Investing ~ Personal finance software programs

written by: Clara Mikeri; article published: year 2006, month 08;



In: Categories » Computers and technology » Software » Investing ~ Personal finance software programs

Personal finance software programs often offer much more than what you pay for. These programs provide a way to access online banking, organize your personal finances, understand what you have and what you owe, and organize your financial accounts for the tax collector. Additionally, portfolio management programs track and analyze your portfolio’s performance. Most personal finance software programs automatically use your portfolio’s gains and losses for your net-worth calculations. With many personal finance pro grams, if you’re connected to the Internet, you can automatically update securities prices. In the following sections, I describe the two most popular personal finance software programs: MS Money and Quicken.

The National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC) portfolio manage ment program and other portfolio management programs enable investors to sort investments by type of industry or company size and then print the reports. In this way, investors can make comparisons within their own portfo lios. In other words, it’s a convenient way to sort out the winners and losers. A limitation of some personal finance software programs is that they don’t include this feature. Additionally, personal finance software programs often have trouble with dividend reinvestment plans.

MS Money MS Money is a personal finance software program that can help you stay organized by tracking activi ties in your savings and checking accounts, and doing your banking and bill paying online. You can use Money to manage your investments by download ing quotes and brokerage statements from the Internet, plan your retirement, and more. Four types of MS Money products are available, but only two of the products include the full menu of portfolio management tools: MS Money Premium ($79.95) and MS Money Small Business ($89.95). MS Money tracks your portfolio’s investment positions, updating the price or quantity held without entering all purchase and sales data. You get a detailed analysis of your investments by risk, performance, and asset allocation. The portfolio management program tracks stocks, CDs, and bond capital gains throughout the year. The asset allocation feature analyzes the allocation of the assets in your current portfolio and suggests ways to improve it, based on the historic returns for the investment classes that you hold. Portfolio management features include

Portfolio manager: You can directly download account information from banks and brokerages nationwide. You can access your account informa tion 24/7.

Portfolio tracking: MS Money includes features that many online free portfolio trackers lack. For example, you can track stock splits in the transaction list, as well as in the portfolio and transaction report. Additionally, there is a 401(k) manager and automatic Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Schedule D reporting (of capital gains and losses).

Capital gains estimator and capital gains tracking: The capital gains estimator calculates your capital gains taxes and alerts you of taxes owed if a specific investment is sold. You also discover capital gains tracking and optimization features.

Asset allocation and investing alerts: MS Money provides timely market information, as well as an Investing Advisor FYI module featuring recent alerts. These alerts can give you a quick snapshot of what’s happening with your stocks and can notify you of any significant news so that you can stay on top of your portfolio.

Quicken Quicken is similar to MS Money in that both personal financial programs offer you the option of downloading your checking, sav ings, and investment data directly from your bank or brokerages. Additionally, when it comes to managing your portfolio and tracking your investments, both MS Money and Quicken provide high quality, personalized tools. The Quicken Premier ($79.95) personal finance software program

Can help you track tricky financial transactions, such as stock splits and corporate takeovers

Offers a portfolio analyzer, a capital gains estimator, and the ability to customize your portfolio data

Lets you download up to five years of stock quotes for trend analysis and recordkeeping

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