Rating: 
Summary: Works great, like always
Review: I've used Quicken since 1996 and love it. I upgraded all my data from 2000 to 2004 and I have since entered transactions, reconciled some accounts, did an online update of data, looked over my portfolio, etc., and haven't had the slightest trouble. My only complaint is that there are more ads in the product, but I also like the new account bar features better than the 2000 interface, so on balance I'm happy.Don't listen to the complainers. I'm suspicious about their true identities because the product isn't nearly as bad as these reviews say it is. I see no reason that a previous Quicken user will not like this version.
Rating: 
Summary: Next to Quicken 2003, the worst product I have ever used
Review: I have been using Quicken since '94, without incident. When I upgrade to Quicken 2003, my problems began. I can no longer, consistenly, reconcile online accounts with Quicken because, on occassion, it stops displaying to downloaded transactions. This problem can only be resolved by un-installing and then re-installing Quicken. Of course, it then only works for a little while before I have to repeat the un-install/re-install process. Upgrading to Quicken 2004 not only exhibits the same problem, it introduced a new one. On occasion, it fails to load my data. To get around this problem, I make it a habit of backing up my data after each use, so that updates I have made are available when I have to restore. Tech support? Forget about it, unless you have lots of bucks to spend.
Rating:
Summary: Intuit loses a customer...
Review: I really hate to write this. I've been a Quicken user since 1989, participated in some of their "user focus groups" back in the early 90's and have implemented nearly every feature in the software -- online banking, transaction downloads from nearly all my accounts, budgeting, tax planning, etc... Quicken 2003 had some stability problems that I just learned to live with (lock ups in reports for example). I bought 2004 last week figuring they'd probably cleaned up those problems. What a disaster. It is so unstable, I can't use the product. Most of the problems appear to be related to the online banking functions. The system crashes are so bad they actually wind up corrupting the data file. I found their support as bad as others have noted -- got "dropped" by the support chat line 4 times and finally gave up. So, tomorrow, I am going to give MS Money a shot. Fortunately I have a backup of my Quicken 2003 data which I hope goes over to MS Money without a hitch. Doing this makes me sad. This was one of the few products / companies I could say I was "loyal" to for a long time. For those interested: I run Windows ME that is current in its updates from MS Windows Update. I keep a current virus protection / firewall running. The disk is error checked and scanned. The registry is scrubbed with Registry Mechanic and AdAware. So, I don't think my problems are system related.
Rating: 
Summary: Buggy, Difficult, & Cluttered
Review: Quicken 2004 users who have used managed their finances with Quicken for a long time will have to agree that Intuit seems to keep complicating the process with each new release. I've been a Quicken user since 1991, so it pains me a great deal to give this product such a lousy review. I either agree with or am ignorant about most of the previous reviewers' complaints, but I have some to add of my own, most of them regarding the "Reports" features. First, for some silly reason, the Quicken 2004 programmers have decided to include account transfers in the income and expense categories. This means that a transfer of, say, $500 from your checking to your savings accounts will add $500 to both your income and your expenses for the period. This "feature" - fault, more like - can be turned off, but apparently you have to turn it off every single time you create a new report. Perhaps in a CPA's world this is a technically precise way of looking at things - perhaps - but that's why I'm an engineer and not a CPA - I don't want to deal with such silly stuff. I want to know how much I actually made and spent, not some strange number that includes real expenses and transfers between accounts. Another annoying feature is that once you hide an account, Quicken excludes past transactions on that account from reports. For instance, when I ran an income/expense report for 2003, I noticed that most of my credit card interest was missing. I paid off the card last year and then cancelled it. Since I don't have it anymore, I "hid" the account, so as not to have it cluttering up current accounts. But Quicken apparently thinks that all the interest I paid on that "hidden account" is irrelevant. Not to me, it ain't. And the reports aren't aven showing the interest I'm paying on my student loans (an active account). Where that interest has disappeared to I haven't the faintest idea. Yet another nuisance is that when you first open a report, the program defaults to showing you transactions for the entire time that you have information in the register. That means that if you have transactions dating all the way back to 1995, it'll show them. I think that most people would prefer it to automatically default to the last or current month, but nothing doing... It's nice that Intuit sees the need to keep adding features to this program over the years. However, the more features it adds, the more and more cluttered the whole program becomes, the more and more difficult it becomes for those of us who just want an accurate view or our finances to have the faintest idea of what's going on. I am not sure if Microsoft Money is any better (I strongly suspect it isn't), but Intuit should know that the more difficult and buggy its flagship product becomes, the more and more tempted I am to wanna find out. People can forgive a lot of things, but when a company makes your finances so hard to comprehend, that one is hard to forget.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Quicken Ever
Review: I have been using Quicken since the days of DOS. I have upgraded almost every year. Therefore, I feel like I need to tell my Quicken story. Quicken 2004 Deluxe is the best software I have ever used. Never have gotten any error messages, hard drive has not crashed, nor have I lost any data. I will continue to upgrade each year as I have done in the past. So there, that is my 2 cents worth.
