Quicken 2003 Deluxe

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the price or the hassle.
Review: After attempting to use Quicken 2003 for about 2 months, I'm back to good old-fashioned pen and paper. There are just too many automatic "features" that get in my way. Auto-reconcile never works properly after downloading my bank statements, and most of the time it won't even match transactions from my bank statement to the ones I enter manually. If I make out check #500 for $100 and enter it, and then it clears and appears on my bank statement 3 days later, Quicken will try to create a new entry for it even though the check number and amount already match an exisiting transaction. There's really just no excuse for that.

I also had a lot of trouble with Quicken's forecasts of expenditures. Once it figured out that I had a recurring expense, it became difficult to get the real expense to replace the forecast. The result showed me spending twice as much money per month as I really was.

Quicken was also very reluctant to allow me to set up automatic funds transfers from one account to another. The monthly draft from my checking account to my investment account was never modeled correctly.

Overall, I'd have to say that this is one of the worst software products I've used in several years. Making the software do things the way I want it to is nearly impossible, or at the very least, not worth the considerable time and effort.

Rating:
Summary: Reliable bookkeeping
Review: The only drawback is the excessive amount of implanted commercial links to sell more services. The product itself is outstanding but why should the user have to pay for all these links to goods and services built into the product. It is hard or impossible to remove these imbedded "features" when not wanted.

Rating:
Summary: A great update to an already great program
Review: Quicken 2003 is fundamentally the same as last year's version. The difference is that it is more polished in appearance and the interface is much improved. This is a powerful program with numerous features. In the 2002 version much of the features were buried deep in the menus where they wouldn't see the light of day. In Quicken 2003 these features are a lot easier to find and, more importantly, use. Also, updating files from the old version to the new was so painless and tool under a minute to do that I was up and running with no downtime whatsoever. There is definitely no hurdle to making the switch.

Rating:
Summary: Moved to Money
Review: I am glad I moved to Money. I highly recommend trying it out. It has much better interface with a very smooth integration with browser. Abundant reporting and investment charting possibilties. I was a avid quicken user for 7 years. Tried Money because it was bundled with Taxcut and boy, am I glad that I have moved. BTW, I did not buy Turbotax (I was a long time user of it) because of the c-dilla issues. INTUIT has just lost a loyal customer forever ...

Rating:
Summary: Switched to Money
Review: Ordered Quicken 2003 when having problem with bank interface. Worked OK until I bought new PC and tried to move program. Would not work unless I bought another disc from Intuit. After many wasted phone calls & on line sessions with Intuit customer service (HA HA) I gave up and switched to MS Money installed on new PC. Works great, much smoother with bank interface.

Didn't find upgrade of Quicken to be anything special. With hassle using customer service, this is one ex-Intuit customer.

Rating:
Summary: Quicken 2003 no better than previous versions, maybe worse.
Review: I'm not sure if I would be considered a power user of quicken or not. I have over 20 accounts in it, a 401(k) account, a couple of mortgages, etc. I have used Quicken since MYM passed away. The first versions of Quicken were "Okay". Being a tenacious optimist, I keep updating the program in the hopes previous bugs would be fixed. THEY ARE NEVER FIXED! Quicken 2003 Deluxe is just as full of bugs as ever. Mortgages aren't handled correctly. Data from previous versions disappears forever. Alerts aren't calculated correctly. You can "submit" bug reports and suggestions, but I suspect they're dumped somewhere in the ether.

One reason I tried this update was that I was told you could "chat" with tech support via the internet without paying the support fee. After spending over an hour with a tech, I was again told I had found yet another "product defect".

(...)

Rating:
Summary: Quicken 2003 - A big step backward for the end-user.
Review: NOT RECOMMENDED!

I am a software professional and have been using Quicken since the first release. Years ago, I could honetly say that I was thrilled with Quicken, but I can no longer recommend the product after receiving the 2003 release. The software is buggy, the user interface is cumbersome, and the software constantly bugs the user with advertisements and sales piches for Intuit's online services.

It appears to me that the company is using its flagship product primarily as an advertising tool for more lucrative online service offerings. Intuit offers no way for the end user to disable the constant nagging and in-your-face advertising "features" of Quicken 2003.

The registration process is one of the most annoying things about the software. Intuit insists that the user register as a "member" of their online service, even if the user has zero interest in any of their online offerings. To add insult to injury, the registration process is flawed. Intuit offers no way for a previously registered user to detect prior registration settings when reinstalling the software. I wasted hours trying to get software that I paid for to work.

I recommend that you save your money and do some homework. I am looking for another financial application. I would rather go through the pain of converting my accounts and online banking to another vendor before I would ever consider another full-price Quicken "upgrade".

NOT RECOMMENDED!

