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Hello Dmitry,
let me express my deep respect and gratitude towards you for
programming "Handy Finance". It is a truly great application. And I
think I am really able to say that, because I looked at quite a few
financial programs. I did this, because my current financial program,
which is "MAM", starts giving me trouble (whenever I want to add or
modify an account I'll get a program fault and will have to use a soft
reset to restart my Palm). Apart from the newly showing trouble "MAM"
is very powerful as well. Unfortunately it is not developed any
further and therefore I have no other choice but to migrate with my
data from "MAM" to another financial program.
Right now it looks as "Handy Finance" will become the program of my
choice. Your program is very close to MAM indeed. MAM as well has four
categories ("Who", "Category", "Trip", "Project") and three selections
("Cleared", "Receipt" and "Billable"). No other program I looked at,
does have this many categories and selections (I will give a list of
programs I looked at at the end of this email. Perhaps it is of
interest to you).
Also "Handy Finance" is the only financial program I know of, that
integrates with MS Access, which is absolutely fabulous. "MAM" is able
to export a csv-file (comma separated values). I programmed access in
VBA to import this csv-file and make it to database tables (if you are
interested, I will happily share my work with you). Unfortunately MAM
is not able to do any kind of import - except for the original palm
databases (prc-files, I believe). So I do have my data in MS Access
form and should be able to transform that data into the "Handy
Finance" format. I already tried this for the "accounts"-part and it
worked perfectly.
Notice:
Perhaps converter from MAM into Handy Finance is coming soon from Arne.
And you will be able to migrate safely all your data from MAM to Handy Finance.
Subscribe for our news and check it out!
Oh, yes, first version is ready:
How to convert financial data from MAM Pro/MAM Suite into Handy Finance
So let me name those few things I am still missing in "Handy Finance"
and ask you, if I have overlooked something or if you will be able
(i.e. wanting) to add those features in the near future:
- 1) Repeating transactions (*planned)
"MAM" calls this "Memo mode". In "Memo mode" you can specify which
transactions shall be inserted at what times. So in "Memo mode" I told
"MAM" for example, that I get my salary every month at the 30th, that
certain insurance companies will take certain amounts of money of my
account at certain times an so forth. So when such a transaction is
due an I start MAM I will get a message from "MAM" like "7
transactions have been added". To me this seems to be a very important
feature since I do not want to do this manually.
Answer:
Certainly, there is no such feature. I'm thinking to implement it, but
it will be not quickly.
You can use following.
There is an option to generate a lot of transaction for future with
desired intervals from template transaction. You have to set "remind
on start" (or "check") option under reminder page for template
transaction in order to have this option in future transactions. Use
"arrow down" button to get into generation page. Then you can remove
reminder option in template, it will remain in generated transactions.
Then you need to set filter for "Remind by" to the "none". So, no
future transactions will be added to total. When time will come for
future transaction, remind will arise, and transaction will be set
into "no remind" and added to total.
Also you may use any checkbox to exclude future transactions from
total.
There is a little drawback - new transactions will appear somewhere at
the middle of list, and sorting by date takes time. (However, with
"remind on start" option, Handy Finance will show you newly appeared
transactions with a special filter.)
- 2) Text-search (*released)
"MAM" is able to do text-searches. If for example I want to know, how
much I paid for that "Plextor CD-R burner" I just start MAM, press the
Palm's search-button, enter "Plextor" in the search-field and soon I
will have the answer. "Handy Finance" does not seem to be able to do
that kind of text-searches in the "note"-field of all transactions.
Answer:
See "Tools-Search" menu in the transactions list.
Also, with Handy Finance's flexible set of filters (especially in full
version) you are able to quickly find any transaction even without
text search.
- 3) Copy transactions (*released)
"MAM" offers the ability to copy a transaction. I like this feature
very much because often I have similar transactions. I thus search
after a similar transaction, copy and modify it.
Answer:
See "Edit-Copy" menu in the transaction editor.
Also let me ask a question about limitations: Are there any limits
with respect to the maximum number of accounts, currencies,
transactions or categories?
Answer:
It seems to be only one real limit - the number of records in palm's
database - 32767. As far as I know Handy Finance is good with huge
amount of records. My own database includes over 1700 transactions
now, and it is quite fast on my m500. Also I know users with over 4000
(four thousand!) transactions on old Palm VX.
The only thing appears with a huge number of records is the slowdown
of performance. But in 2.2 and 2.3 versions there are few tricks to
significantly improve performance for huge number of records, most of
operations will perform immediately.
Also there is an archivation feature, which can merge similar
transactions without losing ability to analyze them.
Greetings and keep up the good work!
Arne
Listing of looked at programs (just in case you might be interested to know):
- Allmoney (www.iambic.com)
- BalanceBook (www.portableprojects.com)
- BankBook (www.bahsoftware.com)
- checkMoney Plus (www.pdachampion.com)
- Complete Finance (www.onhandsoftware.com)
- Mobile Money 2003 (www.mobi-systems.com)
- MyBook (simcar.users.btopenworld.com)
- MyWallet (www.intelli-solutions.com)
- PMT Personal Money Tracker (?)
- Pocket Quicken (as well www.iambic.com)
- PocketMoney (www.catamount.com)
- Quik Budget (quiksense.com)
- SplashMoney (www.splashdata.com)
- Ultrasoft Money (as well www.iambic.com)
- Ultrasoft Checkbook (www.ultrasoft.com)
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