The Money Shepherd

The Money Shepherd may not be the best program of all time, but I definitely use it every day.   I might be a little biased because I created it, but it helps out balancing the bank.  It started while I was going to college.  My fiance (now wife) was hand-writing our checkbook registrar and I thought it was ridiculous that we were not doing it on the computer.

Most normal people would just go out and buy a program or download one for free (there are half a gazillion of them,) but I never turn down a project for experience purposes.  So, I designed a Microsoft Access database to do it for us.

Microsoft Access can do something like this very easily.  First, I designed the tables.  Then, I created the queries to preform the calculations.  finally, I created the user friendly form to input the information.  I designed the form to look like a check.  It had a check number, name of the check, the amount, a drop-down box to choose if it is a withdraw or a deposit, and a check box in order to say whether or not it cleared.  I then created macros to change the color of the check to distinguish between a withdraw or deposit transaction, as well as make the text red if you are in the negative.

Finally, I created a report that listed all transactions and the totals at the last page.  This was a bad design in my part because it was annoying to navigate to the last page in order to see all the totals.  However, the database did the job and we used it for three years.

That was probably more information than you care to know, but I finally decided to write a stand alone program (again, for experience) so that MS Access is not needed (I had problems using my MS Access 2000 database in 2003) and to add more features I was missing.  Hence, the Money Shepherd was conceived.  It is definitely my original MS Access database on steroids.

The great thing about the Money Shepherd is that the interface is like filling a check.  In fact, you can print on to a check if you want to.  Entering transactions are fast because it auto fills the values of the last transaction of the same name.  For example, if you enter ‘water bill’ in February, then type ‘wa’ in the transaction field in March, it will offer ‘water bill’ in the text field.  If you were to hit the tab button, the amount, category and withdraw/deposit will automatically be filled.

It also has a nice query feature as well.  You can query multiple transactions by date, price range, date range, name, category and if it was a withdraw or deposit.  All found transactions will be listed in a table with the totals displayed at the bottom.  You can then print it out or export it into an Excel document.  Want to know how much you paid to the electric company?  Type in the transaction name in the query and you are done.

Transactions can be grouped into categories as well.  You might want water, electric and phone in the ‘bills’ category.  That way, ‘bills’ can be an option to query.  Also, there is a bar graph that will visually show a break-down of your expenses and income by month and year based in category.

Finally, the Money Shepherd’s price is right (for free!)  In order to get it, click on the ‘downloads’ link at the top of this page.  All you have to do is download it.  You do not have to give me your information or anything, it is on the house!