UnkleBill: Beginner-Friendly Double Entry Accounting Utility
Money plays an important role in our life, but even a more important part is how we manage it. Keep spending your dough injudiciously, and sooner or later, you might end up going bankrupt. If you find it difficult to keep an eye on where your money is going and what’s the cause of your ever growing list of expenses, then either you need to hire an accountant who would monitor your finances, or you may use your own brain and some basic accounting knowledge to keep the matters in your own hands. You can also check various financial software solutions that are specifically designed to help you out in all things related to money. One such application is UnkleBill. Although the name may sound a little weird, UnkleBill is an open source accounting tool that handles all your bills and is based on double entry accounting system, an accounting standard in which a transaction is recorded in more than one accounts, i.e., debit in one account and credit to the other. It lets you know of your cash inflows and outflows, and does pretty much everything on its own, leaving you with less than half the effort. It can also generate monthly PDF reports, so the next time, you may spend your money more wisely. It can be used by more than one users at the same time, as it houses a separate, password protected profile for each.
UnkleBill is a portable application that means no installation required. For first time usage, you need to setup your profile. Click New button and then enter your profile details, which include Name, Username and Password, and click Add to save your profile.
After successfully setting up your profile, you’re taken to its main screen, where you can create your primary or secondary accounts via clicking the Add button and specifying a few account details, such as Account name, Description, Balance, Currency etc. The main screen also lets you know of the total money you have in all of your accounts under Total balance. It also enables you to enter custom Labels of your accounts, i.e., the categories to where your money going to and coming in from. For example, you can simply enter Receivables, Payables, Expenses, Income, Sales, Salary, Rent and whatever you want.
All the debit and credit transactions can be entered within the Payments tab to the left. It allows you enter your transactions by clicking Entrance and Exit buttons. All the recorded transactions effect your total balance in real-time, and also show the total amount of cash inflows and outflows at the bottom edge of the window. Should you need to transfer an amount from one account to the other, click Transfr and select the account name, date and total amount to be transferred. All the recorded transactions are saved in an internal database under Entrance and Exit sections. Clicking Report instantly generates a PDF monthly report of the recorded transactions and their effect on your balance in the current month.
Finally, there is a Summary tab which enables you to see your transaction history either on monthly or yearly basis. It states the date, type and amount of transaction that was ever recorded using this software.
UnkleBill is an easy to use application, which requires little use of brainwork and some accounting know-how to manage your finances. It works on Windows and Mac OS X, provided you have JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed.
