by: Matt Beckwith, Associate Editor

After sliding to the macintosh platform a couple of years ago I have slowly lessened my dependence on my Windows computer. Nowadays, I really only use my Windows machine for two applications - Microsoft Access and Microsoft Money. I will have to use Windows for Access for the foreseeable future but I can officially say goodbye to Microsoft Money, after nearly a decade.

When my wife and I decided to shop around for a replacement to MS Money we found a lot of choices. We downloaded and kicked the tires on Cha-Ching, CheckBook, iFinance, Jumsoft Money, MoneyWell and Moneydance. We ultimately decided on Moneydance and purchased the $29.99 license.

Although most of the other applications had similar interfaces, Moneydance is the most intuitive of the ones we tried. The default home page, complete with a snapshot of all our accounts and their balances, along with reminders of upcoming expenses and a calendar, is great. Setting up new accounts in Moneydance is very simple and took only a few minutes for us to set up all of our different accounts. Moneydance is an extremely efficient and lightweight application, running quicker than MS Money ever did on our PC. You can also import your data files from Money or Quicken into Moneydance.

Moneydance comes in three flavors: Windows, Linux and Mac, and is available at Moneydance.com. With the new year right around the corner, there’s no better time to make the switch from Money or Quicken.