jhs@zug.csmil.umich.edu (Hee-Sen Jong) (12/01/89)
Someone posted an article summarising the differences between MacMoney and Dollar & Sense recently. I lost the article. Could the originator or anyone who has the article send it to me please.
dks@shumv1.uucp (D. K. Smith) (12/02/89)
In article <1989Dec1.153215.20583@csmil.umich.edu> jhs@csmil.umich.edu (Hee-Sen Jong) writes: >Someone posted an article summarising the differences between MacMoney >and Dollar & Sense recently.... Could a netter just repost the info on the financial management packages. And if anyone has had good or bad experiences with MECA's MYM please comment. Thanks, dk smith -------------
ralph@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Ralph Brandi) (12/05/89)
In article <1989Dec1.220829.7396@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> dks@shumv1.ncsu.edu (D. K. Smith) writes: >packages. And if anyone has had good or bad experiences with MECA's MYM >please comment. The January, 1990, issue of Macworld has an article that takes MYM to task for forcing the user to adapt to its assumptions. Steven Levy doesn't like a lot of little things about it, like a lack of an Undo command, that give it the feel of being a PC port (which it is). I haven't worked with MYM myself, though, so I can't comment. -- Ralph Brandi ralph@lzfme.att.com att!lzfme!ralph Work flows toward the competent until they are submerged.
libby@Mips.COM (Jeff Libby) (12/06/89)
I've been using Dollars and Sense for a while, and like it pretty well.
Data entry (what you spend most of your time doing) is fast and easy --
you can do it with the keyboard or mouse. It could stand improvement in
reports and charts (especially the lack of a "Report of all
Transactions").
I tried MYM, lured by its feature list. I stopped using it because (in
priority order):
-- it's SLOW on a Plus
-- transaction data entry is awkward (you have to go from the mouse to
the keyboard and back several times during a transaction)
-- stock data entry is very awkward
-- The tax estimator isn't as complete as I hoped
I'm currently doing tax stuff by importing a Dollars and Sense report
into my Excel tax spreadsheets, and that seems to work okay.
************************
Jeff Libby
Mips Computer Systems
{decvax,ucbvax,hplabs,sun,ames,prls}!decwrl!mips!libby or libby@mips.comfleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) (12/06/89)
[Tried twice via e-mail; bounced both times...] The author was Jeff Wiseman <wiseman@tellab5>... the upshot was MacMoney is superior. I agree, having used MacMoney since 1986. I don't have the original article, but write Jeff and he will send it to you. +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Stephen Fleming | My employer doesn't pay for this account. | | fleming@cup.portal.com | In fact, my employer doesn't even know | | CI$: 76354,3176 | I'm here! Disclaimer enough for any | | Voice: (703) 847-7058 | network-aware lawyer-types, I hope... | +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
t-jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) (12/07/89)
In article <24750@cup.portal.com> fleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) writes: >The author was Jeff Wiseman <wiseman@tellab5>... the upshot was MacMoney is >superior. I agree, having used MacMoney since 1986. Superior? Nah. Maybe cheaper, easier to use (very debatable) in some peoples eyes. I've been using D & $ since about 1985. It is very full featured and full of reporting capabilities (pie charts, bar charts, trends etc.). It is likely that it takes more to learn its features than MacMoney. One thing I like a lot is you can create your accounts in an hierarchy. I've created my hierarchy to line up with all the tax forms I have to fill out and all the subtotals get copied straight over. That takes care of half of my tax woes. D&$ is also really easy in the transition from one year to the next because it can keep two years around. AND ONE MORE THING: My Dad is bigger than your Dad! :-} Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * U of U * t-jacobs@cs.utah.edu
fleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) (12/08/89)
