Rating: 
Summary: I hate this product...
Review: I am an engineer and use computers all day, every day.I have been using Money 2002 for almost a year now, and I am still struggling with the horrible budget functionality. It completely ties your hands with how you want to track your budget. For instance, when I make a credit card payment, you generally categorize it under a special category that Money creates such as "Credit Card Payment: Discover Card" (for example). However, I cannot get that "special" category to appear in my budget! I have to work around by creating an additional "normal" category for this expense and then assign the funds to both categories. This results in a double payment, which I have to negate with an opposite category. Awful. Howabout this: I created a auto loan account. Fine. But I cannot get my auto-payment to show up properly in my "Expenses" budget window unless I use their "Bills & Deposits" feature, which also gives me problems. I could go on and on and on. I have been struggling with this horrible software for some time now and I am throwing in the towel. Like most Microsoft software it throws so many features into your face and tries to do so much automatically that it completly obfuscates the simple tasks you want to perform.
Rating: 
Summary: Microsoft is moving backwards
Review: I am not entirely happy with this release. Microsoft seems to be moving backwards in basic functionality and instead spending their time integrating Money with their web site. I used to be able to create a budget based on my spending habits... this feature was apparently removed. I have to enter each budget item by hand. A simple matter of transfering money between accounts on paper is sometimes difficult since certain accounts don't show up where I would expect them to. Setting up a new checking account that I've had for a while was also very hard -- I could not get Money to agree with my bank without entering several (big) fudge factors and I was importing the data from my bank. There are also several minor nuances such as labeling my account history graph as a future expected spending graph (when I selected a specific time frame). My brokerage account does not list cash entering or leaving my account -- the cash balance is included in the total, but I cannot seem to find the cash in the account registy anywhere, so I have to calculate how much free cash I have from my current stock value and the total listed amount or go online to my brokerage web page. Ok, these are minor, but it shows me how little effort Microsoft spent on basic every day features I use. I'm constantly having to fight the software to do basic work. It used to be much easier. To add insult to injury, Microsoft rejected my rebate with a letter saying that they need the entire box top for the rebate -- I trimmed the box top to fit the envelope making sure that the UPC code is intact. They did not return the part of the box top I sent, so there is no way I can possibly comply with the rebate program at all now. I do like parts of Money 2003 and I'll still keep using this software, but if I could do this purchase over again, I would choose a different product. I've been using this software for about three months now.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for first time instal, but as an upgrade.
Review: I think that this version of MS Money is good in the fact that it has become more task based and it has a lot more fuctionality with the MS Office programs. I also have found that it is a bit faster the some of the previous versions. The few things that I do not like about it however, are really just personal preference. I don't like the fact that they have gotten rid of a large portion of the customizations for the home page. I also found when I was pulling my tax information for this year, that the reports were not the same as the previous version and I had to build my own. Other then that, I think that it is a good peice of software.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy Microsoft Money Deluxe instead
Review: I was going to purchase the Microsoft Money Standard because it's free after the TaxCut rebate, but I discovered that with the promotional rebates being offered by Amazon.com (expires 2/28/2003) and Microsoft, the Deluxe version of Microsoft Money is less than the Taxcut rebate amount. So make the most of all those rebates and purchase the Deluxe version instead!
Rating:
Summary: Money for Dummies
Review: As a longtime user of Quicken, I found Money to be an adequate replacement. Quicken has become more and more "advertisement-centered," which is more than a small annoyance when I paid for the software and not the ads. Money also includes advertisements, but to a much lesser degree. Some of the advertisements are blatant (for financial services) and some are more subtle (check your stocks!). What I least enjoyed about Money is the "dummy" factor: they literally walk you through everything, and have voice help prompts. You can turn off these features, but you have to search the help files to find out how, as they're not readily available. I think it would be a good idea for software programs to offer two 'start-up' options: one for experienced financial software users and one for beginners. My favorite feature of Money is the ease of importing financial information from online services. If you have an American Express card for both yourself and your spouse, you know that Amex assigns two separate card numbers. With Quicken, I would have to manually change the account numbers before downloading the statements for the card; Money allows you to match a download with an existing account, even if the numbers don't match. I also found that Money will import my bank's online statement feature, whereas Quicken would not accomplish this task. Money is a bit different from Quicken - some features are easy to use and some are more difficult or less user-friendly. Keep in mind that no two financial programs are the same when making the transition.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother!
Review: Money2003 does not qualify as an upgrade in ANY sense of the word. It is basically a fix to some of Money2002's many problems. In fact some things don't seem to work as well in this iteration, such as downloading statements from banks and credit card companies. Fortunately I got it for free (after rebates) by purchasing it with another software title. Save your money for Money2004 -- or Quicken!
