Microsoft Money 2007 Home & Business Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a seasoned user of "Microsoft Money" since 2001 and used Money-2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 versions. On the subject of convenience and integration of multiple financial activities, Money (and for that matter even Quicken) does fantastic job.
However, with 4-5 years of usage of 'Money', my money file has grown to nearly 21MB. With this size, I am getting pathetic performance which is consistently annoying. I have a laptop with 1.6GHz dual core CPU and 1GB RAM, however very basic activities such as looking at monthly report, budget report etc. takes 2-4 minutes to display on the screen ! Even if I go back and try again, it will again hang for 2-4 minutes. I will be lucky if I get 'any' operation finished faster then 5 seconds/transaction. The problem is with specific version but the way Money is designed to store its information. There were some comments on improving performance by using Database to store information but Microsoft chose not to invest money on that.
Another annoying thing I observed with Microsoft Money is with every newer release you will get fancier but more BUGGY software. So far I found '2004' release best in the bunch but once you upgrade the version and make new entries it is not feasible to go back to earlier version.
Let me give you example that will explain the problem. Most common activity one will have is it to download data from financial institutes. Money will connect to these institutes and get the data. It will turn back in 2-3 minutes with newer data and status as 'done'. On the "Account List" you will see, for example, 5 new transaction and when you go into that account there is 'nothing' yet ! Reason being, data is still in flight but status shows 'done'. After 2-3 minutes you will get the data in the account. When you try to accept the transaction it will say "data is still in flight" but you got status 'done' ! In short, after getting data downloaded from the institute, you won't be able to 'accept' them for nearly 5-6 minutes. I am surprised to see Microsoft is selling software w/o testing such basic functionality ! FYI, I noticed this bug only in 2007 release.
I wish to have a better software for my need w/o losing existing data but Microsoft hasn't decided to have better (not just newer) version yet. Quicken seems to have similar issues and it doesn't allow any migration facility for me to move my existing data from last 6 years. I can just wish that Microsoft Money 2008 comes with higher performance and basic testing.
If you are a first time user, prefer to compare both Money and Quicken for yourself before locking your data in one of the them. With 'Money', once your file grows larger, performance deteriorate significantly.
One last point-- even with above limitations, I am better off using this software then not having it at all. Microsoft is doing a good job of marketing its positive points so I won't spend time on that.

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Microsoft Money 2007 Home & Business makes managing business and personal finances fast, easy and automatic with precise tools that guide you through business taxes, inventory tracking and online payroll alongside your personal credit, debt, investment and taxes, so you can spend less time on finances and more time with customers.

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Microsoft Money 2007 Deluxe Review

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(More customer reviews)Microsoft has recently launched the 2007 version of their Money product. Money 2007 (M2007) Deluxe has been available as a trial version on Microsoft's website even a week before the official version was available in Retail Stores. I strongly advise everyone considering a purchase or an upgrade to take advantage of this Trial version, before buying the product. It is good for 90 days and has few limitations.
I have been using Money 2006 (M2006) Premium which is essentially the same as M2006 Deluxe, execept for some special offers. I installed M2007 and told it, NOT to remove my M2006 installation. Since M2007 upgrades the data file to a new format that is incompatible with earlier versions of money, I made a copy of my data file to be used with M2007, so I could still access my data through both versions. When I started M2007 for the first time and selected the newly made copy of my data file, M2007 converted this file to its new format without any problems and saved a copy in M2006 backup file format.
Overall M2006 and M2007 are extremly similar. Looking at the kind of things I use Money for, there is NO difference whatsoever. They both have the same minor shortcomings/bugs and their behavior is indistinguishable from one another. I do not download online statements, so I cannot say, if that area has been improved. Also M2007 has a new kind of "Spending and Savings budget" feature, which is the only noticable change compared to M2006.
All things considered, M2007 does not add much (if any) value over M2006, so I will only give it 3 stars. If you haven't upgraded in a while, consider M2007, since it seems at least to be stable (which couldn't be said, i.e. for M2005). If you haven't used Money before, then M2007 seems like a good version to start. But don't forget to try before you buy! Go to Microsoft's website and search for the Money Trial version.

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Microsoft Money 2007 Deluxe brings all your personal accounts – banking, credit and investment – in one place and provides the tools you need to improve your credit and debt and tackle tax time with ease, so you can spend less time worrying about your money and more time enjoying it.

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Microsoft Money 2006 Deluxe Review

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(More customer reviews)1 - No difference that I can find over 2005. Funny thing is that I said this with my 2005 from 2004 version purchase! I guess I will never learn, I'm a sucker for the lastest and greatest Money software. Really, you do not need this if you have 2005, you can live without backing up to CD/DVD.
2 - I have not found any bugs. You are thinking, Ya, so? If you were an early adopter of 2005 (the buggiest POS that MS Money put out), you would have seen this a huge achievement also.
Summary - nothing really exciting over the previous 2 versions, wait for the free offer with your tax software next year. If you are new to personal finance software, you really need to get this.

