Review: SplashData SplashMoney

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Keeping track of my cashflow. That’s one of my biggest priorities in personal finance management. Whether your fortunes are big or small, keeping track of them ensures that you’ll see a problem long before it gets out of control. So how can you go about this without making it too troublesome that you give up after a while? That’s where SplashMoney by SplashData comes in.

What’s interesting about SplashMoney is that it crosses many platform, from Palm OS all the way to Windows for both PCs and smartphones. The version I am reviewing is designed for Windows Mobile 5 and above (that includes both touchscreen and non-touchscreen versions). On top of that, it has a desktop component which requires Windows ME at least. Depending on which version of the software you choose, there are various prices for it.

The desktop only version will set you back $19.95 but if you prefer a full package which consist of the smartphone and desktop version, that would cost you $29.95. At this moment, there is no smartphone only version and I am not sure if there ever will be. There’s also a 30 day trial for those who are interested in giving the software a go without any monetary commitments. So how does SplashMoney perform?

Desktop Component

This is the biggest draw for me to SplashMoney. While I like the ability to enter transactions into my Pocket PC, I also prefer viewing and managing my data from the desktop due to the bigger screen and inputs (keyboard and mouse). A lot of the Windows Mobile finance managers that I come across lack such a component (desktop application). Instead they rely on import and exports of files to fill this gap. While SplashMoney does have such import and export features, it goes one step further with the desktop component.

Pretty much whatever you can do on the Windows Mobile application, you could do on the desktop version as well. Couple that with the synchronization that you set up and you’ll be able to really maximize your tracking capabilities.

Connect To Bank Accounts

This is the next big thing that SplashMoney has that other applications lack. Again, this gap is filled by the import/export function that exists but when you see what SplashMoney does with online connections, you’ll come to appreciate it even more.

For starters, not everyone will be able to utilize this feature. Your bank must support the Direct Connect standard and must be in the list of banks supported by SplashMoney. If it’s not there, then you’re out of luck. You might also notice that the banks are North American banks so I think users outside of the United States might find this feature useless. Check with your banks before you make the conclusion though.

For those who get to use this feature, setting up was a breeze, as long as you have the right credentials on hand. I initially did not and thought the feature was broken but have since manage to get it working. What I like most about this online connect feature over the import/export feature utilized by other applications is the how they name the transactions.

You see, when I go to my bank’s online service, each transaction is laden with codes which have no or little meaning to me. I am just interested to find out which merchant the transaction involved and how much. If you were to export these data and import them into other financial managers, you’d notice that it imports all these codes as well. But SplashMoney is different. Rather than import all these codes, it just get’s the important details (merchant and amount), which is what I like. So I end up with something I can understand and is streamlined so I do not have to scroll from right to left.

Multiple Currency Support

For those dealing with multiple currencies, it does support more than one as well. The basic setup lists 8 currencies, with one being the base (which you can also called the default currency). When you enter a new transaction, the default currency is used and you can change it to another currency if you so desire.

If you do not see the currency you want, adding it is pretty straightforward. Just enter the currency symbol and exchange rate and you’re all set.

However, if you are a frequent multiple currency user, this feature might be too basic for you. For one, when you enter a new transaction in a different currency, you have to convert it immediately. For example, say your base currency is in USD and you are currently in Singapore where the exchange rate is 1.4 (USD1=SGD1.4). You make a purchase in Singapore costing $14 and you enter it in USD using the currency converter which gives you USD10. All is fine and dandy there.

But say you want to go back to that transaction and find out how much was that transaction in SGD. If your exchange rates have not changed, then you would have no problem finding it out. But if you constantly update your rates, then there would be no way to find out the exact amount of the transaction. Depending on how accurate you need to be, this may or may not be such a critical issue.

Support For Multiple Account Types

Not just multiple currencies but multiple account types too is another feature of SplashMoney. What this means is that you are able to differentiate the many types of accounts you may own or be responsible for.

