Quicken 2008 Home & Business
Written: Feb 21 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Quicken does all the basics and more. It does what I need it to.
Cons: I call it the Quicken Tax... you are pushed to upgrade every 3 years.
The Bottom Line: Get Quicken Basic if you just want to balance your checkbook and get your accounts online. This is all you really need. Don't splurge for the Home & Business version.
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| peachjam's Full Review: Intuit Quicken 2008 Home & Business Full Version f... |
I started using Quicken software in 1995. 13 years later I am upgrading for the 4th time. This was the most expensive upgrade yet, and had the fewest 'cool, new' features in my opinion. I was forced into the upgrade because Quicken announced that my 2005 version would not be able to update online after April of 2008. It was a frustrating step, but I may be grateful down the road. But you're not reading this to hear me whine, you're here to decide what's good and bad about Quicken 2008 Home & Business. So let's get on with it.
Beginner's Primer
What is Quicken anyway, you might ask? Quicken is computer software that is designed to replace your checkbook register. Well, at least in 1995 it was. Fast-forward to 2008 and you will find that Quicken will also track your savings accounts, Credit Accounts, investments, and home inventory. It will store your receipts, automatically update accounts over the internet, print reports, and plan your budget. Quicken can track your debts (i.e. mortgages and other loans). It can help you plan your future and retirement by projecting future savings based on current income and spending habits. Quicken helps you plan and prepare for your taxes (including integration with Intuit's own tax software: Turbo Tax). Really, about anything a person or small business might need to do financially, Quicken can do. Microsoft Money is a similar piece of software, although I have never used it. For medium-size businesses, Intuit (the maker of Quicken) has an advanced product called Quickbooks.
Why should a person get Quicken?
I received my original version of Quicken as a gift - and a great gift it was. I am one of those type of people who like to balance their checkbook to the penny each month. Well, Quicken turned a 1 to 2 hour job (on some months when there was a mistake in the checkbook register that I couldn't find) into a 10 minute job. That alone made it all worth while. Although now there are many, many more features in Quicken, I still consider the check book reconciliation feature my reason for using Quicken. I actually don't even use a paper register for my checkbook anymore.
Here are some other reasons that one might choose to buy Quicken (or beg for it for Christmas) - listed in order of my favorite features.
1. Online updating of account information from Bank Institutions saves time and keeps many mistakes from happening.
2. Getting a better grasp of your financial condition happens as you enter all of your accounts, assets, and debts into Quicken, create a budget, and see your financial portfolio.
3. Planning your financial future is easy with the guided question and answer sessions.
Should you upgrade to the latest version?
This is the most frustrating aspect of Quicken. You may not have a choice but to upgrade - at least if you plan to use online update of your accounts. Quicken's support policy is to only support 3 years on each product. That means support for Quicken 2005 ends on April 30, 2008. The product will still work, but you cannot use Quicken update to download your bank transactions. Because online update was a primary advantage for me, I chose to update to Quicken 2008. I have several friends, however, who are still happily using older versions of Quicken and see no need to upgrade. I applaud them.
There may be other reasons to update. I have found recent versions of Quicken do not have many GREAT new features - not enough for ME to upgrade, but for some it may make a difference. When I upgraded from Quicken for Windows 5.0 (which I will call Q95 from now on) to Q02, I got the online updates, and savings goals. The savings goal feature was nice. I used to 'subtract' money from my checking account to help budget for things that I wanted to get in the future but not spend on things that I didn't need. With Savings Goals, I could do that quickly and easily, while still being able to reconcile my register simply. I could also 'one click' to see my actual account balance. By upgrading to Q05 the online update was vastly improved, including a password vault for my various online accounts. This meant only typing in one 'master' password instead of remembering each and every password for each online account. Again, none of these in themselves would convince me to upgrade, but tallied together it may push you over the edge to bite the bullet and drop the cash. Here is y upgrade history. Actually I might still be on Q95 except that I found Q00 online really cheap in 2001 $7.50 or something cheap like that. Then my new bank offered Q02 for free for singing up with their new checking account. They also offered free online banking - including online electronic check writing - which was kind of fun for awhile. In April of 2005 I bought Q05 Home and Business on eBay for $20. The price was right, and I got quite a few nice features that made it worthwhile - including the improved online updates, more financial institutions, and the password vaults. This month I bought Q08 Home and Business on eBay for $50, which is half of the list price. (Side Story: the first shipment I got was a pirated copy. After contacting the seller, I received a genuine version of Q08. Quicken reports that there are many instances of pirated Quicken on eBay.) This is way more than I wanted to spend. I could have saved a few dollars by getting the Deluxe version. I didn't really need the extra features of H&B, but there was only a few dollars difference, and I figured one day I may want one of those extra features.
So, what about Quicken 2008?
The list of NEW features for Q08 is short... perhaps because they have already thought of every feature you could want. I can't think of anything else I would really need/want in financial software.
1. Navigation and Account Bar (just look/feel stuff - tabbed browsing of Quicken modules, kind of like Firefox tabs or IE7 tabs).
2. My Savings Plan. Bar graphs of your savings plan. Based on current income levels, spending levels, it gives you potential savings balances out into the future.
3. Categorization and Tagging. A dumb feature that replaces classes in older Quicken versions, it's really a deeper level of categories, which is unnecessary and cumbersome in my opinion.
4. New Account Types. Paypal transactions can now be updated into Quicken automatically. A nice feature if you buy on eBay like I do.
5. Business Center and Tax Snapshot. Some new features for small business are expanded in Q08. It has a simple Profit and Loss statement, and ways to categorize tax expenses for a business (again, a duplicated feature that could be done in previous versions).
6. Billmind Gadget (for Windows Vista sidebar only). Designed to remind you of upcoming bills even when Quicken is not opened. The previous version of Billminder in Q06 never worked, so I never used it.
As I have mentioned, none of these new features would make it worth $100 (list price) or even $50 to upgrade. It was the fact that I would lose the online upgrade that forced me up. Some blogs have called this policy of Intuit 'extortion'.
Anything bad about Quicken?
I for the most part have had a positive experience with Quicken, including this latest version. I have read horror stories on Amazon's customer feedback system. Users have reported miscalculations, lockups, and data corruption. I have experienced none of that in 13 years. One version (Q02) had trouble with my scroll mouse, but it was easy to work around that. I also have not been able to get Billminder to actually remind me of anything. I have never tried to contact Tech Support in all those years.
Quicken seems to work intuitively (maybe that's why the company is called Intuit) for me. The oldest versions looked exactly like a checkbook register, and that's how they continue to work. New features were not hard to learn, and the help sections is usually very descriptive. Setting up a new account or loan is fairly easy with their question & answer format.
Final Comments
I did want to mention that the upgrade process from Q05 to Q08 was very simple. After starting the install, Quicken found my previous version, backed up the data to a safe location, un-installed the previous version, and installed Q08. Help screens guided me through the process without the need for any external documentation. Nag screens pop up to describe all of the new features until you click a check box to turn them off. My 13 years of data were converted to Q08 in a matter of minutes.
I imagine I will be upgrading to Q11 in three years. What choice do I have? It's kind of like paying taxes. The Quicken Tax.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
peachjam
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Member: Troy Funte
Location: Titusville, PA
Reviews written: 84
Trusted by: 112 members
About Me:
I'm a family man, which actually keeps me off epinions more than I would like.
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