Customer Reviews

Quicken 2005 Basic [Old Version]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I just laid out $30 for Quicken 2005, thinking it would be a great replacement for ACE-Money which I was using for my checking account. What a mistake. This year they changed their program so you can no longer import data from your old programs or your banks using .qif (Quicken Interchange Format)

This makes the program useless, since you can't bring your old data into it from another program or from banks which permit exports of your bank account data using .qif files.

Navigating the Quicken tech support page is worse than navigating a mine field. There are no phone number listings and no real help in how to adapt their new 2005 version to older programs by letting you import .qif files into your checking account.

If you are enamoured of Quicken, stick with version 2004 or older. The upgrade to 2005 is a catastrophe.

Alan Taplow
844 John Fowler Road
Plainfield VT 05667
802-454-4675 ataplow@jhu.edu

I have purchased annual upgrades of Quicken since the earliest releases.

This year, they have discontinued QIF import support. Fine. Most banks provide transaction data in OFX format. But Quicken has eliminated transaction imports altogether... unless you bank pays Intuit a fee.

I have lost countless hours of effort since my upgrade. Back-migration is not possible, and Intuit is unwilling to provide suitable tools.

I am leaving Intuit Quicken and Turbotax forever. I suggest you stay away also

I've used Quicken for probably 10 years. When I upgraded to Quicken 2005, I rudely discovered I could not longer import transactions for my 401K plan. I feel betrayed and forgotten, not to mention angry. My 401K plan is with one of the largest providers in the country. I'm switching to MS Money.

I have been a Quicken user since Quicken 3 for DOS, i.e. since about 1992. I was even a beta tester for Intuit, a great fan of their products. Well, my opinion has changed. Citing some sort of security and consistency concerns, Intuit has decided to remove support for QIF files. If you know what these are, don't even think about buying QN05. If you don't know what QIF files are and if you don't have an earlier copy of QN, you can probably go ahead and buy Quicken 2005.

QIF files are external files that can be imported into QN. Banks and brokers send them to summarize transactions. In my case, I have about 20 401k investment transactions monthly that I used to import using QN01. Now I have to tediously type in all the data: security, price, shares, ad nauseum.

Kicker is that I can't even go back to QN01 because the files have been updated to a new format. This really ticks me off.

Jeff Roughgarden, Ph.D., Microsoft Certified Developer and Database Administrator

Like many of the other reviewers, this program was incompatible with my credit union's download features, thus making this program useless in downloading any information from my checking or savings accounts. I would have to do everything manually. I checked out Quicken's on-line support to see what they suggested as a fix - They had the gall to write that I should change financial institutions. Quicken was suppose to save me time and money and I am sorely disappointed in both their product and their support.

Perhaps I'm just naive, but as a Quicken user for many years, I assumed that I'd be able to port my data into a new version, even when changing platforms. Common sense ("Intuit"-ion?) would suggest that this be an easy task, but Quicken's reputation suggested it'd be more complicated -- but I assumed still do-able.

Well folks, it ain't. Seven years of diligent tracking on my part is gone, and I'm still trying to reconcile accounts, re-set loans and automatic transactions (all gone), etc. What a catastrophic mess. Quicken/Intuit should be ashamed of themselves.

If you're a previous user, beware. If you were a user and you're porting off the Mac platform, forget it. I don't know if Money is any better, but at least it wouldn't come with such an insulting slap in the face.

I had a choice between Quicken 2005 and Microsoft Money Standard 2005. I very much regret my decision to try Quicken 2005, due to all the time wasted, uninstalling and sending the software back to the manufacturer (even though I bought it from Best Buy--I opened it and thus cannot return it!). Call your bank and ask specifically about the 2005 version of Quicken before you purchase it. They will tell you that you cannot download any of your bank's information into Quicken 2005. Even though it specifically states on the back of Quicken 2005 that it can. The 2004 and 2003 versions of Quicken are compatible with most banks. Go figure. So try Microsoft Money Standard 2005 instead. It costs the same price (about $30) as Quicken Basic 2005.

I have used Quicken for a number of years after finding it on a previous computer that I bought new. After hearing that they would be discontinuing support for my 2001 version I decided to upgrade. WHAT A MISTAKE!!! I use only the basic features of Quicken and enter all my tranactions manually. I couldn't even get the information to save to my CD-RW. Their support site alludes to programs that will make this possible with XP but doesn't give any information on them. The best part is that their error message tells me that my "writer drive" is a "read only" drive after it has written some information on my CD-RW!!! Past formats of the program were very simple and easy to use---this one is nothing but hassle after hassle. STAY AWAY FROM THIS PRODUCT EVEN IF THEY ARE GIVING IT AWAY!!!!!

I was perfectly happy with my older deluxe version of Quicken, but found that a)I didn't use most of the deluxe features, b)had several years worth of transactions that I couldn't archive due to a bug, and c)due to a bank change, I could no longer get transaction downloads. So, I bought 2005 basic. BIG MISTAKE! This "new improved" product is so cumbersome and confusing, I've practically stopped using it. When I start it, there are "messages" about my accounts, but I can't read them in the basic version. All I can do is delete them. The "home" page has 8, count them, 8 "Cash Flow Services" options that actually take you to sign-up pages touting for-fee additional services, many of which my bank already provides for free. And there are buttons to quicken.com EVERYWHERE that you have to work to get rid of. (Hellooooo. If I'd wanted to use quicken.com to pay all my bills, I would not have purchased Quicken.) This product is like one of those teaser game CDs that cost $5.00 but only gives you one level. And I don't really want the other levels. All I want is a product that does what it did before in a way that avoids making me relearn everything!

Ok, on the up-side, it does do a pretty good job of keeping track of my bank transactions and it seems like you can tailor it to suit some specific financial priorities, but it's just so incredibly painful to have to relearn EVERYTHING just because the banking industry changed download file formats. Microsoft may be trying to take over the software industry, but at least they don't want to be my bank so much that they totally screw up an otherwise good product.

I think that this is a dishonest product. The product is fine on itself but I brought it with the intention to use my older Quicken Files which are no longer accepted by Quicken 2005 or 2004. The dishonesty is clear as there is nothing in the information given while you buy the software to warn you about the incompatibility of versions or the impossibility to export files from Canadian versions of Quicken for example. I couldn't exchange the product either even though no warning was given to me. It is a pity as I think this is a good program otherwise.