June already. The year is half over. Time sure flies...

I've been a happy GnuCash user for six full months now. GnuCash, for the uninitiated, is a free open source alternative to proprietary personal finance applications like Microsoft Money and Quicken.

I haven't written much about GnuCash lately. That's mostly because it has become a regular part of my financial management workflow. GnuCash has become one of the few accepted and trusted tools in my toolbox. One I can reach for at any moment and achieve whatever result I need.

I wanted to take a few minutes this morning to delve into the matter of trust I just mentioned above. My words were

GnuCash has become one of the few accepted and trusted tools in my toolbox.

Accepting a tool into my toolbox is a matter of mechanics. Does it perform the functions advertised? Are those functions easily accessed? Are they presented in a logical way which enhances my workflow? Questions like that. With a little experience it's fairly easy to tell whether a new tool will make the grade.

Trust. Now that's another matter altogether.

Trust, to me, is all about security. In order to earn my trust I need to feel comfortable that my data is secure and accurate. Accuracy is easy with GnuCash. The double entry method for transactions ensures account balances are accurate to accounting standards.

Security is a bit tougher to get your arms around. I break that down into two basic categories. The first has to do with the integrity of my data. I want to be assured GnuCash protects my data from whatever might happen. Things like hardware failures and power outages shouldn't imperil my data. GnuCash's transaction logging and file backup mechanism ensures that I'll never lose more than a session's worth of data. My financial records, my entire financial history is never at risk.

The other aspect of security is the really tough bit to chew on. How secure is GnuCash as an application? How do I know GnuCash, or its competitors - Money and Quicken, are keeping my data private to me? This is where I feel even more comfortable about GnuCash, much more comfortable than I ever did as a Microsoft Money or Quicken user.

You see, those other applications are proprietary. Their codes aren't open to the public for review. Nobody can look inside and see exactly what kind of data, if any, is communicated between my computer and some destination on the Internet when I'm using them. GnuCash isn't like that. GnuCash is open source software. That means that anyone can download the source to the application and look at it. It's open to peer review. If an unscrupulous developer tried to sneak in code which would compromise users' data, other GnuCash developers would see it and remove it. Nobody would then trust that author's work again. If the application were proprietary there would be no such review. If a decision were made to collect and aggregate user data in such a way that does not violate the publisher's privacy policy, (Note I said it's the publisher's privacy policy. This is important because the privacy policy may not be one you particularly like; but rather one you have to accept and live with in order to use their software.) the data collection and communication mechanism could even be designed and built right in to the software as a "feature".

It's the potential that features like this exist that concern me most when it comes to software for managing my own personal finances. With GnuCash I feel more secure than with any other personal financial management software choice. Six months in and GnuCash still gets my vote. It has a few shortcomings here and there which I may decide to tell you about in the coming weeks. But so far none of them is sufficient to overcome it's tremendous advantages. If you have not tried GnuCash, I urge you to give it a trial. Run it in parallel with Quicken and Money for a month and see for yourself. It takes a little getting used to, but once you begin to understand how GnuCash works you'll find it's a powerful way to manage your finances.

You can download GnuCash from the GnuCash web site