Microsoft Money Premium 2004

Forget it! Here's why:

1. A pain in the neck to set up.
2. It wouldn't import my Quicken data.
3. Couldn't review and modify what was being set up.
4. Documentation inadequate.

Need I go on? I'm not a novice, so if I had trouble, I expect that so will most others.

Quicken is far from perfect, but on the whole it has been solid, powerful, and fairly easy to use. The latest versions have annoying ads, but I find that easier to live with than the Money interface.


Serious flaw in reporting   February 16, 2004
 42 out of 48 found this review helpful

I've been a Money user for many years. I love the design and find it easy to work with.

Imagine my horror, then, when doing my tax reports this year I discovered that Money failed to list all my tax expenses. I noticed this only because a major expense was missing from the report, so the error was glaring.

When I then went to check, I found Money failed to list around 20% of my expenses. If I had not discovered this error, I would have ended up paying $5000 more tax than necessary. I haven't checked past years' returns, yet, but if this flaw has existed in previous versions, then I've been overpaying my taxes for years thanks to Money.

I have checked and rechecked over a dozen times to ensure the error is not my own. It's not. The missing expenses are correctly categorize as tax expenses, they are in accounts which are included in my tax reports, and they are for the correct reporting period. Strangely, Money will report a similar expense and then skip the next, similarly categorized expense.

If you're going to use this product, treble check your reports at tax time.


If Only I Had a Chance to Use It   January 5, 2004
 11 out of 28 found this review helpful

I got a copy of MS Money 2004 for Christmas as requested. I've used MS Money 98 for a long long time, and I figured it was time for an upgrade.

I installed the program, and installation went perfectly; no problems. However, as soon as I tried to launch the program I got an error message, and the program wouldn't even run. I tried a few things (I consider myself quite computer savvy), but none of my solutions worked. I still got the error message.

My only choice was to beg for the mercy of Microsoft. Since I wasn't about to pay for the expensive phone call to talk to a live person, I decided to use their online assistance. So far I've dealt with two different technical assistants, and neither one of them seem competent. The second individual is actually quite condescending. Hopefully I'll get a third helper that's nicer.

I'm still receiving "help" from Microsoft, but none of it is working. I've NEVER had any problems with ANY other software working on my PC, so I know it's MS Money 2004.

Until Microsoft can fix their faulty program, I rate MS Money 2004 1 star. The only reason I'm even giving that one star instead of none is because I really liked MS Money 98, and I figure it couldn't have gotten any worse (If it worked).


Microsoft Money isn't worth it!   December 27, 2003
 18 out of 25 found this review helpful

I bought Microsoft Money Premium because of the reviews listed here, was a former Quicken user. Sorry, but I had nothing but problems with it. Couldn't get it to connect to my E*Trade account or my Fleet bank account, only Fidelity. Their solution was to have me talk to E*Trade, yah right! Problem is on Microsoft Money's side as my Fidelity account has no problem interacting with Fleet and E*Trade. Also documentation was terrible and I'm an IT person that writes software for a living.

Bought Quicken 2004 online and had it running and connected to all accounts in less than an hour, no problems. Save yourself the headache and get Quicken 2004. Have had no problems whatever running it on Windows XP SP1.