Rating: 
Summary: Loaded with features, hogs RAM
Review: I have used Quicken for home finances for years, and recently "upgraded" from Quicken 2000 to Quicken 2004 Premier Home & Business. This package is loaded with features that allow you to very quickly and completely get a grasp of your finances both numerically and visually. Adding accounts and transactions is a breeze. The system is very intuitive (at least for a user of earlier versions of Quicken)and visually appealing. The importing of the old data file went seamlessly and completely. (Always make a back-up of your database before trying the importation - it may safe you a whole lot of grief.) The negative - you cannot run ANY other program at the same time. Forget multitasking. Period. Even with ONLY Quicken 2004 running, the system frequently gives messages of "Resources dangerously low" and "out of memory", etc. The system often freezes with these warnings and requires a reboot. Quicken seems to be out booting Windows! My system is not the problem - I am running on a Pentium IV 1.3 MHz Windows ME system with 512 MB RAM and 40GB of free hard disk space, far about the recommended requirements from Intuit. The Intuit web site is NOT helpful when it comes to trying to problem solve the memory problems. There basic advice: keep rebooting and remove all other programs from your system. They even suggest going through the process of removing TSR programs before you start Quicken. Everytime! Not very user friendly recommendations. Really! I certainly hope (and expect) that Intuit will come out with a patch that makes this a reliable program. If the memory problems were handled, this would be a 5 star program without question. With the memory problems, my CTL-ALT-DEL keys are getting worn-out! In the meantime, I am torn between putting up with the memory frustration for the added features, or bringing the back-up data file off the shelf and re-installing Quicken 2000 that is more limited but works first time, everytime.
Rating: 
Summary: Beware invalid tax data
Review: I made the mistake of upgrading to 2004 BEFORE competing my year-end tax planning and 2003 tax returns. The first issue was that all transactions with return of capital (often happens if you own mortgage-backed bonds) were imported incorrectly. The basis was not reduced and tax reports show bogus losses. The workaround is to manually delete the transactions and reenter them in 2004. I figure this will take me about 4 hours. My second issue currently has no solution. Zero coupon bonds and bonds purchased at a discount require that the basis be adjusted upward to account for taxable interest not actually received. In old versions this was accomplished by doing a return of capital transaction with a negative amount which thus increased the basis. The 2004 instructions still tell you to do it this way and it works OK until you sell the bond. Then, all the additions to capital are mysteriously changed to reductions resulting in a bogus gain. In addition, the detail view for the bond shows 0 bonds in the account (correct after selling them all) but with a positive basis and an unrealized loss since the bonds are now worthless. What a mess! No known workaround. Other than these issues the program seems OK and at least one bug from 2003 has finally been fixed. I'm not sure whether I'll persevere with it or switch back.
Rating:
Summary: Beware invalid tax data
Review: I made the mistake of upgrading to 2004 BEFORE competing my year-end tax planning and 2003 tax returns. The first issue was that all transactions with return of capital (often happens if you own mortgage-backed bonds) were imported incorrectly. The basis was not reduced and tax reports show bogus losses. The workaround is to manually delete the transactions and reenter them in 2004. I figure this will take me about 4 hours. My second issue currently has no solution. Zero coupon bonds and bonds purchased at a discount require that the basis be adjusted upward to account for taxable interest not actually received. In old versions this was accomplished by doing a return of capital transaction with a negative amount which thus increased the basis. The 2004 instructions still tell you to do it this way and it works OK until you sell the bond. Then, all the additions to capital are mysteriously changed to reductions resulting in a bogus gain. In addition, the detail view for the bond shows 0 bonds in the account (correct after selling them all) but with a positive basis and an unrealized loss since the bonds are now worthless. What a mess! No known workaround. Other than these issues the program seems OK and at least one bug from 2003 has finally been fixed. I'm not sure whether I'll persevere with it or switch back.
Rating:
Summary: Full of bugs
Review: I received continual "script errors" when trying to use help, making it nearly useless. I attempted the Quicken fixes, which did not work. I tried submitting my feedback that the fixes did not work and I got an error from their web site. It crashed once in the first few hours of use. Importing MS Money files is nearly impossible. Tech support costs 1.95 a minute. At least it has a 60 day money back guarantee.
I guess I will continue to sell my sell the devil (MS) and continue to use MS Money.
Rating:
Summary: I wish that I read the reviews first
Review: I tried to install this program a couple of days ago and was prompted to uninstall the previous version (Quicken 2002 Deluxe). I chose to do so. At the end of the installation process, I got the error message "Your program files may have been damaged. You will need to reinstall Quicken." I uninstalled using Add/Remove Programs and reinstalled with exactly the same result.
At that stage, having looked in vain for help on the Intuit site -- the solution to this error message did not work for me -- I went elsewhere and found dozens of negative reviews. Intuit seem to have hit rock bottom with this product.
So I decided to go back to using Quicken 2002, but of course it had been uninstalled and I can't find my original CD. So I chose to use the Windows XP System Restore function to roll back the clock. But although Quicken 2002 reappeared, my Quicken file no longer seems to work properly. The screen freezes and flashes when I switch from one account to another.
I called Intuit this morning and described my scenario. They offered to replace my Quicken 2002 at a total cost of $20 plus. It would take them two days to get it out of the warehouse and a further 7-10 days for shipping. Shouldn't they provide a free downgrade when their buggy software doesn't work?
