Customer Reviews

Quicken 2005 Premier [Old Version]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Per my usual procedure, I upgrade my copy of Quicken every other year. From what I can see, Quicken 2005 has hardly changed from Quicken 2003 (not necessarily a bad thing). Some things that I have noticed as being different are that:

- The program seems to load just a tad faster than before. On my 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 computer, my 19MB Quicken file changed from loading in about 2 seconds to loading in about 1 second. Insignificant, but noticable. On the esoterically theoretical downside, the Quicken 2005 upgrade process changed that same file from 16MB to that 19MB.

- The upgrade process suggested that I change my investing account so that the "checking" side of the account was reflected in one account instead of its existing two accounts. When I agreed, it processed the account and told me it didn't work right. Instead of reversing the change, it told me to restore a backup and leave the account as it was (unfortunately, it wasn't very specific about which account had problems or what they were). Not a big problem (since Quicken automatically made that backup when I started the upgrade). But, it could have been handled better.

- It appears that it's no longer possible to enter investment transactions directly in an account's register: you have to bring up a form dialog and enter the data there. If you enter such transactions only rarely, this isn't much of a problem. However, if you batch process a bunch of these, using that form gets tiresome pretty quickly.

- Unlike Quicken 2003 Deluxe, Quicken 2005 Premier allows you to set up scheduled transactions like dividends/interest in investment accounts. I'd have been happier if the program had noted dividend payments in the data downloads and automatically set up such quarterly scheduled payments. But, still, this is a good thing.

- With Quicken 2003, I was getting frequent error messages about my brokerage uploading data for accounts which didn't exist in Quicken. Those messages seem to have disappeared.

- When Quicken 2003 tried to download a quote for a stock which didn't exist in its data base, it popped up a warning screen and stopped the download until you accepted it. Quicken 2005 continues on without user intervention (a good thing, to me).

- The Quicken 2005 icon is UGLY and non-professional. I guess it's supposed to be a yellow dollar sign on a red-filled circle. Unfortunately, it looks like the "S" on Superman's outfit.

- Intuit seems to be practicing some type of "version-creep." From what I could decipher from the box and from Intuit's web site, I had to buy Quicken 2005 PREMIER to get the same investment capabilities I had in Quicken 2003 DELUXE. It's apparently a way of sneaking in a price increase. I don't mind the price increase so much as the fact that if I hadn't examined their table of capabilities, I would have automatically bought the DELUXE version and been unable to do the things I did with the old version. Irritating and potentially very bad from a customer-retention viewpoint.

- As others have noted here, Intuit is in the process of phasing out the use of QIF files. As I've never downloaded such things from my financial institutions, that doesn't affect me. The only worry I have is that this is yet another attempt by Intuit to lock people into their program (i.e., no data exchange). I haven't tried it yet, but there is an option to export REPORTS to Excel or to the clipboard (EDIT: I've now tried the Excel export and it's just the old export to a tab delimited file -- nothing new). If I could do that with an entire data file, that would be good. I'm not too sure about doing it with only what you can generate in a report, though. Also, as a work-around for importing QIF files to Quicken, I've seen messages that if you create a CASH account as a temporary working account, you can import your data there and then use Quicken's MOVE command to get the data in the proper account. Not elegant, but usable if you need it.

- I don't use the service, but from some articles I've read (do a Search on CNet), Intuit has changed the service it uses for online bill paying. It used to use CheckFree. With Quicken 2005, it uses Metavante. This, alone, doesn't seem to be much of a problem. But, the Quicken 2005 install process AUTOMATICALLY, and WITHOUT NOTIFICATION, changes your existing CheckFree account over to Metavante. Some people are rather upset about this (I would be too, if I used that service). There doesn't seem to be any way to opt out of, or reverse, that change.

All-in-all, I'm happy with the upgrade. It's not earth-shattering, so I don't recommend everyone run out and buy it. But, if you feel it's time to get a newer version of Quicken, there's nothing blatently wrong with this version and there are a few nice additions.

