Other Sites
Liquid Ledger is pitched as "the complete money management solution for anyone who wishes to better understand where their money comes from and where it goes." With Liquid Ledger, you can record bank account, credit card, and investment transactions; track income and expenses; design and print checks; manage a household budget; manage foreign currency accounts; generate reports and graphs; and more.
"With so many Mac users switching from the PC, demand has never been greater for a complete and easy-to-use personal finance solution on the Mac," says Itrat Khan, president of Modeless Software, Inc. "Liquid Ledger 2 gives first-time Mac users the functionality they are looking for while delivering the kind of user-friendly experience that drew them to the Mac in the first place."
So how does Liquid Ledger measure up? Let's check it out.
When you start Liquid Ledger for the first time, the Liquid Ledger setup assistants will appear and ask you a few questions to help set up your financial data.
One of the choices you will presented with is whether you wish to start with a default set of accounts, or alternatively to migrate existing financial data from another application. If you start with a default set of accounts, your new document will contain a checking account, a savings account, and some common credit card accounts, but none of them will have any prior transaction history. To bring each account up to date, select it from the browser list and update its opening balance transaction to match the in the balance on your most recent monthly statement. For example, if your checking account's most recent statement shows an ending balance of $225.00, enter this amount in the Deposit column to bring your Liquid Ledger checking account balance to $225.00. You activate the appropriate field for text entry by double-clicking.
If you choose to migrate data from another financial application, you will be asked to locate a Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) file on your computer's hard drive that contains the financial data exported from your previous financial application.
For example, if you have been using Quicken, or Microsoft Money, you can import your financial data by selecting the option to import a Quicken Interchange Format file from the Liquid Ledger setup Assistant.
You may want to refer to the Quicken or Microsoft Money documentation for instructions on exporting data to QIF files.
Since I've never been a user of either of those applications, I had no QIF data files to import. There are instructions in the Liquid Ledger documentation that will help what you through the process.
Speaking of which, Liquid Ledger, like most software applications these days, including Apple's, doesn't come with much in the way of hard copy documentation. There is an attractively-bound quick start guide, which is good as far as it goes, but that's not far, and it doesn't cover any of the new features added to Liquid Ledger 2.
The online help is somewhat better, although not the best I've seen, and would be wonderful to have a real, detailed, hard copy manual. unfortunately, I expect that Liquid Ledger is too much of a niche product for Pogue Press to ever release a "Missing Manuals" volume for it.
The main window in Liquid Ledger is your hub for managing your financial data. You can review account balances, keep accounts up-to-date by recording transactions, and generate reports and graphs to analyze your financial activities, all with a single click in the window’s sidebar. Liquid Ledger 2's new Accounts view offers an overview of account balances and makes it easy to view an account’s transactions also with a single click. Switching between accounts is similarly made easier with toolbar buttons that navigate back and forth among open accounts, just like navigating the page history of a Web browser.
You use the Liquid Ledger toolbar to access commands such as printing and searching and to navigate back in forth among accounts.
The Browser pane at the left of the interface window is the index to your financial data, where you can select the appropriate category for the job at hand. For example, select your checking account when you want to review transactions or choose one of the reports in "Reports & Graphs" to help analyze your financial activities.
With the Browser Control Bar, you can create, delete and edit items in the browser such as accounts and currencies.
When viewing the transactions for an account, you can choose between displaying an account's actual balance or its cleared balance so you can quickly compare cleared transactions in Liquid Ledger to compare against a monthly bank statement.
In transaction view, you can review and edit transactions for an account using the spreadsheet-like interface. There are more columns than the categories shown in the default window. To show or hide columns like check number or cleared status, choose Show View Options from the View menu.
Accounts in Liquid Ledger help you track the value of your assets and what you owe. You typically create an account in Liquid Ledger for each of your bank accounts, credit cards, line of credit, and anything else you wish to track. Creating an account involves the same process for all account types.
Select "Accounts" in the browser view of the main interface window, then click the Add button in the Browser Control Bar. Select the type of account you want to create from the popup menu, give your account a name, then click "OK." Liquid Ledger automatically inserts your newly created account under the assets or liabilities section of the accounts view based on its type. For example, a bank account which represents money you own is considered an asset, while a credit card which represents money you owe is considered a liability.
Here's the Liquid Ledger Account window for a new household expenses bank chequeing account my wife and I opened recently.
When creating an account, it may also a designated as a foreign currency account by selecting an appropriate currency from the "currency" popup menu. Foreign currency accounts behave just like regular accounts, except lIquid Ledger maintains exchange rate information for each transaction so you can easily transfer funds between accounts denominated in different currencies. If you previously created a new document using a prior release of Liquid Ledger 2.0 and your home currency is not the Canadian dollar, the exchange rates defined in your document will be incorrect. You will need to update your exchange rates either by selecting the "Currencies" option in the main window's sidebar and manually entering exchange rates or by choosing the "Import" command from the File menu to import exchange rates from a comma-separated or tab-delimited values file. This issue does not affect users who upgraded documents from Liquid Ledger Version 1.5.