Rating: 
Summary: Different, but good.
Review: I've been using Quicken 2001 for quite a while, and decided it was time to upgrade and also get the Business version. I'm currently running Q2004PHB on a 333MHz Laptop with 128MB of RAM. Not exactly top of the line anymore, but the program performs just fine. Takes about 20 seconds to load (includes time to enter password), but then again, I only got about 3 months worth of data available. The interface is very different from the older versions, and yes, there are ads for Quicken products throughout the various screens (special buttons for Quicken Credit Cards, etc). I like the new interface. The colors are good to the eyes, yet there is enough contrast so that all text are easy to read. Someone mentioned it was buggy; I have yet to come across any problems with this program, but I won't claim it's bug free. However, there are numerous errors in the help system, which refers you to menu options that doesn't exist... If you're a few versions behind, and you think you may want to upgrade, this is not a bad upgrade to make. It's a little different, so there may be some transitional difficulties getting used to the new interface, but most of the usual stuff (registers) works the same way...
Rating:
Summary: OK product, but beware of support
Review: I've been using Quicken since 1994, and have upgraded every few years when useful features are added. I recently purchase 2004 "home and business" because I am starting my own business and needed the business functionality. As a small independent computer consultant, it seemed a perfect match feature-wise (or so I thought). As a very adept computer user, I haven't had the issues with the changing interface over the years that some have, and generally the product works pretty well for me for my *personal* finances. HOWEVER: there are two big caveats. First, Intuit's support is really quite ghastly. I am a computer professional- my business is troubleshooting computer problems for other people, and I often end up speaking with tech support. I recently encountered a problem with Quicken that I needed support for, and had to call their "live" support number. The only good news is that I didn't get charged, most likely because I had a "real" issue and wasn't just asking to be walked through something that's covered in the online help. Don't get me wrong- nobody should pay $1.95 / minute for that service. But even as a really expert user, I was very quickly frustrated with the support staff. First of all, Intuit seems to have "offshored" their level 1 support to India, at least during the times I called. At least, that is my impression, based on the fact that the agent I spoke with wasn't certain whether the state of Virginia was abbreviated "VI" or "VA", and her english was just marginally sufficient to be doing this job. The biggest impact is that the staff know *nothing* other than what is covered in the support knowledge base you can search on the company website. If you have a *real* problem like I did that isn't covered by that material, you will be forced to go through very time-consuming scripted troubleshooting (re-install the software several times), and then most likely be punted to someone else (it's Microsoft's fault), or finally escalated to "tier two" support. "Tier two" is so backed up that up-front, they tell you it takes *two weeks* to respond to requests. That's what they told me four week ago, and I've yet to hear from them. OK, offshored L1 tech support is becoming more common in the industry, but failing to follow up on escalated support is absolutely, completely, wildly unacceptable. Unprecedented, in my experience with computer products. Second: Beyond the support issue, the business features are just plain broken. As another review has mentioned, the reports are totally bogus and don't follow accounting standards. Another problem I'm having is related to receiving customer payments... When you enter payments in Quicken, they are shown as individual deposits in your bank account register. However, since I typically deposit several payments at once, the bank enters it as a single deposit in my account. Quicken doesn't know how to handle this... which I found out the hard way. If I manually match the individual customer payment entries against the single downloaded deposit, Quicken consolidates all of them as a "split" into the bank's single deposit entry, which I initially thought was clever. Unfortunately, Quicken also (without telling you) blows away all records of the payments in your accounts receivable (without asking), so suddenly every invoice is marked as unpaid, and the check numbers associated with the payments are lost. I had to restore from a backup to set things straight after reconciling a number of deposits without discovering what was happening. To me, this indicates to me that nobody at Intuit has actually tested this program with real-life use. So my advice is: beware. The software is OK for personal finances, but you're pretty much on your own if you have any problems, and the business features are completely FUBAR. I'm switching to something else for my business ASAP.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy until they fix the bugs
Review: My purchase of Quicken 2004 PHB arrived yesterday. It installed and converted my Quicken 2003 PHB files without a problem (I have been using Quicken since 1992 without any problems, and have upgraded each year) and then proceeded to give me a memory write error and crashed. Two complete removal/install cycles later, it still crashes when I try to run the program. Some searching on the web produced reports of a known bug when you try to display net worth graphs spanning more than one year, which I am doing on my "entry page". This apparently is keeping me from even running the program. I am in the process of testing Intuit's 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and am returning thier product - this bug has been know for two months but no patch is available... I have reinstalled the 2003 version (fortunately I made data backups, as did Quicken). Guess I'll wait and see if the 2005 version works...
Rating:
Summary: Works just fine
Review: OK the front end is a little busy and yeah there are some prominent financial institutions not recognized (CapitalOne and Bank of America) but I've had no problems with bugs or crashes. After an install on a W98se box, that was flawless, I immediately downloaded the latest update and patches. What can I say? It works just fine.
Rating:
Summary: Quicken 2004 bugs
Review: Quicken 2004 has a bug that prevents Windows XP computers from entering Standby or Hibernate power saving modes. Previous versions have been fixed with updates. However the 2004 version has not. This problem has been confirmed and documented in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 810905. Quicken Tech support stated they would release a fix for bugs after receiving user reports. Apparently this product has been released with insufficent testing and debugging, especially since this bug has appeared in previous versions.
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