CheckBook: Personal Finance is Easier Than They Want You to Think

Originally downloaded 12/23/05. Gee, I would love to be able to replace Quicken with something less frustrating. Haven’t tried this one yet… The Splasm website says the software can import QIF files, and it has a feature tour worth checking out.

Update 11/7/06. OK, here’s the thing. At this point, I need a personal finance package that does two things which Checkbook can’t:

• Handle online transactions with my bank, and
• Support my historical and future investment transactions.

After downloading the latest release of Checkbook, I realized why I had already put it in the “reject” software folder, but I never wrote this stuff down. (This is why I’m doing it now!) Also, Checkbook only imports 50 transactions from a QIF file you export from Quicken. That’s very nice, but it doesn’t give me confidence that Checkbook will be able to handle 8 years worth of transactions. They really should let you import the whole shebang and then disable the application after a period of time if they want users to confidently switch from Quicken or another package. I had gone through this once before and said, “forget it.”

That said, Checkbook appears to be a very nice software package if all you want to do is manage a checkbook and some household accounts, and at $18 it’s reasonably priced. Here is a brief table with my notes on pros and cons:

Version as tested: 1.7.1.