Whenever you spend or receive money, the record a transaction you include that you to update the balance of any effective accounts. Common types of transactions include bank deposits and withdrawals, checks you have written, purchases made on a credit parrot, bank charges appearing on a monthly statement, and so forth.
Entering the appropriate information is fairly straightforward, especially if you're familiar with using spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel or Apple's Numbers. Transaction attributes in Liquid Ledger are similar to the transaction attributes that appear on your bank statement. For example, the main calm describes the name of a vendor, payee, or anything that helps you remember with whom the transaction took place. Similarly, you enter an amount in use the deposit or withdraw column to indicate whether the transaction is a deposit or a withdrawal. A number of other columns are available for describing transaction attributes, such as check numbers and reference numbers. These are hidden by default, but you may make them visible by choosing "Show View Options" from the View menu.
The transfer/track column is a special transaction attribute that serve two purposes. First we, it enables you to quickly transfer funds to another account by entering the name of the account in that column. For example, to record a transfer of one hundred dollars from your checking account to your savings account, you would first record a withdrawal in your checking account of one hundred dollars, then you would enter "savings" in the transfer/track column to have liquid major automatically create the corresponding because a transaction in the savings account.
For transactions that are not transferred, the transfer/track column enables you to quickly categorize a transaction as a particular kind of income or expense. By entering the name of any income or expense account, such as "salary and wages," "bank charges," or "household expenses," you can later generate reports this summarize where your money comes from and where it does.
Once you have begun recording and categorizing transactions in Liquid Ledger, you can generate a variety of reports and graphs to help you summarize and analyze your financial activities. Select "Reports & Graphs" in the Browser Menu to display a list of available reports, then click on the icon for the type of desired report.
To customize a report so that it only shows activity for the current month or year, open the Focus On Date Range submenu in the account menu and select the desired reporting period.
Account information in Liquid Ledger is saved in documents that work in the conventional manner using commands from the File Menu, or keyboard shortcuts. Liquid Ledger also offers an autosave feature that automatically saves your documents at regular intervals. This option can be selected in the Preferences.
Liquid Ledger supports AppleScript, and you can write scripts to automate routine tasks, or interface your Liquid Ledger data with other applications that support AppleScripting.
New features in Liquid Ledger 2 include Expense Tracking, which allows you to categorize transactions by expense type, such as "aUtomotive Repairs" or "Medical Expenses," and then generate reports to see where your money comes from and where it goes.
Also new is a suite of Investment Tracking tools, which allow you to track the purchase and sale of stocks, bonds, options, and mutual funds, and also to generate reports to analyze the performance of your investments over time, summarizing income and expenses for the current month or year.
Yet another new feature in Liquid Ledger 2 is check printing, and I was particularly interested in trying that out, because checks at one of the two banks I use here in Canada are astronomically expensive (they are free at the second bank). Unfortunately, I didn't have any check printing stock, to try out for this review, which apparently you need to scan in to use with the check printing templates in Liquid Ledger.
I did experiment a bit with the templates and tools, but I haven't figured out how to use them properly, and the documentation in the online help for this feature is frustratingly sketchy and cryptic and didn't help me much. I intend on pursuing this further, but I can report success at this point. What I would suggest to Liquid Ledger's developers for the next version upgrade is to enhance the check printing feature with master check templates that could be customized using standard Macintosh graphics editing tools for creating custom checks from scratch to be printed on plain paper. I was pleased to note that for Canadian users, dates can be formatted in YYMMDD format to comply with the Canadian banks' new CPA Standard 006 requirements.
Aside from that however, I found that Liquid Ledger works well, and it gives you a Mac-only alternative in personal accounting software as opposed to, say, Quicken, whose commitment to the Macintosh platform has always seemed a bit tenuous. Liquid Ledger has been around for quite a few years now, and I don't anticipate their losing interest in the Macintosh anytime soon.
Feature Highlights
• Track cash, banking, and credit card activity
• Track investment transactions
• Track income and expenses
• Compare income and expenses against a budget
• Balance a checkbook against a monthly bank statement
• Print financial reports and graphs
• Design and print checks
• Schedule transactions for automated entry
• Work in multiple currencies
• Import account activity from financial institutions
• Export financial data in a variety of formats
• Automate tasks with AppleScript
The new version retails for USD 79.99 and is available through Mac retailers across the US and Canada. A download-only version is available for USD 59.99 and current customers can upgrade for the special price of USD 39.99, both of which are offered through our online store. A 60-day trial version is also available as a free download for those who wish to try Liquid Ledger 2 before purchasing.
