Microsoft Money 2004 Deluxe (Old Version)

Finally, because I like to be able to use financial data in Excel to build financial models of investments, I like the fact that I can easily export data from Money to Excel. (I'm sure Quicken has a similar feature, but I am not sure how to use it.)

The thing that frustrates me about both Quicken and Money is they are both vague on how to set up your financial accounts to download into the program. I have figured out one financial institution's process because I found a link on their web page that gave me instructions. If either Quicken or Money developed a feature that would point a user to the exact place on a financial institution's web page where there were such instructions, or where a customer service email/phone number was, I would give both programs 5 stars.


Goodbye to Quicken & Intuit...   October 10, 2003
WOW... It's like leaving the kiddie software behind and switching to the real thing... There is really no comparison.

I used Quicken for 10 years, and back then Money was not as good, BUT IT IS NOW...!!! It imported my Quicken 2003 files completely and I have not had one regret...

It took about a week to get completely comfortable with the different type of user interface... Money 2004 is far more versatile, powerful and "intuitive" than Quicken...

I also Switched to "Tax Cut" from Turbo Tax, and Tax Cut is just as good, and there are no activation lock issues...


Works well except automatic downloads   October 8, 2003
 20 out of 23 found this review helpful

I am using the free trial version. I was using Quicken Deluxe 99.

There is no good reason to update Quicken or Microsoft Money annually. In fact, Quicken 99 works pretty well but more recent editions are more compatible with more online banks, brokerages, etc. I am trying Money because I can try it for free for 60 days and I read the reviews about bugs in Quicken. Also, Intuit promised ma a free program for getting their credit card and charging a minimum amount of money. They never followed through on their part of the bargain.

The good.
Money imports the Quicken 99 file but takes a long time and ends up generating a huge file. It works well with the bank accounts, credit cards, and stock brokerage accounts I have tried. It nicely reminds me about capital gains implications of stock sales. Unlike Quicken 99, it allows me to modify scheduled transactions (to change to electronic payment instead of check numbers, for instance).

The bad.
Its online stock price updates take a long time! I fixed that by stopping it from downloading stock prices on stocks I no longer own. Part of the reason it takes a long time is that it downloads news. There is no way to stop that. I think that is why it creates a huge file and it only allows backups on floppy disks. In my cases, that equals about 20 floppies! It claims to have a feature to automatically check online accounts and stock prices, but it doesn't work for me. I am running Windows XP Professional and have a DSL always on connection so it should work. However, the instructions say to make it work I have to allow a few .exe files to run in the background but it doesn't explain how to get that to happen.

Summary
I'll probably buy the full version, but this can use some repairs and the ability to backup to CD-RW or zip disks.


Money 2004 vs. Quicken 2004   October 6, 2003
 51 out of 52 found this review helpful

I've been a user of Quicken 2001 and this year decided to upgrade. After reading all of the negative reviews on here, I decided to first try MSN Money 2004. It works great, but I wasn't as comfortable with the way things are presented, so decided to also try Quicken 2004 Deluxe. Here are a few thoughts on the two programs:

1. Presentation-wise, I like Quicken better. On the view pages, boxes are lined up with each other, while Money just positions them as there is room. I also like Quicken's graphs and charts a little more, and the fact that Quicken's options allow you to see your net worth on the first page, while Money just shows account values on the first page so you have to click to another screen to see your net worth).

2. On investments, I think Money gives you a lot more information, including information about your best and worst performing investments, etc.

3. I think Money also has a bunch more features than Quicken might, and you get a lot of free options like MSN bill pay, free subscription to Money Magazine, etc.

All said, I think either program is a decent choice. After using Quicken for 3 years, I think I'm just a little more partial to Quicken just because it's more what I'm used to. Otherwise, Money I think gives you more bang for the buck.

Just to let you all know, I haven't had any bug issues with either program. Not sure if the other posters screwed things up on their own or just got early versions of the software that were buggy, but things have been smooth with respect to both programs. I also haven't experienced a bombardment of advertisements as some users are reporting.