Rating:
Summary: Quicken vs. Money: and the winner is...
Review: Well, I don't either program wins on all counts. I tried both and experienced frustrations with each. In the end, I stuck with Quicken only because Money couldn't import my Quicken data as promised. Both just seem too hard to learn. I am a computer wiz and found them both hard to use -- I can't imagine others trying to get the hang of it. They really need to stop adding features and focus on the usability of the programs. But overall, I would have to say Money did have a cleaner interface that was easier to master. However, both really fail at invoicing. They both claim you can create custom invoices, but the customization is extremely limited and messes things up so much that you eventually just end up using the defaults. So why did I stick with Quicken? Well, Money guarantees that it can import your information from Quicken, but it failed to import my data. Microsoft technical support tried a few simple solutions, but then told me "tough luck." I wan't about to reenter a years worth of info, so I retreated back to Quicken since Money wasn't that much better to make it worth my while.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste money - get Money 2003 Deluxe version instead
Review: Money 2003 would get five stars for me had it not included Kiplinger's Home & Business Attorney. This program is so horribly unbeleivably bad I cannot phathom (a) how Kiplinger is still in business, and (b) how Microsoft came to include this in their otherwise outstanding package. The Kiplinger stuff was obviously written for Windows 3.1 and has not been updated since then. It is *still* using the 16bit version of InstallShield. When run on Windows XP, The installer hangs at 99% for 8-10 minutes before proceeding. This is a well-documented problem with InstallShield from long-ago. After installation, the installer just hangs forever. I gave up at 15 minutes. The Attorney program itself is horrible. It brings up a ... editor that does not even understand spaces or long filenames. The buttons look like Windows 3.1. The program runs in 16bit emulated space, so that definitely means Windows 3.1. The OK button on many dialogs is HUGE and mostly blocked by text entry windows. Truly has to be seen to be believed. Get Money 2003 Deluxe instead. You'll still get TaxCut and the Money 2003 program, which are both very nice programs.
Rating:
Summary: not perfect but...
Review: It is only a couple of days I am using this software so I just want to add something that nobody said so far. Like another user I am still using PocketMoney for Palm
and I gave MsMoney a try because I got it for nearly nothing... I red some negative comments about the management of a Flexible Spending Account but I was able to set it up manually. Automatic update with banks/financial institutions? Not too bad: unfortunately my AmEx Corporate is the only one that is not part of the integration, my 401(k) account (Principal) neither. Yes, you can still download a file to import but still... I guess the more users there will be around the more Microsoft and banks will collaborate. The integration with ING Bank or Wachovia is great. Finally one thing that somebody else said: it is TOTALLY customizable.
Rating:
Summary: Very dissapointing
Review: I have been using Money software for years and every time I upgrade there is a several day adjusting period where I absoultely hate the new version. So it is understandable that after installing the Deluxe edition I wasn't that worried with how much I disliked the software. One month into using it I can definitely say that this is waste of money and time. Microsoft has oversimplified and restricted the software. For example, if you have a debt plan you are not allowed to decide how much money should go to which debt account, Money decides for you! And if you are not happy with that decision, tough, the only way to enter the transactions is manually and then the debt account doesn't track them. What a reviewer before me mentioned about pre-tax deductions from the paycheck not translating into retirement contributions is absolutely correct. So if you have several accounts, you have to do a lot of manual entering every month. The software has 2 options for downloading your online statements. Normally you will use the first option (Direct Banking) to download your balance statement from the bank and the second one (Web service) to get your statements from your bill pay. However, Micorosoft has disabled the feature that allows the software to match these two statements (for people who don't know what I am talking about, eventually your bill paid through the bill pay will show up on your bank statement as well) and you end up with duplicate transactions. The only way to get rid of these is manually deleting each duplicate. The 2001 Deluxe had no trouble recognizing those transactions as duplicates. The previous software also had a feature that allowed mortgage rates comparison and how much will you can save if you pay more to the principal each month and which was useful to me. It is gone in this version or buried somewhere, so I can't find it. Instead I have all these scenarios what will happen if I die or if another disaster strikes, which are of no use. The porfolio part of the software is OK, meaning that it does what I need it to do: track 401K and my investments. To sum up, I think that Microsoft doesn't test their products in real conditions or whoever is testing them, has no clue what is the purpose of the software. The new version is so restrictive that is not worth spending your time or money on it. If you have never, ever used any software for your finance, this one might be a good start, but if you have some experience and want some flexibility, look elsewhere. ***Update: I decided to tackle some of the issues I am having with customer support. It took me a month to clarify with customer support that the features I am looking for from the previous version are not in this one. I reinstalled 2001 and that is the end of this story. Hopefully I will get a refund on 2003.
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