Rating: 
Summary: Pocket Quicken and Investment Accounts
Review: "Pckt Qckn, Your Mobile Quicken Companion; Tracks your finances anytime, anywhere" "Account Details at a Glance; Place all your important financial information at your fingertips" - Quotes from the Pckt Qckn 2.0 Box.I purchased Pckt Qckn primarily to have access to my investment accounts information, for when I am away from my PC. Sadly, Pckt Qckn 2.0 provides "NO detailed information" about investment accounts: "Investment transactions are not accessible on the handheld" - Quote from Pckt Qckn 2.0, when accessing the 'Register' option for an Investment Account. From using PC Quicken for many years I already have an established routine for entering data into my PC Quicken (I prefer to enter my data on my PC and then update my Palm using HotSync) and a knowledgeable picture of my overall financial situation. However when I am away from my PC Quicken, I cannot remember all the details about my investment accounts, number of shares, different accounts etc., and was hoping that Pckt Qckn could help me in this area. Instead Pckt Qckn only provides the name of the account and the most current ending balance. Landware might want to consider improving this area of their product (maybe Pckt Qckn 3.0), since the rest of the product certainly has some value. If Landware would have something similar to the PC Quicken option 'Portolio View', which provides a lot of information in a summary format, that would be a major improvement. At least then the user would have access to their detailed account information, holdings, price history etc.. I would suggest that it possibly makes more sense to only allow edits to an investment account to be made on the PC Quicken. Given the viewing/screen size of the Palm, and the amount of information required to establish/edit an investment account, I would have no problem with not having an option to directly edit investment data on my Palm. If I had known about the poor investment account information I would probably have opted to not buy the product. I know it's hard to please all the people all the time, but the self promoting product quotes on the Pckt Qckn Box are not entirely accurate, buyer beware! I am thankful that I bought the product at Amazon.com and did not pay full retail price. Ease of ordering, e-mail confirmation service, and receiving the product promptly was great as usual!
Rating: 
Summary: Seamless synchronisation, but major improvements required
Review: .
PROS: Seamless backup to desktop Quicken; useful budget feature; integrated calculator. CONS: No uncategorized items permitted in split transactions; inability to edit (on handheld) any transaction backed up to desktop Quicken; quirky installation procedure. Like many others, a determining factor in purchasing a handheld organiser was the potential of managing my finances 'on the go'. With so many poor reviews of Pocket Quicken 1.0, it was an easy decision to go with Pocket Money, which worked well. The missing piece was easy backup and importing to the desktop version of Intuit Quicken or Microsoft Money. Quicken can import a .qif file (containing several accounts) generated from Pocket Money. The trouble I had was importing transfer transactions: they were duplicated and/or adjusted, requiring re-reconciliation. To work with Microsoft Money, you had to create a .qif file for every account in Pocket Money. Quickly annoying with over 20 accounts, required on every synchronisation. Pocket Quicken 2.0 does what it claims here: flawless synchronisation between handheld and desktop. However, it is one-way only; once transactions are uploaded to the desktop, you can't edit them on the handheld. Worse, every cent/pence must be assigned to a category in Pocket Quicken. Do the programmers at LandWare not use cash? You withdraw cash from an ATM/hole-in-the-wall; you spend some of it now, some of it later. Well, if you record the transaction in Pocket Quicken, you either have to (a) wait until it is all spent before entering appropriate categories in your split transaction, or (b) enter the split transaction with a large segment categorised as 'Misc', then constantly adjust this figure as you spent the rest of the cash. At least on desktop Quicken you can override the 'uncategorised items' warning. Sort this out quick, please. The installation procedure is also quirky. Here is how I managed it: (1) Install desktop Quicken. NB: Set-up password (go to File: Passwords: File); (2) Install Pocket Quicken; (3) Conduct first Palm synchronisation; (4) Open Pocket Quicken; (5) Enter desktop Quicken password in box 'Quicken File Password' (leave 'Launch PIN' = '-Unassigned-' unless you desire a PIN for Pocket Quicken); (6) Conduct second Palm synchronisation; (7) NB: Conduct future Palm synchronisation with desktop Quicken CLOSED. Not all is bad news. Pocket Quicken's budget feature is competitively unique, and I find it very useful. Yet if the folks at LandWare can manage to synchronise category lists, why not budgets? The integrated calculator is a convenient piece of programming. Just wish as much thought went into the rest of the package. Overall, Pocket Quicken 2.0 is undoubtedly an improvement over version 1.0. Its (one-way) synchronisation is truly seamless, and its budget feature is unmatched. However, major improvements are still required. In the end, I could justify the purchase, with my many accounts and long transaction history. Though I expect some free upgrades from LandWare. I have to say, if you only rely on your handheld, then Pocket Money is likely to be a better experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Accounting Synergy!
