Desktop Applications

HomeBook – Introduction

Software to track your home or small business expenses, prepare statistics and reports is not new. There are a variety of software products available in the marketplace to serve these needs.

Why then did we decide to create another product to compete with well established products and vendors? The answer is simple: our product approaches this task from a different perspective.

Other products approach your spending from a transactional (payment) point of view. This allows data to be imported from your bank or credit card statement and then consolidates it.

However this approach has one critical shortcoming. Let’s say you are shopping in a large department store or superstore. You might buy some clothing, light bulbs, cleaning liquids, and groceries. And you will pay for it all by using your credit card – a one card transaction! With transaction–based software, you cannot properly track the type of spending you are doing and that leads to inaccurate reports. Or you might buy a large appliance and pay for it over a series of instalment payments or lease payments. In a transaction–based system, each of these payments will show as a separate transaction, which is not a convenient way for you to track this one item. This becomes more confusing if you put down a cash deposit and then make some payments by credit card, others by cheque and yet others in cash. These transactions will take place in different accounts and transaction–based software will not consolidate them as single expenditure.

This is what differentiates our software – it is invoice–based, or “Bill”–centric. You can have many types and sub–types of goods and services in one Bill, as well as many payments (whether the same type or different types of payments). This will allow you to have clear and precise reports and lead you to a better money management and tax calculation.