Rating: 
Summary: Awful Experience
Review: After years of using Quicken, I thought it might be time to try Microsoft Money. I have had some issues with Intuit's products lately and with the tax software/Microsoft Money rebate combos, I cound try Microsoft Money Deluxe free. What a disaster!
I have multiple accounts at many of the financial institutions I deal with and Money gave me fits trying to get the information downloaded into each account. My mortgage setup was mess as Money kept calculating different values then my bank (and Quicken). I do not believe the user interface is intuitive or as easy to use as Quicken and the help files were not always accurate.
After less then a month I have gone back to Quicken 2003 and I plan to never invest my time with Money again. Thank goodness it did not cost me anything to try Money.
Rating: 
Summary: Try before you buy
Review: As a long time Quicken user, I decided to try out a trial version of Money 2004. I'm glad that it was a trial. I decided not to purchase Money 2004 deluxe. Both Quicken and Microsoft Money is adequate for balancing your checkbook, and both are excellent for downloading statements from your bank. However, I did find that Microsoft 2004 was easier to setup and easier to setup the online bank stuff. When you purchase Quicken, you are not locked into an upgrade cycle. My old version of quicken still works. Money displayed a cryptic dialog which led me to believe that Money 2004 would quit working in two years. I'm not sure about that part (they might have been referring to the MSN money feature). I would recommend you try it out before you purchase it. The trial version is available at the Microsoft website and it is the Deluxe version, without the extra movies and walkthroughs. I just found Money too pretty, and that navigating to do simple things like reconcile took some learning. Money 2004 has a feature that will allow you to upload your financial data to the web and access from anywhere. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the privacy policy whether or not Microsoft will resell your financial data. They certainly don't take any responsibility for the safety of the data. In the end, however, it will probably boil down to whatever checking software you are introduced to first. If you learn Quicken, you will probably prefer it. The same goes with Money. Feature-wise, they are about the same. Quicken has more reports. Both will work fine for your needs.
Rating: 
Summary: Won't convert from Quicken 2004
Review: Contrary to what the box says, as of right now Money Deluxe 2004 will not convert from Quicken 2004 files. Microsoft says this is because they haven't gotten the Quicken 2004 file formats yet from Intuit, but they also say there is no estimated time to resolve this. Quicken 2004 has been out for a few months now - this is really a surprise.
Rating:
Summary: WTF?
Review: Don't DO IT!! If you have 2003, stick with it. Nothing really new except more commercials. When you go to balance your check book, you get only ONE amt if you are off. No more are the separated amounts as to deposits/withdrawals in the left column. And don't even get me started on performance...like trying to get a snail to run.
Rating:
Summary: Awful product. Cannot connect to accounts. Over-complex.
Review: First, some background on us. We are very experienced computer users who setup the computer systems used by some of the largest banks around. Yet we cannot get Microsoft Money 2004 to connect to our own personal accounts. One bug: Money will pull account data from a popular online brokerage, then five minutes later the data will be gone from the UI, even if you force Money to reconnect to the online brokerage. Another issue: your regular username and password that you use to access an account online, fequently will NOT work with Money. So you need to call each financial institution individually to get connect. Since this is something that few financial institutions deal with on a regular basis, their regular customer support cannot help you and you need to call during special times of the day. Calling Microsoft Money technical support puts you into India. How would you feel about discussing your personal financial account data with someone in India, where security laws are much more lax compared to the US? More on security: can you trust Microsoft Money to be without security flaws given all the recent IE issues? The user interface is incredibly complex and unintuitive. The issue is that all features are thrown at the user at once, rather than being phased-in. There is a deluge of options to scan through. Of course, none of these features work since we can't get basic account info.
Rating: 
Summary: Isn't this amazing
Review: For Quicken Usrs: I wouldn't waste my money on this product especially if you're well established with your current version of Quicken. If you decide to change over, you might want to consider Money 2003. You might get it cheaper than version 2004. I just downloaded the trial version of MS Money 2004 and have to say that I was quite disappointed. Thank goodness for trial versions. I still had version 2003 on my computer when I tried version 2004. For current Money 2003 users: Don't forget to backup your current money 2003 data files because the trial version will convert those files. If you want to go back to using 2003, you'll have to restore the old data files. I have to say that I didn't notice any changes from the previous version (2003). The calculations/numbers that 2004 produced were pretty much the same I had with 2003. The one thing I really wanted to know is if I could generate a customized report with a line graph. I wanted to look at spending trends for certain of my bills over the past year. In version 2003 you could not use the line graph (only bar and pie chart) even though it was there but greyed out. This really didn't make any sense. Why offer the feature but grey it out? I tried every combination but could never get the line graph to work. I also noticed that the information on the chart was not well organized but real confusing. The labels and legend on the chart were not placed in the correct areas. You had to constantly refer to the chart's legend for information so you could unstand what the chart was telling you. Well--version 2004 didn't change anything. It's the same lousy format. The other thing I wanted to know is if MS had made any changes to Tax Estimation feature. I have to tell you that it hasn't changed either. It seems money continues to consider everyone in the 27% tax bracket and doesn't really allow you to change it. The questions you're asked about your taxes hasn't changed either. They need to do a better job of integrating the information you put in all year round with their tax estimator. It still has a lot of holes in it. I guess they're saving that feature for a future upgrade. I'm back to using Money 2003, because I really never had any problems with it. MS needs to set up a forum for this product so they can listen to our comments and make this a better product.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the upgrade
Review: For Quicken Usrs: I wouldn't waste my money on this product especially if you're well established with your current version of Quicken. If you decide to change over, you might want to consider Money 2003. You might get it cheaper than version 2004. I just downloaded the trial version of MS Money 2004 and have to say that I was quite disappointed. Thank goodness for trial versions. I still had version 2003 on my computer when I tried version 2004. For current Money 2003 users: Don't forget to backup your current money 2003 data files because the trial version will convert those files. If you want to go back to using 2003, you'll have to restore the old data files. I have to say that I didn't notice any changes from the previous version (2003). The calculations/numbers that 2004 produced were pretty much the same I had with 2003. The one thing I really wanted to know is if I could generate a customized report with a line graph. I wanted to look at spending trends for certain of my bills over the past year. In version 2003 you could not use the line graph (only bar and pie chart) even though it was there but greyed out. This really didn't make any sense. Why offer the feature but grey it out? I tried every combination but could never get the line graph to work. I also noticed that the information on the chart was not well organized but real confusing. The labels and legend on the chart were not placed in the correct areas. You had to constantly refer to the chart's legend for information so you could unstand what the chart was telling you. Well--version 2004 didn't change anything. It's the same lousy format. The other thing I wanted to know is if MS had made any changes to Tax Estimation feature. I have to tell you that it hasn't changed either. It seems money continues to consider everyone in the 27% tax bracket and doesn't really allow you to change it. The questions you're asked about your taxes hasn't changed either. They need to do a better job of integrating the information you put in all year round with their tax estimator. It still has a lot of holes in it. I guess they're saving that feature for a future upgrade. I'm back to using Money 2003, because I really never had any problems with it. MS needs to set up a forum for this product so they can listen to our comments and make this a better product.
