Advisers look toward the next generation

Here is a way for financial advisers to keep abreast of ways to engage the next generation: an entertaining website to share with parents or grandparents, who can in turn share it with their young ones. Allowance Manager is a free online tool to help kids and parents with basic money management. The tool was developed by former software engineers and managers from Adobe Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. The developers' idea is that today's increasingly busy families often forget how useful it can be to give kids an allowance and perhaps more importantly follow through with payment on a regular basis. The site keeps track of the allowance for parents and their offspring by automatically crediting regular payments to an online allowance account and letting parents log expenditures. “The last time I had a conversation with my 9- and 10-year-old boys about how much allowance I owed them, I knew it was time to create a tool to track allowances online,” Dan Meader, founder of Allowance Manager, said in a statement. “Now when we want to know how much the kids have, we just consult the nearest computer or mobile device. Enabling the boys to see a history of deposits and expenditures is helping them learn how to effectively manage their money,” Mr. Meader said. Allowance Manager allows parents to reward good behavior, print chore charts, discourage misbehavior and record extra income, monetary gifts, investments, donations and purchases.