Product Reviews

Every year thousands of people overspend at Christmas and vow to put their finances in order in the New Year. By about this time of year, though, they've lost track of how much cash they have again. KMyMoney, the personal finance application bundled with SuSE and other distributions, will help you organise your finances and keep them that way.

KMyMoney works in a similar way to Quicken and Microsoft Money. Like other personal finance packages, it needs a certain amount of information before it can help you. A quick perusal of your regular bills and a bank statement should make setting up the program

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a simple and relatively quick job.

The first task when getting started is to define a few banks, building societies and so on. Then you add accounts. These are grouped into types such as savings, current and credit card. Entering the details for each institution and account type can be time consuming, but luckily you have to enter only the bare minimum to be up and running.

Having to remember to enter regular transactions throughout the month is a pain. Fortunately, KMyMoney can create regular transactions in its database and apply them as they occur throughout the month or year. Direct debits and salary payments can enter the system without you having to remember them. You can even schedule payments that fall on a weekend to appear on the Friday or Monday to give you an accurate view of your finances at any time.

It's important that we balance our personal finances, so anything that cuts down the tedium of doing so is a boon. KMyMoney will help you keep up to date with the state of your financial affairs. A true picture of your wealth may not always make for easy reading, but it's better than lying awake at night wishing you had stuck to this particular resolution.