So after working on a few new projects recently I realised I needed tools faster and smarter than the ones I was using for pre-site work. In the 1990's used to start a site using Adobe Illustrator for wireframing and all the intense layout work to then present to the customer for approval and changes. I then moved to doing it in Photoshop and finally in recent years have switched to Fireworks and even tried Omnigraffle Pro. All these methods work but there are a few reasons why they slow me down. Firstly, I get distracted by design and end up trying to do the whole look and feel of the design at the wire framing phase. Secondly, working with fully rasterised layers just feels slow. Finally, my Illustrator wireframes especially, whilst awesome, were crap to edit.

It has been a long path to reviewing an entry level, basic financial, budgeting, money monitoring tool for my business & personal finances. (Note: This post is looking at a UK business but all products are available for international countries, in fact most are US based products.)

Having no need for the high products like Quicken, Tas Books, MYOB or SAGE I wanted to find something affordable that allows me to do basic accounts management, budgeting and bank statement reconciliations. Enough that I can give my accountant a summary at the end of the year and monitor my budgets and income in the process.