Ultrasoft Money Review - Palm PDA Personal Finance Software

Ultrasoft Money supports both Essential and Advanced Microsoft Money accounts. Set up and reconcile all account types right on your Palm PDA with Ultrasoft Money: cash accounts, checking, credit card, savings, assets including investments, liabilities such as loans and mortgages, and lines of credit. Then synchronize your accounts with Microsoft Money - or just keep your data on your Palm PDA.

Ultrasoft Money supports memorized transactions so you do not have to re-enter all details of frequently-entered transactions. Split transactions are for those transactions that cover many categories, such as a trip to Wal-Mart. Ultrasoft Money lets you split transactions to keep your budget information accurate.

In addition to defining transactions with typical income and expense categories, Ultrasoft Money can set up two classifications with classes and subclasses set up below the classifications. For example, you can set up classifications for home and business expenses and then keep classes and subclasses below the two top expense classifications. Or you could set up a classification called "Family" with family members listed as classes to track expenses by family member. Having only two classifications with multiple classes and subclasses seems confusing to me, but the feature is optional and many users like it.

International travelers will use the Ultrasoft Money's multi-currency add-in module which synchronizes Ultrasoft Money currencies and exchange rates with Microsoft Money's multiple currency feature. Enter an amount to convert to another currency and Ultrasoft Money will prompt you to review the exchange rate if you wish. Ultrasoft Money's Calculator Tool will also convert currencies for you.

Ultrasoft Money gives your memory a nudge a couple of different ways. The Flag for Follow Up feature lets you take note of transactions that don't quite look right so you can investigate them later. Schedule future one-time payments and recurring payments and deposits in Bill Minder, which will remind you of the transaction due date with an alarm on your Palm PDA.

Ultrasoft Money includes security so you can assign a password to keep others out of your personal finance data. Assign an Ultrasoft Money password on your Palm PDA and accounts, financial institution names, and notes or comments are vigorously encrypted.

Manage your budget and savings goals with Ultrasoft Money personal finance software on your Palm. With each transaction you enter, a color-coded budget status bar will show you how the transaction affected your budgeted expenses. If you go over-budget, Ultrasoft Money alerts you so you can quit shopping before you blow your budget. You can also reallocate spending if you go over budget (something budget purists will refuse to use), a feature that works for those surprise expenses that pop up now and again.

Ultrasoft Money creates reports and pie graphs of your financial activity on your Palm PDA. In addition to predefined reports in Ultrasoft Money, reports can be filtered to reflect only the financial information you are interested in analyzing. Examples of filters are reports by payee, category, selected accounts, and classifications. Reports have a drill-down feature where at a tap you can get the details that make up the numbers on a report.

Newer Palms include Virtual File System support, or VFS. Simply put, VFS is ability to store and run programs on a removable expansion card (SD card, for example) to save RAM on a Palm. Ultrasoft Money provides three ways to use VFS:

• Store both Ultrasoft Money and your data files on an external storage card
• Store only your data on an external card with Ultrasoft Money running in RAM
• Install Ultrasoft Money and optional extension on an external card with your Ultrasoft Money data and BillMinder running in RAM.

Ultrasoft Money is an excellent personal finance software package that has been around for years and remains a favorite Palm application. Ultrasoft Money's biggest accomplishment is that it capably provides seamless synchronization with Microsoft Money on the desktop and it has an excellent base of features and security for use on the Palm PDA.

There are some things to be aware of, but none of them would are cause to avoid trying Ultrasoft Money:

VFS support is a much sought-after feature by PDA users, but using Ultrasoft Money with VFS can cause Ultrasoft Money accounts to synchronize improperly (if at all) with Microsoft Money. Despite the availability of VFS support, run the Ultrasoft Money program and database file in RAM on your Palm PDA. Add-ons such as the budget module should safely run from an expansion card.

Ultrasoft Money can be used with only one computer and one Microsoft Money data file, so contacting Ultrasoft Money tech support will be necessary if you buy a new laptop or desktop computer and install Microsoft Money with your data on the new computer.

Ultrasoft Money's user interface and graphical reporting are quite adequate, but is not as sophisticated as Splash Money's, which also synchronizes with Microsoft Money but not as easily or seamlessly as Ultrasoft Money does.

Ultrasoft Money has not released updates at the same time Microsoft Money's annual upgrades were released. This means that if you install the latest version of Microsoft Money as soon as it releases, your data may not sync correctly until Ultrasoft Money releases a compatible version, sometimes many weeks after the Microsoft Money release.

Trial and Pricing
Try Ultrasoft Money before you buy it by using the fully-functional 30-day trial. A registration code to keep Ultrasoft Money running after the trial will run you $39.95 which is a tad pricey, but not completely out of the ball park when it comes to fully-featured personal finance software for a PDA. You can also buy the Ultrasoft Money Family Edition to allow two Palm PDAs to synchronize data with the same Microsoft Money data file for $59.95. Ultrasoft Money offers generous discounts when you upgrade the software later on.

Ultrasoft Money website

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