EXPENSE

iCash bills itself as a simple program, a financial management tool for people who don't know anything about accounting. Unfortunately, the program did not seem to bring either intuitiveness or outstanding features to the table, making it a pretty mediocre choice among similar programs.

iCash's interface looks nice enough, with attractive buttons and tabs that organize its main features. However, the way that the program attempts to organize things--both accounts and transactions--doesn't always make sense. The program comes with a 13-page Word document Help file, and it does seem that with careful studying a user could figure … Read more

Money Forecaster makes predictions about your financial future based on your current fiscal condition. Although we like the idea of this program and think it could be quite useful, we found it confusing and frustrating to use.

First impressions count, and Money Forecaster's interface is nice enough to look at and seems fairly intuitive. According to the Quick Start guide, the program is quite simple to use: just configure your accounts, add your income and expenses, and set your money goals. However, it turned out to be more complicated than it sounds. Money Forecaster allows you to set up … Read more

Expense Log Pro may not be the most embellished of the expense-monitoring and -reporting apps for BlackBerry, but a comparative few will need more than the ability to enter receipts and e-mail finished reports. We were able to create a variety of records for meals, mileage, lodging, and phone bills and e-mail them successfully via PDF. Though filling in options from the drop-down menu could be smoother, we appreciate the ability to add our own categories, even currencies--so long as you know the exchange rate.

This free, simple app requires you to first register for the service, which you can … Read more

Home Bookkeeping Lite purportedly is a tool to help users manage their personal finances. Our experiences with it, however, suggest it is a tool of annoyance and time-wasting.

The program's interface is pleasantly uncluttered, so we were optimistic. The first major drawback that we encountered is that the program does not allow users to import transactions from their bank's Web site. We acknowledge that there may be some users who don't use online banking, but we suspect that most people will want to import the data and not spend hours entering transactions manually. For users who do … Read more

Timeless Time and Expense provides a simple tool for managing the complicated world of client billing. With helpful tools to help you organize and calculate expenses, this is a fantastic tool for those who make their living on billable hours.

The program's interface was impressively simple, considering the complex work it handled. We didn't need to visit the Help file's instructions because the onscreen direction was intuitive enough to keep us on track and quickly billing. We were able to divide our time between clients and projects by creating a simple file tree display. Beginning and ending … Read more

Adarian Money for Windows offers to keep your finances in order with a simple setup and surprising options. While it takes a lot of work, it dissects finances so well that it's well worth the effort.

The program's interface felt instantly comfortable, since its rows and columns reminded us of online banking software. Its clearly labeled commands and intuitive flow was never difficult to manage. While the program offered to handle all your financial matters, including checking, savings, cash and even investments, it was a lot of initial effort to set up. We needed to manually enter every … Read more

Profit Loss Report Spreadsheet is an Excel spreadsheet that allows users to track small business expenses from month to month. It's nothing fancy, but it may be a good choice for users who, for whatever reason, don't want to use bookkeeping software.

The program's interface is simple, with a separate spreadsheet for each month, plus a report sheet and data sheet. Users add vendor names in the data spreadsheet, which are then available for selection in the other pages. Users then enter financial transactions much as they would in any other financial software, with the date, vendor, … Read more

CarCare Desktop Edition allows users to keep track of maintenance records and other information for up to 50 cars. Although the program has a few confusing quirks, on the whole, it was very easy to use.

The program's interface is simple and well-organized. One pane contains a list of the user's vehicles, and another displays each vehicle's details as they are selected. When users have set maintenance reminders, a third pane displays gauges for each one, showing whether a task is approaching or overdue. Users can also keep track of their expenditures on fuel, repairs, and accessories. … Read more