Rating: 
Summary: Good reports are the real power...
Review: This program steps back and kicks Quicken ...! I've used both MS money 2003 and Quicken Pro. Money wins hands down. The user interface is complex. It took a little time of trial and error to get my accounts right. I decided, shortly after setting everything up once, to start over from scratch because through use, I realized new features and power that I needed a correct setup to take advantage of. There are ways to correct a flawed setup, but I did not learn them till after. The interface is slightly complex because this program is built to run reports. Good reports are the real power behind stored information. Anybody can just store a bunch of data, but the intelligence comes from seeing what is stored, and that is done through reports and charts and flows and other displays. Money allows you to forecast cash flow, plan for experimental financial events, chart retirement and child education. There are so many invaluable reporting tools that it makes the program seem difficult to use correctly without instruction. Fortunately there are audible instructions the first time you use a new feature, and online help. But really, I can't get over the charts and reports that are available. And then beyond reports there is phenomenal scenario capabilities that help you look into the future. If your financial institution supports it, you can auto-synchronize your online bank account with Money. It's the next step to exporting and importing your bank data. It really simplifies balancing your check register. There is an Invoice designer included in this Business version that is supposed to be improved from the last release. I looked at it, but was not impressed. I tried to customize my invoices to suite the specific format that I use which involves the way I list professional services rendered on my invoices, but the designer was too rigid to allow me to adjust text fields. I was expecting the ability to customize the fields' properties and such, but was left disappointed. I would say the Invoice designer only good for changing the way an Invoice looks. As far I could tell, the Invoice Designer is limited to allow changes to the color, size and position of fields and text, unfortunately. I hope that more flexibility is something they plan on adding in future versions. Over-all there are far too many good things to say about this program. It does have limitations, but the features and abilities far exceed the others on the market.
Rating:
Summary: Three words: FREE BILL PAY
Review: That's right, the free bill pay offer via MSN is worth more than the price of the software alone. In 3 months, I have already paid for the price of the software, after rebate, since I cancelled my other Bill Pay. The integration is awesome, and even better since I use Money for the Pocket PC.
Rating: 
Summary: Warning for Pocket PC 2000 users!
Review: I use Money in conjunction with my Casio Pocket PC and was more than happy to upgrade to the newer, faster, stronger version of Money which I do yearly. One problem: the Pocket PC version of Money 2003 only works with Pocket PC 2002 users! Bummer! This won't matter to 90% of you out there, but for those of us still using older pocket PC's, this is very important information. Either stick with an older version or shell out some big bucks to upgrade your Pocket PC.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Software (especially with the Rebates).
Review: I bought Microsoft Money for $5.99 with all the rebates and felt that it is worth more than the money that I spent on it (a Papa John's Pizza costs more than $5.99 for all sakes !). I had some initial frustration with the software when I used it with Online Banking, but I figured out that it was due to my reservations about exchanging financial information online and the fact that I am not used to it. I used to work in Linux for a long time before switching to Windows 2000, and I used GnuCash in Linux for my financial accounting. GnuCash does not support online banking and I had to manually enter and balance each and every one of my transactions, withdrawals etc., Since I am more used to that type of personal finance management, I found Microsoft Money 2003 Standard minus the Online Banking very useful. I really cannot comment on the Online Banking part of Money 2003, since I don't use it (or be comfortable with it). I haven't yet explored the advanced feature of Money 2003, but I am impressed with what I have seen so far. And for $5.99, I think this is a very good deal.
Rating:
Summary: Microsoft Money is both hugely useful, and a huge pain...
