Customer Reviews

Microsoft Money 2007 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(33)

 

 

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.

As many of the other reviewers have mentioned, there are not a ton of new features in Money 2007. However, as a user of Money 2002 and Quicken 2006, there are several upgrades over M02, and I am very pleased with M07. Having used M02 for about 3-4 years, I decided to upgrade so that I could take advantage of the online banking/statements features offered for the newer programs. With everyone and everything referring to Quicken while speaking of financial software (much the way people refer to a "Kleenex" for tissue), I figured that I would give it a shot with Quicken 2006. Having spent the last 8 months or so using Q06, it had some good things about it, and some annoying things (the budget isn't very workable, no reallocation between budget items so if you go over in one, you can't "borrow" from another item to balance your budget. The investment updates aren't as complete as with M07, either. These are just a few.) Deciding that I would see what was available on the Money front, I discovered the M07 Trial version on Microsofts website. After loading it onto my system and painlessly converting my Quicken file over (which was FAR simpler than getting my M02 file converted to Q06), I began to fine tune the program. Needlessly to say, having spent 8 months using Q06, I felt like I was "home" again with M07. It still has some quirks in the program (still can't figure out how to use the savings goal feature in the budget,the debt reduction planner isn't as controllable as I'd like, the cash flow forcast has more assumptions than I would, but these level off over time, etc.), but these features work fine for my money management. Rest assured, when my trial period is over, I WILL be purchasing the full program.

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 a fantastic job.

However, with 4-5 years of usage of 'Money', my money file has grown to nearly 19MB. Due to the large file size, I am getting pathetic performance which is quite annoying. I have a laptop with 2.4GHz dual core CPU and 1GB RAM, however very basic activity such as looking at monthly report, budget report etc. takes 2-3 minutes to display on the screen ! Even if I retry, it once again hangs for 2-4 minutes. I will be lucky if I could get 'any' operation finished faster then 5 seconds/transaction. The problem isn't with specific version but the way Money is designed to store its information. There were some discussion on improving performance by using money data on Database but Microsoft chose not to invest money on any such design change.

Another annoying thing I observed with Microsoft Money is with every newer release one 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 an example that will explain the problem. Most common activity a user 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 shows status 'done'. On the "Account List" you will see, for example, 5 new transaction and when you inside this account, there is no new transaction listed ! Reason is, though you got 'done' status data hasn't finished downloading. After 2-3 minutes you will get the data in the account. When you see the transactions, you won't be able to 'accept' them as it is waiting on 'something'! In short, after getting data downloaded from the institute, you won't be able to 'accept' them for nearly 3-4 minutes. I am surprised to find that Microsoft is selling software w/o testing such basic functionality !
NOTE:I noticed above mentioned bug only in 2007 release.

I wish to have a better software for my need w/o losing existing data but Microsoft hasn't offered better (not just newer) version yet. Quicken seems to have similar issues. Quicken doesn't allow any migration facility to use existing Money files under their software. Once again, 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 with 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. Here I jotted down major limitations of Money; Microsoft does good job of marketing good points so I won't spare much time on that.

I have been a Microsoft Money user for many, many years. (Going back to Money '98? I forget.) I reluctantly upgraded to Money 2007 Premium earlier this year from Money 2004 when I read somewhere that Money 2004 was no longer going to be supported. (I also read that Money 2005, Money 2006, and Money 2007 had issues. Hence my reluctance to upgrade.)

For years, I have sync'ed Money with my online accounts on nearly a daily basis. I'm that kind of focused on keeping my eye on my money, and Money has historically served me very well in this habit. Money 2007 does not.

Since installing it, I have:

1) Battled with my prior bank for nearly two months to get them to figure out by Money 2007 does not synchronize with their systems.

2) Installed and reinstalled Money 2007 on several different workstations to test the synchronization issue with my years-old Money file and new, empty Money files. Always fails.

3) Now I have *switched banks* thinking the syncing issue was my bank's fault. It wasn't. It's Microsoft Money's fault.

Syncing fails *every* time with a helpful OBRES 22063 error. Oh, yea, that
one! We all know just what that is.

