iCash has many features to help non-accountant types get to grips with their money. All good in principle but iCash but comes up short on the details we need in practice.

Accountants use journals for a reason and that's because sometimes a payment has a number of elements to it; every month I pay a foreign bank for my foreign mortgage - a payment that includes principle (contra entry against my asset), interest (an expense) and life insurance (another expense, subject to VAT). iCash wants that I create three entries for this and as a result do not have single entry on my bank ledger to correspond to the entry on my bank statement. COULD DO BETTER.

Then there's the foreign exchange function. They tried real hard here; too hard in fact - guys there's no need to triangulate three currencies. If I'm a Brit and use a US credit card to buy a hotel room in Canada then the CAD do not matter. The charge crystallizes in USD and I convert that GBP.

The net result is a system that works on one day and not another and for some accounts (bank) and not for other (credit card -> in liabilites); it's perverse and results in many, many data errors. COULD DO A LOT BETTER.

There are not many applications out there who get these principles and whilst I'm no fan of Moneydance's really challenging work environment (it takes me days to train anyone how to use it) they do at least understand FOREX and they do at least understand multi-part transactions.

Take great care with iCash; it "drives for glory" but does not yet "putt for money".