Emad Ibrahim

So I wrote a quick post about Money Plus a few days ago.  My main complaint on that post is that I could hardly find anything new that is worth upgrading for.  According to Money’s web site, all the “new” features are “Insight” this, “Insight” that.  It turns out insight is a separate executable that you have to run from the start menu.

It initially ran as a small icon in the notification area with an exclamation mark.  Hovering over it, I was told that I need to enter a password.  I entered a password and then was greeted with this dialog:

“To view information about your bills, spending, and cash flow, click the Insights icon in the windows notification area, at the far right of the taskbar. The icon will appear in the notification area whenever lnsights is running. You can set Insights to start automatically when you log on to windows so you that can quickly check your information at any time.”

I clicked OK to dismiss the dialog.  The taskbar icon changed to show the Money icon.  Click on it and you get the menu to show Insights, change settings or start Money.

Spending Insights shows you the thermometer bars for the categories you select to monitor closely

Cash Flow Insights shows you what’s going in and out of the selected account in the last 30 days.

Bills Insight shows you past due bills and upcoming bills.  Clicking on a bill opens up Money in the Bills Summary page with the clicked bill selected.

You can customize the Insights settings from the “Settings” link at the bottom of  every window.

I think the Insights feature isn’t that useful.  I would have preferred a Windows Vista gadget instead. 

Do you think Insights are useful?  Will you use this feature?  What would you rather see in the next Money?