Customer Reviews

Microsoft Money 2003 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Please read the EULA (end user license agreement). Microsoft, in their usual sneaky fashion, have inserted a new clause that makes certain online update features expire after a certain period of time forcing you to purchase the next version of this software in 2004.

I've used Money since Money98, and Money 2003 is (finally!) a very good product/upgrade solution.

What I like: Money 2003 is much more code-efficient than Money 2002 (which was a terrible performer -- even on a fast 2 gig Pentium), so everything is quicker: reports run quickly, data entry is quick, and budget changes are quick. Secondly, Money 2003 didn't remove key functionality that its predecessors sometime did -- so if you use an older version of Money, the features you like are still there. Thirdly, you can batch epayments together and send them all at once (conversely, Money 2002 sent a payment by piecemeal, which was extremely slow and frustrating). Fourthly, a good product has been tweaked to iron-out some of the frustrations of earlier versions. In all -- it's a nice piece of software.

What I don't like: So far, I like everything I've seen. If there is something you don't like about Money, in all likelihood, there is an Options setting that will correct the problem. For example, to remove "sponsor" ads from within Money, find the option setting to stop displaying all sponsor's ads (by default, they'll show up). Also, when upgrading from an earlier version of Money, the newly-installed Money 2003 installation isn't smart enough to know that you already have a Money file that you want to just pick-up and use. You have to exit out of the set-up prompts, click File, Open and go from there. Not a big problem, but if you're not confident with upgrades, this might raise your stress level a notch.

My favorite version of Money to date has been 2000. It had a clean user interface with lots of useful features that didn't seem to go overboard. Subsequent releases of Money have been plagued with "featuritis", as the war with Quicken continues. Money 2002 is by far the worst victim of this disease. Microsoft added so many new features with little concern for their cost on performance. It got so bad that entering and editing data become almost as slow as handwriting it in a checkbook and using an abacus to calculate the results.

Finally, with Money 2003, Microsoft has begun to marry features with performance that returns to the speeds we loved in Money 2000. The interface and bells and whistles are similar to 2002, but the performance gain is exhilarating. If you've waited to upgrade and passed over previous versions, but have been itching to use some of Money's sophisticated online banking features, Money 2003 will be worth the leap.

As a longtime user of Quicken, I found Money to be an adequate replacement. Quicken has become more and more "advertisement-centered," which is more than a small annoyance when I paid for the software and not the ads.

Money also includes advertisements, but to a much lesser degree. Some of the advertisements are blatant (for financial services) and some are more subtle (check your stocks!).

What I least enjoyed about Money is the "dummy" factor: they literally walk you through everything, and have voice help prompts. You can turn off these features, but you have to search the help files to find out how, as they're not readily available. I think it would be a good idea for software programs to offer two 'start-up' options: one for experienced financial software users and one for beginners.

My favorite feature of Money is the ease of importing financial information from online services. If you have an American Express card for both yourself and your spouse, you know that Amex assigns two separate card numbers. With Quicken, I would have to manually change the account numbers before downloading the statements for the card; Money allows you to match a download with an existing account, even if the numbers don't match. I also found that Money will import my bank's online statement feature, whereas Quicken would not accomplish this task.

Money is a bit different from Quicken - some features are easy to use and some are more difficult or less user-friendly. Keep in mind that no two financial programs are the same when making the transition.

I used Quicken extensively for years and loved it a lot. Few years back, when my portfolio started to melt like ice on salt, I quit using Quicken as I was scared to see my stock losses grow each day. Recently, a very good deal on Money 2003 Delux at CompUSA prompted me to get back to the habit of tracking my financial life. It's just been 2-weeks and I already like it a lot. I don't know how well it compares to Quicken 2003 but I sure am happy for getting it.

The best thing about Money 2003 is the interface. I like the web look and feel. You can customize the views and display the features you want on home page. With some credit cards and banks, you can setup automatic downloads that will sync your account with the bank. Saves you from a lot of data entry. You can display your budget views on the home page. At times, I can just get all the info. I need on the home page and not worry about running reports. You can setup a passport account at MSN's Money website and you will be able to entry your expenses online when you don't have your PC with you. When you get back to the PC, your Money syncs with the new entries you made online. You can also use the Car View to track info about your cars.

