Money in your Pocket (PC)

In his book The Road Ahead, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates writes about the wallet PC. "Rather than holding paper currency," writes Gates, "the new wallet will store unforgeable digital money." This book was written in 1996 and since then Microsoft and its hardware partners have brought to market Handheld and Palm-size PCs, big steps towards Gates' vision of a wallet PC. Ironically, neither device included the software needed to manage money.

Third party software solutions became available, but many Handheld and Palm-size PC owners have been begging for a pocket version of Microsoft Money that would synchronize directly with the desktop PC version of Money. Finally, with the release of the Pocket PC, Microsoft has fulfilled these desires by creating Microsoft Money for the Pocket PC.

Microsoft Money for the Pocket PC is a simplified version of its big brother, optimized for the Pocket PC platform. With it you can enter and track financial information, including your checking and savings accounts, credit card balances, and investments. Since you carry the Pocket PC with you, you can record financial transactions as they occur. Then you can synchronize the data with the more full-featured version of the program, Money 2000. This partnership turns your Microsoft Money into an extension of Money 2000.

Microsoft Money is pre-installed on most Pocket PCs. For those who don't have it built in, a user installable copy of the program is on the ActiveSync 3.1 CD-ROM that ships with all Pocket PCs and future Handheld PC Pros. This CD-ROM also includes versions of Microsoft Money for the Handheld PC and H/PC Pro. Unfortunately, a Palm-size PC version is not available on the CD-ROM. At press time Microsoft had not indicated whether or not one would be made available.

To start Microsoft Money, open the Start menu, select Programs, and then tap on the Microsoft Money icon. The main MS Money Account Manager screen will pop up. Microsoft Money organizes your data into five views. The Account Manager view lets you add accounts and switch between existing accounts (Screen 1). The Account Register view shows the activity of the current account. All financial transactions are entered in the Account Register view (Screen 2). Investments are entered and tracked in the Investments view (Screen 3). The Categories view displays categories you can use to track how you spend your money. It lets you create your own categories (e.g., travel expenses, groceries, loan payments, etc.). Each payee that you enter in a transaction is stored and displayed in the Payee view. Additional information, such as an address, phone number or account number, can be entered for a payee in the Payee view.

Screen 1: The Microsoft Money Account Manager view lets you add accounts and switch between existing accounts.

Screen 2: The Account Register view shows the activity of the account. All transactions are entered in this view.

Screen 3: The Investments view lets you track the status of your various investments.