I have read every Microsoft knowledge base article I can find. I have perused public.microsoft.money and other usenet groups. I have Googled. I have read blogs. The only thing I find is that lots of people have this problem with lots of different financial institutions, and Microsoft is doing nothing about it

In Money 2004, this worked flawlessly nearly every time. Why did it
break?!?!!

So if you're looking to have Money synchronize with your accounts online, look elsewhere. But if you're all about putting everything in manually, this product will serve you just fine.

Buy a copy of Quicken instead!

I had Money 2005 and bought this update. I was disappointed to find that there were no significant changes either in the interface or features (at least the ones I use). This may really be saying that this genre of software has fully matured and has no major direction to go in improving from previous versions, kind of like MS Office applications.
If you have a previous version of Money (2005 or 06), I would suggest not wasting your money and staying with what you have. Otherwise, I highly recommend Money for new users. It is very useful and provides the necessary tools to have an organized financial system and plan.

Having bashed my head against the Microsoft Money wall across 5 different versions over the last six years, I'd like to recommend to everyone in Amazonland that you *do not* purchase this software. From the innumerable bugs, to the backwards incompatibility, to the bad customer support and confusing interface . . . I assure you your time will be better spent using Quicken, www.yodlee.com, or Microsoft Excel to do your finances. This product line is, quite simply, crappy. If only I could bill Microsoft for the hundreds of wasted hours I've spent trying to feed information into this software, only to output hundreds of colorful charts whose data I don't trust. Now, for a 2005 tax audit, I've found that my old .mny file is unloadable in not only the new, but all old versions of the software! It is the capstone to what has universally been a bad experience. Steer away.

I've used Money for about four years now and have become very familiar with it. I don't have many complaints about it and I've recently upgraded to the 2007 version. I use it mainly to keep track of investments and for those of you who are similarly inclined, I'd like to share some thoughts about the Performance Report flaws that I've discovered:

#1. 1-Year Total Return Flaw

Whatever 1-year returns of a particular stock we wish to calculate, Money always uses the start date a day earlier than it should be.

This is best illustrated by assuming we want to calculate the 1-Year Total Return for the year to Dec 31, 2006. Strictly speaking, this period should run from Jan 1, 2006 to Dec 31, 2006. However, since the opening price for Jan 1, 2006 is the closing price for Dec 31, 2005, the correct dates to use are Dec 31, 2005 to Dec 31, 2006. However, for unknown reasons, Money uses the price at Dec 30, 2005 (rather than Dec 31, 2005) for its start date

One may think that a day's difference will not much affect the performance metric, but consider this:

A not unusual practice is for prices to be updated at the end of every quarter i.e. as at Mar 31, Jun 30, Sep 30 and Dec 31 in line with the popular gauging of investment performance on a quarterly basis. In the above example, since Money cannot find the price as at Dec 30, 2005, it uses the latest price available i.e. the one at Sep 30, 2005. Thus for the year to Dec 31, 2006, under the above circumstances, Money calculates the performance from Sep 30, 2005 to Dec 31, 2006, a period of 15 months instead of one year.

At best, Money is a day out in computing 1-year total returns. At worst, where prices are updated quarterly (or even half-yearly), the 1-Year Total Return performance metric is completely misleading. Although not tested, this flaw may also extend to the 3-Year Total Return metric. The Year to Date Total Return and All Dates Total Return do not seem to be so affected.

#2. Foreign Stocks and Performance Report Flaw
(This flaw is also present in Quicken 2007 in case you're wondering)

The performance report computes the percentage rate of return or annualized percentage return on investment. The method of computation is: "current market value plus income, minus beginning market value, divided by beginning market value" according to Money. Where foreign stocks are concerned, the proper "beginning market value" should be based on the beginning market price as well as the beginning exchange rate. As Money does not retain historical exchange rates the way that it does historical stock prices, the beginning market value (as well as the current market value) is computed using the current exchange rate.

