Money £2003

By Alun Williams

Posted on 26 Sep 2002 at 12:24

Today sees the official launch of Microsoft's personal finance management software Money 2003.

As well as features for tracking accounts and cash flow, there is a Debt Reduction Planner for experimenting with different payment scenarios, support for the management of budgets, and reports on your tax-related income and expenditure... But it is support for online banking that Microsoft is highlighting.

This support varies to the extent that your bank offers one-way or two-way banking, ie that you can change details as well as just electronically view them.

For institutions offering two-way banking, you can customise the frequency of continuous banking via the Background Banking details, you can store login names and passwords in one place with the Password Manager, and you can be informed of the services already configured, such as the payment of bills by direct debit.

For those whose banks offer one-way banking, Money 2003 will guide you on importing statements and will present the institutions' download pages and URL's within the favourites menu, so that you can easily go to their Web sites while inside Money.

Finally on this topic, there is another useful feature, which we were shown when the product was first showcased back in August. This is a page detailing the range of electronic services provided by all the UK banks. Not only is this a good overview of what is available, it has helped - the UK marketing manager for Money told us - put pressure on banks to compete in terms of the services provided.

What else is new from the previous version Money 2002? You can customise the homepage (now simpler by default), there's more integration with data feeds from the Internet and online banking features have been beefed up for use with the Online Services Manager.

In more detail, you can add buy/sell reminders for particular investments, the Bill Estimator estimated bills based on past payments, you can customise views on your portfolio.

The package synchronises with MSN Money for online access and Money for Pocket PC to carry your financial scenarios around with you.

There are two versions to the product, which runs on all 32-bit Windows (98, ME and ME, as well as Windows XP). In addition to the Standard version, the Financial Suite contains a TaxSaver 2002 Deluxe CD and links to articles on the FTYourMoney.com Web site. Pricing is £29.99 and £49.99 respectively.

Although the recent release of MapPoint - Microsoft's geographical information software - was described as the first '.Net release out of the box', Money 2003 has run it a close second. It makes extensive use of Web services in its co-ordination of financial info and some of these features will require a Microsoft .Net passport.