www.laurenson.com/stingersoft/
Helps you track your Credit, Debit and ATM card transactions. Record your withdrawals and deposits, debits and advances, charges and credits, transfers and balances, checks, and cash expenses. One-touch buttons make it fast and easy. Synchronize with your desktop, and export data to QIF files. I like the "Enter Transaction" screen on this application. It includes a number pad to enter the amount, and buttons for the most common types of transactions (see Screens 3 & 4). KeepTrack is priced at $16.95 and is available for H/PCs, Ps/PCs and desktop PCs. A
free demo is available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Ilium Software; E-mail: info@iliumsoft.com;
Lets you manage personal and business-critical information from your PC Companion. Pocket Administrator lets you access financial information, including portfolio tracking; access important personal account information; track banking, debit, credit card transactions, account balances and even organize bill payments as they occur; track business expenses as they occur; track efforts and time for client billing purposes; organize travel and other activities; manage business plans, personal goals and professional aspirations. You can view reports and lists of all stored data and transactions with a single screen tap. Pocket Administrator integrates with Pocket Contacts, and can be backed up to, and restored from, your desktop PC. A series of 22 Microsoft ACCESS Reports are available to registered users and can be downloaded at the developer's Web site. Pocket Administrator is priced at $49.95 and is available for H/PCs. A demo is available at the developer's Web site (but it would not install on my HP 680 Jornada H/PC Pro.). Contact: Handheld Solutions Inc.; Web: www.handheldsolutions.com.
A "checkbook" application that can be used to track deposits and payments as well as exchange account entries with Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money desktop applications. A separate free utility, PFMoney, translates and copies a Money98 database from your desktop PC to your H/PC or Ps/PC so it can be used by Pocket Finance (see Screens 5 & 6). Pocket Finance is priced at $39.95 and available for H/PCs, H/PC Pros and Ps/PCs. A demo version indicated on the developer's Web site was non-functional when I tested it on 7/13/99. PFMoney is supposed to be on the Web site also, but I couldn't find it. Contact: LandWare, E-mail: sales@land ware.com; Web: www.landware.com
This Pocket version of Intuit's popular Quicken program is available for the HP Jornada
680 only. It lets you track personal finances and synchronize your Pocket Quicken data
with your desktop Quicken to keep your accounts up to date (see review, page 14,
July/August 99 issue). Built into the HP Jornada 680. Not yet available to other PC
Companions. Contact: On The Go Software, Investment
Lets you view weekly or monthly charts of any stock, mutual fund, or index. Chart your securities in any of four different charting styles: Bars, Bars with Open, Candlesticks, and Lines. See the volume activity of each security shown as a histogram at the bottom of the chart. Zoom and scroll for a better view. Included with MetaStock for Windows CE is a full year's worth of price updates from Reuters Trend DataLink service. You can download updates on stocks, mutual funds, and indices via your Internet connection. MetaStock is priced at $89 (12 month license) and is available for H/PCs. A free demo is available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Equis; E-mail: sales@equis. com; Web: www.equis.com.
A stock option tracker that calculates vesting schedules. OpTrax is shareware
(registration $15) and is available for the H/PC. Download it at developer's Web site.
Contact: Bn Ksoft;
Deliver financial information right to your PC Companion via the Internet! You have access to up to 10 different servers and can get information on stocks, mutual funds, and market indexes 24 hours a day. Version 5.2 offers an easy to use interface and support for all Windows CE CPU types. This is a free upgrade for all existing QTB and QTBCE users. The program can be downloaded from Starfire's Web site and can be used 10 times before registration is required. Quote Ticker Bar is priced at $20 and is available for H/PCs, H/PC Pros and Ps/PCs. A free demo is available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Starfire Software, Inc.; E-mail: sales@starfire-inc.com; Web: www. starfire-inc.com.
Track and manage stocks, options or mutual funds. A useful trading or investment tool that lets you calculate how much you need to buy stocks, follow and assess purchases and sales transactions (Screens 7 & 8). Helps you track how much you paid for a share and calculate profit if you sell at a certain price. Stock Manager is priced at $19.95 and is available for H/PCs and Ps/PCs. A demo is
available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Boma Software; E-mail: info@ bomasoft.com;
Expense/Time Trackers
Part of the bPRODUCTIVE Essentials Pack, this program is a dedicated time, expense, and mileage tracker that lets you record expenses as they occur, keep accurate records of time with the stopwatch feature, record mileage traveled and expenses, integrate everything into one report, with totals available by all clients and all projects or by single client and project. bPRODUCTIVE is priced at $89.95 and is available for the H/PCs, H/PC Pros and Ps/PCs. A
separate free demo of bTRACK is available at the developer's Web site. Contact: bSQUARE
Corporation; E-mail: info@bsquare.com;
Expense Force is an easy-to-use day-to-day expense tracking utility using pages to store the expense details (see Screen 9). Each expense page has a name, password and a base currency. Expense Force can create multiple expense pages and can password protect each of them. Expense views and customizable reports allow users to track expenses easily. Price: $29.95; Use with H/PCs; Sales contact: MobileSoft, MobilePlanet, Windows
CEOnline; Web: www.mobilesoft.com, www.mplanet.com, www.winceonline.com;
Developer: Ruksun Software Technologies; E-mail: info@ruksun.
com;
Helps you track bill payments, due dates and other important things. After you enter in the date, frequency, description, and amount due for each bill, the program keeps a running total of what you owe and when payment is due. HPC Bills is priced at $19.95 and can be used with H/PCs and Ps/PCs. A demo is
available at the developer's Web site. Contact: Boma Software; E-mail: info@bomasoft.com;
A Windows CE version of a popular desktop PC time tracker based on familiar time sheet format. TimeReporter lets you track time for your meetings, phone calls, and other daily events. You can run a timer for these events or directly enter the time. Billable time can be assigned to clients, projects, or activities. TimeReporter includes a complete desktop companion program. It is multi-user and multi-database capable and integrates with Quicken, Microsoft Excel, Access, Quickbooks and other popular desktop time and billing applications. Supports minimum times and "rounding-off" of time (for example, in case you bill in tenths of an hour). Also supports multiple currencies and mileage rates. TimeReporter works with Crystal Reports and includes 18 reports. TimeReporter is priced at $149.95 and is available for H/PCs and H/PC Pros. A Ps/PC version may be coming. Free demo available on developer's Web site. Iambic Software; E-mail: info@iam bic.com; Web: www.iambic.com/time reporter. Screen 1: METAconverter is a conversion program for over 110 different units, including currency, length, area, volume, mass, temperature, power, energy, speed, frequency, pressure, force, dB-Uout/Uin, and time.. Screen 2: BalanceBook helps you track personal or business account expenditures. It calculates the account balance and allows you to enter future repeating entries Screen 3: KeepTrack helps track Credit, Debit and ATM card transactions. Screen 4: KeepTrack's "Enter Transaction" screen includes a number pad to enter the amount, and buttons for the most common types of transactions.
Screens 5 & 6: Pocket Finance is a checkbook application for both H/PCs and Ps/PCs that helps you track deposits and payments as well as exchange account entries with Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money desktop applications.
Screens 7 & 8: Stock Manager tracks and manages stocks, options or mutual funds. It is available for H/PCs and Ps/PCs. Screen 9: Expense Force collects information on business expenses in separate pages (shown here). Each page has a name, a base currency, and can be password protected. |
