Money Counts 7.0 Personal Edition Review by David Jensen, Madison PC User's Group Parsons Technology continues to produce high-quality, easy-to-use programs to help manage your personal finances. Money Counts 7.0 Personal Edition is the latest update to their basic bookkeeping package. While Parsons doesn't have the marketing clout that Microsoft can put behind Microsoft Money, or a well recognized brand name, they have put together a personal bookkeeping package that will compete with the best of them, both in terms of features and ease of use. Using the Program Money Counts allows users to do either single-entry (traditional checkbook) or double-entry ("real" accounting) bookkeeping. It actually maintains the books using double-entry bookkeeping and users can toggle between single- and double-entry. It's even possible that they may learn some of the features of double-entry bookkeeping by using Money Counts and toggling between the two. Extensive accounting information is available in an online accounting guide. Whichever way you choose to maintain your accounts, you have to have them defined before you can track them. Account management may be one of the more difficult parts of accounting, as opposed to the bookkeeping which is just tedious, but Money Counts has done a lot to simplify that step by providing five template account systems to choose from. Even if a user wants to enhance them, the account template is a good place to start, with good concern for creating useful accounts. Once the accounts have been set up, it is time to enter transactions. For transactions using the checking account, the transaction form looks like a check to be filled out. This is the case whether you use the available check printing feature or not. There is an alternate entry screen that is used by transactions for other accounts, but the blank check is so intuitive that it doesn't make sense to change it. Money Counts provides quick transaction and smart data entry to allow you to look up information from previous transactions and available options, respectively. It saves keystrokes and makes it easy to remember what options are available from the field you are in. As with other programs, Money Counts will print checks on preprinted forms. Money Counts supports a wide range of laser and tractor-fed forms, including those designed for Quicken, Microsoft Money, and Managing Your Money. If the form is not predefined, Money Counts allows you to custom-define the locations of fields to match those on your forms. Money Counts allows for multiple, unrelated accounts. By default, the first one is known as personal, but there is no limit to the number that can be set up. This is handy if you are keeping track of, for example, your mother's checkbook as well as your own, or you are the treasurer of some organization. You can generate reports for a chart of accounts, income and expenses, balance sheet, cash flow, general ledger, account balances, or a tax summary. You can do analysis of accounts, transactions, a transaction register, and cash needs forecasts. You can do budget analysis for all of the appropriate reports. For investments, Money Counts provides reports for investment earnings, gainsand losses by valuation or sales, market value, market history, return on investment, maturity tracking, and investment analysis. Each of these reports can be customized for the user's needs. Based on the reports available, charts and graphs can be created for a quick view of where you are. While they are not precise, it is often more meaningful to see relative results, rather than suffer through the dryness of numbers. These charts and graphs are excellent assets. Investments is a special group of accounts that Money Counts supports. Unlike regular asset accounts, investment accounts provide a wider range of options, offering and requiring more information. It allows close tracking of securities including market tracking, units, direct initial cost, and allocated costs (fees, commissions). It maintains securities by a first-in-first-out (FIFO) tracking system, and nets all costs for purchase and sale. The procedure appears to be quite robust, and considering the problems of tracking, relatively simple. An unexpected feature of Money Counts is its ability to accommodate fund accounting, the bizarre way for non-profit organizations and governments to keep track of their accounts. [I would not recommend fund accounting for anyone who doesn't need to use it. Think of it as a budget with a straightjacket: You can't fix the water heater because there is nothing left in the repair fund, even if there is the $350 you need in the entertainment fund. Only the people who gave you the money in the first place can let you change the use of the funds.] While it requires the use of double-entry accounting to maintain fund accounting, it was amazing to me that Parsons had made it available. There are a lot of small not-for-profit organizations that have to use fund accounting that don't need a full-blown accounting package. This package can fill the bill. New Features Parsons has made a number of changes in Money Counts since the previous release (Money Counts 6.5). These changes have improved the features and ease of use of the program. Menus are pull down with full mouse support. The mouse even works correctly in a Microsoft Windows window. The transaction screen looks like a check or deposit slip, making it easy to start transaction entries without the manual. While all of these personal bookkeeping programs have made account reconciliation easier, Parsons has upped the ante by providing tips about possible errors in reconciling the account. Transactions that have been misidentified as cleared or may have a transposition in the figures will be flagged by Money Counts as possible offenders when you are trying to track down the reason you can't get your numbers to agree with the bank's. Money Counts lets you schedule on-screen reminders of bills to be paid, investments to be made, or taxes to be done. It provides 25 predefined reports, and allows customization for personal requirements. Money Counts also allows you to use pie charts, and bar and line graphs to see financial outcomes at a glance. Parsons has provided a transfer utility that allows users to import and export data from Quicken, Dollars & Sense, Managing Your Money, and Microsoft Money, as well as previous versions of Money Counts. Budgeting and categorizing have both been improved, as Money Counts now allows users to budget all accounts at once, and they have expanded the scope of predefined categories. Investment management has also been improved by allowing all investments to be tracked, updated, and given updated market values. Reports are available to help analyze future needs and make necessary changes. Installation and Requirements Installation is simple. Run install from the command line, and it will prompt you to change disks when needed. The program comes with its own icon and PIF file, so it is very easy to set it up under Windows. Money Counts only takes up about 2.5 MB of disk space. It requires DOS 3.0 or later and 512K memory (640K is recommended). It will accept a wide range of printers and monitors. There is mouse support. Overall, I feel that Parsons has once again provided a good product, and at $35, it is an unsurpassed price. Money Counts 7.0 is well worth looking at. Parsons Technology One Parsons Drive P.O. Box 100 Hiawatha, IA 52233-0100 (800) 223-6925 (319) 393-1002 (fax)