Microsoft Money 2002 Personal and Business

Money's interface is largely unchanged, except that even more information seems to have been crammed into its starting 'home' pager. Extensibility is a key implementation and you can decide what information to include, as well as being able to customise colours and toolbars. That said, Money's interface is still less convenient than its rival Quicken's. Add to this that Money's help system is also confusing, grouping too many options under its search criteria, and the idiosyncrasies heavily weigh down its usability rating.

You're not short of reports, for both personal and business use, with the Reports Gallery allowing you to view and print out data organised into text reports or charts. Business users can generate reports for profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, aged debtors and creditors, as well as VAT summary (VAT 100 data) and detail. For Personal users, you get reports for account balances, bills, credit card debt, income, expenditure and investments, all by various categories.

As the most fully featured version, Money 2002 Personal and Business offers almost everything the sole trader or very small business might need to keep finances under control. Larger firms will find it too limiting and should consider something like QuickBooks (version 2002 Pro reviewed opposite), TAS or MYOB. That said, the improvements may not be earth shattering, but added to Money's previous core facilities this is certainly one of the most versatile personal accounting packages available, as well as providing inexpensive though limited business features.

Author: James Taylor