Setting high and low balance limits for accounts

A new article has been added to the site: Setting high and low balance limits for accounts.

There are many configurable settings in Microsoft Money, and this is one I use a lot. I try to run my finances quite tightly, and so when I have what could be considered 'too much' money in my current/checking account, I like to move that elsewhere to an account with better interest or a longer term savings vehicle (such as an ISA, Premium Bonds or other investment).

In addition, it is useful to know when I am reaching a low balance, and so I can ensure I have enough money in the account to avoid a negative balance and using an overdraft which costs me money.

The expert assistant or Advisor FYI helps me with this - it provides "in your face" warnings on balances.

Books on Microsoft Money

I just went to Amazon and looked to see how many books there were on it. I was surprised to see >40 when I typed in 'Microsoft Money' in the search.

So, it seemed like quite a good idea to get some of those books, and list them on the MS Money FAQ site. Up until now, I had a link on the left hand side doing a search and taking you to Amazon. Now, those links go to some local pages.

There are pages for the usual products that I list product information on, i.e., US, UK and Canada.

I've tried to list only those which had a picture available when I was searching through the relevant Amazon site otherwise the pages would have been even longer.

Note that Canada has more books, as they have all of the French ones too.

What was interesting to see, is that there are very few Money 2005 and Money 2006 books - I guess the 'for dummies' series may have cornered the market here (I wouldn't imagine that the market is big enough to sustain many books though).

Entering a monthly budget item that doesn't occur every month

I've added a slightly complex article to the site - Entering a monthly budget item that doesn't occur every month.

The scenario is to try and track items that occur monthly, but occasionally you don't have to pay them (e.g. UK Council Tax). If you want to get your budget right, especially in earlier versions of Microsoft Money which use the 'advanced budget' (i.e. from when Microsoft changed from the pay yourself first to the current budget).

Getting the budget right is something many people strive and fail to do - Money does things that you might not expect. Hopefully this will help some people get things closer to figures they can understand and trust.

As for me, bring back the pay yourself stuff, or bring on the 60% solution!!!

Thanks to Rednelle in the UK Newsgroup for most of the contents of the FAQ article

Newton fund update

Okay, this is coming from Microsoft, not me. I know some people will be unhappy with what I will say next.

There have been problems with the Newton funds since sometime around the start of the year. I reported earlier in the week on the Microsoft Money newsgroups, that Microsoft were working on fixing them, which they have been.

However, Microsoft have identified that the fix for the Newton funds is not trivial, and can not be implemented immediately. What they do say, is that changing it in the live environment now might break other things, and they don't want to risk the whole feed for one set of funds.

The fix should be implemented in a few months, as part of a larger number of changes (I guess the MSN Money updates that they tend to do around May time).

This is going to disappoint some people, I know.