There are 2 camps of personal finance products.

1. Those that connect directly to your online bank account and pull your financial information for you and attempt to automatically categorize your purchases.
2. Those that require manual input but are much more secure since they don’t touch your actual bank account.

CalendarBudget falls under camp #2. We feel that security these days is one of the most important aspects of online personal finance management. Since this model does not connect directly to your bank, there is some manual input required to get your data into CalendarBudget. Until now, that has meant checking what actually happened with your bank account and manually entering each transaction into CalendarBudget one at a time (reconciling). Admittedly, this was a tedious process. However, the act of seeing each transaction has a benefit – that is, you get to know your money habits much better than if everything is automated.

Recently, CalendarBudget introduced a Bank Reconciliation Assistant, which keeps this important benefit of understanding your spending habits while reducing the tediousness of reconciling between your online bank transaction history and CalendarBudget.

For ongoing reconciling, you can now export your account history to an OFX file (these are sometimes called MS Money or Quicken export files – depends on your bank/credit union) and then import this file into CalendarBudget. CalendarBudget then automatically picks out the transactions that are already in your budget and correct and marks the transactions that need to be added or merged, making the reconciling process MUCH easier and faster.

Here’s how it works.

1) Export your data to an OFX file. (This sample screenshot is taken from ScotiaBank’s online banking interface)
2) Login to CalendarBudget and select the Bank Import tab in the sidebar (its the new 3rd tab). Click the browser and select your OFX file from step 1. Then click the Load Transactions button.
3) You’ll now see the transactions that need to be added/merged in this list. If the date has a red X beside it, the balance for that day is not correct. This either means that the transactions below that are red need to be created or merged, or that there are entries in your budget plan on the calendar that did not actually happen on that day that should be deleted or moved into the future.
If the red transaction already exists in the calendar but just has the wrong amount, or is on the wrong date, simply drag this red transaction from the list onto the corresponding calendar entry. You’ll then be prompted to confirm the update of that calendar entry to move to the correct date and update the amount. The original transaction name and category will be preserved.
If the red transaction needs to be created (it doesn’t already exist in the calendar), simply drag it to any blank spot or day header on the calendar and you’ll be prompted to create that entry and optionally give it a more descriptive name and category.

After a few minutes of reconciling using this new Bank Reconciliation Assistant, even a budget that has been neglected for a few weeks is easily updated with no frustrating addition, subtraction and flipping between screens trying to compare balances on your budget and online banking transaction history.

This feature has been a long time coming for CalendarBudget. Already I’ve been using this and its a HUGE relief compared to the old way. I hope you find the same.

The most time consuming and dreaded part I face when cooking is chopping/grating the ingredients like cheese, carrots, peppers, or onions (ingredients I use quite often). With a family of seven it requires much more time to do the chopping/grating because I need to make larger batches of a recipe, usually 2 or 3 times what a recipe calls for. The trick was to make that process go faster and not so dreaded.

I’ve recently RE-discovered one of my kitchen tools, my food processor. At least 4 of my 5 girls don’t like onions or peppers so I need to chop them fine enough to not be seen (what a tedious job), but can still add flavor. My food processor chops it much smaller and much faster than I can do so it’s perfect. Now I can hide any undesired ingredients in whatever I’m making and can still ensure the girls get the needed vitamins. Plus if I’m going to be adding the ingredients at the same time, I can chop them in the food processor at the same time (so long as I need them chopped to the same size). One things I’ve used it for lately is grating carrots and zucchini for a huge pot of chili (wonderfully cuts chopping time in third). Then I like to freeze leftovers for another time saver… a quick dinner when I don’t feel like cooking. I add pasta to bulk it up and make it stretch farther.

I also like to buy a large amount of cheese when I see an awesome sale, grate the cheese in the food processor and freeze it in 1 cup portions. This allows me to save time AND money. I save time in two ways, by grating ahead of time in big portions while I’m already using the food processor and the food processor is much faster than doing it by hand. I use this cheese only in recipes where the cheese will be cooked because it’s not noticible then if the cheese has a fresh taste or not. You want that fresh taste for sandwiches, crackers and cheese platters, or other things like that. Having the cheese frozen in small quanities makes it quickly and easily used because I already know the portion of cheese in the bag.

What are your favorite kitchen tools that help save you time and possibly even actual dollars?

As any wealthy entrepreneur or high and mighty executive at a large corporation can tell you, its all about networking.

If you are working at a job and want to climb the corporate ladder, you have to make connections to get noticed. Being great at what you do is only part of the game – you have to make your face seen and get noticed.

If you are an entrepreneur, you know better than most that no one can be an island and be successful. You MUST network and socialize and talk to people to get things done, to make sales and to prosper.

Now thats a real problem for those of us who are shy. It seems unfair that those who are naturally outgoing seems pre-destined for success in reaching the top. But, the shy can also reach the top. Yes we need to break out of our shell somewhat, but its easier than you may think. More…

We’re happy to announce that the Business Advisory Center Durham (BACD) has partnered with CalendarBudget to provide our personal finance tool to new and growing entrepreneurs in the Durham region. CalendarBudget can help not only manage peoples personal finances, but can also be used as a forecasting tool to plan for small business expenses and incomes.

Embedded in the BACD web site as the BACD Money Manager, CalendarBudget will enhance the breadth of offerings the BACD makes available to help entrepreneurs succeed.? From the BACD website, click Helpful Links from the top menu and then click the BACD MOney Manager image to access it.

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Business Advisory Center Durham is a government organization which provides resources and coaching to entrepreneurs getting started or growing their business.

CalendarBudget is an online personal finance management tool that helps you organize your money and plan for your future.