SplashMoney for Desktop is recommended for:
- Those who are new to using financial software.
- Those who want a simple solution to tracking spending, organizing accounts and budgeting.
SplashMoney for Desktop is not recommended for:
- Financial software power users.
- Those who actively track investments.
How SplashMoney Keeps Things Simple
The simplicity in SplashMoney is due to a combination of a simple interface and a lack of advanced features that are included by default in top financial software titles. For example, SplashMoney has no debt reduction planner and no retirement planner. However, SplashMoney does a great job with managing financial accounts, desiging and tracking a budget and getting basic financial reporting.Access the main features in SplashMoney by clicking on tabs at the top of the screen for registers, reports, budgets and reconciling accounts. SplashMoney supports checking, savings, credit card, cash, asset, liability, money market and line of credit accounts but does not support investment accounts.
Account registers are uncluttered and transactions can be defined with categories, transaction splits, and classes. Click on one of the small icons at the bottom of account registers to enter, edit or delete transactions.
Setting Up Accounts and Budgets
Account set up in SplashMoney is straight-forward with an option for downloading transactions directly from financial institutions to account registers using Direct Connect. Enable online account access then choose your bank from a list of numerous financial institutions. If your FI is not listed, download transactions from the FI's web site in the common OFX format (also imports QIF and CSV financial data files) and save it on your computer, then drag the file to the appropriate account in SplashMoney and the transactions appear in the register. While direct downloads are easier to use, this procedure took 3 minutes to do.To set up a budget in SplashMoney click on the Budget tab, double click an income or expense category, then enter a monthly budget number in the pop-up window. SplashMoney only allows for monthly budgeted amounts, so semi-annual and quarterly bills require calculating the annual cost and dividing the cost by 12 to come up with a budgeted amount for each month.
Reports and Saving Time
Personal finance reports in SplashMoney include handy drill-down reports in the Budget feature which show transactions associated with a budgeted category. Spending reports can be customized to show spending by category, payee, etc. over a selection of time periods, and can be viewed as a pie graph or in text. Double click on a budgeted item in a spending report or graph to see a report of transactions associated with the item during the period the report covers.SplashMoney features that save time and enhance ease-of-use:
- Auto-fill and memorized transactions make data entry faster in account registers.
- Scheduled transactions help with getting bills paid on time.
- Secure encrypted password protection.
- Multiple currency support.
SplashMoney does not automatically categorize downloaded transactions like some financial software does (Quicken or Mint, for example). While automatic categorization can save time, correcting categories after financial software assigns the wrong ones is a waste of time, especially if you use a lot of split transactions.
Should You Try SplashMoney?
SplashMoney Desktop for Windows and Mac costs $19.95, has a 60-day money back guarantee, and you can try before you buy with a fully-featured 30-day free trial. SplashMoney for Palm, Pocket PC device or Smartphone comes bundled with SplashMoney Desktop for $29.99. SplashData offers low upgrade pricing.Consider SplashMoney if you want easy-to-use, reasonably priced personal finance software with decent customization options and without the extensive list of advanced features found in Quicken and Microsoft Money.
System Requirements
SplashMoney takes it easy on computing resources, and will run on these operating systems:
- Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP or Vista
- Mac OS 10.4 or later
Of course, an Internet connection is required to download transactions.
