iLounge

Company: Catamount Software

Website: www.pocketmoney.com

Title: PocketMoney

Price: $10

Compatible: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod touch

Catamount Software PocketMoney

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Monday, August 25, 2008
Category: Software - iPad, iPhone + iPod

On August 25, 2008, we reviewed a collection of 15 different personal finance applications for the iPhone and iPod touch in a roundup entitled iPhone Gems: Every Personal Finance Application, Reviewed. This review contains a review of one application from that roundup; additional comparative details can be found in the original full story.

Having initially been released on the Apple Newton 14 years ago, PocketMoney ($10) from Catamount Software is a finance manager offering management of potentially unlimited financial accounts. Upon launch, users are dropped at a main account screen containing each account previously set up, as well as their balances. An add button permits creation of new accounts, an edit button enables the deletion of accounts, a gear button provides access to the app’s preferences, including toggling the pop-up tips on and off, setting a password, and choosing a currency, and an eye button lets users choose which accounts appear on the main screen and what balance to show, from future, cleared, current, or available balances.

The new account screen gives options for name, type, icon, expiration date, account #, institution name, phone number, website, ATM fee (to be applied to each ATM transaction), limit (either credit or balance limit, based on the type of account), check number (add the number of the next check in the account and the app keeps track automatically), and notes. An account view screen offers a list of recent transactions, an add button to add new transactions, a tools button that lets users run account, category, class, or payee reports, each with a pie chart provided by Google Charts. It also includes the ability to adjust the account’s balance, and an eye button to provide nearly complete control of which transactions are listed, the order in which they appear, and the amount of information shown for each.

Each transaction offers editable fields for the date, account, to (payee or payer), amount, ID#, a cleared toggle for checks, category, memo, and class (for classification). Luckily, the program provides an eye button at the bottom of the transaction detail view that allows users to toggle the ID#, cleared, category, memo, and class fields on and off, as well as a toggle to adjust the position of the category to above or below the payee.

PocketMoney will likely be familiar to any user of the app on another platform, but for others, the app’s built-in tutorial system is terrific. The first time it is used, alert-style pop-up windows appear above each screen, explaining in detail how to use the application. Unfortunately, PocketMoney isn’t so complex an application as to warrant such a guide; it lacks key functionality offered by other applications in its class, despite its $10 price tag. It’s not as overpriced as Bankarama, but it’s still high enough to keep from earning our recommendation.