trying to decide on quicken05 or Money05

[Frank]

Hello,

Has anyone used both 2005 products?
I would appreciate some feedback +/-

Thanks
Frank

 

[Jay Baker]

Frank,

I'm still entering transactions into both and attempting to decide this month
which to stick with and which to delete. Here's my observations on both:

Money Deluxe 2005:
- slow as molasses if you're using Passport to sync to the MSN server
- lots of wasted space in the display, which by the way is VERY blue
- best cash flow functionality I've seen, probably the #1 reason I would choose
it over Quicken
- when I first enter the portfolio view, I get an hourglass for about 10
seconds, I believe it's attempting to update quotes, but haven't been able to
find a way to stop it automatically
- transaction matching for downloaded accounts is slow and prone to error, once
I find a match and hit 'accept', I get hourglass for 10-15 seconds

Quicken Premiere 2005:
- cash flow diagram functionality is broken. Q support has acknowledged that it
is counting scheduled transactions twice, making it unusable until fixed
- interface is complex and not as intuitive as Money
- lots faster than Money, this is the #1 reason I'd pick it over Money
- in my opinion, it's financial reports are harder to use, but more detailed
than those in Money
- the budget functionality is not as intuitive as Money's... and I've had
problems getting it to work well with cash flow (despite the above cash flow
problem)

Hope this helps... be sure you let us know which way you go...
Jay

 

[Frank]

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the rundown on these products.
When you decide, please let me know also what was the deciding factor.

One thing on Money (might be a setting) when I download and import my ofx
transactions, I have to type the name of the payee as my bank puts this info
in the memo field. money remembers the payee name and auto fills it, but it
does not remember the category.

Quicken will auto fill the category also. I like this feature.

Regards,

Frank

 

[Real world user]

Hello,

Has anyone used both 2005 products?
I would appreciate some feedback +/-

Thanks
Frank

 

[whatever]

I will be switching to Quicken. MS has done nothing to publicly acknowledge
the horrendous bugs with downloading in Money05, and has not announced any
date when it will be fixed. Their tech support told me to request a refund,
but that requires you to have all the original packaging on hand. I don't
have that anymore, so that's money down the drain. I bought Quicken 05
online at Costco with a healthy rebate, so good-bye Money05.

 

[SJCOHEN730]

Subject: RE: trying to decide on quicken05 or Money05

From: "=?Utf-8?B?d2hhdGV2ZXI=?=" (e-mail address removed)
Date: 10/22/2004 10:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: <[email protected]>

I will be switching to Quicken. MS has done nothing to publicly acknowledge
the horrendous bugs with downloading in Money05, and has not announced any
date when it will be fixed. Their tech support told me to request a refund,
but that requires you to have all the original packaging on hand. I don't
have that anymore, so that's money down the drain. I bought Quicken 05
online at Costco with a healthy rebate, so good-bye Money05.

I sure hope that VENT makes you very happy.

 

[Ion Control]

If you're a previous user of Microsoft Money, do NOT upgrade to Money 2k5
unless you did NOT like the others...

 

[Jeff M]

I would add to your list the Lifetime/Retirement Planner. The Planner in
Money is far superior to the one in Quicken as it provides more detail in
the outyears and allows you to toggle between future value in today's
dollars or tomorrow's dollars.

However, the Money Lifetime Planner is the same as in 2004 and even earlier
versions so no need to upgrade to 2005 for this feature.

I'm also running both programs currently but am slightly leaning Money
because of the Planner and because I still use Qif import in some cases
(which you cannot with Quicken 2005).

To be fair, though, I do like some of the Quicken investing tools better
than Money's current offering.

Jeff

 

[Joe Guidera]

I'd stay away from Money 2005 at this time if you're counting on interaction
with any of your financial institutions (i.e. downloaded statements, account
information and the like).

 

[ol'fart]

I'd stay away from Money 2005 at this time if you're counting on
interaction with any of your financial institutions (i.e. downloaded
statements, account information and the like).

What makes you say this? I have accounts at several different banks and
credit card companies, and they are all now supported for everything
online. I'd stick with Microsoft Money. I've had no problems and Money 05
is working flawlessly. It would seem that those that are complaining are
the impatient ones that do not understand how to properly install software
and then whine when it does not work for them. Money05 is running and is a
slick program.

ol'fart

 

[Dick Watson]

That's a rash generalization and you can have it.

