What Is a Good Money Management Program for a PC?

Quicken makes managing money easier.

Staying on top of your finances can be difficult if you have many different bank, investment and credit accounts. There are several software programs that you can set up on your PC to help track your spending, budget for the year and pay bills. Quicken is one of the most-used personal finance programs because it is easy to use and can be customized to fit your financial goals.

Managing Money in Quicken

Quicken can be used in many ways to help you manage daily transactions. The program can be set up to download transactions automatically from your online banking website so that you can track inflows and outflows of money. You can also set up your bills in Quicken so that you can see at a glance what is due and when. If you have savings goals, you can track the progress toward them.

Setting Up Alerts

This feature can save you substantial amounts of money in late bill payment charges and interest. You can set up alerts in two ways. You can set a minimum balance level for each of your bank accounts. If you overspend and your bank balance drops below this level, the program will warn you so that you can transfer money or curtail spending before you go into overdraft. You can also set up alerts on bill due dates. The program will warn you if there is a bill that needs to be paid soon. This will help you prioritize your spending and avoid late fees.

Budgeting in Quicken

To get a more global picture of your income and expenses, Quicken will walk you through the process of setting up a monthly budget. You can do so from the prior year's spending in Quicken or enter each income and expense item separately. The Budget Report will show you your budgeted cash inflows and outflows every month so that you can see in which months you have an income gap and which months have a surplus that you can add to your savings or put toward your debt reduction goals. You can also compare your actual spending every month against budget and see where you are overspending.

Paying Bills

Quicken allows you to write checks from your printer to pay vendors and utility companies. The company sells blank check stock in many different designs, and the program will print out the details on the check. Quicken also records the transaction in your check register at the same time. An extra feature allows you to use Quicken to pay bills online, similar to what many banks offer.

References

• CNet.com: Quicken Deluxe 2010