Watching Your Finances with KMyMoney

KMyMoney is a financial program written for the KDE desktop environment that makes it easy for Linux users to keep track of their financial status. How much do I have? How much do I owe? What am I worth? KMyMoney answers those questions, and more.

Like any financial application, initial setup can be a bit of a chore, especially if you - like most Americans - have credit cards, bank accounts, a multitude of people who pay you and who you pay. Each person - or payee - that you regularly pay money to can be entered into KMyMoney. This takes a bit of time, but the advantage is that after the payee is entered into the program's database, designating a payment to that payee is as simple as selecting them from a dropdown menu.

Similarly, in order for a credit card, bank account, or similar financial institution to become part of KMyMoney's database, their information needs to be entered. Like entering a payee, filling in the financial information for an Institution can take a minute or two, but once entered, can be selected with just a couple clicks.

For the most basic user, KMyMoney might possibly be too much program. As a simple checkbook application, I have used simpler programs, and in fact, some users may find that simply using a spreadsheet application to keep track of payments and income would be easier. For those people, KMyMoney would be overkill.

But for people who have multiple accounts, money coming in and going out automatically each month, or with a large number of automated payments and sources of income, KMyMoney lets the user keep track of all that with ease.

In addition to providing a central location for all your financial data, KMyMoney provides easy to build reports, which will show the user's Income and Expenses, Net Worth, Transaction Data, Investments and Taxes information. These reports can be viewed with just a click of the mouse. KMyMoney already has the template built in and can provide you - at a glance - with an overview of your financial situation.