Full Circle Magazine FR

I was intrigued by the section “Ask the new guy” in FCM#80: a comparison between personal finance tools with the goal of implementing a simple personal check book. At that time I was testing LXLE Linux, which, as other light distros do, brings up HomeBank. I did a fast web search and I found some interesting pieces of information: HomeBank is a long story package, it is fully translated to some languages, it is available for Windows, there is an unofficial release for OS X and we find it in the official repos of most Linux distros. Furthermore, HomeBank's guiding principle is to have easy money income and expense tracking. On first run, we're presented with the choice of reading the manual, setting preferences, create a new file or open an existing one or opening the example file; this greeting window, shown automatically only once at first run, is always accessible by the Help menu.

My first action was unlucky: I tried to open the example file and I discovered it was not installed, and even worse, there was no /usr/share/homebank/datas/ directory where I should find a bunch of pre-configured categories in various languages; I solved the issue by grabbing the missing directory and its content from another distro I'm double booting. The sample shows an accounting situation with two accounts and chart, giving us a clue of what we can do with our simple accounting system: very attractive and useful for those of us, like me, who are comfortable with learning by examples. My second step was reading the user manual here and there: it is easy indeed, and the target audience is a common user – accounting specialists' terms are not there. After these two steps I was ready to start my ledger: HomeBank is based on accounts, payees and transactions.

The main window allows us access to all the functions in an intuitive way: menus and icons guide us easily through our accounting tasks. We find a three-level accounting hierarchy: wallet – account – transaction, where the first is the total amount of financial records we want to keep controlled – and it corresponds to the file where the information is stored, the second is a balance grouping subdivision for more than one bank account, credit cards statement, cash expenses tracking and so on; the third, the transaction level, is the atomic money movement we make. I decided to set up three accounts: bank, credit card, cash. I've my money on a bank account, from which, periodically, the bank takes off the money to cover the expenses I incur with the credit card, and I withdraw cash and use it in some payments. Having three accounts, I can reconcile the bank statements with the HomeBank bank account, the credit card statement with the HomeBank credit card account, and the bills I pay by cash with the HomeBank cash account. By the way, while defining our bank account, we can set up two checkbook counters, and they will automatically increase every time we register a check payment.

When the bank takes the amount for covering credit card expenses, I move it from the bank account to the credit card account; when I withdraw cash I move it from the bank account to the cash account; when I pay by cash I register transactions on cash account – these actions can be done by the internal transfer transaction type. We can define a list of payees – persons or entities giving to us or we giving to them money – in order to speed up transaction recording and to ease filtering, sorting and checking. At first I did not enter a payees list, but after a while I found it useful, and I fixed the payees for the transactions I had already recorded. Each transaction has a type of payment, which activates a specific action: an internal transfer brings us a field for a destination account inside the current wallet; a check payment brings us an option to mark the second checkpad. Each transaction has also a payee, in other words who is receiving money from us or is giving money to us.

We can classify our transactions in categories, and split every single transaction into sub-categories, e.g. in a store you buy food and sports-wear and pay by debit card: you want to keep their expenses checked separately, but you have only one row on your bank statement; I found the category splitting supplied by HomeBank well fitting my requirements. Categories are used in charting and reporting features: a good category classification brings meaningful reports and charts. Adding a new transaction is very easy: you can add it once you have chosen the account, copy a transaction and modify it by the handy Inherit function, or create one from a template. A transaction can be marked for reminding, and a special icon will show up on the transaction status. There's also a transactions auto-fulfill batch tool that applies to transactions in the same account a template according to words it parses in the memo field of the transactions: it is named “auto assignment”, and it is available from the transaction view.

We find a very powerful filtering function in the account details: it filters by including or excluding many characteristics of transactions: date, status, pay mode, text, category, payee. There is a specific utility for managing car expenses: simply register all these expenses under a specific category (e.g. MyCar), and if it is a fuel expense in the memo field, put “v=” followed by the volume you bought and “d=” and the distance you made; a special option in the report section will summarize for us fuel consumption and other car expenses. We find a budget utility: this allows us to set-up a category monthly budget for one year and compare it with the actual expenses. Repetitive incomes (like a wage), or expenses (like some utility bills or re-payments of a loan) can be easily scheduled via the scheduler.

Reconciling statements with our HomeBank accounts is easy: we open the account, we check and correct, and then we select the transactions we are reconciling and then we use the button “reconcile”. In HomeBank the time is sliced in three parts: bank, i.e. the opening balance plus the reconciled transactions; today (incorporating the non-reconciled transactions), and future (covering the total amount of incomes and expenses scheduled in the future). I did not test import and export of data. The features available from the File menu are: import of QIF, OFX/QFX, and specific CSV formatted files; and export in QIF only format. It is also possible to export in CSV format some data like transactions from the accounts detailed view – this feature could be useful for transferring transactions to a spreadsheet.

There is a charting and reporting section which provides a bunch of reports and charts – very useful for immediate overview of our finances. Sophisticated users might miss currency management and automatic/web bank connectivity. In order to keep the workflow simple, this accounting system is single currency and it is not possible to access web bank transactions or to receive electronic bank statements, and consequently the reconciling task is not automatic. If you are seriously thinking about controlling your personal finances and you want a simple tool, give HomeBank a try. While it is not the most sophisticated personal finance manager available on Linux, HomeBank makes it easy to keep track of your incomes and daily expenses. A clean and user-friendly interface, and the ability to generate nice charts and reports, make HomeBank a very helpful tool. Furthermore, the setup is intuitive and the documentation is written with non-accounting people in mind. The goal of simple personal financial management is fully achieved – it deserves a 5 stars rating in my opinion, but the incomplete installation I ran into means no examples and no predefined categories, both very useful for new users.

Name: HomeBank - version tested: 4.5.2 – last version on official site: 4.5.5 Official site: http://homebank.free.fr/ Cost: free The good: - it is easy to use - set-up is fast and intuitive - there's a good quality user manual - it requires no or very limited accounting skills - it is rich in transaction management: templates, scheduling, filtering - charts and reports are available, with a special car expenses report - it offers a simple budget feature The bad: - my installation was missing useful sample wallet and predefined categories - single currency - there are no web bank connection functions