Rating: 
Summary: Awesome... when it works...
Review: I used an old version of the product, but tried to do too much too fast. On this version I started with very basic functionality and added as I felt comfortable with whatever I had just added. My wife and I are both using the software on different computers and on the same money file. We never use the software at the same time. I also have it synchronized on my handheld. Sound like a complex configuration? Maybe... but this way she has access to balances and can do entry at home, I can check balances and do entry in my Dell Axim, as well as on my desktop at home.Unfortunately... the file went corrupt or something. Wouldn't open because "this file wasn't closed properly", and it couldn't fix itself. When I restored the backup, then synced my handheld the transactions got jumbled about with the payee's and amounts getting totally mixed up. I gave up and started over. Very annoying.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Product
Review: I have been using MS Money since their 1995 version and I think it is wonderful. While I tend not to upgrade each year as I think it becomes difficult for them to add sufficient value through improvements on a annual basis, I do believe that bi-annual or every 3 years it is worth upgrading. I think the deluxe version is worth buying as well if you have investments or are tracking more than checking/savings accounts. Be sure to link your accounts for easy download of transactions. I find that this is a great way to monitor transactions posting to your account and identify any unauthorized transactions early.
Rating: 
Summary: Small improvements over Money 2001
Review: I had been using Money 2001 for a while. Upgraded to Money 2003 yesterday. The upgrading was smooth. Everything was quite similar, but I could notice a few improvements here and there. Most of them were visual, or the way that the data was orgainzed on the screen. They were better, but none of them were revolutionary so far. For example, if downloaded an online statements for my checking account, my bank included duplicated entries as what I previously download. Old version of Money persent a list that was hard to distingish between previously entries and new one. But, 2003 showed it in a clearer way. Money 2001 had a few ad here and there, like logo of different Banks/Brokager etc, even if you disabled the "showing offer" option). But, Money 2003 have less. It is definitely an welcome improvement to me. I never try Quicken. But I think Money itself is not easy to learn, or I should say it is hard. And, I found it quite hard to remember where is a feature, especially for customizations. I don't find the meun initiative. In fact, that are too many of them. There is always two menu bars on top, a number of drop down lists under the menu bars, and additional navigation menu on the right. Then you can still right click on items, and each item in the pop-up will bring you to different pages. Then, you click "next" a few times and answering some questions, it is hard to predict where will it end. It is true for both version. When I want to customize or change something, I can almost always find the feature eventually. I like the fact that they have "enough" options for everything. However, the next time I want to do the same things I often have hard time to figure out where did I made the change. I feel that they can reorgainze the menu to be more consistent. Beside the menu and page difficulties, I would think money management itself is very hard, and might have some feel hidden concepts that you need to know it. For example, I know that I can create an "Cash Account" to track my everyday spending in detail after months of using Money. So, I had no way to track how much I spend dining out last month. All cash I withdrawn from checking was categorized as "Cast widthwal" only. I didn't aware that "cash" can be an "account" itself. Together with the menu and page difficulties, it might explain why some people have so negative feeling about Money 2003. It might not be totally micrsoft's fault. If you think about doing personal fiance management by hand of spreadsheet alone, using Money is definitely 100 times easier. But, even with their help, it is not effortless espeically in the first few times. Your lthernative? Managed by guessimation. So, Money is good when you must do fiance management. But, don't bother if you don't care...
Rating: 
Summary: Quicken Users Stay away!!!
Review: I have used Quicken for 10+ years - so I have a pretty good size database. I have tried for two days to get Money to convert the Quicken file without any success. I keep getting an Out of Memory Error and a bad conversion. A check of the MS web site shows others are having the same problem. The conversion results that I do get are accounts with the wrong balances - IRA accounts come in as two accounts - one with the wrong balance and the other with zero - or better yet another incorrect balance. Maybe I could clean it up - but I am not sure I would ever trust the results.
Rating:
Summary: Needs improvement, but still useful
Review: I brought this product for 1 main purpose. I wanted a software which can automatically download my account statements once a month. That is the first step in any planning. Guess what. The software does not support half the financial institutions. For a few like Wells fargo Bank the login information expected by software and bank do not match, so you will not be able to download the statements directly, however you can import them. You have to enter the opening balances on your own, that is sometimes hard to calculate. The importing functionality makes
it better than just plain spreadsheets.
I would like to add some more information after I used this product. Here is summary.
1. Does not support automatic downloading of statements for all the claimed institues (as stated earlier).
2. Most institues will provide an export functionality. The Money could easliy file this information into appropriate account.
3. The starting balance has to be entered, For some I do not even know myself, so have to sit and calculate.
4. You can see all your accounts at one place which is good.
5. You can view your transactions offline at any time which is good.
6. For your investments you have to enter the purchase price, if you update it regularly its good, you do not have to scratch your head looking for purchase price at the end of the year. Some manual work upfront, but potentialy may provide benefit. I got it with taxcut, so my price after rebates was good. All in all I would upgrade my recomendation a bit.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Program
Review: Good but not great. It loads easy, and manages to get you up and running with a minimum of fuss. But the screens are overloaded. The expert user wants a few choices - MONEY gives you everything. Yes, you can customize it but when you first start out (and all you really want to do is pay your bills on line), it is a bit overwhelming to see so many things on one opening screen. Also, the voice introduction is a bit unnerving but that can be turned off quickly. This is an improvement over previous versions as you can save your payments as drafts and then submit the drafts all at one time for payment. But there still is quite a bit of repetition that should either be eliminated or give the user a choice. My advise would be: Clear out the clutter but keep the quick and effortless way and this would be a first class program.