There are altogether 8 different types of accounts which are checking, savings, credit, cash, asset, liability, money market and line of credit. Not sure what each one does? You could always refer to the included manual (which I will get to in a little while). The thing is, there could be no differences (as far as I can tell) between the various account types. No added features or anything of that sort, just a name difference. Some might find this useful (in terms of differentiating the different accounts) or some might find it useless. It all depends on how you go about setting up and naming your accounts.

Create Budgets

What good is a financial manager if it does not help you budget? Well SplashMoney is a great financial manager and setting you your budget couldn’t be easier. Just got to the Budget Center and choose how you want to set your budget as well as from when you want to monitor it and you are all good to go. Depending on how much data it has collected, it can show you the budgeted amount, how much you actually spent and the difference.

While it does it’s job well, it’s very basic in my opinion. For starters, you can only define a budget by either payee, category or class. No mix and match. As for the amount, it has to be fixed. While most would find this to be not much of an issue, I am sure there are those who prefer to have more control over the type and amount of the budget.

Scheduled Transactions

SplashMoney also does scheduled transactions which is great for bills. However, I had to go through the manual to find out how to set it up. You see, I thought I could just go to the Scheduled Transaction screen and enter new ones from there. Apparently, that is not the case but once I got that cleared up, setting it up was a breeze.

From there, you can view a list of your upcoming transactions so you do not have to manually enter them. View the transactions that will soon be due or list up to a year in advance. With regards to reminder, there are 2 options, manually and reminder. With manually, you’ll be reminded of the transaction every time you launch SplashMoney, until you remove it. Or you could use the other option that allows you to only be reminded a set number of days before it’s due, whether or not the application is running. Guess which one I went with?

Tracking And Analyzing

Now all these adding, editing and scheduling or transactions would not be useful if you could not track and analyze them. With SplashMoney, you can do just that. View your transactions in a list or for those who prefer a graphical interface, a chart is available for you. Clicking on any part of the chart will bring up the transactions related to it, so you can see the exact breakdown.

However, I found that the analysis was pretty basic. Coming from other financial managers for Windows Mobile, I use the analysis features pretty extensively so I was rather dismayed at what SplashMoney offered. Is that to say that it would affect everyone? I wouldn’t say so because it all depends on your needs. For some, the simpler the better and I think SplashMoney would be sufficient but for those with more complex needs, you might have to try something else.

Don’t forget that because your data on Windows Mobile is synced with that on the desktop (if you have set it up as such), then you would be able to do the analysis on the PC as well. What’s even better is that you can now print out those reports and file them away. This makes for great tracking when you have the time to come back and look at them in the future.

Import & Export

Like I mentioned earlier, SplashMoney, like a lot of the financial managers out there, has the ability to import and export files from other applications such as Quicken and Microsoft Money. For those of you who prefer a more powerful desktop application, you’d be glad that such a feature exist on SplashMoney.

The bad news is that you would have to do the import and export from the desktop application. There is no native import/export feature on the Windows Mobile application of SplashMoney which is rather disappointing. That means non-Windows users on the desktop (Mac and Linux) would have a hard time getting their data out of and/or into the device.

Security

Considering how this application connects to your bank account (if you have set it up as such) and holds a lot of your financial data, it can be a real nightmare if you were to misplace (or even worse, lose) your device.

Thankfully, SplashMoney minimizes that worst case scenario by using Blowfish encryption to secure your password. With the password setup, users who try to access the application would need to provide it with one, otherwise, they would be locked out.

However, that’s as far as the encryption goes. From what I see, your data is not encrypted and while finding the data file of SplashMoney ain’t exactly a walk in the park and decoding it would be another issue altogether, I wonder how easy or difficult it would be for someone to gain access to your data.

Manual

Overwhelmed by the application? Well fret not because SplashData also comes with a manual that serves to explain the various aspects of the applications. If you got lost in any of the features, the manual should have the answer you are looking for.

