Review ibank software

This allows you to input all the information you need to using only the keyboard. I also like that the category auto fills as you type, but I noticed that you have begin typing the exact category in order to work. A small bug, that iBank will likely get fixed before too long. Creating a category in iBank is fairly simple.

Just click on the Categories folder below the area where the Accounts are listed. This opens a list of all the categories. But what does it do to help me manage my finances better? It is nice that iBank has some good looking icons already in the software for certain categories and you can add your own using your iSight camera if you wish , which is an improvement upon Cha-Ching.

Just some thoughts. What is often called the reporting or analysis section of other personal finance software, iBank calls Charts. Options are:. My first impression was: cluttered. The graph itself was fine, but it was all the information in the panels around it that made me a little claustrophobic. By clicking Generate Report at the bottom it spits out a pretty official looking report.

Now for what I feel is the most important section of any personal financial application — the budget. I say this because this is where I feel most of the activities are that actually can have a great impact on the way that one manages their finances. Again, to add a budget you simply click on the Add Budget icon at the top left. After naming your budget you are presented with the screen to enter in your budgeted amounts for each category.

There is a top section for Income and bottom section for Expenses. Simple enough. You then change the category for the new expense the default is Vacation: Lodging — not sure why by clicking the category and selecting the one you want from the drop down menu. You can make the expense be budgeted weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Double-click, or tab, to enter the amount. I wanted to quickly point out something about the method that iBank uses to help you budget. This is nice, customizable, and convenient right? Well, yes and no. So if you do choose to use iBank , may I suggest that you create a budgeted amount for each category that you spend out of. To open it up, simply click the Budget Monitor icon at the top. For some reason my Budget Monitor was quite small and cramped together see picture.

You can and probably will need to resize the window and the columns to make it a bit more legible and eye-friendly. This commonly seen bar graph is fine and I like that iBank also includes the amount spent and budgeted figures to the right of the graph. Smart Import Rules — As you might expect, this allows you to set rules as to how your imported bank data appears in the transaction registry.

This is a great and very worthwhile feature. Scheduled Transactions — iBank does allow you to schedule regular transactions without much difficulty. Get Quotes — I was unable to test it, but it appears that you can get up to date quotes on holdings in your investment portfolio.

Tax Handling — iBank does allow you to input certain data pertaining to taxes for each transaction. You can then export this info come tax time to help with your tax accounting.

Essentially all that the widget does is allow you to enter a transaction without having the iBank application up and running. I can certainly see how one would appreciate such a widget if they were using iBank on a regular basis. It worked just fine for me — when I logged back into iBank, there were my two new transactions in the register.

What really matters is that it helps you to better manage your money. If so, it will pay for itself many times over. Free Trial — As mentioned, they offer a day free trial. If you prefer a more traditional method or prefer not to have an app access your banking data, iBank also offers options for manually entering your banking data or importing the Quicken or Microsoft Money files you can download from your bank.

Once your data is imported you do have to go about the business of matching your transaction data to expense categories. Fortunately iBank is a pretty quick study, capable of matching future transactions from the same vendors to the categories you originally mapped them to.

If you prefer an uncluttered look, any of the items appearing in the Library list can be hidden or revealed with the click of a button. A summary displaying how much money you have and how much you owe appears at the bottom of the list.

You have the option of selecting the accounts that are included in this summary. Transactions appear in a ledger to the right of the Library list. So a grocery purchase has a small grocery basket next to it and a gasoline purchase has an image of a fuel dispenser next to it. These images can be customized to your liking, but the reality is that they offer little in the way of real value.