If you finalized your taxes and you realize that you're once again out of control on your budget and organization, you can employ a number of tools online that might help you with your taxes in 2010. But, like any tool, it's only good when you use it. Now, while your disgust with your organizational skills is overflowing, get online and try out these tools to help get your financial life in order.

The two I mentioned last week are comprehensive. They're also invasive, as they ask you to input all your information online to a degree. The tools below are somewhat different, as you can download them into your hard drive and use them on your computer at home. They're also free to use, and you can input your portfolio into the mix.

A warning flag might have risen for you on that last sentence, as many folks already have been through computer failures. Just remember to back up your work onto a USB drive or CD and you're good to go. Several of these tools also allow you to transform your work into a spreadsheet that is useful for any accountant.

BudgetToolkit.com is the first tool I test drove this past week. Sign in and get started by creating a budget template. You can use the items in their list (Cable TV, Child Care, Credit Cards, etc.) or create items in the list. So, that list can be as simple or detailed as you like – but only up to ten items, so you're very restricted. The point is to discover if your budget is larger than your income, and you may have known this fact already. You also can track your expenses and create pie charts. That's all you get for free.

This is where BudgetToolkit.com becomes invasive. If you upgrade, you can upload your banking statements (which is what many people try to avoid), develop alert thresholds and obtain the ability to use 50 budget template line items and multiple graph type support (pie, bar, line, and area). In all, what you're getting is a simple way to budget your income. While the premium membership is not that expensive - and paying for the budget kit may be a way to actually stick to a budget - I think there might be less expensive and more convenient options (like a notebook and a file – you can print out many budget templates at Better Budgeting).

Or, you can try SimpleD Budget. This is a download and an open source (free) Windows application designed for personal or household use. Once you download and open the spreadsheet you can adjust the amount for each category. There are twelve categories (house payment, utilities, etc.), and you can track fixed expenses and you also can track expenses as you spend money throughout the month. SimpleD Budget will let you see how much you have left in each category, or see how fast you are spending your monthly income. This tool supports multiple languages(Unicode) and multiple currencies.

What's nice about SimpleD Budget is that you can change the names of the categories, automatically distribute leftover income to unfixed categories, add more categories and subcategories. You can make this budget as broad or as simple as you want. The added plus is that SimpleD Budget provides complete documentation and directions on how to use this budget tool. The coolest part? You can save it to your hard drive, back it up, and have it ready for tax time.
AceMoney Lite is another free download that you can use to budget your income and keep track of everything from house payments to your portfolio. This tool is more complicated to use than SimpleD Budget, but AceMoney Lite also has done much of the work for you as far as creating categories and accounts for you to use. The program has more than 100 predefined spending categories. All you need to do is set up budget limits for every category and track the difference between actual and budgeted values.

For instance, once you download and open the software, you open a new account. This account is defined by a group, such as a bank, cash, credit, investment or loan account. You provide the software with the account number and opening balance, and you move on from there.

I have used AceMoney Lite in the past, and my only issue with it is that the learning curve was a bit difficult. But, I was really pleased with the reports, the scheduler and the ability to create and manage more than one budget. A small business owner could get by with using this software, saving money on an adequate budget tool as compared to the cost of another tool such as Quicken.
Major advantages to using AceMoney are:

1. You can download and import information from online banks in QIF and OFX formats. If you run a small business, export to HTML, Text, or CSV formats to generate statements or perform complex statistical analysis.
   
   
2. AceMoney takes control over your bills and alerts you when they're due.
   
   
3. If you are selling goods on eBay, AceMoney automates input of orders coming from PayPal, RegNow, RegSoft, SWReg and Plimus.

My suggestion, if you are wary of uploading your private information to a strange website, is to use one of the latter two tools. Use SimpleD Budget if you want to account for your household budget and use AceMoney Lite if you run a small business. Both tools allow you to keep your information private, and they also allow great leeway in adapting the tool for your lifestyle.

It's April, folks...you have four months' worth of information to compile into your choice of budgeting tool. Since you just came off doing your taxes, get on it while you still are in the “gotta get this paperwork organized” mode. Then, you can begin to enjoy your spring. Just remember to fire that budget tool up every time you spend money so you can keep tabs on how wisely you're building your financial future.

Until Next Time,
Linda Goin