Rating:
Summary: Good product gone bad
Review: One star is probably harsh, but having worked on QUicken 98 for six years, this latest release sucks. You can no longer enter investment data directly into the register; must use a pop-up screen that covers up the register. Too much clutter on the screens. Too much information that's not essential. Finally, I now have browser problems that did not exist before the installation of QUicken 2004. SOmebody needs to develop a competitive product.
Rating:
Summary: This product is a setback, not an upgrade
Review: I have used some version of Quicken for many, many years. Each time I have upgraded, the product was just a little bit better. I was crazy to upgrade from Quicken 2002. This product is a mess. I have yet to work for more than 15 minutes without it freezing on me. You have to use brute force (the Task Manager) to get it to close so you can start again. The user interface is also a step in the wrong direction --- it is much less intuitive than Quicken 2002. There are many more (though less severe) bugs in the product, but you're better off not buying it and sticking to what you already have.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed Customer
Review: I have used Quicken 2001 for a while now. I really liked it. I finally broke down and decided to update to Quicken 2004. I am really disappinted with several features. First, The 2001 version had a "net savings" category in the "income and expense graph." This festure keeps tracks of how much money you are saving and it is date customizable. This feature is gone in the 2004 version, YIKES!!! It is replaced by a silly 30 day savings feature that is not date customizable. I used the 2001 net savings feature to keep track of my spending habits and my savings. Quicken 2001 helped me save at least 30% of my income. Apparently the makers of the 2004 version do not want you to know how much money you are saving in a quick and efficient way. Am I supposed to use a paper and a pen to manually calculate the amount of money I save? Second, I track my asset allocation in Quicken and the 2001 and 2004 versions still suffer from the lack of a MID-CAP category for asset allocation models. Quicken divides asset allocation into large-cap and small-cap. What the heck is that? It is about time that Quicken realizes that there is a mid-cap category in asset allocation models. To think that Quicken has not fixed this glaring problem since 2001 is simply amazing. Third, Quicken 2004 does not allow you to put your computer in STAND-BY. Are you kidding me? What the heck is that? Who wrote that software? When your computer tries to shut down it tells you that Quicken does not support stand-by mode. AMAZING!!! This version is a complete waste of money. Luckily, I have backed up my 2001 Quicken files BEFORE I updated to Quicken 2004. After one day of using this carppy update (or shall I call it downgrade), I went back to the 2001 version. UPDATE: Since buying Quicken 2004, I went back and bought Quicken 2003 and 2002. I got them used and for cheap. I was hoping that the 2003 and 2002 verison will have the great "net savings" feature that the 2001 had. As always, I backed up my 2001 Quicken files in a temp file BEFORE upgrading. I REALLY encourage all buyers of Quicken to do that. This way you can go back to the original Quicken you used if you do not like the upgrade. Quicken 2003 is almost identical to 2004. It has the same "cartoonish" graphics and DOES NOT have the "net savings" feature in the income/expense graph or the expense pie chart in the "my finance" page view. Overall, I was disappointed that Quicken would remove such a valuable feature that allows people to track their spending and save money in a quick and efficient way. It is as if Quicken wants to make it hard on you to track your savings. Quicken 2002 does have the "net savings" feature on the pie chart, but when you click on the pie chart that feature disappears and you only get the pie chart with the expense category. HUH!!!! In the 2001 Quicken clicking on the net savings part of the pie chart will give you a net income by month 3D histograph. After experimenting with the 02/03 Quicken, I went back to 2001 Delux Quicken. I will stick with the 2001 until something better comes along.
