How to Choose Personal Finance Software

Personal finance software is just that—personal. The best way to choose software you’re going to be happy with is to read reviews of software. The consensus seems to be between Intuit Quicken Deluxe and Microsoft Money Deluxe. There are a number of also-rans but these two programs appeared the strongest in features and ease of use. They both support online banking, they each can generate a number of different types of reports, they both have strong financial planning and personal investing tools and they both allow you to figure your taxes. One disturbing aspect of buying either one is the expiration of support. Quicken requires you to upgrade every three years, Microsoft Money is every two years.

With all these features and capabilities it stands to reason you’re not going to be using either program to capacity right out of the box. Both of them will take some exploration and test-driving. But the really important thing about either program—neither one can work without your regular input. Neither one will do you any good at all unless you sit down and use it. You have to make the entries regularly and completely or the reports will be meaningless.

There are less expensive programs out there, but in this case, you really do get what you pay for. And even if your portfolio is slender or non-existent, perhaps you will be inspired to change that just so you can use all the snazzy features. And when you consider that you used to need an office full of people to do what these programs can do, they’re a real bargain.

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