On the downside, there sure are few annoying bugs but they didn't bother me much as most of them have work around. This is my advise to anyone who runs into minor problems using money. Delete the transaction and re-enter it and all related problems may be solved.

Finally, the microsoft support is excellent. Also, you can use the message boards at http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx. Just make sure you select Desktop Applications and then Money to view the Money board.

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.

I upgraded from Money 2001 and this really worth the change. Now your accounts are in a more intelligent interface and you can see quickly your last puts.
The investment section is also the best part. Now you can arrange many details and see exactly what do you want from your stocks and investments. The only deception is that it's too slow to download quotes and sometimes the software gets halted.
The planner are a little simple and need a little customization but in general they are good and useful.
If you need to have control of your money, to see how you owe, what you have and how does the flow of your money goes you must try a financial software and Money is a good shot.
If you are happy with Money 2002, don't upgrade. And if you are with Quicken 2003, stay where you are.

To be honest I spend money as I look at it, but MS Money takes care of that. A wonderful solution that provides informative tutorials on how to budget ones self more efficiently. Money has evolved over the years into an enormous resource for helping users get their financial investments together. The application is becoming more and more integrated allowing users to take care of such task as paying bills online, buying a car, house or any other type of household activity concerning how you spend money. It organises the users investments. It's also a wonderful budgetting tool, comparing itself to Quicken. But the thing about Money 2003, is the interface, it's more pleasing to look at and based on my observation more easier to use based on it's intuitive wizards. I really recommend you purchase money if you don't have it. I implore users. If you are a Quicken user, stick with it, I think Quicken is more powerful than Money regardless of the many bells and whistles it has. If you are new to the budgetting software I try Money because of the ease of use, but for long time Quicken users stick with what you use to.
Should you upgrade?
If you recently spent money buying Money 2002, don't worry to upgrade to it yet, wait six month's to a year, their is really no reason to rush but if you are still using a previous version of Money prior to version 2002 it's a worthy upgrade. For version 2002 users the reason why I don't recommend you upgrade is because of Microsoft's unpredictable upgrade cycle just as you might purchase this new version of Money, news about Money 2004 start's circulating, I don't want you to make any mistakes wasting your money, here.

Accounting programs, even if they are fully connected to your accounts, demand a lot of time manually entering, checking and correcting data. Before you use any accounting program, you should ask yourself: Is this program going to save me time, or cause a net loss of my time? In my experience, Money, Quicken and other programs have sucked me into doing a lot of work that did not pay for the time taken.

If you are unemployed and have time to spare, or if you simply like accounting, then you are welcome to try keeping your checking account reconciled, or even maintaining a budget -- Money will support this.

But as a busy, hard-working person, I would have been better off doing things the old way: just wait until the W2s etc. come in at the end of January, and add them up. The only thing you need to track and add up yourself is your charitable contributions -- unless you were unfortunate enough to incur more than 7.5% AGI of health care costs or 2% AGI of unreimbursed job expenses.

Money has some arbitrary restrictions and unrealistic models.
1. It does not account for appreciating assets such as a house.
You have to fake this by manually adding "capital gains". But that is not really appropriate for homes.

2. Many people pay their loans thru ACH scheduled withdrawals from their checking accounts. But Money won't let you link scheduled loan data to your checking account, only to asset accounts. This is an arbitrary restriction.

3. If you are getting a paycheck sent to your bank, only the net pay is recorded; the taxes, insurance and other deductions from your gross pay are recorded nowhere. You still have to enter these manually yourself, if you want to do this. But where? There is no "escrow" account for funds that are sent directly from your employer to, say, the IRS.

It puzzles me why Money doesn't seem to be set up for these ordinary practices of modern life.

The only thing Money really does to save me time is this: it gathers my information from all electronically-available accounts into one place. This saves me from having to log into each account and adding them up. Of course, you have to trust the Microsoft Passport system to keep your data secure, but that's life in the 21st century.

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.