Quicken BasicWell it’s one thing to have my desk organized, and quite another thing to have my finances organized. And honestly, I don’t know how I would do it without Quicken, the software Intuit started making around 1985 I think. The early versions were crude, not much more than putting your checkbook register online”and so I didn’t use it.

But once I left graduate school and got a ‘real’ job, I found my finances got more complicated than just checking, and Quicken has been a life-saver. (In the interest of full disclosure: I don’t have anything to disclose. I don’t own stock in Intuit, and I assume Microsoft’s Money program does pretty much the same thing.)

Quicken tracks my checking, sure”and after a few months of using it, the software began to recognize spending patterns. When started to type in the name of my mortgage company, a little box popped up “Schedule this as a regular expense?” and of course I clicked yes. So now I have a list of 20 or so regular expenses that not only make it easier to enter (I just hit “OK” rather than type in all the data), they also give me a little flag a few days before they are due. So no more surprises. This is especially helpful for quarterly items I might easily forget, like the garbage bill and my parking pass at the train station.

I also use Quicken to remind me of regular online transactions. Each month I put money into my niece’s 529 college savings fund (more on that in another post). I refuse to have it automatically deducted from my account, because I’m not ready to lose that level of control over my finances. But when the little flag pops up that it’s time, I go to the 529 website and make the tranfer from checking then and there. Then I go back to Quicken and record it.

The categories in Quicken make it easy for me to see what I’m spending, where. (They suggest categories of spend, but you can add your own as well.) I can run a report for the last month, or 6 months, or however long I like, telling me what I’ve spent (total and monthly average) on groceries, dining out, electricity, heat, etc. Since I have a rough budget that I try to live by, this is very helpful in telling me where I’m over budget or (gasp) under budget.

The first time I entered my paycheck into Quicken, it gave me a little form to fill out. Federal taxes, state taxes, medical, dental, 401(k), employee stock purchase, everything you can think of. Because of that, tracking all those amounts is easy because they come right off my paycheck and go into their own little categories.

One of the best things about Quicken for me, though, is the tallying of all the sections: checking, savings, investing, property and debts. It includes my car loan, and the value of my car; my mortgage, and the value of my house if I sold today. When you put that all together, you have your “net worth”.

Watching that net worth number change month by month helps me make a lot of good financial decisions. When I get a bonus from work, it’s tempting to go on a tropical vacation with my sweetie. But I can instantly see that it makes more sense to pay off the car loan, building net worth and a more secure future for my family. (If you want to see how your net worth compares to others with similar age, job, geography, or life situation, visit Networth IQ).

The last tidbit I’ll share is that Quicken is especially helpful at tax time. It provides a sanity check with the documents that get sent to me (taxes paid, mortage interest, etc.) and sometimes charities don’t send out the forms they should”but Quicken tracks all my donations. Sadly tax time isn’t far off, but it’s good to feel prepared.