Quick and Easy Finance Management

Money is a very important issue in our society. It was so thousands of years ago, and will continue to be thousands of years from now. It gives life, takes lives and destroys them. So, it is one of the most important aspects of our life, and must be treated cautiously. Since computers became available to everyone, more and more programmers began to develop financial programs so that computer users could easily manage how much they spent on a daily basis, how much they could keep for themselves, and also how much the monthly expenses were.

Basic Ledger is a piece of software that does just that and much more. You can manage money, transactions, and generate complex reports about expenses and other related stuff. You can do anything needed so that you never have to worry about the way you spend your money again.

The Looks

Because the program is developed in the Java programming language, in order to be used on multiple platforms, the interface is basic, the menus are simple, but they let you manage your money easily, so this is important indeed.

There are only two important menus that will give you access to all of the main functions. There are also two panels in the program work area that will let you create transactions and then filter them in any way you want. The interface is built in such a manner that you can use the program intuitively to calculate your finances.

The Works

When first entering Basic Ledger, you must set up your accounts. So, if you need a balance account, you can use some of the subcategories available there, the initial balance, where you can create an account as the base of the money that you will use from now on. Here, you also have access to the Assets subcategory, where you can create an account according to different assets. The last one is Liabilities and Equity, and you can use it to insert other things related to money management.

After setting up an account, it’s time you created a new balance and started managing your money. After pressing Add in the Transactions panel, you enter a new screen, where you can insert some information about your accounts. First, you must enter the date, if it’s not inserted automatically, and, after that, some TrxRef and a memo for it. After that, you can enter various details to your accounts, like each shopping made, the money spent, or how much money you currently have deposited for harsh times.

After confirming the changes, you can see that a balance appears, showing you the money at the beginning, how much you have spent and on what, and also giving you the final balance. You can enter as many transactions as you need, and, after that, easily view them in the Transactions panel. Finally, you can insert various filters, if there are too many Transactions and you want to view only the ones created at a given time, or the ones containing specific information that is important to you.

After finishing entering the transactions, if you want, Basic Ledger can generate a report based on the accounting information inserted by you. The reports are generated in the HTML format and can be saved anywhere on your Mac, even on a USB stick, if you want to show the expenses to someone not near you. In the Reports panel, you can clearly see that there are various report styles, depending on what you need. First off, there is a simple report overview available, or a more complex, full one that contains all the information available on your accounts and transactions.

Or, if you want, you can create your own report. You only need to enter some information related to the report destination, type, account, a start and an end date, and a title for the report. And that’s it, the report is generated and ready to be read at any time, anywhere.

Basic Ledger is also a very customizable program, meaning that there are some settings like the decimal separator, the date order, the debit-credit indicators, the payable and receivable account indicators that can easily be changed at your own pace. A pretty unique feature, the Environment is available in the Edit panel. You can enter here if you want to get precise information about the local language, date, the working directory, the Java version and the location of the Java classpath. Basic Ledger also contains another unique “capture the screen” feature that you can use at any time to create snapshots of your expenses and monthly balance. All these tools can be employed at any time and give Basic Ledger a pretty complex look, despite its size.

The Good

Basic Ledger allows you to manage your bills, expenses, revenues and almost all of the financial-related stuff. Also, Basic Ledger is created in the Java programming language, so that it can be used on any operating system. Moreover, it’s free, licensed under GPL, so you don’t have to pay anything for it. An interesting twist is given by the report-generation, environment and screen-capture abilities.

The Bad

Maybe some people don't stand the “full of yellow” interface that could also be modified a little, because, sometimes, you feel like you need more space to enter your transactions.

The Truth

Basic Ledger is one of the best, free solutions for managing your money. Of course, for more advanced options, you should try the paid accounting programs, but, if you only need a quick and easy way to manage it, then Basic Ledger is what you need.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: