As we use our phones to keep track of more and more aspects of our lives, one thing seemingly always gets forgotten – the checkbook register. Most people (myself included) don’t even bother to carry our checkbooks around anymore, thanks to debit cards and credit cards. Thus, we’re left cramming receipts into our pockets, hopefully to record later, either handwritten in our checkbooks at home, or on our desktop computer using Microsoft Money or Quicken or some other money-management application.
FlyingBird has solved this problem, introducing its Money Manager application, for S60-powered smartphones. There are now (as of a few days ago) two versions, the full Money Manager and the Lite version. The full version is available for $29.95 from the Symbian-Guru Software Store, but comes with a 15-day trial for free. The lite version is freeware, and has no cost associated with it, available for download here.
So, what does it do? I think the better question is, what doesn’t it do? FlyingBird Money Manager allows you to setup various accounts, including Checking, Credit/Debit Card, Savings, Line of Credit, and Assets/Liabilities. Currencies can be either Euro, GBP, US Dollar, or Yen, and you can input your account number, for easy reference. There is also an option for ‘Extended’ account profiles, allowing you to set a minimum balance, as well as add information such as the last check number used, a contact name and number, and a free-text description for the account.
You can view all of your accounts (with their current balances) through the ‘Accounts‘ area, allowing you to easily keep track of your overall money levels. When you open the Register, you’re presented with a list of the recent transactions for that account. You can easily add a deposit, withdrawal, or transfer through the options menu. Information details such as payee, amount, category, and reference number can be added, along with a few other optional details. For Transfers, you can choose which account the funds are being transferred to and from, as well.
A handy feature in Money Manager is the ability to Schedule transactions. You can set each transaction to take place at a number of intervals, from daily to every 2 weeks to the last day of each month, and other typical options. You can also specify whether the scheduled transaction has a final date, or if it’s recurring forever. Of course, as with the register, the various details of the transaction can also be entered, such as the payee, amount, categories, etc.
Within the List menu option, you can specify exchange rates, so that if you use a different currency (for instance, between Euros and GBP or US Dollars) the application can automatically convert that for you. A history is kept of the various currency exchange rates, too, though unfortunately the option to download the latest exchange rate is not present. You can also manage your Categories in this area, to either add ones that you use often, or remove the categories that you’ll never use.
A unique feature of Money Manager is the ability to generate Reports directly within the application. This is great if you’re not using an accompanying desktop application, for sure. For each report, you can specify a date range, a specific account (or group of accounts), and specific categories. If you want to know how much money you spent on gas last month, you could easily do so, even across 2 checking accounts and a credit card. Very handy. The report is displayed directly on the phone, but can also be exported as a .CSV file, so you can import into Microsoft Excel, or whichever other financial management software you might use on your home computer.
Speaking of exporting, there is also a ‘Sync‘ menu option, though that term is slightly misleading. It’s more of an import/export center, as there’s no feature to automatically synchronize your phone’s information. You can either import or export your account information as a .CSV, for easy use in any other application (or for transferring one phone’s accounts to another’s). You can specify the filename, which is *really* convenient, I thought. This is a key feature to be able to use Money Manager in conjunction with a desktop money management system, though with all the features, you could totally use Money Manager on its own.
To finish things off, there is a handy Backup/restore feature. However, this backup is automatically created on the phone’s internal memory, with no option to change that to the memory card. That means, even if you’ve backed up, if your phone gets hosed, or you have to hard reset it, there’s no way to restore the backup file. If you were able to automatically create this backup file on your memory card, then it would be safe against most things that happen to your phone, short of theft.
While Money Manager works *really* well, I was slightly disappointed with the user interface. The background of the application uses your theme’s background, which looks nice, but doesn’t always work great in being able to read the text, such as in your register or in the reports. A feature that I really enjoyed is the password requirement, which is on by default. This requires you to enter a password before you are granted access to your accounts, and serves to protect your privacy from prying eyes, if your phone gets handled by other people.
Earlier this week, FlyingBird announced the availability of Money Lite, which is freeware. The application is very similar to the full version of Money Manager, but lacks certain features, such as the ability to create budgets, schedule payments, and import/export .CSV/.QIF files. You can view the full checklist of differences between the applications here.
The full version of FlyingBird Money Manager is available for $29.95 from the Symbian-Guru Software Store and comes with a 15-day free trial, or you can download Money Lite here.