Review: I am in awe of this product. It is used with a Palm Zire 71 and synchs with Quicken 2002 on a laptop using Windows ME. It performed so flawlessly after I downloaded and used the trial copy that I wasted no time ordering the full version (Amazon.com, of course). For its intended mobile purpose, I find no reason to fault this program.
Anyone requiring on-the-go data gathering with simple and accurate transfer would do well to try it.
Rating:
Summary: Huge improvements over previous versions
Review: I didn't expect too much change when I purchased this newer version of the software. I simply had misplaced my original CD and had to re-order this new one. But I can say this investment was well worth it. Gone are the days where you had to configure this software in special way to even sync your accounts. It all is done now automatically for you. It lists all my accounts (or at least the ones I do not exclude), I believe in the older version it was limited to 10 or 12 accounts. Split transactions now can include another account, which didn't work before. The lack of the sync with budgets does not bothe me, because I never configured themmin Quicken anyway. The interface is a whole lot nicer as well. On the downside, it appears that syncronizing with the Palm takes now a little longer (but maybe that is because I can now see 3 months of my old transactions for every account directly on my Palm).
Rating:
Summary: Good but needs improvement
Review: I found pocket quicken helpful in keeping me straight with my balances while "on the go". The idea of knowing at any given moment what my balances are is appealling. However, when I tried to add line items expenses to the PDA and then transfer them to the main program, I found that it said it was downloading them and then didn't. I find the only way to keep things accurate is still the old fashioned way of going to the main PC and doing the data entry. So what I thought would save me time, didn't and so it needs improving so that it will do what it says. Perhaps it is because I'm using quicken 2001. I will likely upgrade and see if that makes any difference in the interfacing. Also, I tried keeping a backup copy of quicken on my PC at the office (just in case my home PC ever crashed) and I sometimes take a zip drive backup and update it that way to keep it current. However, when trying to sync my palm with it, that is to update, it only works in reverse ... where Palm gets only latest info from PC not true sync where palm may already be more updated. I had to go home and hotsync to get my palm back to correct figures. So I've told my office PC to simply ignore pocket quicken when syncing to palm. If these two areas could be addressed and stocks updated (as others have said), PC Quicken would really be useful. For now all it can do for me is allow me to download from my home PC to palm (after I've sat at the home PC and trugged out the data entry on the QUICKEN program). I'm still glad I bought it if only so I can know my current balances while on the go. Good idea but needs considerable improvement to be all it is potentially capable of.
Rating:
Summary: Pocket Quicken vs. Handmark's PocketMoney
Review: I have been a long-time user of Handmark's PocketMoney, and recently tried a 14-day trial of Pocket Quicken. As you might expect, each program has it's strengths and weaknesses. While PocketMoney has a nicer, icon-based account list, Pocket Quicken seems a little cluttered, with awkward rounded and square "buttons" to switch between account list and register. I also thought PocketMoney had a more natural method of entering data - more like Quicken. So, if I like PocketMoney so well, why am I giving Pocket Quicken a 5-star rating? It all comes down to the conduits - how the information transfers between your desktop and PDA. Pocket Quicken wins, hands down. PocketMoney requires a manual export procedure, where you have to designate a particular file directory. It doesn't always work all that well, even if you are an experienced computer user. If you are a novice, well, it's just too much trouble. Pocket Quicken's strengths more than make up for its weaknesses. It works so naturally with your desktop version of Quicken that every Hotsynch keeps both your PC and your PDA current. Compare the free trials of both versions, and I am convinced you will also come to the conclusion that Pocket Quicken is the best personal accounting software for your PDA.
Rating:
Summary: Not really used
Review: I have not really had a chance to use it, because I could not sync it to the Quicken software on my laptop. This is mainly my fault as I put a password on the laptop software to protect the file it saves to. In order to have the new software on the pda sync it needs the password to the file, which I have long forgotten and haven't figured out how to get around yet. So, that is my little bit of warning to any future purchasers, but up until that, the installation was fairly simple and went smoothly.
Rating:
Summary: Not really used
Review: I have not really had a chance to use it, because I could not sync it to the Quicken software on my laptop. This is mainly my fault as I put a password on the laptop software to protect the file it saves to. In order to have the new software on the pda sync it needs the password to the file, which I have long forgotten and haven't figured out how to get around yet. So, that is my little bit of warning to any future purchasers, but up until that, the installation was fairly simple and went smoothly.
Rating:
Summary: Great Pocket-Sized Quicken Product
Review: I loaded the Pocket Quicken demo version from my Quicken 2002 CD on my PDA and was so impressed with it that I ordered the software from Amazon. My biggest problem was keeping up with entering my personal finance data into Quicken. With Pocket Quicken, entering the data is very easy. The best part is that I can enter the data on my commute home, or anywhere I take my PDA. I've had no problems hotsyncing the Pocket Quicken data to my Quicken desktop.
Rating:
Summary: I love my Pocket Quicken except....
Review: I love my Pocket Quicken except I wish I could view my budget information on it. However, I am able to enter checkbook transactions... make deposits, etc. It's great!
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