The 30-year, long-term planner is of very dubious practical worth too.

For instance, the budget planner will evenly distribute over 12 months a one-time expected expense or receipt, which skews the budget. Money’s other planning functions, on the other hand, are a tad simplistic, and don’t take into account factors that make planning personally relevant.

If you overdo it, there’s even a debt-reduction planner. Charts and graphs are available by the shed load. By contrast, the Advanced view displays more transactional detail. Your spending habits are also analysed, for example by category or payee, and automatically if Money can recognise the payee’s name. Two views of your financial affairs are on offer: Essential summarises your bank transactions in an easy-to-read format. There are plenty of budget categories that stay the same each month (such as mortgage or pension) but there are also options for those that vary, such as ‘food:groceries’ or ‘food: dining out’. The distinction between the local client and the financial advice it pulls down from the MSN Money is seamless to the point of near invisibility.Ī worthwhile improvement is Money 2005’s useful ability to track up to three specific budget categories for expenditure, which appear on the homepage. An improved portfolio manager assists with long-term financial choices. And if you want financial advice, on things like mortgages or pensions, you’re whisked away to pages on. Another tool tracks the daily status of problem spending categories and alerts you to overspending. A new Bills Wizard helps set up and track recurring payments, whether fixed or variable. There are more changes under the bonnet too, and the new version simplifies much of the drudgery associated with bookkeeping. The 2005 interface has had a lick of paint and its new, blue, less-cluttered appearance bears an uncanny resemblance to an MSN website. For example, setup doesn’t force you to enter each and every account you can just jump in and start using Money 2005 from the off, though spending time on tasks such as categorising spending will let you get more out of the software. Money 2005 closely resembles last year’s model in many respects, but it’s been made somewhat more user-friendly. Don’t worry too much about TaxSaver being a year out of kilter with Money – remember your current tax year ends on April 5th 2005. This costs more than double but comes with TaxSaver 2004, which not only helps you complete your annual tax return but can actually submit it online as well. Over here, we’re restricted to just two: the standard version plus the Money Financial Suite. On the other side of the pond there are no less than four versions of Money available.

Microsoft money 2005 update