Financial software advice

[SteveDallas]

We're trying to get our finances slightly better organized. After a long period of what could best be described as, slackness, we'd like to have everything actually put down on paper.

So, what software might we use? The 800-pound gorilla in this case is Quicken. In fact I have an old copy of Quicken 2003 lying around. Using this I can export and import transactions from my banks and credit cards--a process that takes a very small amount of time.

But there are a couple things missing that I can't answer. Maybe other people have some experience or some suggestions?

First, categories. The only problem with the manual import (other than that it's manual) is that the transactions come in with no categories. Is it possible that if I upgraded to a newer version of Quicken I could have categories automatically applied? Other programs? If we have to assign categories manually after the download anyway, there's little reason to upgrade.

Second, access. Mrs. Dallas and I each have our own computers. Ideally we would set things up so each of us could have access--I can check whether we've paid the electric bill without bothering her, and vice versa. Does any program support this kind of arrangment? An obvious answer is a web-based service but a) the ones I've looked at seem lame and b) there are the privacy implications of throwing all our financial info on somebody's web server. (Yeah, I know the banks have it already.)