Saturday, January 7, 2012

Greatest Out There - Business Finance Software Critique

By Brianna Perry


I'll preface by saying I used MS Money since 1997, so was forced to move to Quicken back in October since they stopped support Jan of this year. While Money had its share of "downs" (like the fact that it was slow), I didn't a have any major complaints with the functionality. Trust me, skip it. This is the obvious result of having absolutely no other commercial competitor in your market.

Love the tracking feature for monthly expenditures. Well worth the money. I am not happy with this version. I sent an email and the response I got from them was incorrect.

The deck chairs on the ship get shuffled around, forcing you to find your favorite pathways again, but the useful features are still the same. Maybe that isn't all bad, since the software is pretty robust. After searching for various alternatives, both online and standalone, I ended up selecting Quicken Home and Business 2011 (being self-employed I need the business module). At first I was quite nervous about Quickens ability to load almost 10-years' worth of history and be able to make sense of it. They graciously sent me link to download 2008 Home & Business for free. I've always been happy with their customer service, and they listen to the 'voice of the customer.' So if there's a method/feature you think could make the product significantly more valuable, or if you just have a question, please feel free to tell them. They have made it harder to use and removed some functions altogether. If you don't download transitions from your bank then don't bother with this. Quicken stacking the deck, it seems to me. I am just getting into it, so I may change my opinion later, but right off the bat there were some serious problems with getting information from my banks.

I work in the financial industry and have heard positive feedback on this program. We decided to give it a try and are very pleased with the ease of use. The navigation completely changed which is OK if it is improved - it is a mess. Single click update often fails on my US Bank accounts and I have to do each one separately and type in my challenge questions about 8 times. Next time I have to upgrade, I'm going to look harder for a different personal financial program to use. I'd read reports that this version was "greatly improved" and worth the cost.

It crashes on me constantly, and I get unexpected errors with the scheduled one-step updates that I should not be getting. I also had a bad experience with Turbo Tax this year.

This program cannot download bank transactions consistently. If you get one account working then all the other accounts will stop downloading transactions. I have everything on 1 page to start with. I can switch from one account to the next with one click.




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