Free financial software - Metalogic Finance Explorer

Metalogic Finance Explorer

Description
Metalogic Finance Explorer 4.2.1 is our flagship product. It's an easy to use personal finance software that packs enough features for those of us that don't need the overload of features that the big commercial packages offer. It's small yet powerful.
Features

1. Price: Completely free!
2. Real time: Update your stock quotes directly from the web.
3. Easy to use: Visit our online tutorial.
4. Interface: A familiar and easy to use Windows Explorer-like user interface.
5. Import transactions: Download them from your bank and import them directly into MLFE. No need to manually enter them. This will save you time and avoid mistakes. All popular formats are supported: Microsoft Money (OFX) and Intuit Quicken (both QFX and QIF).
6. Budgeting: Set some financial goals and let our budget feature help you achieve them. At the same time get fine control over your spending. By sticking to your budget you will be able to achieve your goals faster, whether it's paying your debt or saving for something.
7. Accounts: Supports several types of accounts including bank, cash, credit, etc. Can handle an unlimited number of them.
8. Stock tracking: Keep track of your stocks. Current stock quotes can be downloaded from the web with a mouse click.
9. Categorization: Put all your transactions into categories so you can get a better overview of all your expenditures and income.
10. Net worth: Get a complete view of your finances at a glance.
11. Loans: Record all your loans and track your progress as you make payments.
12. Printing: Keep a hardcopy of your information. NEW
13. Export: Use your data from other applications. NEW

site: http://www.metalogicsw.com/financeexplorer/index.html

Free Finance software - AceMoney Lite

AceMoney Lite

AceMoney Lite

AceMoney Lite is a freeware personal finance manager. It has all the features of its big brother except multiple accounts management. As AceMoney, AceMoney Lite helps people organize and manage their personal finances quickly and easily. It supports all the features required for home or even small-business accounting needs:

* Track your spending habits and see where the money goes
Generate any report by categories or payors/payees, including pie charts. Now you can see at a glance how much you spent on food last month. Find all your withdrawals and deposits by any parameter.

* Create and manage budgets
The program has more than 100 predefined spending categories. Setup budget limits for every category and track the difference between actual and budgeted values.

* Track performance of investments
Track 401k, Stock options, Employee Stock Purchase Plans or any other investment activities. You don't need to enter the stock quotes manually: AceMoney will download them from the net!

* Do your financial math in multiple currencies
The software supports more than 150 different currencies and automatically downloads their exchange rates from Internet.

* Enjoy the convenience of on-line banking
Download and import information from on-line banks in QIF and OFX formats. If you run a small business, export to HTML, Text, or CSV formats to generate statements or perform complex statistical analysis.

* Don't miss the next deadline for bills
AceMoney takes control over your bills and shows you when they should be paid.

* Double check
Enjoy the security of password protection of every file, scheduled backups and many other features without having any experience in accounting!

* Plan debts and mortgage payments
AceMoney provides a loan calculator to plan debt payments and a professional mortgage calculator to estimate future morgage payments if you are planning to purchase real estate.

* Do e-business with AceMoney
Are you selling goods on eBay? Are you in a shareware business? Do it with AceMoney! AceMoney automates input of orders coming from PayPal, RegNow, RegSoft, SWReg and Plimus. Read more about this exciting feature here.

* Use AceMoney on Windows, Linux and Mac
AceMoney is a native Windows application which requires only 8 megabytes of memory and runs on any 32 or 64 bit version of Windows, from Windows 95 to Windows 7. AceMoney got a Platinum rating in Wine Application Database and works flawlessly out of the box in Linux and Mac OS.

Download: http://www.mechcad.net/products/acemoney/download.shtml

Six Steps of Comprehensive Financial Planning

Six Steps of Comprehensive Financial Planning

Financial Planning Introduction

How To Create a Budget

Here's How:

1.Gather every financial statement you can. This includes bank statements, investment accounts, recent utility bills and any information regarding a source of income or expense. The key for this process is to create a monthly average so the more information you can dig up the better.

2.Record all of your sources of income. If you are self-employed or have any outside sources of income be sure to record these as well. If your income is in the form of a regular paycheck where taxes are automatically deducted then using the net income, or take home pay, amount is fine. Record this total income as a monthly amount.

3.Create a list of monthly expenses. Write down a list of all the expected expenses you plan on incurring over the course of a month. This includes a mortgage payment, car payments, auto insurance, groceries, utilities, entertainment, dry cleaning, auto insurance, retirement or college savings and essentially everything you spend money on.

4.Break expenses into two categories: fixed and variable. Fixed expenses are those that stay relatively the same each month and are required parts of your way of living. They included expenses such as your mortgage or rent, car payments, cable and/or internet service, trash pickup, credit card payments and so on. These expenses for the most part are essential yet not likely to change in the budget.

Variable expenses are the type that will change from month to month and include items such as groceries, gasoline, entertainment, eating out and gifts to name a few. This category will be important when making adjustments.

5.Total your monthly income and monthly expenses. If your end result shows more income than expenses you are off to a good start. This means you can prioritize this excess to areas of your budget such as retirement savings or paying more on credit cards to eliminate that debt faster. If you are showing a higher expense column than income it means some changes will have to be made.

6. Make adjustments to expenses. If you have accurately identified and listed all of your expenses the ultimate goal would be to have your income and expense columns to be equal. This means all of your income is accounted for and budgeted for a specific expense.

If you are in a situation where expenses are higher than income you should look at your variable expenses to find areas to cut. Since these expenses are typically essential it should be easy to shave a few dollars in a few areas to bring you closer to your income.

7. Review your budget monthly. It is important to review your budget on a regular basis to make sure you are staying on track. After the first month take a minute to sit down and compare the actual expenses versus what you had created in the budget. This will show you where you did well and where you may need to improve.

source: http://financialplan.about.com/od/budgetingyourmoney/ht/createbudget.htm