Taxes and Moneydance

So I did my taxes this past week. It was irritating as usual. It takes me several days all together to get everything done and the result is the government plunders the fruit of my labor. Someday, I’ll expand on my developing idea that government is actually a church of a well defined set of religious beliefs with forced membership. I’m more and more convinced that argument can be made and someone should make it (in court). But back to the rather simpler topic of taxes for now…
It
It normally takes me a couple of days to do the ‘pre tax’ stuff. There’s the work stuff like catching up my logbook and figuring out my meals and entertainment deductions, and then there’s the ‘other’ data collection (charitable contributions, home office deductions, and so on). As usual, that took me a couple days to assemble, but it was probably as quick as its ever been despite the fact that this year’s taxes may well be the most complicated they’ve ever been.

The actual day of inputting the data (I use Tax Cut) was just that – one day. It could easily have lasted much longer, but I was well prepared. Part of the preparation that I started working on months ago involved (again) using personal finance software.

It’s common knowledge (among those who know me) that I use Linux on the desktop and do my best to avoid switching to Windows if at all possible. A couple years ago I started using GnuCash but it’s online banking features are not user friendly and were broken in a subsequent release. Also, while I appreciate the power of double entry accounting, the GnuCash folks haven’t gone to great lengths to implement a robust double entry system in a way that is user friendly for non-accountants.

After GnuCash broke, I quit using it and was resigned to doing things the ‘old way’ again. Eventually, though, I realized it would be very helpful to have the analysis tools available from some kind of software solution so I want on the hunt again. I evaluated my bank’s online offering (FinanceWorks, by Quicken) but it wasn’t suitable for a variety of reasons. I was almost thinking I might have to use a Windows product but then I found Moneydance. It’s a moderately powerful, user friendly, double-entry system written in Java for excellent cross-platform compatibility. While GnuCash is rightly called fully-featured (even if partly broken and not user friendly), Moneydance bills itself as the only fully-featured personal finance application with Linux support. If not-broken and remotely user-friendly are essential components of fully-featured, I’d tend to agree.

There are a few things that Moneydance could improve on, as is the case with any financial software. But overall, it suits me well and made tax time far faster and easier than it would have been without it. In the non-tax-related department, it excels, too. It can update stock prices at the touch of a button, giving me a daily net-worth snapshot. While budgeting isn’t perfect, it does have that capability and budget reports are functional and useful.

Now, can’t someone write good tax preparation software for Linux??? 😉

V-