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Microsoft Money 2006 Deluxe helps you stay on top of credit, reduce debt, and organize your taxes, while keeping day-to-day finances simple. With all of your accounts—credit, checking, savings, and even investments—in one place, with one password, it's even easier to manage your finances. Spend less time worrying about your money and more time enjoying it.

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Microsoft Money Plus Home and Business Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)So, after using Microsoft Money Plus Home and Business, I found it to be a rather robust program. The reporting methods, categorizing, connections into the financial institutions, etc. are excellent. I have been a user of both quicken (for business) and money (for personal) for years. I am glad they have finally merged the two properly.
It meets the needs of my small business as well as my personal finance and investments. I would recommend to anyone.
As for the review from C:
I am finding the user rating system on Amazon becoming less and less useful by the day. Charles gives the software a bad rating, not because of his experience with the functionality of the product, but the time line in which the BETA and the production version were released. There are reasons why they call it BETA and you should have known the risks prior to using it as a production software. Just because Microsoft didn't release the final version prior to your BETA trial running out, you mark the software with 1 star. As for the claim that it doesn't let you convert the data to Quicken or Money 2006 is flat out wrong, I have been able to do both (I guess that must have been one of the features not available in the BETA version). Additionally, why are you writing a review on here if you haven't purchased the FULL VERSION of the product. In actuality, you didn't use the software on which you are reviewing, you were using a BETA version.
Finally, I am tired of hearing users complain about MS and how Vista and Office 2007 are bad products just because they weren't adept enough to figure it out and were unwilling to hit the F1 key and read. Enough of my rant, hopefully others are getting sick of this on these reviews as well.


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Money Plus Deluxe Review

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(More customer reviews)I tried upgrading from Quicken 2007 to Quicken 2008 and was unable to do so without errors that caused my new installation to give an error message, remove new changes, and stop the installation.
I called Quicken tech support and the guy in India (while nice) could only help me do the same things I'd already done and that did not work. After 2 tries, he said, "I don't have any other ways to help you. Try calling Microsoft and see if they can help you. Here's their 800 number . . . Goodbye!" He hung up on me.
I decided to download Money 2008 for their trial period. Money installed immediately and completely! It transferred my Quicken data accurately and fully. (I have used Quicken for at least 16 years and this was a "big" change for me.)
I ended-up purchasing Money - on-line - from Microsoft and making my full change to their financial software, within a week from trying Money 2008. I was VERY HAPPY with the way Money worked, its interface, and its various options. It was easy to change from Quicken!!

MOST OF ALL, I liked being able to get tech support from Money's email help. My actual experience was to have an email within 4 hours, that included a name and phone number if I needed more help. (I had a small problem inputing my serial number because I had my system set to a larger than normal sized font. Money would not allow the necessary information for each spaced section. Their tech support wrote back to me with the help (answer) I needed - I had to reset the system font size to normal (which they told me how to easily do. My serial number information was immediately accepted with no problem. Now, I am the happy owner of Money 2008 and no longer an Intuit/Quicken user.
I must say, my only disliked feature of Money 2008 is it wants to send each electronic check I write for paying bills - individually, instead of allowing me to write all my checks and then send them at the same time.

I will take this problem - happily - since I now have updated financial software that is not "buggie" and with no tech support that actually helps me.
I am going to be a Money user from now on. I highly recommend Money 2008.

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Quicken Home & Business 2011 Review

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(More customer reviews)I was not a beta tester and was not "encouraged" to write a glowing review by Intuit. This review only speaks to the question of whether this is a worthwhile upgrade from the 2010 version. The 2011 version contains very few new features when compared to the 2010 version. Whether you find these new features worth the upgrade price is debatable. The quicken site is a bit misleading in their "new features" list since many of the items they mention were already in the 2010 version. As with past Quicken upgrades, they largely give you MORE of a existing feature, and not much in the way of new features. So, for example, MORE banks are supported for direct connect. MORE transactions can be automatically categorized since auto-categorization already existed. So in these cases, if your banks are already supported and you don't use auto-categorization, then these enhancements are irrelevant. So for those thinking of upgrading from 2010, here's the list of only NEW features in the 2011 version:
- All Transactions register: This could be handy if you use many accounts and want to enter, maintain and view your transactions in one place. However, if you download transactions from your banking and investment institutions, the download window does not show up when you are in this mode, so you will be forced to continue using the individual account registers anyway.
- Register customization: You can decide which columns appear in each individual register. Transaction Notes can now be shown/edited as a column instead of treating them like an attachment.
- Attachment Encryption: I'm fairly certain this wasn't in the prior version. I guess you can now password protect attachments.
- The usual "Where's Waldo" changes to the program: They've moved menu items and eliminated speed button lists in registers. I imagine they did this to make the interface "look" simpler/cleaner, but now you have to rummage through the menus to find them. So, for example, the "Live Community" speed button was eliminated; It is now found as a "Help" menu item. Also, each account's "Overview" speed button has been eliminated; You now find that in the "Account Actions" menu. Since it is likely that the eliminated speed buttons were rarely needed by most users, the changes will be well received.That's it! Is it worth the upgrade? You decide.