Review: I've been using Money for over six years (Deluxe & Business for four), and am probably what you would call a "power user", so I'm not sure how applicable my experience is to the casual user. If you're interested in keeping track of *everything* with Money, like me, then you'll probably find it a double-edged sword. On one hand, it does a good job as a computerized account register & invoice tracker, and automatic statement downloads (from institutions that support it) can save a lot of time. But the more data you keep track of, the slower it gets. My PCs have gotten faster at about the rate of Moore's Law over the past five years, and Money has actually gotten slower to use -- that says something. Most frustrating, the budgeting functionality has gone from useful to useless, IMHO. It was better four years ago than it is now. It's next to impossible to generate a useful report on how you're doing so far this month or year unless you like doing lots of math in your head. I'm the odd position of disliking MS-Money for lots of reasons, while finding it indispensible for managing my money. You might say it ..., but it's better than the alternative.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Quicken
Review: I've been using Quicken since 1995, and most recently upgraded to Quicken 2001. I never tried MS Money until recently, and was highly impressed! My hard disk died and my most recent quicken back-up was a month and a half old, so I thought after 7 years and some lost data, it was time to start fresh. So I downloaded the demo from microsoft to give it a try. Now I will never go back Quicken.
Money and Quicken are functionally equivalent, but Money is MUCH more customizable. Money is a bit annoying at first with asking for a Passport Id, and links to MSN, but these can be easilly turned off, deleted, or ignored. Money also has more reporting, charts and graphs than Quicken, as well as many more options. Money's interface is also cleaner, and simpler to use.
Rating:
Summary: Good product
Review: Upgraded from 99 to 2003 and have not regretted it. Plus points:
1) nice reconciliation system that is much easier to use than it has been in the past
2) QIF import that does not duplicate transactions left right and center
3) nice GUI, with suitably toned down look and feel
4) good set of standard reports
5) nice integration with online services
6) great upgrade path/data take on from 99 Minus points:
1) sponsorship/logos
2) sometimes complains of an error with online downloading but does not seem to have lost/missed any data In addition YOU DO NOT NEED A PASSPORT to use the online services. I use online services and do not use a passport. I secure my money file with username and password as always. All in all a robust product from MS and good value for money with the rebate. Definitely upgrade if you have a really old version of Money.
Rating:
Summary: It's a good product
Review: I upgraded from Money 2001 and this really worth the change. Now your accounts are in a more intelligent interface and you can see quickly your last puts.
The investment section is also the best part. Now you can arrange many details and see exactly what do you want from your stocks and investments. The only deception is that it's too slow to download quotes and sometimes the software gets halted.
The planner are a little simple and need a little customization but in general they are good and useful.
If you need to have control of your money, to see how you owe, what you have and how does the flow of your money goes you must try a financial software and Money is a good shot.
If you are happy with Money 2002, don't upgrade. And if you are with Quicken 2003, stay where you are.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy upgrade
Review: I agree with the earlier reviewers about the myriad positive features this upgrade brought. Faster operations, better stability, exciting new features (e.g., batch bill pay, ability to handle options - finally! - auto balancing, better portfolio views, etc. etc.), and still a great price. Even without the rebate, this is a worthy upgrade. BTW, CompUSA has the lowest price I've seen. The only gripe I have with Money is the still confusing interface, esp. for the new Money user. I've used it for 3 years now and sometimes I still can't find what I'm looking for. Luckily, the Help's search function is VERY useful and always locates the functionality I need. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent upgrade -- Finally!
Review: I've used Money since Money98, and Money 2003 is (finally!) a very good product/upgrade solution. What I like: Money 2003 is much more code-efficient than Money 2002 (which was a terrible performer -- even on a fast 2 gig Pentium), so everything is quicker: reports run quickly, data entry is quick, and budget changes are quick. Secondly, Money 2003 didn't remove key functionality that its predecessors sometime did -- so if you use an older version of Money, the features you like are still there. Thirdly, you can batch epayments together and send them all at once (conversely, Money 2002 sent a payment by piecemeal, which was extremely slow and frustrating). Fourthly, a good product has been tweaked to iron-out some of the frustrations of earlier versions. In all -- it's a nice piece of software. What I don't like: So far, I like everything I've seen. If there is something you don't like about Money, in all likelihood, there is an Options setting that will correct the problem. For example, to remove "sponsor" ads from within Money, find the option setting to stop displaying all sponsor's ads (by default, they'll show up). Also, when upgrading from an earlier version of Money, the newly-installed Money 2003 installation isn't smart enough to know that you already have a Money file that you want to just pick-up and use. You have to exit out of the set-up prompts, click File, Open and go from there. Not a big problem, but if you're not confident with upgrades, this might raise your stress level a notch.
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