I asked George last week whether he could provide this facility, and this is what he suggested:
First of all Assets. By this I mean such things as the value of my half share in my house, which I jointly own with my wife, my holdings in Premium Bonds, the value of my share portfolios, my holdings of Index Linked National Savings certificates. etc. You get the idea - anything I own which has a monetary value and which could at a pinch be sold if I strike a rocky patch.
For this I set up a bank account for each asset, gave each account a name which reflected the nature of the asset and then entered the description of the asset, such as reference numbers, share holding value, name and address of provider or current holder of the asset. The current market value of the asset I then entered as a credit to the account. Most assets tend to change value over time, but it is a relatively easy task to reflect this by either adding a credit for increased value or debit for reduced value with the tag "Valuation" to the relevant account at appropriate intervals, or simply retyping the value, depending on the type of asset.
For Liabilities such as a bank loan, overdraft, mortgage etc, I set up a different set of Account types which I titled Liabilities, entered the appropriate description, reference numbers etc as above and then entered the current value of the liability as a debit to the account. It is then a simple thing to set up a standing order to credit the account with any payments made to reduce the size of the liability (e.g.mortgage payments).
Having completed the lists of assets and of liabilities, these were then reflected in the Net Worth report, giving me an up to the minute view of may actual Net Disposable wealth.
I understand from George that he is about to release a new version of BankGenie Pro (I am running version 4 currently) which will incorporate a similar system, but this system will enable you to try it for yourself.
Both George and i will be very happy to have any comments.
JohnM
