The June issue of Linuc Format (#119) has a three page feature article on the HomeBank money and budgeting program. HomeBank is cross-platform and will work in Windows as well. For several years I have been using AceMoney that is not natively cross-platform but will run on Linux with the help of WINE. AceMoney is payware (about $20) with a free Lite version that can manage a single account only. It would be nice to have a freeware that would run natively without any limitations. Linux Format usually doesn’t give poor advice so I installed it and ran it side by side with AceMoney for a few days.

Program setup was a little quirky. It would not accept a sub-category with an ampersand symbol in the name. That aside it worked as expected until I tried to enter a transaction with items in two categories. There was no way to do it. I googled for a soulution and found a HomeBank forum. Entries in the forum confirmed that this feature was missing. What’s worse is that the program’s chief developer doesn’t feel that this is very important and hasn’t put a priority on implementing it. Somebody should inform this chap that without this feature the program is USELESS for budgeting. HomeBank has been deleted from my computer.

I am testing another money manager that goes by the name of Money Manager Ex (MMEX). I’ve not used it long enough to form an opinion, but I have confirmed that it will split a transaction. If I decide that it’s a keeper, I’ll write an article on it.