Moneybox takes a simpler approach to personal finance management than its rivals - Intuit's Quicken 2001 and Microsoft's Money 2001. It allows you to record basic incomings/outgoings from bank accounts and then generate summary reports. However, there's limited support available for online statement downloads and no tools for tracking share prices.

Its interface is almost identical to Dosh Software's small-business bookkeeping package, Cashbook. As a result, anyone used to Cashbook will have few difficulties getting started with it. Some of the jargon used could have been altered to better suit personal finance, though, including terms such as 'bank reconciliation' for example, which might not be familiar to home users.

Moneybox's core functions let you record incoming and outgoing payments from bank accounts and monitor transfers between them. Data entry uses a simple form that records basic details, such as a description, date and amount for each transaction. This works well enough, although there's a number of abbreviations that aren't explained in the software's help files.

Once data has been entered into the program, you can view reports of transactions on a monthly basis or generate summaries for longer time periods. Summary reports also group transactions into categories, which is useful for budgeting.

It also includes a bank reconciliation tool that enables you to check entries against a bank statement. Although the product won't generate a complete tax return, a further reporting tool produces a summary of account balances and transactions for a given tax year. A Self Assessment timetable also shows Inland Revenue deadlines and action points for 2000 to 2001 and 2001 to 2002.

Moneybox doesn't make much use of internet resources, so it isn't ideal for anyone with investments in stocks and shares. Neither are there any tools for tracking changes to interest rates or downloading interest data from your bank. Given the recent fluctuations in both share prices and loan interest rates, this makes maintaining an accurate picture of more complicated financial affairs cumbersome.

Online statement downloads from Lloyds TSB are supported, but there are no similar facilities for other banks.

You can create multiple sets of accounts within the product, which also includes two sample files for familiarisation. Working with these is the best way of learning how to use Moneybox, as both the accompanying manual and online help are very basic.

This product lacks higher-end features, such as share price monitoring and financial planning, offered by Quicken 2001 or Money 2001. However, if you want to keep a record of everyday transactions and create summaries of your finances for use on tax returns, Moneybox is worth considering.

Contact

Dosh Software: PO Box 118, Horsham, West Sussex RH13 6FN
Tel 0800 652 0518, Fax 01403 210792
www.dosh.co.uk/moneybox.html