Review: Pocket Finance Diary

I don’t know about the rest of you, but managing my finances is not something that I enjoy or something at which I excel. I’ve used a couple of the financial software managers on the market today and found them to be helpful, but complicated. They also required a lot of work to keep up to date. The data that can be gathered from such an application is extremely useful and beneficial to anyone trying to keep their budget under control.

There are a number of personal finance managers in the world of Windows Mobile, some of them more robust than others. Today I’m going to take an up close and personal look at Pocket Finance Diary ($14.95 from WMExperts). Click on through for what it can (and can’t) do for you.

Pocket Finance Diary is a daily expense tracker designed to be simple and efficient. It can be thought of as an electronic replacement for your check ledger.

Two versions are available for Pocket Finance Diary, the Lite version is Freeware and has some limitations, while the full version will set you back $14.95. Both versions require a touch screen enabled version of Windows Mobile.

Concept

The basic idea behind Pocket Finance Diary is that it enables you to track financial transactions as they happen. Whether it’s a quick trip to the grocery store or your standard set of bills each month, Pocket Finance Diary allows you to keep track of where your hard earned cash is going.

Execution: Accounts

After installation (which is a simple cab or exe install), your first step is to create an account (or accounts). The basic information required is a name, starting balance (or Saldo), currency, type and an optional note. Pocket Finance Diary supports multiple currencies out of box and allows you to add custom currencies later if you choose. Once your account is created you can move on to your register.

Execution: Transactions

The register is basically a list of transactions for an account. Pocket Finance Diary allows you to break down your register by account and month. Totals for income, expenses and balance are listed at the bottom of the register. Transactions can be categorized in a category/subcategory type hierarchy, and can be charged against a payee.

The register module allows you to view your transactions by account limited by month. Some other options for manipulating the way you are viewing your transactions would have been welcome. For example, being able to view two accounts for one month or even sorting transactions by category or amount is impossible.

One thing that puzzles me about the transactions is the fact that once you enter a transaction, you cannot change the amount. However, you can delete the transaction and add it back in with the modified amount…what’s the difference? (Most financial database systems will not allow you to modify an amount like that, but they also prevent you from deleting it. They force you to back the transaction out with a negative amount.)

Execution: Grouping Transactions

The categories and subcategories allow you to group your transactions by type. This hierarchy can be added to and modified, enabling you to get the most information from your data. Categories (and subcategories) can be defined as an Expense, Income, or a Transfer. Transfers require multiple accounts and create entries in the register for both accounts when they occur.

Payees can be created directly from a register transaction, and once they have been created can be modified (or hidden) from the payee module. When you are creating a transaction, you are presented with a list of payees to choose from. If you choose a previously used payee, the transaction type is set to whatever was used last with that payee.

One feature that seems to be missing is some sort of ability to apply multiple categories/subcategories to one transaction. Often, I go to one of the large chain department stores and buy both groceries and clothing for example. To track this in Pocket Finance Diary would require you to create multiple transactions.

Execution: Budgeting

The budgeting function in Pocket Finance Diary is somewhat limited. Basically you can create a Budget line item with a dollar (or other currency) value and point it at a transaction category or subcategory. The application will then track and display where you are in your budget for the current timeframe. This can be viewed in monthly, quarterly or yearly breakdowns. The ability to add additional budget “Types” (Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly are the only options as tested) would probably be useful.

Execution: Reporting

Pocket Finance diary includes some basic reporting functionality to give you graphical representations of your transactions and balances broken down by categories, subcategories and payees. I would have liked to see some additional options here, maybe even add some additional ways to limit or include additional data in the reports.

The Verdict

Perhaps, given my experience with desktop based financial management applications, I’m just expecting too much from this application. I understand that this is intended to be essentially a log of your expenses with some extras, but I feel that Pocket Finance Diary actually aimed too low. This program would benefit greatly from simple functionality to import or export to some of the desktop finance applications such as Quicken or Microsoft Money (or even Excel).

The bottom line is that Pocket Finance Diary is indeed a diary for your finances that fits in your pocket. What it does it does well, despite the lack of some seemingly obvious features. I would recommend giving the Lite version a spin and see if it works for you before jumping to the full version.