Microsoft Money 2004 Deluxe (Old Version)

Microsoft has made the budgeting features of Money nerely impossible to use. You used to be able to get good reports out of it but most have been replaced with busy readouts that are unintelligible. It's hard to interpret what the few reports are trying to tell you. For example: under Money 2000 my budget balanced with $300/month to spare. According to Money 2004 (using the same budget I created in Money 2000) I'll apparently be in poverty with $400/month of red ink.

Another annoying complication is the way Money 2004 fails to connect and update stock prices about 75% of the time on my machine, a feature that even my old copy of 2000 was able to handle.

Bottom line: don't upgrade from previous versions unless you own stock in a company that manufactures headache medication. If you're not a previous MS Money user, you may want to try Quicken first (or at least try the free trial downloads of these programs before shelling out $50).


No Need to upgrade from Money 2003   January 27, 2004
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

I start using Money since 98. I was pretty happy since then. Last month, we upgraded to Money 2004 from Money 2003. After using it about 1 month, I would say it is disappointed. Even with the $40 rebate, I still don't see the reason to upgrade it from 2003. The "New" and "Improved" features are just too small in the whole application. I can't "feel" it when I am using it. Save your rebate postage and the money and wait the next version; if you plan to upgrade it.


Existing Quicken user not satisied with switch; going back   January 26, 2004
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I have been using Quicken for several years, and currenty using Quicken 2002 (I did not update after reading the reviews...THANKS for the customer reviews!). I use Q for investments and keeping up where I spend my money. I took a chance with Money 2004 Delux to see if it was any better, since Q was 2 yrs old. BAD MOVE!

After using M for 2 weeks, I am going to return it ( 30 day money back guarantee....first I have to figure out where to send it). Since I use Q mainly for investments, Q has MUCH superior report capabilities. One click on Portfolio brings me right to the screen that has all the data I need......plus the capability to modify the colums for different data. To get to the same screen with M, I have to run a report, and the options for modifying the columns for data I want (e.g. daily profit, etc) are non existant.

In Q, to view a list of all the securities (investments) you have, 2 clicks and you are there. In spite of going all thru the help screens, including the on-line help (which is a task itself), I followed the instructions to the T and never did find the way to show all the names of the different securities that I had in my portfolio.

To top it off, I use Turbotax and I tried to download all my investment data (dividends, etc) to keep from re-entering it in Turbotax. Well, it didn't work! Only one account showed up. BUMMER!! That was the last straw.

M has some good features...sorta bells and whistles....like biggest winners and losers in my portfolio for the day and some other stuff. But the basics of what I need and use are inferior to Q 2002. I sure hope the folks at Q step up to the plate and get Q 2004 fixed so that I can upgrade and stay with Q.


Tax functionality mis-leading...   January 23, 2004
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

To the chase:

Tax Estimator is a general reporting tool in the software that will lookup your recorded transactions that belong to "some" of your defined categories.

Categories = classifications for how to account for a type of transactions (e.g., Expenses marked to Utilities: Gas will not be taxable). This is flexible enough for you to roll your own categories if you want and tie them to actual tax lines on Federal forms).

Well, mostly... You won't see, for example: Schedule E's Decpreciation line anywhere, so even if you create: "Rental Expense: Depreciation" you can't say move any lines using that to Schedule E's Depreciation line.

Anyway, back to Tax Estimator...

So it generally lumps in your transactions according to their broad category "types" such as taxes, salary, rent income, utility payment, mortgage interest, etc.

Now then...Tax Estimator won't look at your Schedule E transactions, not even the one's like rental income, repairs, utilities, etc. They won't show up in tax estimator at all, so if you have rental income (residential or commercial) your Tax Estimator won't be right... your loss or gain on Schedule E won't show up at all.


Try before you buy   January 20, 2004
 56 out of 66 found this review helpful

As a long time Quicken user, I decided to try out a trial version of Money 2004. I'm glad that it was a trial. I decided not to purchase Money 2004 deluxe.

Both Quicken and Microsoft Money is adequate for balancing your checkbook, and both are excellent for downloading statements from your bank. However, I did find that Microsoft 2004 was easier to setup and easier to setup the online bank stuff.

When you purchase Quicken, you are not locked into an upgrade cycle. My old version of quicken still works. Money displayed a cryptic dialog which led me to believe that Money 2004 would quit working in two years. I'm not sure about that part (they might have been referring to the MSN money feature).

I would recommend you try it out before you purchase it. The trial version is available at the Microsoft website and it is the Deluxe version, without the extra movies and walkthroughs.

I just found Money too pretty, and that navigating to do simple things like reconcile took some learning.

Money 2004 has a feature that will allow you to upload your financial data to the web and access from anywhere. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the privacy policy whether or not Microsoft will resell your financial data. They certainly don't take any responsibility for the safety of the data.

In the end, however, it will probably boil down to whatever checking software you are introduced to first. If you learn Quicken, you will probably prefer it. The same goes with Money. Feature-wise, they are about the same. Quicken has more reports. Both will work fine for your needs.