Personal Finance Software
- Thread starter Roachy
- Start date
We use a huge software called Microsoft Excel....
The Y-man
I wonder how much stuff you need before it gets too complicated for excel too.
Good question - we were ok with 10 IP's and share trading in a trust.
Once it gets to business stuff like dealing with GST, BAS, FBT etc, Quicken and MYOB tends to be the way to go.
The Y-man
If you are a service based business with relatively few transactions, excel is fine. It's when the numbers get bigger and more frequent, do you need MYOB etc. It's very very handy to be able to print your BS, P&L off straight away, and also makes it easier for the accountant at BAS/tax time.
how do you set it out in excel?
First thing, work out exactly what it is that you wish to record.
Is it all income & expenses associated with your property ?
Plus many some reports on that data ?
Anything else besides that ?
Once you work that out, it answers a lot fo the quesitons....think how you'd do it if you had to write it out on paper like in the 1980's
Computers are just a tool like a pad, pen and calculator, they can automate lots of things for you, make thjings quicker / easier to do, but that's about it.
For an IP there are only a few important categories.
Rent, Interest Expense, Land Tax, Council Fees, PM Fees, repairs, Miscellaneous
Insurance
Depreciation
I think the first thing BMan should do is work out what all his expenses are - maybe going thorough last year's tax return will clarify this - make a list.. .write it fdown (I know how much resistance there is to these things, but honestly it if you don't know mit yet, where's the harm it ocudl possibly calirfy it for you)
Then once that's all clear, he can spend time on working out how to record & present it.
Doing mboth at the same time is too hard, particualrly when inexperienced at both
Roachy what do you actually want the software for?
Excel will work quite well for keeping track of basic personal expenses and income as well as a property portfolio.
If you're looking to run a business, look at Quicken or MYOB.
Excel will work quite well for keeping track of basic personal expenses and income as well as a property portfolio.
If you're looking to run a business, look at Quicken or MYOB.
Excellent posts above by Jaycee and Aaron re what an accountant needs to see.
For us personally, we also find it easier to have a worksheet within the workbook of each property where we record income/expense for that property, as well as separate sheets for shares etc.
We then have a "summary" worksheet that totals each person's "split" of the net income/loss for tax puposes + their employement income.
The Y-man
Morning PT,
I want it for exactly what you said. I have played with Excel Spreadsheets and had a look at the spreadsheets in the Information Resources thread. Most of those spreadsheets are right protected and thus I can not change it as I want (add IPs etc).
If anyone have any really good spreadsheets I would love to see them.
Also, I was going to import all my banking details into it (I know Quicken can do it, but I'm unsure if the QIF file is compatible with the 2012 version).
Again, would be interested in anyones experiences etc.
Thanks guys.
Roachy
I just keep a spreadhseet for rent, file allmy bills and then refer to the filing cabinet / last year's tax return to compare to and ensure I haven;t forgotten anything / the curretn version of etax to make sure I dont miss anyhing new
I guess I could keep a running tally of expense on computer.... but
What do you want your spreadsheet to do - just list income / expenses for 1 year ? for longer than 1 year ? for how many properties ?
I thikn it's a good idea to work out what you NEED (for tax / whatever) and start from there... bells & whistles like reporting etc can be worked out once the first bit is clear
I think it should be really, simple unless you have a large number of properties or something
Hi
Do you also record the monthly interest paid on the IP or just relied on the bank statement ?
Care to share the spreadsheet that you used ?
Thank you
I use a product called 'Moneydance' which is similar to quicken, but their policy is to never expire a licence, and to always allow access to data.
http://moneydance.com/
I've used Quicken in the past and been burnt by features disappearing between upgrades, and I don't like their current licencing model.
I find it pretty useful, takes about 5 minutes an evening to enter transactions. Its useful for understanding where your money is going, and on a few occasions I've picked up mistakes.
It takes a little while to get accounts and budgets set up, but once you have a system going it works well.
Murphy.
http://moneydance.com/
I've used Quicken in the past and been burnt by features disappearing between upgrades, and I don't like their current licencing model.
I find it pretty useful, takes about 5 minutes an evening to enter transactions. Its useful for understanding where your money is going, and on a few occasions I've picked up mistakes.
It takes a little while to get accounts and budgets set up, but once you have a system going it works well.
Murphy.
