Microsoft Money, 2000, Standard Edition (MMs) is one of the leading software financial-management systems available. It comes in three 'flavors': a) Standard, b) Deluxe, c) Business & Personal. MMs provides a complete basic set of accounting items for closely managing one's personal and investment finances. However, the two expanded versions of Money, at additional costs, do provide expanded options for expanded investment needs and practices.

MMs is included as part of Microsoft Works, a software package that appears to come 'free' with almost all new computers. Or one can download a free trial copy from http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp. Bought separately, MMs runs somewhere around $25. It comes with a slim booklet entitled "Strategies for Success", which offers 'expert' advice for managing one's finances. In addition, MMs expedites an Internet connection to integrate Microsoft's extensive on-line financial services (MSN Money Central) with its PC functioning. For tutorial purposes, it also has a full composite of sample accounts.

Installation was straightforward from a CD and took 66.6M on my hard drive. Some of the stated system requirements are: Pentium 90 (but worked well with a 486 100 MHz chip), MS WIN 95/98/NT, 16M RAM, and an Internet connection (for on-line services).

When MMs is initially activated, it leads one through an easy set of questions that ultimately establish and setup one's fundamental banking, investment, other money accounts ... all coupled with a choice of scheduling and other available financial options. The result is a tailored software composite, which seamlessly reflects one's financial strategy and allows one to handle financial matters easily and efficiently.

The software supplies a large set of readymade categories which describe various types of money transactions; these can be augmented by one's own personally chosen categories. Based on the categories, a plethora of useful reports concering one's spending and financial position may be produced: Where the Money Goes, Monthly Cash Flow, Category Spending, Income Spending, My Budget, etc. My use of some of these reports highlighted some interesting and unknown spending patterns for me. Furthermore, a subset of these categories also forms a database that easily supplies direct information required by income tax forms.

It goes without saying that the software contains an excellent electronic checkbook facility for the accurate, detailed, running record of one's money transactions. And the software may be set up to automatically provide a timely electronic reminder of any nunber of chosen transactions one needs to carry out.

I had no trouble setting up my integrated account package including checkbook and investment transactions. My set of accounts was based on data from Quicken, another leading, money management, software package that I had been using. MMs took a little time parsing out Quicken's data into its own formats, but the final product was perfect.

With a little practice, MMs offers an easy flexible software package for greatly reducing the chore of managing one's home finances accurately. It is an excellent buy considering the wealth of services obtained.