I’ve used Microsoft Money in one form or another for years. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say since 1997, but I’m just not sure if that’s right or not. I want to say that was the year they released it, but I just don’t recall for certain.
Over that time, I’ve manually entered many receipts, and I’ve tried most features of the program, though I still steadfastly refuse to upload my personal financial data to Microsoft’s servers. Sorry, Billy.
But the last months have had me falling further and further behind and I needed to get caught up on some credit card transactions for, oh, five months or so. So I needed to do something. I figured it was time to check out the importing functionality again. Unfortunately the online features require said uploading. But simply importing a QIF file don’t. To do that, I can use the Money Import and there they are.
Once upon a time the import facility really stunk. So I hadn’t used it for a while. A really long while. Like years. But now I have to say that I like it. I’m not sure when it improved, but it’s growing on me.
Now (and probably for some time), the transactions that are imported are aliased, so if you buy something at Joe’s Auto #123 in Charlotte, but you record that in Money as just Joe’s Auto, Money seems to remember. So the next time a receipt comes in, it handles the translation for you, and you don’t have to change it.
It also keeps the category from the last time you used the payee. This in itself doesn’t always help, since sometimes you may not want the same category every time (think your larger stores, where you may purchase any number of things) but for those times you use the same category every time (eating out, filling up with gas, etc), it’s great.
And best of all, I didn’t have to upload my entire financial life to Microsoft’s servers.