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Summary: microsoft money 2004 deluxe
Review: Not user friendly geared to stocks and investing i was miss lead by vague descriptions of options
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Summary: Isn't this amazing
Review: So you're wondering whether to buy MS Money or Quicken. So you look at this page and read the reviews that say this is the worst piece of software ever written and how they wished they'd bought Quicken. The you go to the Quicken reviews, and surprise surprise, you read essentially the same nonsense from people wishing they'd bought Money. Now, I'm willing to accept there may be some preference, but both pieces of software were given 5-stars by PC Magazine. They said there's little difference between the two, and that both do an good job. I think what we're seeing here is a battle between the software Talaban, not real reviews, similar to the fight between those who swear by PC vs. those who swear by Macs. I've used both Quicken and Money 2004. Both work fine.
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Summary: A bankers opinion on his upgrade from Money 98
Review: This program has been helpful, though I am still adjusting. As I learn the new functions, I am liking it more and more, but the interface is not quite as simple as Money 98. 98's account listing page listed each account as an icon kind of like the Microsoft Windows Explorer hard drive view. You could select the "file" you wanted and it would open. Another feature that is no longer there is in the bill pay area. In the old version, I could select every bill I was going to pay, and see what my new balance would be. In this version, I can only forecast my balance one bill at a time, so I still have to write down all my bills on paper, add them, and make sure they are less than my account balance before I send them off.The '04 version has some upgrades that I really like though. It is able to predict my future spending in it's graphs much more accurately. It looks at my past spending history and extrapolates it out forward. For example, the charts worked well for my checking account. I had monthly bills set up to be paid, and paychecks to be received, and in a six month forecast, it could tell me approximately what I would have, relatively accurately. However, for my credit cards, it was not so good. A six month forecast simply flatlined, because I don't have any scheduled payments on my card. '04 is able to look at my past history of say gasoline purchases and see that I buy gas about once a week, and show me that at the end of next month I'll probably owe about $100.00, but it also includes all purchases, and is pretty close to what I owe on the card at the end of each month. It also has some good features on the online side of things. The program comes bundled with a rather extensive listing of Banks that have online services, and you can do a good deal with them. I work for a community bank in the San Francisco Bay area, about $2 Billion in assets, but nothing like a Wells Fargo or a B of A. I didn't expect it to be in there, but it was. So was my credit union that is only for employees of schools in the San Juaquin Valley in California. The online feature is able to download my statement from my bank and compare it to my entries in Money so that I can reconcile differences much more easily, and sooner, than if I use my mailed statement. *********************** Final Thoughts: The 2004 program is a very good, feature functional system that I have been using for about two months after upgrading from Money 98 which I used for 5 years. I am getting used to the differences and am growing to like it more and more.
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Summary: Tax functionality mis-leading...
Review: To the chase: Tax Estimator is a general reporting tool in the software that will lookup your recorded transactions that belong to "some" of your defined categories. Categories = classifications for how to account for a type of transactions (e.g., Expenses marked to Utilities: Gas will not be taxable). This is flexible enough for you to roll your own categories if you want and tie them to actual tax lines on Federal forms). Well, mostly... You won't see, for example: Schedule E's Decpreciation line anywhere, so even if you create: "Rental Expense: Depreciation" you can't say move any lines using that to Schedule E's Depreciation line. Anyway, back to Tax Estimator... So it generally lumps in your transactions according to their broad category "types" such as taxes, salary, rent income, utility payment, mortgage interest, etc. Now then...Tax Estimator won't look at your Schedule E transactions, not even the one's like rental income, repairs, utilities, etc. They won't show up in tax estimator at all, so if you have rental income (residential or commercial) your Tax Estimator won't be right... your loss or gain on Schedule E won't show up at all.
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Summary: Goodbye to Quicken & Intuit...
Review: WOW... It's like leaving the kiddie software behind and switching to the real thing... There is really no comparison. I used Quicken for 10 years, and back then Money was not as good, BUT IT IS NOW...!!! It imported my Quicken 2003 files completely and I have not had one regret... It took about a week to get completely comfortable with the different type of user interface... Money 2004 is far more versatile, powerful and "intuitive" than Quicken... I also Switched to "Tax Cut" from Turbo Tax, and Tax Cut is just as good, and there are no activation lock issues...
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Summary: Great Unless . . .
Review: You already have Money 2003 Deluxe. First, I have to say I love the MS Money product(s) and I would give it 5 stars to any new user. I use a lot of the features, but not all of them of course. Of the features that I use, I have yet to see a major reason/difference between the 2003 and 2004 version.The one interesting feature is the on-line credit report from Experian. Once you register, you get their credit score (not to be confused with a FICO score) and credit report. That was kinda cool. I purchased from another store, so I'm not able to answer the main rebate question from Amazon that I had - Are there 2 $$ in-box rebates? However, there is one additional rebate that I did not know about. In the box there is a card to get a free year's subscription to Money (or Fortune or Business 2.0) for a year. Or, you can mail in the card for a $$ rebate/refund. In summary, I would not get 2004 Deluxe if you have 2003 Deluxe. Unless, you get it a great price (like free with rebates, which may happen at tax time). Or, you really need the credit report and can justify this feature for the cost.
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