Rating:
Summary: Works well except automatic downloads
Review: I am using the free trial version. I was using Quicken Deluxe 99. There is no good reason to update Quicken or Microsoft Money annually. In fact, Quicken 99 works pretty well but more recent editions are more compatible with more online banks, brokerages, etc. I am trying Money because I can try it for free for 60 days and I read the reviews about bugs in Quicken. Also, Intuit promised ma a free program for getting their credit card and charging a minimum amount of money. They never followed through on their part of the bargain. The good.
Money imports the Quicken 99 file but takes a long time and ends up generating a huge file. It works well with the bank accounts, credit cards, and stock brokerage accounts I have tried. It nicely reminds me about capital gains implications of stock sales. Unlike Quicken 99, it allows me to modify scheduled transactions (to change to electronic payment instead of check numbers, for instance). The bad.
Its online stock price updates take a long time! I fixed that by stopping it from downloading stock prices on stocks I no longer own. Part of the reason it takes a long time is that it downloads news. There is no way to stop that. I think that is why it creates a huge file and it only allows backups on floppy disks. In my cases, that equals about 20 floppies! It claims to have a feature to automatically check online accounts and stock prices, but it doesn't work for me. I am running Windows XP Professional and have a DSL always on connection so it should work. However, the instructions say to make it work I have to allow a few .exe files to run in the background but it doesn't explain how to get that to happen. Summary
I'll probably buy the full version, but this can use some repairs and the ability to backup to CD-RW or zip disks.
Rating:
Summary: 4 Tech Support Calls, Math Errors, Don't waste your Money
Review: I bought Money 2004, and I'm starting from scratch - not upgrading from anything. Windows XP professional on a 1 year old Dell with 500 megs Ram. When installing the program I got an error about Norton AntiVirus preventing Money from connecting to banks, and it said to click the More Info button. The button opened a web page that did not list this error. I had to call Tech Support to install the program and they said I may have to call again if I have trouble connecting to Banks. I spent 3 long solid days setting up my budget and catagories and paying my 1st 3 bills. With all the videos and many kinds of help, the screens were not very intuative for just the basics of how to set up a budget and catagories and writing checks. I have not even tried the advanced things like balancing your check book or setting up a portfolio. I had problems setting up my Budget. I get paid every two weeks and video shows you how to set up your paycheck so it knows your gross pay as well as putting your deductions into catagories. My problem is that all reports show my annual gross pay as the wrong amount. I get paid ever 2 weeks which the program lets you enter. Thus there are 26 pay checks per year. The reports show the total income as 25 checks per year which is a very significant error. I tried increasing the date range of the budget, thinking it was chopping off one pay period since the 1st pay check is on 1/6/04. This does not fix the problem. I've had 3 Tech Support calls on this issue and they have not resolved this issue yet. They now admit there is a bug that prevents the annual income from your paycheck, and the budget column total from being correct. This is the basics folks, and it's WRONG!!! Reports do not show what you want to see. After setting up my Budget with budgetted amounts for each Catagory, I wanted to print a report so I could see my Budget. The only report like this prints the budget but also prints 2 columns for each month of the year. If only fits 2 months on a page so a simple 2 page report prints out as 12 pages! And I did not want any months at all. Customizing the report does not fix this problem. After spending lots of time looking at the 6 kinds of HELP it provides and not finding answers, I went to the Microsoft Web site to look in their Knowledge Base. As of 2-1-04, you can not search the database for Money 2004. It only goes up to Money 2003. I'd ask for my money back, but after spending all this time getting it set up, I'm going to live with it. Don't waste your money on Money 2004
Rating:
Summary: Glad I tried the trial version.
Review: I downloaded the trial version and started transferring my data from Quicken 2003. Everything seemed to go pretty well and it automatically let me use my password from my Quicken but after using it a few times I went to log on and it didn't accept my password. Luckily I was still using my Qiucken and the loss of data wasn't any big deal but I'm certainly not going to switch to Money 2004. If I had been using only Money the loss could have been a major problem.
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