This is a big drawback !!. I upgraded to this version but cannot use it based on this limitation. In fact, I learned from Fidelity Investments ( www.401k.com) that QIF is no longer supported in Quicken 2005 ::--

"You can download your selected transaction History Period: 05/08/2004 to 08/05/2004 from NetBenefits to popular personal finance packages such as Microsoft MoneyTM or QuickenTM. The download file created uses the Quicken Interchange (.qif) file format. Please Note - the Intuit Quicken 2005 personal financial management software will no longer support the use of the QIF file formats."

While I agree that Quicken did phase out the support of QIF files (http://www.intuit.com/personal/quicken/qif/). But if Financial Institutions are not willing to support QFX, we CANNOT use this product. Downloading transactions is a core part / basic layer for using this software.

Also in case of Fidelity, they do not allow QFX connection to their 401k database but they do allow QFX data transfer with their Investment accounts. So I agree to some extent the fault lies with these financial institutions.

But my main point is that if I cannot download my 401k transactions into Quicken 2005 ( given the QIF limitations ), how do I use this version ?

Again Fidelity is just an example. I am sure there are many more financial institutions.

Maybe waiting till Quicken 2006 will give Quicken sufficient time to work with financial institutions to ensure QFX is supported across the board.

Being a loyal Intuit Customer, I went and bought the latest Quicken 2005 Premier version. While trying to upload data for one of my new accounts, I noticed that the new Quicken does not support the QIF Import anymore for Checking, Savings, 401k and brokerage accounts. They only support the OFX format for these accounts !! Not all the institutions that I deal with offer OFX downloads.... You may want to check the following Intuit link to see if your financial institutions support the OFX format ...

http://www.intuit.com/personal/quicken/qif/

This version of Quicken seems to me to be Adware. On just about every screen, the program presents the user with advertising for additional services or software upgrades that Intuit wants to sell you. There is no way to remove the advertising from the view.

I've been using Quicken products religiously since 1995, upgrading every year, purchasing turbo tax every year, recommending the software every year except the last 2. Over the last 2, I've continued to upgrade and use turbo tax, but the services, support and feature sets are diminishing.

I bank through a credit union and have for 15years. They offer QIF and CSV downloads of banking information. They do not support ofx. Quicken with 2005, which I just purchased last week, has finally decided that they are pulling the plug on their users that use the QIF import feature for certain account types, such as bank accounts (checking and savings). They still offer it for credit card accounts.

This is stupid.

They are still doing the programming work to put the function in the program, but they are turning it off for the accounts that need it the most. Most credit card companies are online today, but most credit unions and smaller banks are not.

Who does this hurt?

It hurts Quicken's current customers soon to be ex-customers.

Quicken has made a number of decisions over the last couple years that had other interests in mind to the detriment of their customers. They tried to pull a weird licensing shenanigan last year with Turbo tax, such that a person couldn't readily view their tax return or print it without buying multiple licenses. Now they want us all to waste hours entering in bank data by hand, instead of doing it the fast easy way, download and import.

Their excuse for the latter, is that the download import process is to tedious for users. I agree. However, the cure of chopping off the arm to remove the finger nail is stupid. Its a whole lot more tedious to type in hundreds of ACH payments, atm withdrawals and fees than it is to import them in under a batch.

I've helped promote quicken for years by word of mouth and loyally purchasing their software.

No more. Don't buy new upgrades, if you are running an old version stick to it. For brand new users, go use Microsoft Money, don't get stuck going down this dead end with Quicken.

On a different note, I tried to refinance my house through Quicken mortgage a year ago. They promised me a rate of 3.5%, signed the loan application guaranteeing the rate, and a month later they tried to increase it to 5.8%. I did not have time to take them to court so I dropped them and went with a more honest company (Wells Fargo).

I don't know what Intuit is smoking these days, but I suspect it starts with "lots of" and ends with "crack".

Don't walk, run away from this product and Intuits services, they've gone too far and should not be allowed to go further!



They no

Haven't seen anyone mention yet....reported them to Intuit, might as well have just told my cat....

1. When I click Backup, up comes an installer message apparently trying to install Quicken's online backup and another popup saying you must exit Quicken first. Have to click both several times to make them go away. Does this on both Win2K & XP. On my old Win2K system I finally gave in to the nagging, closed the program and let the installer run. All it did was hang the system. And the popups continued.

