While I have some knowledge of double entry accounting, GnuCash is simply too complex for managing a checkbook and performing simple budgeting. In June, I published a post on HomeBank criticizing its inability to support split categories. At that time I installed Money Manager Ex. For a few weeks I ran it side by side with AceMoney. It is now the only money manager I use.

Money Maneger Ex (MMEX) is cross platform. The developer provides editions for both Windows and Linux (Mac users are out of luck). Proceeding to the download page, the site will detect your OS. Linux users are given choices of a download for Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and Slackware. Ubuntu users have a further choice between 32 and 64 bit versions. While not covering all of us, most people will be able to use it.

Setup is similar to other accounting programs. There is a default set of categories to which you can easily add, edit and delete. You enter your own payees. There is no need to do this initially, just add them as needed, but you will need to add yourself as a payee. You will want to set up a minimum of two accounts. The first will be your checking account. That’s fairly obvious. The second? Well you do carry a bit of cash on your person, don’t you? So go ahead and set up these two accounts. The initial balance of your checking account will be on your last bank statement and count the cash in your pocket for the “Cash” account.

In a few days after a little shopping you will notice something is missing. You bought groceries at the supermarket, got $20 back in cash and spent some of that somewhere else. This can be puzzling until you think about it. The supermarket transaction was actually two transactions rolled into one. The first was a purchase of groceries, the second was withdrawing cash to put in your pocket. Here’s how to do it. Setup a “dummy” category and call it something like “CashBack”. When you enter the transaction into MMEX it will be a split category. One category will be Food:Groceries, the other will be CashBack. Now you must make a second entry into your Cash account. It is a deposit (NOT a transfer). The Payee is yourself and the category is CashBack.

If you don’t make any mistakes the CashBack category will always have a zero balance and will not show up in the numerous reports that MMEX provides. More likely, you WILL make an occasional error but it will be easy to find. This will be obvious when CashBack DOES show up in a report or when the cash in your pocket is quite different from the balance shown in MMEX. It’s a good practice to hold onto sales receipts for about a month until your bank account(s) is balanced. Another category that you might want to include is “LostAndFound”. If you pick up a few coins in a parking lot or drop a few in a “pennies” dish this category can help in balancing your pocket cash.

All that said, if you visit the homepage you’ll see that the developer is working on some kind of “web based” version of the program. I look forward to that but for right now I am quite pleased with the standalone program.

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