Thu 17 Aug 2006
Quicken 2007
Posted by RichSlick under Money Management
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I was an avid user of Quicken during its early days. Over the years (after Quicken version 4), Intuit began cluttering the interface with so many windows and mostly useless features that I began using it less and less. When Quicken 2000 came around, the interfaces had been converted to “web pages” vs. traditional windows with so many ads and bugs that I pretty much abandoned the product at that point.
I picked up Quicken 2007 last night in the hopes of better managing numerous brokerage accounts, savings accounts, checking accounts, credit cards, retirement accounts, real estate loans, etc. It wasn’t until I spent about two and a half hours entering all my info that I suddenly realized how truly unwieldy all these accounts had become.
The Quicken 2007 interface seems much more streamlined from the “web” days and I was amazed at the integration it had with so many financial institutions. I have opted not to entrust the online synchronization; I simply don’t trust all the user ids w/ passwords to the “system” but it has helped manage a great deal of issues for me.
My “old” system was essentially a collection of excel workbooks. I won’t completely abandon the old system since I really can’t enter complex formulas anywhere in Quicken. It would be nice down the road if Intuit supported integrated spreadsheet functions. The scanning/document imaging feature is a great plus. I’ll be keeping all those pesky credit card terms in digital form with each account!
Overall I’m happy with the product. There are still some quirky things that are difficult to work around. For example, I’ve have a 3/1 ARM mortgage on my home that will adjust next year and every year thereafter so I didn’t see any easy way of changing the parameters on the loan.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
I’m surprised you of all people bought Quicken (since you seem to be very much against cc terms and conditions). I finally made the switch from Money last year, but it REALLY annoys me that you have to buy the product before you can try it. They actually sent me a CD last night with the upgrade, but the terms require that I cancel the purchase and mail back the CD (at my own expense!) within 60 days. Once I do all that, they’ll get around to refunding my money in 60-90 days! You should do a piece on Passive/Aggresive Quicken purchase terms
I’ve read several good reviews of 2k7, but I’m just not willing to go through those hoops to find out if it’s really worth upgrading. My guess is that it is, but they’ve lost my money this year…
August 17th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
LOL! Funny thing is that I was going to write a long tirade about the long Terms & Conditions but I opted to skip it and focus on the positive. What can a person do? The money management applications are slim pickins. I’ve tried MS Money and just didn’t like it.
I will add, however, that I opted to “entrust” the program with my credit card passwords and it worked flawlessly to download transaction from 3 accounts with no problem. I was disappointed that it didn’t download the bank info (like contact phone#, payment address, etc) to the Overview section.
The more I use it the more I like it but it does have its limits.
I bought Quicken 2007 Deluxe for $40 and it comes with a $20 rebate (I think) so it’s not that bad. I think it’s well worth $20 for the functionality I’ve gotten in the program.
You can download the rebate here:
https://www.intuitrebates.com/weblogic/rebateshq/intuit/searchPromotionsByManufacturer?FindValue=2934
August 17th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
The download stuff is critical, otherwise I’d spend hours entering transactions from my CC and various banks. Not enough banks have it, but maybe 2k7 has added more banks. 2k6 works well, and I just need a couple things to work better, mostly in regards to investing (It’s way too time consuming to track weekly purchases of 4 week T-Bills) and the budgeting cash/flow stuff really sucks in 2k6.
Of course, the next wave in Bank fees is going to be charging for auto-downloads like this. BOA already charges $9/month if you want to be able to auto-connect to your checking acct from Quicken. Though, I think they let you download the QFX files for free still.