2. Autofill can't get upper and lower case right when filling in payee

3. On startup, first up comes a "Quicken Update" window asking "Would you like to update Quicken now?" Letting it run does nothing noticeably useful. It has a box to check, "Never update on Quicken startup again, which you'd think should make this nuisance stop appearing. It does nothing.

Intuit, of course, is more interested in inventing overpriced extra-cost features than in fixing bugs. Sure wish there was some better competition for the most important application I use.

I've been a Quicken user from day one. Prior to 2002, I used to upgrade virtually every year. I've done this reluctantly because with each upgrade, some feature or report I use frequently gets axed in the new and improved version. In the last 4 years I've returned two releases (2003 and 2004) because of my disgust with Intuit's penchant for making the program more difficult for me to use. I read most of the reviews posted for Premier 2005 and agree with the consensus that Intuit just can't seem to get it right.

All Intuit seems to have done in the last 4 or 5 releases is to change the look and feel of the software at the expense of ease of use. There's nothing materially "better" in this release but entering investment transactions became a downright pain in the behind.

examples:
Can't cut and paste inside the check writing window (admittedly, not a frequently used feature, but gone).

Stock transactions now pop up a much less user friendly entry window. The older 2002 version of register based entry was much easier to use.

Want to reconcile that brokerage account? You really gotta hunt for this command. Why, for Pete's sake, isn't there a command, button or icon anywhere on the window with the register?

Done reconciling and want to check the account value for the date of your statement? In 2002, you were sent to the portfolio view after reconciling with the "As of" date of the view set to the statement date you used in the reconcile. Not anymore. Now you are sent back to the TOP OF the register. Were you needing to enter another transaction, you would have to scroll down to the bottom. So, you click to the Summary Page instead. This displays the current date in the "As of" the Holdings window. You must change the date to go to your statement date. Also, the Holdings window in the Summary Page is annoyingly small and won't allow you to expand it, forcing you to go back to the Portfoio Window anyway to easily see what you need to see.

I'm so heavily entrenched into Quicken that I'm stuck (Money tells me if finds conversion errors - but won't specify what they are). I will have to live with 2005, but would have stayed with 2002 to keep the simplified register based entry for stock transactions.

I could go on and on but you'll see enough complaints posted here.

Prior to 2002 I bought the upgrades every year. Now, I'll stick it out for as many years as possible to prevent further erosion of features I've grown accustomed to.

If you're a casual user and only need to cut checks, get the basic version - or try MS Money. If you're a power user, hold off until the tone of these reviews improves.

Caveat Emptor

Not only has Intuit forced a data format change which many banks won't support (and therefore you can no longer download either auotmatically or by importing a QIF file), they have changed the bill pay provider which has messed up many, many data files and bank accounts including mine.

While they answer the phone and web as "Quicken Bill Pay" they are a separate entity who tried to resolved why my payments were not updating. They had me run the "one-time" transition program everyday when I called in. After 4 days of this I called Quicken Technical Support. After 3 phone calls of 1 hour each including a call dropped, their off-shore call center advised me I would have to revert back to my Quicken 2004 version and LOOSE ALL THE DATA that had transpired since the update. All my end-of-month reconciles, payments, bank downloads were to be forever lost.

To add insult to injury, the Tech Support person said I should have never proceeded to use Quicken 2005 without calling support. Since I had been calling Quicken Bill Pay support for 5 days in row, this was both an unintelligent and insulting thing to say to a customer.

Luckily, it is the end of the year. I will no longer use Quicken Bill Pay, leave my data in Quicken 2005 and migrate to MS Money at the end of December.

Quicken looses a 10+ year customer who will also migrate all his friends to MS Money that he has installed and maintains on Quicken over the years.

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 have been using this software for the past three months or so and it seems to work fine. However, I do have concerns about the QIF support. It seems that Intuit has taken a page from the monopoly playbook and is forcing institutions to upgrade to the QFX standard. However, Intuit is charging institutions considerable price for this upgrade. I think the price is something like $3 per account, not per $3 institution bank account that uses an Intuit product. For a bank with 50,000 account names, this would translate into a $150,000 payment for Intuit. Going forward, I would expect for more institiutions to take the path of Fidelity and not adopt the new standard. Think about it, if you were a bank technology director would you pay this amount for service that was used by perhaps 15% of your banking clients?