.KEYWORD pocketmoney
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Keep your finances in your pocket with PocketMoney
.OTHER
.SUMMARY David Silver has a review of PocketMoney, an extremely handy application that will let you keep all your financial records on your Palm OS handheld.
.AUTHOR David Silver
Say you’re buying a new car, and you want to know how much money you have in your checking account. You’d have to go all the way to your house, open up Quicken, Microsoft Money, or whatever money program you use, and look at your total. Then you would have to write down the number and go back to the dealer. Wouldn’t it be better if you could keep your financial records right in your Palm OS device so that you’ll always have them handy?
This is what PocketMoney from Catamount Software (at http://www.catamount.com/PocketMoneyPalm.html) does. You can check on your records right at the dealer.
.H1 All accounts
PocketMoney has two applications, PocketMoney and a tip calculator called Check Please. I will talk about Check Please later in the article.
When you launch PocketMoney, you go to the account screen, pictured in Figure A.
.FIG A Your various accounts are listed on the account screen.
Next to each account is a check box. This will let you control which of your accounts is included in the total at the bottom of the screen. If you want to view only your checking accounts, just uncheck the boxes. If you click on the account name on the top of the screen, it will show all your transactions in all your accounts. Click on an account name to view the transactions in that account. Click on the icon next to the account to view the accounts properties.
.H1 Account screen
When you tap on an account name, you open up the account screen. There you can view all your transactions in the account, and you can add new ones as well.
Along the right of the screen is a row of check boxes telling you if that transaction was cleared or not. Next over is the date you entered it, followed by a way of describing it. The way of describing it can be set to display the account, payee, memo, or category. Which one you display is your choice. Last of all is the amount.
At the bottom are buttons to take you to the all accounts screen, to create a new transaction, and to view your balance, cleared balance, or your running balance.
When you tap on a transaction, you go to the transaction screen, shown in Figure B.
.FIG B Come here to edit you transactions.
At the very top are three buttons where you can choose if you are withdrawing, depositing, or transferring money to another account. Other options include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Date: Choose the date and time;
.BULLET Account: Which account are you using?
.BULLET Category: How can you describe it?
.BULLET From (Deposit only): Who gave it to you?
.BULLET To (Withdraw only): Who are you giving it to?
.BULLET ID #: What is the number of your Debit Card/Credit Card/Check used for this transaction?
.BULLET Amount: What is the amount?
.BULLET Cleared: Has it been cleared?
.BULLET T From (Transfer only): Which account are you transferring the money from?
.END_LIST
When you go back to the account screen, you can reconcile you account. This is done by choosing Reconcile from the tools menu. You can then write in the total from your most recent statement.
.H1 To view or not to view, that is the question
PocketMoney allows you to create custom filters so you can view only the transactions you want. You create a new filter by selecting Create Custom Filter from the View menu. The form is shown in Figure C.
.FIG C Use this to create your Filters.
You can filter by:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Trans: the Filter for Withdrawals, Deposits, Transfers, Repeating Transactions, or for everything?
.BULLET Account: What account is it for, or is it for every account?
.BULLET Category: What category should PocketMoney filter?
.BULLET To/From: Do you want to filter by the person who gave/received the money?
.BULLET ID #: What ID # should it filter?
.BULLET From & To: Filter by Date
.BULLET Cleared: Should it filter only cleared transactions?
.END_LIST
After you fill out the form, press save and give your filter a name. It will then become the default filter. You can choose another filter by choosing Select Custom Filter from the View Menu to show all transactions.
.H1 All points bulletin
PocketMoney has an IR (infrared) synchronization feature. If you choose IR Sync from the Options Menu, PocketMoney will beam your register to another Palm OS device. If your spouse wants to where you’ve been spending money, you can just beam that information, in detail, to him or her.
If you select Preferences from the Options Menu, you can set a four-digit numerical pin code.
PocketMoney doesn’t have a desktop application. Instead it saves your records in a PocketMoney folder under your user name. You can then export that file into you financial program on your desktop. You can also import files to the folder.
.H1 Check Please
PocketMoney comes with a free tip calculator called Check Please. It’s shown in Figure D.
.FIG D Check Please lets you calculate your tip, so you don’t tip to high or to low.
The user interface is very self explanatory, so I won’t go into the details. At the bottom of the screen, there’s a button that lets you export the cost of the meal to PocketMoney. This is purely optional.
If you want Check Please, but you don’t want PocketMoney, you can download it from the Catamount Web site (at http://www.catamount.com/CheckPleasePalm.html). It costs $5 this way.
For you developers, Catamount has a standard that will allow you to write a program that can share finances with PocketMoney. This is the same thing that is implemented into Check Please. It can be found on the Catamount Web site (at http://www.catamount.com/PocketMoneyPalmPMFPS.txt).
.H1 Conclusion
PocketMoney is a very good financial program. I would like to see a real desktop program, but the import/export works fine. It would be cool to be able to select people in your address book to be payees. Also, I would like to see the ability to have a longer password that can contain letters, as you can with Splash Money (at http://www.splashdata.com).
If you owned PocketMoney for the Newton, you can upgrade for a $10 discount. Also, you can buy two copies of PocketMoney for only $50.
PocketMoney is definitely worth a look. It might not be the most powerful finance program out there, but it’s very small and full of power.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on PocketMoney from Catamount Software, visit http://www.catamount.com/PocketMoneyPalm.html.
For more information on Check Please, visit http://www.catamount.com/CheckPleasePalm.html). It costs $5 this way.
For Catamount’s standard that will allow you to write a program that can share finances with PocketMoney, visit http://www.catamount.com/PocketMoneyPalmPMFPS.txt.
For more information on Splash Money, visit http://www.splashdata.com
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.END_SIDEBAR
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