Customer Reviews

Microsoft Money Deluxe 2005 [Old Version]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(35)

 

 

Before I get into a review, let me state that I have ALWAYS been pro-Microsoft. Despite all the monopolizing and heavy-handedness and rushed updates, I have always felt they did more good than harm. I have yet to find a Microsoft product I didn't like... until now.

In a word, Microsoft Money 2005 is "horrible". I only gave it 2 stars because it still beats paper and pen :)

Now, if you're a new user, you probably won't notice anything bad about it and will continue on your merry way. Bravo for you (just don't do anything online until they release the second patch (yes, there's already one out) since 2005 is apparently quite broken with respect to about 50% of the institutions it claims to support).

If you're a previous Money user, pocket your $30 and invest it, using your old version to track the savings. I was terribly disappointed in 2005. To begin with, helpful features such as Bill Minder, "dual category lists", "in-register" spending forecast and upcoming bills, are gone. What have they been replaced with? I have no clue. As far as I can tell, they've replaced them with a HUGE toolbar (a la MSN Explorer but without the option to resize) and a LOT of white space (the register displays about 30 lines max (on "compressed" view) and runs literally down to the bottom of the screen.)

The home page actually displays less information (though it is prettier in a way) and the settings "menu" is a fiasco (again, much like MSN Explorer) with numerous hyperlinks that are not necessarily intuitive.

From what I could tell, reconciliation seemed to work as expected, but seemed to offer less information than 2003 did. I did not even take the time to get into investing since I uninstalled 2005 within 24 hours (and I am, without doubt, a "give it time" kind of person). I honestly felt like I had less control over my finances (or at least less information with which to make informed decisions) and didn't want to risk botching up my portfolio.

That's about it. I know it's a short review and probably leaves many questions unanswered, but I had only invested 24 hors in 2005 so a "roll back" to 2003 was fairly straightforward (and evidently necessary). To take more time would have meant a more difficult reversal. Again, I normally like MS products, but I can promise you this one will be going back to Redmond at their expense (30-day Money Back Guarantee).

I would STRONGLY recommend against buying Money 2005. It just isn't worth the money (I honestly wouldn't even take it free now). I can see no enhanced functionality and it actually appears reduced in places. The interface has been radically changed and, aside from being pretty, actually reduced my sense of "control" over my finances. Again, if you're brand new to Microsoft Money, I think you'll be satisfied. However, if you're a previous user... well... you've been warned...

PS Did I tell you that Money automatically (read: "Did not ask") reorganized my categories? It decided to treat "Dining out" as its own primary category instead of as a subcategory of "Food", effectively reorganizing over 100 transactions. This might have been OK if Money had asked, but it didn't. Makes me wonder what else was changed without my approval...

I am a MS Money fan so was quick to get the 05 version. Well I am uninstalling and rolling back to last years version!

First there is a new Internet Services Policy you must agree to. It starts out with "Microsoft® Money 2005 includes up to two (2) years of Internet-based Services. You will be able to use the Internet-based Services in Microsoft Money 2005 for a period of two (2) years from installation of the product or until September 1, 2007, whichever is earlier."
**** In two years you can not perform online banking!!!

Second the little Money Express program that reminds you of upcoming bills is gone.

I have 3 words for this program - Do Not Upgrade!
Stay With Your Current Version

I've used Money Deluxe 2001, 2003 and 2004 and have been a happy user so far, but this upgrade is in a (low) class of its own,
basically because Money 2005 seems to be unable to convert my existing Money 2004 file properly, so it just freezes whenever
I load that file and the "conversion" supposedly has completed. And according to Money 2004 my file isn't corrupt!

So I will stick with Money 2004 and try to return Money 2005.

If you're considering to buy Money 2005, wait until a trial version is available from the Microsoft website (supposedly around October 2004) and give that a try.

I have used both Microsoft Money and Quicken for years now, to do comparision testing of the two products. One of the new features in Money 2005 is the ability to share the file with other users. This requires that you put your data on the Microsoft Money website. Once that is done you can specify which other NET Pasport users can access and update the data. However this feature DOES NOT currently work with Windows XP Service Pack 2, as confirmed by Microsoft Technical Support. I find that inexcusable since SP2 was out before Money 2005.

