Rating: 
Summary: Aggressive Marketing, Too Wizard-y, Loss of Privacy
Review: What happened when I investigated whether I could hook my online billpay feature of my checking account into Money's program left me breathless and confused. In a few short minutes, a Wizard swept me through a series of vague and rapid-succession screens that apparently left me with an MSN/Hotmail user name connected through Microsoft Money, an MSN Money online account, a Microsoft .Net passport, a Microsoft Messenger membership and an apparently paying subscriber for a Microsoft "premium" online bill payment service. Microsoft Money connected to these various entities and services and exchanged my information with them. The high-pressure software hustle included a screen that asked me if I would like to know more about free online bill payment features, in which I ended up stuck at a screen that asked me which bill payment program I wanted, in which the $$-fee "premium" program was the _only_ selection, and it couldn't be "unselected". I also couldn't back out or proceed without programmatically disrupting the wizard. (I don't like to disrupt online transactions by pulling the plug as that can result in a broken process where you have no receipts or confirmations and the status of your registrations are in some undefined state that can take a long time, if not forever, to resolve.)Microsoft Money not only displays its own and third-party ads in its user interface but its aggressive Wizards sweep you into Microsoft product/online services marketing sequences, using bait-and-switches. Money also has links to Microsoft products and services displayed along with Money program feature lists and program displays so that a new user clicking for features wouldn't know he or she were starting up a marketing applet. The marketing sequences are ambiguous and misleading, proceeding as if they were core program features Wizards. In fact, several Money features require subscription to the online Microsoft services, whereas Quicken permits greater independence from its online products. Like most Microsoft products, the thrust of the development effort appears to be in dumbing down the user's job to make it as no-brainer as possible, in this case through the use of extremely proactive Wizards that do a lot of thinking for you. The attempt to match the no-brainer user interfaces with the technical accounting software below was at best only partly effective. There were some logical errors in how the GUI-guided processes (i.e. "Wizards") connected to the core financial processing routines underlying them, and these errors could not be corrected after the record was established, rendering some features unworkable. For example, when adding a mortgage, I opted to track payment from the conception of the mortgage, and entered the original mortgage value, etc. only to find once the wizard was over that the program instead loaded that value as the current outstanding principal. Since it could not be changed, I deleted it and redid the entry instead opting to track the mortgage from the start of this year, which worked, but was not the feature I preferred. The toolbars and menus were poorly designed, with unsystematic organization and inconsistent naming conventions. For example, its toolbars were an immature and disorganized aggregation of too much stuff, with some stuff that was arrayed side-by-side being at mismatched logical and functional levels. Some tags were so ambiguous in their catch-all naming, it really complicated efforts to find clickable ways to do even simple things. It's as if, after being overly invested in the use of Wizards to drive user interfacing, the developers had no coherent use cases or application design concepts, and things just got shoved here and there until every feature's button had a someplace to sit. Accounting software is technical and can be complex, and Quicken's user interface is more balanced, matured and accessible at many levels. Quicken is the clear standard in all respects. I didn't see any of the glitches or performance problems the overheated pro-Microsoft reviewers criticizing Quicken described. Quicken connected to the online accounts I asked it to hook up with and updated itself and my definition of that account. It's very accessible as there are several ways to the same things, making it easy for someone to figure things out on the fly. I will definitely have to spend some time with the "Help" feature and will probably buy a Quicken How-to book, but the software is very similar to professional accounting software in look and feel and I am quite confident with the choice. I would agree Microsoft Money is better for people who need wizards to take over and do one's technical or analytical thinking. If you are dependent on that MS Word paperclip that interrupts you, announcing things like "It looks like you're trying to write a letter. Would you like help?", you would probably be happier Microsoft Money. But for those people who understand that you can use a program's "Help", a book, and/or a combination of online resources to learn even complicated, technical software, all those dumbed-down and glitchy Wizards Microsoft Money uses are inefficient and limiting whereas Quicken is tight, mature and effective, and still the standard.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Tool to Manage your finance
Review: This is an excellent tool to manage all your finances. Provides with all sorts of reports, Planners etc. I had a problem though, i couldn't synchronize with MSN Money as promised. Microsoft suggested so many solutions, but nothing works. I couldn't sign-in to .Net Passport from Money 2003
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome... when it works...
