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Microsoft Money 2003 Standard

Microsoft Money 2003 Standard

List Price: $34.95
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Transaction matching not good
Review: I was a big fan of Money over Quicken. The best thing about Money was downloading your statement from the bank and having the transactions match themselves. You could reconcile your statement in less than 5 to 10 minutes. That was with Money 1999.
Unfortunately, current versions of Money have a problem with transaction matching. The logic they use is not as good as previous versions. Now I spend up to a half hour or more manually matching and unmatching mismatched transactions. If you have a previous version of Money you would be better off keeping it.(Microsoft knows about this problem and doesn't seem to have any intention of fixing it. Refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 317457.)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Product not as promised
Review: As a new treasurer for simple homeowners association, I purchased this product to manage the homeowner's fees and to keep track of association bills. I decided to try Money Business 2003 because it advertises that you can create or modify the invoice templates to taper to your business. (I wanted to change the fields from hours to months and quantity to rate... a simple request) No matter how I tried to modify an invoice it would not save. It appears this function does not work, I have read all the help areas, went to the website and all information states you need to click on modify a template to save. A "modify button" does not exist anywhere on the program. In order to get technical assistance from MS you have to pay ...So, I say forget this and buy a copy of Quicken.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Beware - MS Money 2003 Expires after one year!
Review: Please read the EULA (end user license agreement). Microsoft, in their usual sneaky fashion, have inserted a new clause that makes certain online update features expire after a certain period of time forcing you to purchase the next version of this software in 2004.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Beware - MS Money 2003 Expires after one year
Review: I purchased MS Money 2003. After opening the box, I discovered this little sheet inside it that said "Expiration of Certain Features" and basically explained that the most useful feature i.e. "Online quotes" will expire one year from activation requiring me to purchase MS Money 2004 or continue to use a piece of software that is pretty much useless.

I have been using MS Money for a couple of years (currently using Money 2002) but I will not install Money 2003 and will return the software. I would not recommend purchasing this software as it becomes useless after one year!

I would like Microsoft to remove this restriction on MS Money 2003 where certain features (actually the most useful features) expire in one year.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: NT users beware
Review: I have Money 2002 running happily on my NT computer, and when I bought 2003 I didn't even think to check to see if it was compatible with NT (dumb!). It will not install at all, and there is nothing on Microsoft's website to suggest this will ever be changed. I like Money as a product, it got such a bad rating because I can't even use it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Vable's Review of Microsoft Money
Review: I have been using the Money software for years. I find it to be an excellent tool for those who like to manage, as well as budget their finances. It is excellent as a personal money manager. It allows you to see and know what monies you have coming in and going out. I use it for budgeting, online services (bill pay)reconciling bank statements, planning for retirement and future goals, such as: a wedding,purchasing a car or home,or getting a loan.I love the debt planner. This feature allows you to set up a payment plan to get out of debt. An excellent tool for home or business.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: NT is not supported!
Review: From the product description on the website it mentions that Money 2003 runs on NT. It does not! And is not mentioned as a supported system on the Money 2003 box either.

I am a user of Money 2001 and believe that once I am able to upgrade my laptop to a compatible OS, I will be equally satisfied with Money 2003.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Regretful Switcher
Review: I switched from Quicken to Money this year. The [money]I saved is not worth it AT ALL. I have had nothing but problems since - bugs and errors. I am switching back regardless of the price.

My advice: stay with Quicken and don't look back!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Don't buy this for the business features
Review: I have used MS money for several years, and found it to be an acceptable product. This year I upgrade to the business edition to help manage my small business. Unfortunately the program features provided for business are not complete enough to be useful. The limitations of the invoices are a good example. There is no way to record a discount given to a particular customer. Also, there is no way to record the credit card fee subtracted from each transaction. Finally the invoice is so rigid there is no way to annotate particular items with explanatory notes.

Also, several of my financial institutions are set up to interwork with Quicken, but do not interwork with Money.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Will Money really save me time?
Review: Accounting programs, even if they are fully connected to your accounts, demand a lot of time manually entering, checking and correcting data. Before you use any accounting program, you should ask yourself: Is this program going to save me time, or cause a net loss of my time? In my experience, Money, Quicken and other programs have sucked me into doing a lot of work that did not pay for the time taken.

If you are unemployed and have time to spare, or if you simply like accounting, then you are welcome to try keeping your checking account reconciled, or even maintaining a budget -- Money will support this.

But as a busy, hard-working person, I would have been better off doing things the old way: just wait until the W2s etc. come in at the end of January, and add them up. The only thing you need to track and add up yourself is your charitable contributions -- unless you were unfortunate enough to incur more than 7.5% AGI of health care costs or 2% AGI of unreimbursed job expenses.

Money has some arbitrary restrictions and unrealistic models.
1. It does not account for appreciating assets such as a house.
You have to fake this by manually adding "capital gains". But that is not really appropriate for homes.

2. Many people pay their loans thru ACH scheduled withdrawals from their checking accounts. But Money won't let you link scheduled loan data to your checking account, only to asset accounts. This is an arbitrary restriction.

3. If you are getting a paycheck sent to your bank, only the net pay is recorded; the taxes, insurance and other deductions from your gross pay are recorded nowhere. You still have to enter these manually yourself, if you want to do this. But where? There is no "escrow" account for funds that are sent directly from your employer to, say, the IRS.

It puzzles me why Money doesn't seem to be set up for these ordinary practices of modern life.

The only thing Money really does to save me time is this: it gathers my information from all electronically-available accounts into one place. This saves me from having to log into each account and adding them up. Of course, you have to trust the Microsoft Passport system to keep your data secure, but that's life in the 21st century.


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