Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Tracking the money in FOSS way

In last 23 years the only time I ever tracked my expenses was when my sister-in-law was with me last year. When she moved to Australia, the habit died eventually.

Due to some recent developments in my financial life, I have been thinking of starting it again. But I am too lazy to write down everything. So finally I decided to give GnuCash a shot (my fingers work faster on keyboard than with a pen).

Yesterday I installed it by compiling from source as latest version was not available in repositories.
I must say that I am pretty impressed with it in whatever time I spent using it from yesterday. Things like various account types, different expenses categories, interlinking of transactions, scheduled transactions make it damn easy to manage/track personal finances. Not only this, the UI is as easy to use as it can be.

I have never seen or used MS Money. But I am sure it can not be better and cheaper than GnuCash (free). Why would someone want to spend money ($20 at least) on MS money to track money when one can do it for free.

Unfortunately (for some of my friends), this software is available only for GNU/Linux systems.
But isn't it one more good reason to use GNU/Linux.

No comments: