Keep Track
from Ilium Software

Keep Track is Ilium Software’s program that helps you “keep track” of your ATM transactions, checks, charges, or online transactions. It can function as a standalone checkbook manager, or it can interface with other software packages that use the QIF data exchange format. If you travel, you can use it to keep track of your expenses and then easily reconcile everything when you return home. In short, it’s an all-purpose financial assistant.

I have used a variety of similar programs in my Pocket PC. I want an easy to use program that can help me keep my checkbook in balance, and also handle other accounts as necessary. I do not use Quicken or other full-featured desktop programs, so the Pocket PC application must be able to stand on its own.

Keep Track comes in two versions, one for Pocket PC and one for the desktop. The two versions share data without any manual effort through ActiveSync. Pricing is very reasonable at $14.95 each, or $24.95 for a bundle of both versions. After setting up the appropriate accounts, you can enter data by downloading a QIF file, or my manually entering transactions.

Notice the buttons on the bottom of the screen. They help quickly enter transactions by automatically filling in some of the fields. For repetitive transactions, you can customize One Touch buttons that make it very easy to enter transactions with a minimum of data entry – great for Pocket PC use.

Your transaction history can be easily monitored with the View Transactions screen. This feature lets you sort and filter the transactions in whatever way best suits your needs.

On the desktop, the screens are designed to take advantage of the larger display real estate. Entry or editing of multiple transactions is far easier on a desktop computer – you can even freely switch between the Pocket PC and desktop versions while your Pocket PC is docked, and the data is automatically re-synchronized.

If you track multiple accounts, you can view them individually on the View Transactions screen, or you can view them all at one time. This is very helpful to ensure that you’ve created the appropriate entries in each account when you do things like pay your credit card with a check, or transfer funds from savings to checking.

Each transaction has “from” and “to” data – so you can easily select a transaction to take funds from your checking account and apply it to your credit card account, and thus maintain a proper running balance in both.

After I installed Keep Track, I visited my bank’s website and exported a QIF file of all of the transactions from my checking account. Within minutes, I had imported them into Keep Track and was able to begin entering additional checks and deposits. I created a number of categories that would help me track my income and expenses.

I then set up additional accounts and was very pleased with the ease of managing transactions between the accounts.

My only complaint is the lack of an account reconciliation feature. When you get your statement from the bank and its balance doesn’t match yours, a simple reconciliation function will save you a lot of detective work. This has become a bit of a hot-button issue with me because it existed in a Pocket PC program that I used years ago, but doesn’t seem to be included in newer packages.

The good folks at Ilium Software sent me a detailed set of instructions on how I could reconcile my accounts with the standard program features, but the methods were all rather convoluted. I remain hopeful that a future version will include a simple function that allows me to enter the bank account closing balance, service charge, interest, and quickly check off the cleared transactions.

The program has limited reporting capabilities – none of the fancy charts and graphs that seem to just complicate other packages. All you get is the basic capabilities that you need to manage your accounts – and that’s what seems appropriate for a package like this. You can also export data in CDF or TXT formats for use in Excel or other programs.

For my needs, this is the best package available and it’s what I use every day. Give it a try.