Rating:
Summary: Quicken 2003 disappointing "again".
Review: I miss my Managing Your Money. I went to Quicken several versions ago when MYM was no longer produced and supported. With every update I hope the program will get better and it's many bugs fixed. But the program continues to have bugs where they shouldn't have any. In other words, the programmers are sloppy and high schoolish. Some negative values don't show up in red. Credit card maximums and minimums don't calculate properly (in a money management program?). You have to pay for live support - even if the problem is theirs. My fingers are crossed that some one else will come up with a money management program so Quicken will wake up and do the job right. Try MS Money instead.

Rating:
Summary: What Should Be Easier Is More Difficult
Review: I cannot express enough how absolutely terrible this program is.

First, let me say that I have been an avid Quicken user since 1994. At that time, I was balancing my checkbook by hand and Quicken was a lifesaver. At first I used it to print out checks and balance my checkbook electronically. But, as technology quickly grew, I began to use Quicken to pay bills electronically, track my investments online, categorize my expenses, and track my net worth. Upgrades were offered at a discount to existing users, and they incorporated straightforward, necessary changes which enhanced the program's usefulness. Life was good.

Then, somewhere around 2000, Quicken started to fall apart. In an obvious attempt to make more money, they stopped offering discounted upgrades to existing users. In addition, program changes were, by-and-large, becoming unecessary. So, in order to justify selling a new program each year, they kept needlessly overhauling the interface from one version to the next. So each time you upgraded, you had to re-learn everything. And if you stuck with your current version, as I tried to do, you could not fully utilize the online features because they were no longer supported. So you were forced to upgrade - at full price - to whatever Intuit wanted to throw your way.

I am happy to annouce that, with Quicken 2003 Deluxe, I have just purchased my last and final upgrade. I am sad, however, to announce that Intuit has finally gone over the edge. First of all, the interface is ridiculous. It's so confusing that you simply cannot perform even the simplest tasks without going through a myriad of confusing pop-up screens and menus. Nothing is Intuitive (ironically) and almost nothing comes without errors, advertisements, or problems. For example, I have several fairly straightforward securities through a 401K account. But for some reason, the price per share for some of the securities kept coming up as zero - and I was unable to update the prices, either manually or online. This was an obvious bug in the program that cost me many hours of frustration with no resolution. Again, let me express that I am an advanced user and I am very certain that this is a programming bug. Of course, the only free technical support that Intuit now offers is a weak online database which resolved none of my problems. If you want to talk to a live person, you have to pay for both the call and the service. Incredible.

But the problems don't end there. I'll spare you the long story of how I wasn't able to register the program because of a bug in the included browser - so I couldn't use any of the online features without getting annoying pop-up reminders to register the program - even though the program wouldn't allow me to register it! I won't tell you about how the program kept re-booting my system because of browser conflicts with Internet Explorer. And I certainly won't relay the long and tiring story about how my unlock code - which I had legitimately paid for - failed to work upon re-installing the program from factory purchased discs. Their solution to this problem was to call an 800 number, which, when called, gives you a message that the number is no longer supported. Incredible.

So, after all of that, I went and bought Microsoft Money 2003 - regardless of what I had just spent on Quicken. I'm happy to report that the installation was easy, the set-up was flawless, and there is not a bug to be found. In addition, there are no advertisements, there is plenty of support, and the interface is absoutely intuitive. I was up and running in less than 2 hours with all of the capabilities of Quicken and then some.

In summary, Quicken has completely lost the plot. They began in 1994 by making my life easier, and ended up in 2003 making it considerably more difficult. If they keep up like this, they do not deserve to remain in business. So, Quicken users, take my advice, don't be afraid, and switch to Microsoft Money today. You'll be very glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT
Review: I should have listened to all of the on-line reviewers. It was time to upgrade from MS Money 2000 and I was really disappointed with MicroSoft's LACK of good instruction books available.

Long story short: Quicken 2003 DOES NOT work with many of the credit card companies. MAJOR problems with patches and other issues. I've re-installed it THREE times and STILL NO LUCK. Technical support is NON-EXISTENT and they are continually threatening me with $3 a minute charges! You can only get ahold of them during business hours (yah, right, I don't have a job) and the support is for the most part worthless. I've been on the phone with them for over 3 hours and the result was a complete waste of my time.

This is the WORST professional experience I have EVER had with any software. Sad fact is that so many of my friends had used quicken in the past and gave it a thumbs up.

NEVER again will I try Quicken. NEVER EVER trust these people with your finances in an on-line situation. They simply do NOT have their act together. Perhaps in a few years that will change but DO NOT trust this package. I'll be lucky to get my money back. And no matter how much it galls me to go back to MicroSoft and their anti-customer attitude it is far better than Intuit.

NEVER AGAIN.