Rating:
Summary: DONT even THINK about converting from Money
Review: Intuit does NOT seem to want to attract users from the competition -- a losing strategy. I am having one nightmare after another trying to get my data from MS Money 2003 into Quicken. The "Data converter" is a joke - it converts credit card accts as checking accts and there is no option to change the account type afterwards. I tried converting via QIF export/import -- but guess what? MS Money does a great job of QIF export (I checked in a text editor) but the import into Quicken is a mess. Just for kicks, I tried reimporting some data I had exported from Quicken itself -- it was horribly messed up. After playing around with QIF files I created manually, I realized that the QIF import in Quicken is amazingly broken.. and they are even going to eliminate this in future releases. So no import/export anymore for Quicken? Which genius thought this one up? I had been a longtime Quicken user from 95-2002, but decided to try out the competition so switched to Money for 2003. The data conversion was pretty flawless. On the whole, Money is quite decent, and actually does some things in a more intuitive way (for me). However, I really miss the calendar in Quicken (Money's only shows scheduled bills, not expenses) and Money's "background banking" leaves some processes around that hog CPU & memory. Even tho' I'd prefer to switch back to Quicken, there seems no way to get my data back into it... Numerous attempts with the live chat 'support' (if you can call it that) have led nowhere and damned if I'm going to pay for fixing their bugs. The FAQ section might as well not exist. At least MSoft acknowledges their bugs on their support site. Sorry Intuit, you just lost to the competition. Now how do I get my $40 back?! The product may work Ok for those upgrading from previous Quicken releases, but after seeing some of these bugs and enduring their tech support experience, I think the folks at MSoft have a better head on their shoulders and more resources at disposal, so better to stick with them in the long run. Who knows if Intuit will survive with this kind of poor attitude.
Rating:
Summary: Don't WASTE your money on this product
Review: I always raved about Quicken. I absolutely love Quicken 98 which provides a simple user interface and is VERY easy to use. The update feature updates the program and gets your stock quotes and does everything in one (easy to find) click....no more. Intuit has the gall to "expire" the ability of Quicken98 to update your price quotes. A pop-up message began appearing warning me that Quicken 98 would expire in April of 2004 and I should upgrade to 2004. I bought this product! It shouldn't expire! What a way to rip-off your customers. Well, tonight I bought Quicken 2004 Deluxe. I was shocked. The user interface does not even come close to Quicken 98. It has evolved into a monster...way too intense! Furthermore, it started causing General Protection Faults in my Voodo video driver immediately. I couldn't even see my transaction detail because of the GPFs...now I'm going to have to upgrade the hardware just to support their crappy video handling. Save yourself the frustration, their Tech Support is non-existant...Save yourself the aggrivation, don't buy the product! I truly hope this company looks at these reviews because they need to get back to the basics -- write a program that will run on Windows. Don't expolit all this video fanciness, pop-ups, ads, etc. Hire a decent QA team that acutally tests this stuff. Care about your customers in providing them with a decent product and back it up with some tech support, preferably not off-shored to India. Better yet, listen to what your customers are saying BEFORE they become ex-customers.
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