This was accidentally e-mailed to me rather than posted. I'm posting it to the net at the author's request. I am guilty of oversimplifying Jeff's views on MacMoney... mea culpa! >From: uunet!tellab5.tellabs.COM!wiseman (Jeff Wiseman) >Subject: Re: MacMoney vs Dollar & Sense >Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac >In-Reply-To: <24750@cup.portal.com> > >Thought I would just clarify this a bit. > >I wouldn't say IN GENERAL that MacMoney is superior. I would say (from the >feed back that I got and my own experience) that MacMoney is probably more >solid and definitely people are happier with the support that they have >received. Survivor Software seems to be doing a great job here. > >HOWEVER > >The impression that I get from people who have used D&S for a while >(myself included) and have tried MacMoney or Managing your Money like the >"orthogonality" and flexibility of D&S's interface so much that in spite >of the other problems, they have still returned to D&S. > >Please note that most of D&S's "bugs" seem to be nuisance problems. For >example, under certain conditions, if you have a report on the screen and >then in another window modify a transaction that can affect that report, >the report will update but it can rearrange the accounts involved in the >sums such that the sums are incorrect - this is obvious though since the >account has physically moved on the report into another subgroup making the >error obvious. All you do to correct this is to close the window and then >regenerate it. Everything then comes up clean. > >Another is if you do a Net Worth report but only select (a) Liability >account(s), the report shows them as positive values instead of negative. >Minor point since when you add a single asset account to the report, this >corrects itself. > >I have yet to see D&S crash. Also, I have several (7-10) inits that I use >and that behaviour of D&S seems to be consistent regardless of whether the >inits are there or not. > >Remember though, pre- 4.X versions of D&S had a very different interface. >I am using version 4.1c, the most recent. >-- >Jeff Wiseman:....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM Personal opinion on the above -- I trust Jeff's judgement, but I wouldn't want to trust my finances to a program that makes "obvious" errors. Two reasons: (1) I often do my bookkeeping late at night, and there's no guarantee that I'll be sharp enough to notice even obvious errors... (2) Once a program has made an obvious error, I'm awfully uncomfortable with the idea that it might be making NON-obvious errors as well. Different strokes for different folks. MacMoney works for me, so I have no incentive to change. If you're purchasing for the first time, try 'em all and see what works for you. +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Stephen Fleming | My employer doesn't pay for this account. | | fleming@cup.portal.com | In fact, my employer doesn't even know | | CI$: 76354,3176 | I'm here! Disclaimer enough for any | | Voice: (703) 847-7058 | network-aware lawyer-types, I hope... | +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
landman@hanami.Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman x61391) (12/13/89)
In article <1989Dec1.220829.7396@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> dks@shumv1.ncsu.edu (D. K. Smith) writes: >And if anyone has had good or bad experiences with MECA's MYM please comment. Just got Managing Your Money a few days ago. It seems really well thought out. There are lots of shortcuts so once you get familiar with it you can really cook. At the moment it looks like it will take about 15 to 20 hours TOTAL to enter and reconcile all of 1989's activity, including multiple checking and savings accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts, tax categories, and so forth. This includes learning time on the program, AND setting up accounts the way I want them the first time. There are some minor frustrations, but they tend to be of the form "They got this 98% right - why couldn't they have done the last 2%?". I haven't tried the automatic export to MacInTax yet, but expect to use it in a few weeks. At the same time I ordered For The Record from Nolo Press. For The Record is nearly useless - it is basically a Mac version of a paper list of your assets. It is often obtuse - is the "value" of a stock certificate supposed to be the per-share value or the total value? - but this ultimately doesn't matter because there's nothing you can do with the data you've entered except print it out. There's not even a way to add up the total value! Plus, the software is fairly slow. The same functionality could have been built into a HyperCard stack and been several times faster and MUCH more flexible. The only good thing about FTR is the book that comes with it, and the list of assets to consider already built into the program (but even that had some holes, and you can't fix them.) I'll be sending FTR back; MYM can do most of the same data entry, with the additional advantage of tying the data into the rest of my financial universe. RECOMMENDATION: Forget For The Record - either pay the extra money for a REAL package like Managing Your Money, or do it in HyperCard, or stick with paper. PRICES: MacConnection has MYM for $124, FTR for $28. (They accidentally sent me Adobe Type Manager at first instead of Managing Your Money, but one phone call straightened everything out.) Howard A. Landman landman%hanami@eng.sun.com