Version 1.4.7 released !!!
New features includes:
- Improvements to the CSV file export : more data exported, easier to process
- Display interval (e.g. 3 years, 6 months) and Menu Options are now persistent (saved in the config file)
- Now supports 4 languages : English, French, Dutch and German
What it is all about...
Budget4All is a Java desktop application intended to help you manage your personal or family budget in order to forecast your cashflow, in an easy but powerful way.
From my own experience, I have found that to efficiently manage a budget, it is much more useful to focus on forecasting the future incomes and expenses, instead of investing a lot of time entering past bills and looking at old financial data. I have written this application to reach that objective and I share it with you for free !
The kind of questions it is intended to help you answer...
* Can I afford this new car or should I buy a used one ?
* I have lost my job : what can I afford to spend on food and energy now ?
* What is the effect on my family budget of high inflation rate ?
* Can I afford to send the kids to that private school ?
* What if my salary is cut 15% ?
* When can I retire and will I have enough money ?
A quick overview...
Budget4All is a Java desktop application intended to ease significantly the process of maintaining a personal budget. It allows you to:
* See graphically the evolution of your cash balance (cashflow) at any time from now to the next 50 years.
* Create/modify very easily all kinds of income/expense items in a budget, the way you usually think about it
This application supports 4 languages : English, French, Dutch and German. It is all about BUDGET FORECASTING : the key principle adopted by Budget4All is to take into consideration the FUTURE incomes / expenses expected. The data displayed always starts with tomorrow's cash balance. This is not the right tool if you want to enter your past bills, to print checks, to know how your money has been spent for the past year, etc. This page provides you with alternatives you may find quite interesting.
Data is organized around the simple concept of a "scenario", which is essentially a file containing a set of income/expense definitions that you specify according to your own needs. You may define as many scenarios as you want (just files on your computers). You specify for each income/expense several properties, such as the actual amount, the frequency, the starting and ending date, the annual growth if any, etc. . In the scenario simulation run automatically by Budget4All, as the incomes and expenses occur through time, from “now” up to 50 years later, the amount of net cash ("balance") you own also varies. The red curve on the main window represents the cash balance as time evolves.
The starting amount of cash you have as of “today” ("today's balance") can be specified in a text box at the bottom of the screen. This is usually the first thing you do when opening a scenario, since Budget4All has no means to know this information.You can change easily the duration of the period displayed on the screen using the “time interval” combo box (e.g. 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc). It is possible to specify an annual inflation rate for a scenario. It can be a simple constant number (e.g. 4%) or a complex table of values (you specify the rate for each year). The inflation is applied to every income/expense of the scenario on the first of January of every year, unless you have specifically indicated that inflation does not affect the income/expense when you created the definition (see the “add effect of inflation on top of annual growth” checkbox)
You can export all the scenario data to a web browser or a CSV file (so you are not locked in Budget4All !).
You can also encrypt the content of your scenario file and password protect it, if you want the information to be kept strictly confidential.
The best way to learn Budget4All is to try it ! All the modifications you do to a scenario are NOT SAVED into the file until you explicitly request to do so by using the “Scenario-> Save” or “Scenario -> Save As” menu.
Enjoy !
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