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Quicken Home & Business 2011 gives you the personal finance features found in Quicken Premier plus tools that make it easy to see how your home business is doing.
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Quicken Home & Business 2011 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I was not a beta tester and was not "encouraged" to write a glowing review by Intuit. This review only speaks to the question of whether this is a worthwhile upgrade from the 2010 version. The 2011 version contains very few new features when compared to the 2010 version. Whether you find these new features worth the upgrade price is debatable. The quicken site is a bit misleading in their "new features" list since many of the items they mention were already in the 2010 version. As with past Quicken upgrades, they largely give you MORE of a existing feature, and not much in the way of new features. So, for example, MORE banks are supported for direct connect. MORE transactions can be automatically categorized since auto-categorization already existed. So in these cases, if your banks are already supported and you don't use auto-categorization, then these enhancements are irrelevant. So for those thinking of upgrading from 2010, here's the list of only NEW features in the 2011 version:
- All Transactions register: This could be handy if you use many accounts and want to enter, maintain and view your transactions in one place. However, if you download transactions from your banking and investment institutions, the download window does not show up when you are in this mode, so you will be forced to continue using the individual account registers anyway.
- Register customization: You can decide which columns appear in each individual register. Transaction Notes can now be shown/edited as a column instead of treating them like an attachment.
- Attachment Encryption: I'm fairly certain this wasn't in the prior version. I guess you can now password protect attachments.
- The usual "Where's Waldo" changes to the program: They've moved menu items and eliminated speed button lists in registers. I imagine they did this to make the interface "look" simpler/cleaner, but now you have to rummage through the menus to find them. So, for example, the "Live Community" speed button was eliminated; It is now found as a "Help" menu item. Also, each account's "Overview" speed button has been eliminated; You now find that in the "Account Actions" menu. Since it is likely that the eliminated speed buttons were rarely needed by most users, the changes will be well received.That's it! Is it worth the upgrade? You decide.


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Quicken Home & Business 2011 gives you the personal finance features found in Quicken Premier plus tools that make it easy to see how your home business is doing.
Always know how your home-based business is doing.

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Quicken Premier 2011 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have a love hate relationship with Quicken. It is a great concept; it is very helpful in managing personal finances and is a program I use daily. I don't buy the upgrades every year, if they can be called upgrades, but the last version I had was Quicken 2006. I held off buying 2010 for a few months knowing 2011's release was around the corner. I learned I don't like not having access to my finances daily. During that time I tried all sorts of other types of financial programs, but none were close to Quicken, which is scary because as much as I like it, the actual program is TERRIBLE - for length of time it has been available. Mint.com(Owned by Intuit/Quicken) was the only program I thought was very good, but it is terrible for investments. Overall, I see very little difference in this version than my 2006 one; clearly there are a few new features but certainly nothing that made me jump up and down. This is pretty amazing considering the price and the 5 version "upgrades" between, but very little has actually improved. Clearly this is the benefit of having a monopoly; you can do virtually nothing for years and still have the best in breed. In 4 days of using Quicken 2011 it has crashed about 4-5 times a day, same old Quicken.
Quicken 2011 is the best personal finance program available, but the lack of innovation and true upgrades is shocking. The graphical displays are very outdated, and I find the lack of being able to increase text size mind boggling. I hope this version holds me over till the long awaited, fabled, complete overhaul. Or maybe a new company will evade being bought out by Intuit and deliver a superior product. I assume the acquisition of Mint by Intuit will start to actually improve Quicken in the next couple of years.
In conclusion, I give Quicken Premier 2011 3 stars, I can't see it being anymore and am baffled by people upgrading from an older version giving it a higher rating.
EDIT 3/12/11 - Upgrades to Quicken 2011 improved stability a couple months after I purchased. I can say this is a Stable program now on my platform. Does not change the rating.

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Quicken Premier 2011 has all of the features of Quicken Deluxe--plus investment management tools to help track your portfolio performance and help maximize your investments, with step-by-step guidance along the way.
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