 

[someone]

Whatever dude

What makes you say this? I have accounts at several different banks and
credit card companies, and they are all now supported for everything
online. I'd stick with Microsoft Money. I've had no problems and Money 05
is working flawlessly. It would seem that those that are complaining are
the impatient ones that do not understand how to properly install software
and then whine when it does not work for them. Money05 is running and is a
slick program.

ol'fart

 

[Jonathan Prince]

I only have Money and I had to export money 04 and import into Money
05. Import leaves something to be desired. On my savings account all
my transfers from the savings to checking transactions were missing. I
imported both qif for checking and savings and only deposits showed in
the savings account. Stock splits are not excepted in Money 05 even
thought the qif was from Money 04

 

[Bob Peel, MVP]

The trick to avoid transfer problems is to select all accounts (use Ctrl +
click) when asked which file to import.

I assume there was some reason why you couldn't just use your .mny file from
M2004 as input to M2005?

 

[Jonathan Prince]

Money 2005 will convert the file and then lock up. It shows the home
page but locks up usually before you can open any account. The cursor
shows busy and ctrl alt delete shows money not responding. This even
happens when passport is disabled before converting the file as
instructed by support. the sample file works fine.

After importing the qif files the program seems to work except that in
portfolio manager I get the blue screen some times as soon as I open
portfolio manager and sometimes when I try to do something like split
stock. I also had a problem with the drop down box not including the
account I needed to put the qif in such as trying to put the cash part
of my investment account into the cash part of the investment account
in Money. even the create investment account didn't show so I ended up
putting in into a checking account.

the code on the blue screen is 0E at 0028:C0059D2D

Jonathan

 

[chicagofan]

I'd be interested in hearing if Quicken does any better than Money [any
year] in formatting the screen display. Every year I expect Money to
improve on the amount of screen area they use to display reports, and
unless it is my imagination, it seems to be getting worse. Almost half
the screen is used for A report heading and date line. Why is that?

I've looked everywhere to see if that is something I could change, but
it appears not. Does Quicken waste that much blank space?
bj

 

[Cal Learner-- MVP]

the code on the blue screen is 0E at 0028:C0059D2D

I don't know if this will be of help or not:
http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/fatlexer.htm#FATLEXEROE

Those appear to be difficult to track down. A clean boot, or a
booting in safe mode might help.

 

[Jeff M]

Quicken has much less white space. It allows you to create different custom
views for the homepage and runs all of the custom views in tabs. The last
one you viewed is the one that shows up when opening the program, but any
can be reached by a tab on the top.

Unfortunately, both programs have some distinct advantages over the other.

Jeff

I'd be interested in hearing if Quicken does any better than Money [any
year] in formatting the screen display. Every year I expect Money to
improve on the amount of screen area they use to display reports, and
unless it is my imagination, it seems to be getting worse. Almost half
the screen is used for A report heading and date line. Why is that?

I've looked everywhere to see if that is something I could change, but it
appears not. Does Quicken waste that much blank space?
bj

That's a rash generalization and you can have it.

 

[chicagofan]

Thanks, Jeff! I will remember this, next time I upgrade.
bj

Quicken has much less white space. It allows you to create different custom
views for the homepage and runs all of the custom views in tabs. The last
one you viewed is the one that shows up when opening the program, but any
can be reached by a tab on the top.

Unfortunately, both programs have some distinct advantages over the other.

Jeff

I'd be interested in hearing if Quicken does any better than Money [any
year] in formatting the screen display. Every year I expect Money to
improve on the amount of screen area they use to display reports, and
unless it is my imagination, it seems to be getting worse. Almost half
the screen is used for A report heading and date line. Why is that?

I've looked everywhere to see if that is something I could change, but it
appears not. Does Quicken waste that much blank space?
bj

 

[Jonathan Prince]

I am keeping Money 2004 current. I would really rather use a converted
Money 2004 file. The import of qif files does not do stock splits and
I believe in order to properly enter them I have several spin offs and
mergers that would have to be removed and reentered. What I was
getting with the converted file is that Money 2005 lock up usually as
soon as the file is loaded. If I leave it this way too long, I get a
message about 90% of your resources are in use. The cursor will show
busy and Ctrl Alt Delete will show Money not responding. The
converted file seems to work in safe mode. I even tried removing all
open programs before opening Money. The only thing running was Money,
Explorer and Systray. Would it help to upgrade to Windows XP? If
so, should I delete Money 2005 first and then reinstall after
upgrading? I am running Windows 98 SE with all critical updates now.

Jonathan