Review: I used an old version of the product, but tried to do too much too fast. On this version I started with very basic functionality and added as I felt comfortable with whatever I had just added. My wife and I are both using the software on different computers and on the same money file. We never use the software at the same time. I also have it synchronized on my handheld. Sound like a complex configuration? Maybe... but this way she has access to balances and can do entry at home, I can check balances and do entry in my Dell Axim, as well as on my desktop at home. Unfortunately... the file went corrupt or something. Wouldn't open because "this file wasn't closed properly", and it couldn't fix itself. When I restored the backup, then synced my handheld the transactions got jumbled about with the payee's and amounts getting totally mixed up. I gave up and started over. Very annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: I have been using MS Money since their 1995 version and I think it is wonderful. While I tend not to upgrade each year as I think it becomes difficult for them to add sufficient value through improvements on a annual basis, I do believe that bi-annual or every 3 years it is worth upgrading. I think the deluxe version is worth buying as well if you have investments or are tracking more than checking/savings accounts. Be sure to link your accounts for easy download of transactions. I find that this is a great way to monitor transactions posting to your account and identify any unauthorized transactions early.
Rating: 
Summary: Small improvements over Money 2001
Review: I had been using Money 2001 for a while. Upgraded to Money 2003 yesterday. The upgrading was smooth. Everything was quite similar, but I could notice a few improvements here and there. Most of them were visual, or the way that the data was orgainzed on the screen. They were better, but none of them were revolutionary so far. For example, if downloaded an online statements for my checking account, my bank included duplicated entries as what I previously download. Old version of Money persent a list that was hard to distingish between previously entries and new one. But, 2003 showed it in a clearer way. Money 2001 had a few ad here and there, like logo of different Banks/Brokager etc, even if you disabled the "showing offer" option). But, Money 2003 have less. It is definitely an welcome improvement to me. I never try Quicken. But I think Money itself is not easy to learn, or I should say it is hard. And, I found it quite hard to remember where is a feature, especially for customizations. I don't find the meun initiative. In fact, that are too many of them. There is always two menu bars on top, a number of drop down lists under the menu bars, and additional navigation menu on the right. Then you can still right click on items, and each item in the pop-up will bring you to different pages. Then, you click "next" a few times and answering some questions, it is hard to predict where will it end. It is true for both version. When I want to customize or change something, I can almost always find the feature eventually. I like the fact that they have "enough" options for everything. However, the next time I want to do the same things I often have hard time to figure out where did I made the change. I feel that they can reorgainze the menu to be more consistent. Beside the menu and page difficulties, I would think money management itself is very hard, and might have some feel hidden concepts that you need to know it. For example, I know that I can create an "Cash Account" to track my everyday spending in detail after months of using Money. So, I had no way to track how much I spend dining out last month. All cash I withdrawn from checking was categorized as "Cast widthwal" only. I didn't aware that "cash" can be an "account" itself. Together with the menu and page difficulties, it might explain why some people have so negative feeling about Money 2003. It might not be totally micrsoft's fault. If you think about doing personal fiance management by hand of spreadsheet alone, using Money is definitely 100 times easier. But, even with their help, it is not effortless espeically in the first few times. Your lthernative? Managed by guessimation. So, Money is good when you must do fiance management. But, don't bother if you don't care...
Rating: 
Summary: Quicken Users Stay away!!!
Review: I have used Quicken for 10+ years - so I have a pretty good size database. I have tried for two days to get Money to convert the Quicken file without any success. I keep getting an Out of Memory Error and a bad conversion. A check of the MS web site shows others are having the same problem. The conversion results that I do get are accounts with the wrong balances - IRA accounts come in as two accounts - one with the wrong balance and the other with zero - or better yet another incorrect balance. Maybe I could clean it up - but I am not sure I would ever trust the results.