An example to guage performance for the period Jan 1, 2006 to Dec 31, 2006 will illustrate the problem of not maintaining and utilizing historical exchange rates to value beginning market values (pardon the lack of formatting. The data is in five columns):


Date: Jan 1,06(Actual) Dec 31,06(Actual) Jan 1,06(Money) Dec 31,06(Money)
Quantity: 100 100 100 100
Price in foreign currency: 8 10 8 10
Exchange rate (Note 1): 2.00 1.50 1.50 1.50
Value in USD: 1,600 1,500 1,200 1,500
Gain/(Loss) in USD: n/a (100) n/a 300
Percentage Annual Return: n/a (6.25%) n/a 25.00%

Note 1: We assume here that the correct opening rate is 2.00 USD to one unit of foreign currency and the closing rate is 1.50. However, Money uses the same closing rate as the opening rate.

The significant observations to be made are:

1. the rate of return computed by Money (25%) is completely wrong as compared with the correct rate (-6.25%).
2. the ridiculous situation of having lost money (1,600 at start versus 1,500 at end) and yet having Money report a positive return of 25%! This has come about because although the share price has increased somewhat (8 at start versus 10 at end) which is recognized by Money, the exchange rate has fallen, value wise, by even more (2.00 at start versus 1.50 at end) which is not recognized by Money.

This problem is not just a bug that can be easily fixed. It shows that the exchange rate implementation by Money is fundamentally flawed. It is plainly obvious that in order to calculate performance on foreign stocks, Money has to maintain historical data for both prices as well as exchange rates.

#3. Money Unable to Calculate Annual Percentage Rate (Sometimes)

The subtotal for stocks investment type does not show a figure for annual percentage rate (shows "N/A" instead) if there are individual stocks that are held for more than about 12 years. The individual stock itself however shows the correct APR.

For example, if a stock bought on Sep 9, 1994 is included in the portfolio, the APR for stocks sub-total shows "N/A". Change the date to Sep 9, 2004 and the APR figure appears.


Comments to wongp@pc.jaring.my
Apr 21, 2007.

I had been using Money 2003 and decided to upgrade. There wasn't any pressing need, but upgrading once every four years isn't bad. I was hoping there were some significant additional features or improvement. I've been using it for approx a month and it doesn't appear that there were any.

- They did allow customization of your home page, but it only allow 2 columns.
- I didn't both using the new budget tool as I want to track more than just the essentials.

One very annoying thing:
When I uninstalled Money 2003, it broke my Money 2007 installation. Money 2007 complained that it couldn't find its registration. I had to uninstall Money 2007 and then reinstall it again.

Note to Microsoft: Uninstalling one application should NEVER break another application. Please remove this proprietary Microsoft "feature."

