Pocket Quicken: This is what I bought a PDA for!

Pocket Quicken by Landware ... this is what I bought a PDA for. Let's face it. In today's complex financial dealings, the check register that comes with your preprinted checks just doesn't cut it. Neither does a little checkbook calculator that has two or three memory locations to store a balance. Today we have 401K's, IRA's, Cash Management Accounts, debit cards, ATM cards, credit cards, and many other accounts. Trying to keep notes that you can enter in your desktop finance program is usually hit or miss. Mostly miss!

Pocket Quicken lets me take along a portable snapshot of my financial records from my desktop Quicken. That portable snapshot goes where I go. I can update it anytime, anywhere and keep balances up to date. Then a quick hotsync with my desktop PC records all new transactions back to my desktop Quicken.

All Quicken desktop accounts are listed in the Account List. Select an account and the Details button displays the details I entered for the account. Here's a tip. Put the accounts address information in the Notes area in Quicken desktop. Then when you need the address for the account institution, you immediately have it available. Also, be sure to put the phone number and contact info in your desktop Quicken.

The transaction register lists the detail transactions for the account. Don't worry about how much room this will take up on your Palm based device. I generally have hundreds of transaction records at any given time and still only use 174K bytes for the data. If you find you have too much data for your handheld, there is a trim function that lets you remove older transactions from the PDA (all transactions stay in the desktop Quicken).

Transaction entry is very simple. Select the New button, then select from the type of transaction (i.e., for checking there is Payment or Deposit or Transfer). Start entering the Payee name in the graffiti area and the memorized transaction will be displayed.

Or just start entering the name of the Payee in the graffiti area from the register and the memorized transaction will be displayed. Here you record the details of the transaction including the Quicken categories and a memo. You can even split the transaction into multiple categories.

Pocket Quicken also has a built-in budgeting feature. It is separate from the desktop Quicken budgeting. You enter your monthly budget into Pocket Quicken and it will track by category.

There is a PIN access feature to control who can look at your Pocket Quicken data. There are also many preference options you can set that control the hotsync and other operations.

Pocket Quicken is not for handling your stock trades. It does not include the investment operations like desktop Quicken.

Overall, I can't say enough about how well Pocket Quicken 2.0 works. If you use Quicken and use a PDA, you need Pocket Quicken 2.0.

Pocket Quicken is a registered trademark of Landware, Inc. Quicken is a registered trademark of Intuit, Inc.