我が家もこれを機にMac用アプリに切り替えようと細君を説得した。インセンティヴとしては古いiMacから最新のMac miniへの移行という甘言を用意した。なにしろ彼女のiMacは画面に縦線が走るという不具合が今では線8本に増えるまでに悪化していた。
さて肝心の会計ソフトだが、①資産管理面での使いやすさと②外貨がそのまま記載できるという条件では選択肢はあまり見当たらず、巷での評価が高いiCompta 4を試してみることにした。多分このアプリ最大の難点は日本語化されていないことで、メニューなどがすべて英語だが、僕自身は会社で米国の会計ソフトをしばらく使っていた時期もあるし、まあ我が家は何とかなるだろう。試しにざっと触ってみた印象としては、費目や入力データは日本語も使えるし、機能的にはシンプルで自分向きに組み立てできて分かりやすい反面、集計やレポートの部分が欠落しているようだ。従ってスモールビジネスと言えども業務には向かないんじゃないかな。
僕はiComptaのパッケージ内容を開いて、Contents>Resourceの中の英語関連フォルダに入っているLocalizable.stringsというファイルの記述で思い当たるものを日本語に書き換えてみたら、それだけでfrequency[頻度]やmean of payment[支払い方法]の画面上での選択肢は日本語表示にできた。次にMoneyからデータ移行だが、MoneyではすべてのデータがCSVに書き出せるわけではないし、iComptaへのインポートもフールプルーフとは行かず、一部だけなんとか移行させ、残りの細かいステータスは手作業で新たにデータ入力となった。内容的にデータが同期できた途端に、カミさんからは支出状況を全アカウント串刺しにして把握できないときつい苦情が上がってきたが、これは予算を組んでしまえば予算の進行状況として画面上で見ることができた。僕自身はiPhoneでmobile版も使えるし概ね良好で問題は少ないのだが、この先はパートナーの心証次第だな。
In my home we have been using Microsoft Money as our book-keeping application, and because we are always in Mac environment it had go through Parallel Desktop Windows. When Money was introduced some 10 years ago, it really appeared cool, but Microsoft discontinued its supports (I guess last year), and thus Bill Gates’ original attempt to morph the company into the financial world’s giant failed to make it.
Such being the situation, I suggested my wife to switch the app to something under Mac OS, and of course I did not forget offering her an incentive replacing her suffering and old iMac hardware with the newest Mac mini. The display of her iMac looked disastrous with several vertical lines permanently on the screen.
I had two fundamental requirements for the accounting application: A) Easy management of assets and B) Enabling entries of variety of currencies, then the choices looked limited and I finally came across with relatively well-reputed iCompta 4. The major drawback of this app is that it is not localized for Japanese and its menu and everything is in English. I used to use Intuit’s app in my company myself and in our case this would be considered manageable. In quickly testing it, I found that data entries as well as categories accepted Japanese, its framework was simple, comprehensive and could be structured to suit your needs. On the other hand, I did not find any features for analysis and reporting, therefore if you are in a business even small one, it would be highly the case that this won’t work for you.
I opened the contents of iCompta and found a file titled “localizable.strings” in English-related folder under Resource that I replaced some accounting terminologies with Japanese translations. Then such sub-level options as “frequency” or “mean of payment” tab on screen successfully displayed Japanese. Next hurdle was the data transfer from Money to iCompta. Money does not output the entire data in CSV, while the import in iCompta side was not fully automatic, so it required large portion of data such as customized categories and asset status to be manually re-entered. When everything was set in order, fully in sync with Money, my wife’s immediate reaction was to complain that it had no procedures to show the expenditure status in category-by-category combining relevant accounts. I studied it a bit and found that once we set a budget, its page can display the current status. I myself am quite happy with this app as I can also use mobile version with my iPhone, but the whole thing depends on how my partner feels with its functionality in the end.
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