Rating:
Summary: Needs improvement, but still useful
Review: I brought this product for 1 main purpose. I wanted a software which can automatically download my account statements once a month. That is the first step in any planning. Guess what. The software does not support half the financial institutions. For a few like Wells fargo Bank the login information expected by software and bank do not match, so you will not be able to download the statements directly, however you can import them. You have to enter the opening balances on your own, that is sometimes hard to calculate. The importing functionality makes
it better than just plain spreadsheets.
I would like to add some more information after I used this product. Here is summary.
1. Does not support automatic downloading of statements for all the claimed institues (as stated earlier).
2. Most institues will provide an export functionality. The Money could easliy file this information into appropriate account.
3. The starting balance has to be entered, For some I do not even know myself, so have to sit and calculate.
4. You can see all your accounts at one place which is good.
5. You can view your transactions offline at any time which is good.
6. For your investments you have to enter the purchase price, if you update it regularly its good, you do not have to scratch your head looking for purchase price at the end of the year. Some manual work upfront, but potentialy may provide benefit. I got it with taxcut, so my price after rebates was good. All in all I would upgrade my recomendation a bit.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Program
Review: Good but not great. It loads easy, and manages to get you up and running with a minimum of fuss. But the screens are overloaded. The expert user wants a few choices - MONEY gives you everything. Yes, you can customize it but when you first start out (and all you really want to do is pay your bills on line), it is a bit overwhelming to see so many things on one opening screen. Also, the voice introduction is a bit unnerving but that can be turned off quickly. This is an improvement over previous versions as you can save your payments as drafts and then submit the drafts all at one time for payment. But there still is quite a bit of repetition that should either be eliminated or give the user a choice. My advise would be: Clear out the clutter but keep the quick and effortless way and this would be a first class program.
Rating:
Summary: good, but needs work
Review: I had been using Money Standard 2002 for about 1 year to track my basic finances. It does this fine. I like that I can download my credit card statement and categorize all my purchases. It also makes balancing my bank accounts quick work. I really feel like I have taken control of my finances. However, although I've never used Quicken, I'm sure it or just about any financial program will be able to do this very basic stuff. Beyond these basic functions, I have found alot of problems and limitations. I find the budget section to be very annoying. If I buy something and categorize it, Money will assume that I will be spending this amount in this category every month. I don't want it to do that!! Evertime I check to see if I am in budget I have to closely review to make sure all my expenses are correct. Also, when I try to generate certain types of reports, it will not allow me to include/exclude certain accounts or purchase categories so the final data is useless to me. For some reason, when I run a report and then re-run it excluding certain income categories it actually shows that I have more money available! Bottom line is that I don't trust most of the reports. Anyway, I'm planning on buying a house and decided to upgrade to Money Deluxe because it supposidly had tools to assist in this area and at the price after rebates why not. Very big disappointment. The house buying 'tools' are very minimal and do not work properly. When I enter in the loan info and my info, it incorrectly calculates that I can afford a $0 house at a payment of $8000 a month! If I add a couple of 0's to my income then it will (accurately) calculate the payments for a multimillion dollar house. I had played with a version of Money that came with Office 97 many years ago and it had some very nice tools for calculating the benefits of extra payments and other things. Most of these tools (the reason I decided to upgrade) have vanished. I wish Microsoft would focus on more on fixing the existing problems and giving useful tools then adding pretty buttons and audio/video commentary on everything. If they did that, they might have a good product on their hands. If it cost any more then the price I paid for it, I would have returned it and gone back to Money Standard.
Rating:
Summary: Great for keeping every day finances straight
Review: My needs are small--I just want a place to keep all my finances recorded, have reminders set up of upcoming bills, etc. I honestly don't use the downloading features or any of the complicated thing that may give other people problems. I love the pie charts that track my spending. Categories are easy to modify, as is the account information from the beginning (I'm unsure what gave other people problems modifying their account information). If your needs are similar to mine, I wholeheartedly recommend this product. In contrast to other reviewers, I've found it a simple matter to update my starting balances; however, if you happen to leave off from the program for a while, it takes a bit of finagling to update your accunt info, since you can't just erase all the information you had entered before and just start from scratch. That's why I give this product only four stars.
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