I upgraded/updated to MS Money Deluxe 2005 two weeks ago and should have listened to the previous reviewers. The upgrade deleted categories, created duplicative accounts and generally messed up 10 years of personal financial data. It appears that this software has become complicated to the point that it is counter productive. Given that Quicken 2005 also gets terrible reviews, I recommend just staying with what you have until either Microsoft or Intuit get their act together. I am hoping that I can restore my previous Money 2004 file and get my "money" back on this dog.

I owned Money 2004 and when I heard about 2005 coming out I was glad to see that they had added many more financial institutions. After purchasing it, it did not take long to figure out how bad this program really is. After I installed the program it supposedly imported my information from my 2004 version but when I tried to synchronize the accounts nothing worked. Also the credit monitoring section did not even work so I could not get my credit score from within the program. It worked perfectly fine in 2004 version. When I called Microsoft and held for over 30 minutes paying toll charges all they had to say is that they know about the problem but do not have a fix. After almost 2 weeks there was finally an update released and it seemed like it worked for a little while. Then all of a sudden I can no longer synchronize my accounts. I call them again and hold for another 30 minutes and I get the same answer I got the 1st time. Now 10 days later I am sitting here on hold again with an estimated wait time of 45 minutes and I will probably get the same answer. If you want software that doesnt work and will waste hours of time on hold with Microsoft then go ahead and get this product. Otherwise I would suggest buying a different program without the Microsoft name on it.

As another experienced Money user (more than 6 years), I'm sorry that I didn't read these reviews before upgrading. After converting my current file, I found so many errors that I immediately contacted Microsoft support. I'm still working with them but have rolled back to Money 2004. In its present form I cannot use Money 2005 at all.

Examples: Bills & Deposits - numerous duplicate entries, reflecting reconciled transactions as much as 18 moths old,
Portfolio - all stock sales reported as credits to my cash account; I am hundreds of thousands in the red ;-)
Portfolio - stock splits create twice as many shares as it should
Downloaded transactions are reported as credits when my bank has them as debits.

I even tried starting from scratch, i.e., using a "new" Money file but many of the same errors occurred again.

While the new interface is nice but will take some getting used to - in this case, beauty is only skin deep.

Migrated from Microsoft Money 2004 to Microsoft Money 2005 last week and have been fighting with the program to get it to run properly. Spent an hour with Microsoft support in Bangalore this morning - they were very knowledgeable and tried to be helpful but they couldn't get a net worth report to run without the program crashing. Like most Microsoft programs. before version three, let it be. I'll wait a few weeks until they offer another update patch to see if that works unless they recall the software and refund my money.

So, after being an idiot and upgrading to 2004, I thought 2005 would be an improvement. Yes, I am a mega-idiot to think there are any improvements other than requirement to login to .net, there is no way to select categories as previously release where you could put in category, then type..(and no way to change it). I won't parrot the other reviews. They got the nail on the head. My next upgrade will be to Quicken.

I have been a MASSIVE MS-Money fan and user for over 10 years now and loved it - until now. I have stuck with 2003 for the past 2 years, and finally decided to upgrade. BIG MISTAKE! I was really interested in the online capabilities, since online bill pay was something I was not doing until recently. I have only played with it for 3 hours this evening but here is what I have already run into:

1. Setting up a previously manual account for online services creates a duplicate account. Worse yet, you cannot merge it with the original account since Money does not recognize it as the same account. THIS IS A NASTY BUG. You cannot get around it, as far as I can tell. It's a show-stopper.

2. During the account online update process duplicate categories (budget categories) are also created. TONS OF THEM. It more than doubled the number of categories that I had. For example, my category "Auto Service" was duplicated to "Auto Service-#1", and "Auto Service-#2", with no transactions in them. What's up with that?

3. When I updated my account online it says it added 94 new transactions, but only 1 of them showed up in the register. I have no idea where the other 93 of them went. They were not existing transactions.

4. The online information for my bank is completely out of date. It DOES offer online updates (I called them), but Money says it does not. Pretty useless.

And that's just in 3 hours. It tells me that 2005 was released WAY before it was thoroughly tested - Just in time for the 2004 Holiday Season<G>. Shame on you Microsoft AND shame on you PC Magazine for writing such a glowing review about it. Apparently you never TRIED the online features, or you would have noticed this stuff in a matter of minutes.

Now it's time to see if Microsoft will at least honor the 30 day money back guarantee, cause I'm going back to version 2003 for sure. IMHO - you should avoid this version at all costs, at least until they get it it solid with some more patches - not yet available I hear.