One thing about the manual though is that there is a lag of 7 pages. That means if the content says that a section is found on page 10, it’s actually on page 17. That’s because SplashData did not count the fist 7 pages of the manual (which Adobe PDF does) which thus explains the irregularity. Nothing major but it would be nice to be able to go to the section without doing any maths.

Customization

There’s not much in terms of customization of the application but it’s definitely more than what I see in other similar applications (which says a lot about such applications). The only customization you can do is that of icons and fonts. Not too much I would say but enough for you to make some slight changes if you want to. However, even with the ability to change fonts, I encountered the following problem…

Cursive Fonts

This is something I could not figure out. When I first installed SplashMoney on my Glofiish X500, it gave me cursive fonts that you see from the screen shot on the right. After some discussions with the developer, they said that it was probably due to some other issues on my device, most probably caused by a theme. Switching to the Windows Default theme did not do any good.

So I did a hard reset and installed SplashMoney. Lo and behold, it turned out just as expected. The fonts were normal (no cursive) and just as I expected which is what you see on the left. I reinstalled my other applications, keeping the theme the same, and the problem came back. As I have a lot of applications installed, I could not pinpoint which one was causing this problem at this time. Even the font settings within the program did not render any solutions.

Bottom line is that this issue does exist and it’s not caused by SplashMoney. I just wished that there was a way for SplashData to overwrite the settings for this for its own program at least. So for users who encounter the cursive fonts, do take note.

For those wondering about the screen shots taken for these reviews, they were all from a hard reset device. That is, there were no other applications, save for SplashMoney, that was installed after a cold boot. This is so that I can show you just how SplashMoney performs without any third-party intervention which varies from device to device.

No Lite Version

What I think would make SplashMoney even better is if they had a lite version of the application. This lite application would be used just for entering new transactions so that users would not have to always launch the program to do so. Don’t get me wrong, the application loads fast enough but having a lite version without having to enter a password to get in and enter transactions would make it a lot easier to enter such transactions.

No Backup

I also found the lack of backup to be another gap that SplashData that fill. Granted that you can have your data synced with the desktop version of the application so you’ll always have 2 copies of the data but for users who do not like to sync their devices with the desktop, such a feature would really be useful. Especially more so when they need to do a hard reset, all their data would be gone and there would be no way to restore it, from what I understand.

No Today Screen Plugin

My last suggestion would be to have a Today screen plugin for the application. This plugin could show you the balance of selected accounts or your budget or both. For example, it could show you how much money you have left in your checking account or the state of your budget at the moment. That way, you do not have to launch the main application, enter your password and then go to the appropriate section just to find a piece of information you were looking for.

What I Like

• Desktop component which syncs natively with the Pocket PC version.
• Able to connect to bank accounts wirelessly.
• Multiple currency and account support.
• Set up budgets and schedule transactions.
• Remind yourself of scheduled transactions.
• Analyze your transactions.
• Import and export your data across several platforms.
• Blowfish encryption for passwords.
• Useful manual for reference.

What Could Be Improved

• Better currency support such as rate used for each transaction.
• More features to analyze transactions.
• Import and export function should be added to Windows Mobile application as well.
• Encryption of data as well.
• Fonts overwritten by third-party applications.
• Have a lite version of the application to enter new transactions.
• Ability to backup data manually (at the very least) or automatically.
• Support for Today screen plug-in.

Conclusion

Like everything out there, there’s always something for everyone. Some users will come to enjoy SplashMoney because it is very easy to use does not have anything complicated about it. That same reason would put other users off because they need something more advanced, never mind the complications. Or maybe those same users would still use SplashMoney because of it’s accompanying desktop component and/or the ability to connect to bank accounts wirelessly.

So if you are still undecided about SplashMoney, I’d say give it a go. There’s a 30 day trial which you can take advantage of to see if it’s the application for you. Even if it looks too simple for you, it might just serve all your needs. For those looking to buy a license, that’ll cost $29.95 and it comes with the desktop version as well.

What has your experience with SplashMoney been like?

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