Keep Track of All Your Financial Transactions

Ilium Software, the company that gave us such award-winning software as eWallet and ListPro, has released a new, upgraded version of their bill-tracking and financial-transaction software, Keep Track (2.1) for the Pocket and desktop PC. Keep Track assists you in keeping tabs on things such as bill payments, receipts, loan payments, telephone or online transactions, and, of course, in reconciling your bank accounts. I’ve been using this software for many years, initially on a Handheld PC and more recently on my Pocket PC, to track all my credit card transactions, loan payments, and, most importantly, to keep track of the “vast wealth” flowing in and out of my checking and savings accounts.

Its beauty is its simplicity

The beauty of Keep Track has always been its simplicity. You begin by setting up the accounts you want to track (checking, savings, credit card, car loan, etc.) and entering a starting balance for each account. Then you use the Transaction Entry screen (Fig. 1) to record all deductions from or additions to each account. This data can be entered right on your Pocket PC, or entered on the desktop PC version of the program and then synchronized with the Pocket PC. All transactions can be viewed on the Transaction List screen (Fig. 2) and can be displayed either by individual accounts or with all accounts combined into one. If you have reoccurring payments or charges that you record on a monthly basis, you can use the nifty One-Touch screen buttons (Fig. 3) and save yourself some typing.

Fig. 1: The Transaction Entry screen is where you enter all debits and credits.

Fig. 2: The Transaction List screen is where you can view all entries and see account balances and running totals.

Fig. 3: You can set up as many as 12 One -Touch buttons for recurring monthly transactions.

In a nutshell, you enter all the data and Keep Track does the nasty math and displays accurate running totals of all your accounts. The software is very easy to master—no long learning curve is required. If you love to browse through user guides then you will really enjoy the well written, completely revamped 49-page manual, provided in Acrobat PDF format.

What’s new in version 2.1?

Here is a list of upgraded features that might be of interest to current Keep Track users.

• Two new account types: Cash and Loan have been added to the pull-down list.
• Totals can be displayed by Account and Category.
• You can now add, delete, or rearrange the display columns in the Transaction List (Fig. 4).


Fig. 4: You can customize columns to suit your needs for individual accounts or for all accounts.

• A much needed Find/Find Next function was added, allowing you to search your accounts for specific entries (e.g., all Wal-Mart transactions).
• You can set font style and size for the Transaction List and the One-Touch buttons text.
• A Running Total column was added to the Transaction List
• Options are available for displaying alternate-row coloring and for setting Transaction List text to red and black (for debits and credits) (Fig. 2).
• New lock-setting functions improve security by locking Keep Track after a user-specified number of minutes of inactivity or incorrect password entry attempts.
• Cosmetic changes were made to many of the data entry screens.