Rating:
Summary: MUCH Better Than Quicken
Review: Let me first say that I have been a diehard Quicken user for the better part of 9 years, and I am not a particular fan of Microsoft. But I have to give credit where credit is due. I decided to try Microsoft Money because Quicken's interface has recently become so cluttered with advertisements and nonsense that it has become almost impossible to navigate. In addition, my experience with Quicken Deluxe 2003 has been so incredibly bad (support, bugs, crashes, etc.) that I had to try some alternative. At first I was going to buy Microsoft Money Deluxe 2003. But, for just a little extra, I decided to try the Deluxe & Business version instead. I have a small internet side business and I thought this would be a perfect fit. First, let me address the home portion of the program:
This is an incredible step-up from the equivalent version of Quicken. The interface is simple, the program is not "buggy", and the online help is more than comprehensive enough to get you through even the toughest of problems. Because I was already using the 2003 version of Quicken, I was not able to automatically transfer my Quicken file, so I cannot comment on how that particular feature works. But I can certainly tell you that setting up all of my accounts from scratch (and I have quite a few) was more than simple. All of the online banking features worked flawlessly, and I was up and running in about 3 hours - start to finish. And with much less frustration than with Quicken. As for the business portion of the program:
This area is, admittedly, not very advanced. It is good for very small side businesses (such as mine), but for anything more comprehensive, you may want to look elsewhere. I think the problem with marketing these two features together is that a lot of people may be expecting too much out of the business portion of the program, so they tend to write-off the whole thing. This program is intended only for the very smalest home business owner. If you are looking for anything more comprehensive than that, my advice would be to invest in the standard or deluxe versions of Micrsoft Money for your personal finances, and look elsewhere for a more comprehensive accounting program for your business finances. But if you decide to go the frugal route, expect to get what you pay for. In conclusion, Microsoft Money is, in my estimation, 10x easier to use than Quicken and is laid out in a much nicer fashion. In addition, there are no bugs that I could find, whereas Quicken was giving me constant problems (browser conflicts, lock-ups, etc.) Take it from a long time Quicken user - It's not too late to switch. Go buy Microsoft Money today.
Rating: 
Summary: good, but needs work
Review: I had been using Money Standard 2002 for about 1 year to track my basic finances. It does this fine. I like that I can download my credit card statement and categorize all my purchases. It also makes balancing my bank accounts quick work. I really feel like I have taken control of my finances. However, although I've never used Quicken, I'm sure it or just about any financial program will be able to do this very basic stuff. Beyond these basic functions, I have found alot of problems and limitations. I find the budget section to be very annoying. If I buy something and categorize it, Money will assume that I will be spending this amount in this category every month. I don't want it to do that!! Evertime I check to see if I am in budget I have to closely review to make sure all my expenses are correct. Also, when I try to generate certain types of reports, it will not allow me to include/exclude certain accounts or purchase categories so the final data is useless to me. For some reason, when I run a report and then re-run it excluding certain income categories it actually shows that I have more money available! Bottom line is that I don't trust most of the reports. Anyway, I'm planning on buying a house and decided to upgrade to Money Deluxe because it supposidly had tools to assist in this area and at the price after rebates why not. Very big disappointment. The house buying 'tools' are very minimal and do not work properly. When I enter in the loan info and my info, it incorrectly calculates that I can afford a $0 house at a payment of $8000 a month! If I add a couple of 0's to my income then it will (accurately) calculate the payments for a multimillion dollar house. I had played with a version of Money that came with Office 97 many years ago and it had some very nice tools for calculating the benefits of extra payments and other things. Most of these tools (the reason I decided to upgrade) have vanished. I wish Microsoft would focus on more on fixing the existing problems and giving useful tools then adding pretty buttons and audio/video commentary on everything. If they did that, they might have a good product on their hands. If it cost any more then the price I paid for it, I would have returned it and gone back to Money Standard.
Rating:
Summary: Great for keeping every day finances straight
Review: My needs are small--I just want a place to keep all my finances recorded, have reminders set up of upcoming bills, etc. I honestly don't use the downloading features or any of the complicated thing that may give other people problems. I love the pie charts that track my spending. Categories are easy to modify, as is the account information from the beginning (I'm unsure what gave other people problems modifying their account information). If your needs are similar to mine, I wholeheartedly recommend this product. In contrast to other reviewers, I've found it a simple matter to update my starting balances; however, if you happen to leave off from the program for a while, it takes a bit of finagling to update your accunt info, since you can't just erase all the information you had entered before and just start from scratch. That's why I give this product only four stars.
Rating:
Summary: save your money, buy a different program
Review: Frustrating program, frustrating help system. Most features do not work. Worthless for business.
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