So you want to get rich? Start by managing your money with Quicken
Written: Feb 22 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use and comprehensive
Cons: Sometimes there is a little too much
The Bottom Line: Quicken is a solid, compatible, easy to use industry standard money management program.
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| mrisch's Full Review: Quicken Deluxe 2000 |
Quicken 2000 is a solid and easy to use program that allows you to manage your money and pay your bills efficiently. I have used Quicken (though not 2000, now that would be impressive) for 7+ years, and I would not move to any other program.
Note that I have Quicken Home and Business. I am going to discuss the home features only in this epinion
The Register
The heart of the program is the register. There is a register for each account - checking, savings, credit card, loan, etc. Within each register, you enter checks, payments, ATM withdrawals, charges, loans, gifts, etc. You can adjust these at any time, and you can apply either stock or custom categories to each line item for tracking and reporting purposes.
One thing that has never worked well for me is the loan payment format. What works well is the principal/interest division (which Quicken will approximate, but usually inaccurately) so that the right accounts get updated. However, for some reason, the managing of loan accounts has always seemed kludgy to me.
Checks
If you buy Quicken compatible checks (the Quicken brand is expensive, I use www.pcchecks.com), you can print your checks directly from Quicken, rather than simply entering handwritten checks into the register.
Tracking
Quicken allows you to enter stock portfolio information and will periodically (at your request) check the internet for the latest prices and calculate new portfolio values. I found this feature to be obsolete in the face of my.yahoo.com, which I use instead.
Budgeting
One of the neat features of the program is that it will look at your category choices and registry entries and build a budget for you. Then you can compare your future actual expenditures to your budget. I never really used this the way I wanted to, though just writing this is prompting me to give it a second look.
To aid in budgeting, Quicken also allows you to generate standard and even simple custom reports.
Ease of use
It is remarkably easy to use the program. You can select from menus on the menu bar, or you can alternatively select functions from categorized "buttons" at the bottom. One example is "Pay Bills" which has options such as "Write Checks" or "Reconcile Checkbook" on it.
Industry Standard
Another perk of using Quicken is that is a well established file format. Because of this, most online financial providers (those that allow any export at all) will allow for export in Quicken format.
Ancillary Features
In the modern era, software has become bloated with features in an apparent competition between products - and Quicken has not escaped this. Quicken is filled with little features - online bill payment (very limited), Internet Explorer (outdated), the Intuit Credit Card option (downloads directly to Quicken), and other such features. Some of these are nice, but they are hardly a reason to buy the product.
Sadly my use of Quicken has degenerated into the occasional check printing due to my ever growing use of online bill payment. Nonetheless, if I were really determined to keep track of my finances (my online bill payer allows for download of Quicken format data), then this would be the program I would use.
Recommended:
Yes
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