Liquid Ledger gives you everything you expect from a Macintosh application, like drag and drop support, infinite levels of undo, AppleScript scripting, and an interface that embraces the modern look-and-feel of Mac OS X.
Liquid Ledger Personal Finance Version 2.0.4 Adds Mac OS X Leopard Compatibility
New in version 2.0.4:
A free update for Liquid Ledger Personal Finance Version 2.0 is now available. Version 2.0.4 addresses an issue where the application would not launch on computers running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. You can update an existing installation of Liquid Ledger 2 by choosing “Check for Updates” from the Liquid Ledger menu. You can update an existing installation of Liquid Ledger 2 by choosing “Check for Updates” from the Liquid Ledger menu.
New in version 2.0.3:
• Includes over a dozen fixes and improvements and is recommended for all Liquid Ledger users.
New in version 2.0:
Version 2.0 adds new features such as investments, budgets, and check printing, and it sports a redesigned user interface that increases productivity and reduces the learning curve for first-time users.
System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4 or later
Jaguar users should stick with Version 1.5
System support
PPC/Intel
Customers can purchase Liquid Ledger online from http://www.liquidledger.com and from Macintosh retailers throughout the United States and Canada. A download-only version is also available exclusively through http://www.liquidledger.com for USD 59.99 that may be used as a 60-day trial. Customers who purchased any prior version of Liquid Ledger can visit http://www.liquidledger.com to upgrade at the special price of USD 39.99.
For more information, visit:
http://www.liquidledger.com/
Appendix
Liquid Ledger 2 Release Notes
This document describes new features, notable improvements and bug fixes for the Liquid Ledger Personal Finance Version 2.0 release.
Changes in Version 2.0.4
• Fixed an issue that prevented Liquid Ledger from launching when running Mac OS X Leopard.
Changes in Version 2.0.3
• Fixed an issue where graphs were not being displayed in reports.
• Fixed the Document Setup Assistant which was previously not establishing correct exchange rates unless your designated home currency was Canadian dollars (see important note below).
• Fixed an issue with importing OFX files where transaction dates were set to the date of import rather than the date specified in the import file.
• Fixed the "Focus on Date Range" command so that it correctly computes running balances, where previously transactions occurring before the date range were not being considered.
• Fixed an issue where upgrading a Liquid Ledger 1.5 document would not copy scheduled transactions to the upgraded document.
• Fixed an issue with entering data for scheduled transactions.
• Fixed an issue with the Transfer/Track Inspector panel where previously entering a value in the Memo column had no effect.
• Fixed an issue with the View Options panel where showing table columns would sometimes push existing table columns out of view.
• Fixed an issue where the Delete (-) button had no effect when attempting to delete a currency.
• Fixed an issue with the Import Assistant where importing currency exchange rates from a comma-separated or tab-delimited text file had no effect.
• Fixed an issue with the Export Assistant when exporting to comma-separated or tab-delimited formats, where previously the pop-up menu for selecting which attributes to export was empty.
• Added the ability to change the font size for transactions on a per-account basis by choosing the "View Options" command from the View menu.
Changes in Version 2.0.2
• Added the ability to copy selected transactions to the pasteboard as tab-delimited text.
• Added a warning dialog when deleting an account when doing so would result in one or more transactions being deleted.
• Added the ability to hide the Balance column when viewing transactions
• Fixed an issue with the Import Assistant where it was not possible to select an account into which transactions should be imported.
• Fixed a bug where income accounts were being displayed in Canadian dollars regardless of the document's designated home currency.
• Fixed a bug where editing scheduled transactions would sometimes cause the application to become unresponsive.
• Fixed the "Focus on Date Range" menu command in the Accounts menu which previously always returned an empty result when focusing on an account's transactions.
• Fixed an issue where sorting transactions by cheque number did not result in an ascending sort order.
Changes in Version 2.0.1
• Clicking on "Reports and Graphs" in the main window's sidebar now shows a list of reports and graphs with descriptions of when to use each report.
• Added a Capital Gains and Losses report for tracking gains and losses on securities that have been sold.
• Corrected a critical issue when upgrading a Version 1.5 document where transaction names were being replaced by their descriptions in some cases.
• Corrected an issue where warnings such as entering a duplicate check number or modifying a cleared transaction were not being displayed.
• Fixed the running balances in the Transactions report which were previously not being displayed.
• Fixed an issue when editing transactions where transactions would not remain sorted if a value in the current sort column was modified.
Charles W. Moore
Tags: Hot Topics ï Reviews ï Home & Personal ï
