.FLYINGHEAD PALMPOWER PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE QMate: Quicken’s PalmPilot companion
.OTHER
.SUMMARY No matter where you go, you need to write checks and record the information. While it may seem overkill to use a PalmPilot as a checkbook recording device, it’s not. Using the PalmPilot prevents math errors (and that means no bounced check fees). Plus, if you record your checking information into your PalmPilot, you can upload that information to Quicken without retyping it (avoiding the potential for even more errors). This article tells all about QMate, a product that records checkbook information on your PalmPilot and synchronizes it with Quicken on both Macs and PCs.
.AUTHOR Jim McCarthy
QMate is a portable financial tracking solution for the PalmPilot available in English, French and German. It allows you to maintain your Quicken accounts on the PalmPilot in an organized, easy-to-navigate interface. In addition, QMate offers functions including memorized and quick-fill transactions, importable Quicken categories, split transaction between multiple categories, multiple accounts of bank, cash and credit types, and complete synchronization between your PalmPilot and your desktop Quicken. QMate is also compatible with Quicken 98, MS Money and the new Palm OS3. This article assumes you’re familiar with Quicken.
.H1 Using QMate
QMate’s simple interface will you allow to quickly open an account and track your finances without investing a lot time reading user manuals and help documents (even though it’s a good idea to read them anyway).
When you first start Qmate, you will create a new account and select its type; either cash, credit or bank. You will also establish an account name, as shown in Figure A, and an opening balance. This account will store your QMate transactions for synchronization with your desktop Quicken, and allow you to navigate between multiple accounts.
.FIG A This is the screen you will see when establishing a "New Account".
Now you’re ready to start recording transactions with QMate. The fastest way to open an account is by double-tapping on the title of the account you have just created in the Accounts screen. You can also highlight the account’s name and balance by tapping on the account title once. Then tap the transactions button. Either method will display QMate’s transaction register for the account selected, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B This screen displays your transactions for a specific account.
Recording your first transaction is as simple as clicking New. Upon tapping this button to create a new transaction, QMate’s New Transaction screen will appear.
The screen is designed to feel much like your checkbook register and Quicken’s desktop interface. The first field is the date, followed by the check number and Payee, proceeded by the transaction or deposit amount, and then the category and memo. Splitting a transaction between multiple categories is as simple as tapping the Split button. This will display the Split Transaction screen, as shown in Figure C.
.FIG C This is the Split Transaction screen.
Splitting a transaction between multiple categories is valuable when you have a transaction containing personal and business expenses, or a transaction containing mixed items such as groceries and household products. Split transactions are synchronized to your desktop Quicken where you can create a more in-depth analysis and report for individual categories.
Features specific to QMate that are also displayed in the New Transaction window include the options of Synced, Memorized, and Cleared. These options allow you to manage your QMate data, as shown in Figure D. The Synced feature will flag the selected transaction as already been synchronized and will not import this transaction to your desktop Quicken. The Cleared feature will import the transaction into your desktop Quicken as already being cleared.
.FIG D The Transaction Details dialog also controls synchronization options.
The Memorized feature is what makes QMate’s interface convenient. By selecting this option QMate will memorize the transaction’s details, so the next time the you begin typing the payee, QMate will Quick-Fill the transaction based on the memorized information. This saves you valuable time entering repeating expenses, such as car and mortgage payments, that frequently repeat themselves.
.H1 Synchronizing QMate
Since your bank statement just arrived, you’re now ready to synchronize your QMate data with your desktop Quicken. Synchronizing QMate and Quicken to reconcile your checkbook or analyze your monthly expenses requires a desktop software program called QSync that comes with QMate.
QSync is available for Macintosh, as shown in Figure E, and Windows operating systems. It allows the user to create a single or set of files that are importable into your desktop Quicken. If you are using Quicken 98, you can utilize Quicken’s new format and record all your accounts in one file; otherwise, a separate file for each QMate account will be created on your desktop. In addition to synchronizing QMate data to Quicken, if you use a Macintosh, QSync also provides synchronization of expense data from the built-in Expense application. The Expense data may also be imported into a spreadsheet program like Excel. Once all your QMate accounts have been synchronized to a Quicken format you’re ready to fire-up your desktop Quicken and reconcile your checkbook!
.FIGPAIR E This is the Macintosh QSync Interface.
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.H1 Conclusion
In conclusion, QMate offers an easy to use, intuitive interface that a typical Quicken user would easily relate to as a PalmPilot application. QSync, QMate’s desktop conduit, offers a quick and painless way to get your checkbook from your PalmPilot to your desktop Quicken. This makes QMate and QSync an attractive financial tracking solution for all PalmPilot and Quicken users.
When I asked Steve Dakin (Qmate’s author) where he saw QMate in the next 3 months he replied, "QMate is constantly evolving," and added with excitement "Some of the planned features include multiple currency support (for my international users) and better synchronization with Quicken".
QMate is shareware, $20 (includes QSync) and may be downloaded at any of the popular software archives.
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.H1 Product availability
QMate is available at http://www.wco.com/~sdakin/qmate.html.
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.BIO Jim McCarthy is the maintainer of the JustApps software archive, which can be found at http://www.bigfoot.com/~pilotguy. He can be reached via email at pilotguy@bigfoot.com.
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6c00a
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