Microsoft does it again. One year of repackaging and nothing to show its customers. I gave this software one star just for the extra eyewash they added to program and their generosity in giving us a 90-day trial. Other than that--you'll have to take the time and experiment with the trail version. I've been using MS Money for a long time and have to tell you that I'm very disappointed with version 2007. I compared my current version (2003) with this trial version and have to tell you that the bulk of the changes came in the form of the way it looks on screen and how you move around the screens to get to those same old features. It does have some real fancy repackaged graphics but the real stuff underneath has not changed at all. I did notice that it takes longer for the program to update its screens once you have entered a couple of transactions. I don't know if it's me because of the 6+ years of data in it. One thing I can say is that some of the same flaws are still present with this version as with version 2003. One example--I noticed that when I used the debt reduction planner to track two charge cards--it added a monthly bill/transaction to my bills summary. Up to this point, we're ok. But when I go in and tell it where to get the money from to pay the bill (i.e., checking account), things go down hill from there. The two transactions are not visible when you view the cash flow forecast for your checking account. That means that when you view the graph for your projected cash flow--it's doesn't give you an accurate picture of your projected cash flow. Additionally, when you go to both credit card accounts, the charts don't show the balance going down as a result of the projected payments. That's even after you set the interest rate for the credit cards to zero. That really bothers me, because the graphs don't clearly illustrate what the cash flow actually looks like for the next 6-12 months and it should especially if you're using a checking account to pay off your debits. I've pretty much had to disable the planner to get all the transactions to show up on my checking account. Another inconsistency has to do with tracking Mortgage/Car Loan using the debt reduction planner. I have yet to figure out why the planner continues to show amounts for setting up recurring debt payments that are not consistent with what I pay on a monthly basis ($1300 for Mortgage/$400 for auto). Instead. it shows $3966.00 for mortgage and $5101.89 for auto. Nowhere else are these figures visible in the program. I have this same issue with my 2003 and can't figure out where the problem is. Fortunately, I don't have this problem with Quicken 2006. Another issue--try finding a good manual to help you set up MS Money--you'll have a tough time finding one. At least there's a good selection of books you can get for Quicken 2006. The only thing you'll find for MS Money (if you're lucky) is Money for Dummies. That should tell you something about Microsoft's commitment to helping it's customers discover the power of this software. I would strongly recommend you take advantage of the 90-day trial MS gives you to test this piece of software. If you're a beginner, you'll find it to be an easy piece of software to use, but you won't realize its data accuracy until you input at least 12 months of information (i.e., loans, credit cards, etc.). I would seriously look at Quicken, because they have more to offer if you're willing to really read the books that are available for the product. I really don't use the software to download tractions from my bank like many people do so it allows me to use the product a couple more years. The electronic downloading of transactions to Money expires after a year or two. I pretty much download the statements and reconcile my accounts manually using money and Quicken. I do use money to keep track of my mutual funds and it seems to do a good job. I haven't had to upgrade my 2003 version for that--yet. Quicken still seems to be ahead of Money by a few steps. At least Quicken allows me to save copies of my cancelled checks in the checking register. That is a real neat feature. I think I'll still retain my old version of Money and look at Quicken as a more permanent solution. The one example (debit reduction planner) I decided to use was very basic, because that is one I feel most people would use from this package. If MS couldn't get that right in the past three versions--what makes us think that everything else will run smoothly? Don't let the fancy graphics steer you in the wrong direction. Some people might tell you that you shouldn't compare this software to Quicken, but I've never seen Microsoft push out software updates/patches on any of its versions of Money. At least since I've had Quicken 2006, I've noticed two. Keep that in mind when you decide, because you'll have to wait for each new version of Money to come out before you can determine if they fixed that bug or not. Good Luck.

************5 Oct 06 Update******************
I just found out after a couple of days of testing that Money 2007 has a difficult time importing backup files from previous versions of Money. It seems that it tends to have problems reading buget information from older versions. When I used my 2004 backup files, the spending tracker/monitor stopped working. Whatever detail you had in your buget was gone and you had to recreate it using a more basic budget feature in Money. That means you have to group all your expenses (that occur monthly, quarterly or yearly) into one line item. That stinks if you want to exactly know where every dollar is going. MS techs will convince you that you have a bad database file on your end but they're file repair tools tell a different story. You might want to make sure that your budget information as well as you spending tracker are working before you changeover to 2007. Once you've done it--you can't go back to the older version unless you've backed up the files for that old version.

I bought this product with high hopes. Had an earlier version 2001 which worked fine except Fidelity would not support downloads to old msmoney and so the switch. First my old Money files were preserved but downloads could not communicate with the older version. So with the help of Customer support, renamed the old files and downloaded fresh downloads from Fidelity..but this was only a one time event. The next time i.e. today, I tried to update my files..and a download error prevented me again and again. Then I called Customer service, and was connected to someone in Bangalore, India..I gave them my Case number which was still open, and they connected me to the router department. The man was apologetic and said he was going to connect me to the right department. Nothing happened for next 10 minutes, so I hung up and called again. This time again I was connected to someone in Bangalore, India, who redirected me to some recording..I again waited 10 minutes and called again. This process repeated 4 times and I wasted over an hour on phone, with zilch results and lot of frustration.
My advice to one and all..KEEP AWAY FROM THIS JUNK.
AT LEAST THIS PRODUCT FROM MICROSOFT, STINKS, STINKS & STIKS.
G.Sharma
Michigan, USA