Customer Reviews

Quicken Premier 2007 [OLDER VERSION]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(36)

 

 

I've been a Quicken user since 1994 and routinely upgraded every two years. This version leaves a lot to be desired. Intuit is so anxious to make every feature available from every page that the layout is cluttered with dialogue buttons and useless space. For everything else a user may do with Quicken, it is still basically a checkbook. In Quicken 2005 I could view 16 checkbook entries without scrolling, now I'm reduced to 11.
My account bar used to show 15 accounts, now it's down to 8. I have over thirty custom reports which now require multiple mouse operations to get through, not to mention the fact that they will all have to be re-customized and re-saved just to get rid of the graphs that Intuit gratuitously stuck in my work. Scheduled transactions? Prepare to scroll HORIZONTALLY through columns that few of us use. Want to import your 2005 Turbotax data? Get ready for an error message that says "Import failed, tax year not supported" If you use the home inventory feature you may see "not enough room on [x] drive" (Gee, you'd have thought 25 gigs was enough) Oh, and the tax planner acts like it's had a lobotomy. Darn that import bug!
I've never sent a Quciken product back in ten years but this one is out of here tomorrow. Too bad I can't return it to Amazon.....

After 2 days wasting nights to use this software, I'm giving up and sending it back for a full refund. I felt like many times ready to throw my laptop out the window. There's no video tutorial like Quicken 6. Intuit's endorsed manual costs extra which should have been included in the box. There's a very basic hand holding setup for adding your first bank account. Then I'm left out in the cold to figure this thing on my own.

This software can't import QIF file format from Fidelity NetBenefits accounts. Intuit's phased out QIF support because it is an outdated format. As a consumer, I DON'T CARE. Just make it work. My choices were to enter my 401k entries for the last 2 years manually by hand, or shell out money to buy Quicken 2004 that support QIF import, then upgrade to Quicken 2007. I already paid $60 for the software to help with my hectic day to day life; not to make it worse.

There's no transaction merging feature after all downloaded transactions has been accepted. So if you have multiple online accounts with downloaded transactions and want to transfer funds , you'll get duplicate entries. You can't select the duplicate entries in each account and make them merge into one. How can the company Intuit make their software so un-Intuitive? The software make me feel I have to use the software as Intuit expects. Without a manual, I have no way to know what they expect me to do.

People who've been using this software for years would feel comfortable with this software, but for those that are new or hasn't upgrade in a while, its just too much hassle.

Enough Tweaks!!! - Now for REAL some new features!!!!
Two year ago I wrote a review on Quicken 2005 begging for some new features in Quicken 2006. Now here we are with Quicken 2007 and the idea bag is just plain empty for Intuit.

Let me declare that I am a big fan of Quicken and use it every day. However that just makes me also more demanding of the things that Intuit can really do to improve the product.


While the new version looks nicer, there is really nothing new to report. Quicken users need real new features to help in managing our daily affairs. Here are just a few of the ideas still begging for Intuit to get going on.


From my Quicken 2005 comments these items are still waiting ....
(I should note that since then Quicken has made much easier to send customer feedback on the product.... not that you can every really tell that they do anything with the suggestions but the process is much better.)



Savings and Expense Control NOT just Investing.
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Lately I have found that while Quicken has done very well on the Investment Tracking features of the program the very critical area of saving and expense planning is sadly under studied.

From my list of wanted product features written to Intuit over the years are things that will really help the end user like;

1. A Shopping Planner
- All of us must shop (groceries, clothes etc) and it is in this area where users can plan to save on some expenses. A good shopping planner would allow for the easy creation of shopping lists, record item prices from different stores so was to prepare estimates of costs for shopping list and track price movements, identify stores that manage their prices better, track real consumer inflation for the good we really buy, etc.

2. Utility Accounts (Electricity, Water, Gas, Phone etc)
- In paying for our utilities we need to track how much is consumed along with the expense (the KWH, Gallons, Minutes etc). Tracking and graphing utility bill items will help to keep the use mindful of consumption patterns and help identify places to save again. This new class of account should be added.
-(Yes, I already use the Quicken Home & Business and it does not have the capacity to capture units of items consumed in a bill. It can do it in an Invoice for items sold however which means that it is possible).

3. Budgeting
- The only way to say it. The budgeting feature in Quicken is not as easy to use as the one in Money. Period. It needs a re-think!

4. Life Planning (Retirement, College etc)
- Money just blows quicken away in this area! The differences are dramatic. The feature in Money is just about excellent though it could be improved in a few areas but Quicken's offering here is vastly inferior. Fix the thing!
- The Life Planner should be multi-currency also. It does not support this now.
- (Hint: you can download the MS Money 90 day trial for free and see what it can do)

5. Savings and Investment Accounts
- Quicken needs to be able to calculate expected interest income in Accounts based on cash balances, Interest rate, period and balances and to deduct taxes based and other charges on the interest income.
- Quicken needs to hand money market investment contracts much better with perhaps and contract input screen that would allow the user to input the details of a money market contract with reminders before the maturity dates.

6. Insurance Accounts
- Quicken need to allow the users to keep better track of life insurance and home insurance policies with user input for the insurance policy coverage, the monthly premiums, cash value track, alerts for critical renew dates and premium payment dates. A summary report of the total amount of coverage across several polices along with the premium costs would be handy. Policy expirations report would also be useful.

Shall we await Quicken 2008 for some real changes?

First of all, Quicken does a nice job as a money manager when it works properly. Unfortunately, the company seems more interested in keeping their cashflow going by releasing a new version every year, than actually releasing a quality product.

This release is rife with bugs in the most important area, the part that downloads your transactions from your financial institutions into the Quicken register. Transactions are lost, you will get "out of memory errors", and the program will constantly ask you to change your passwords over and over again. Intuit issued an update to address these problems, but the fix did not work. Now if you go to their website all you get is the message that "we are aware of the problem and are working on it."

Its too bad because Quicken is a good product. A good product owned by a company with little interest in customer support or releasing bug-free code.

One reccomendation for people using this software. Start with new data files. Like previous versions of Quicken, if you upgrade your existing data files, there is more of a chance that you will have problems due to latent data errors.

When I first got this product, I was impressed with the new features. The only problem was that this version is so full of bugs that I could not recommend it to anybody at the time. I figured I'd wait until they came up with a new release before I judged it, but it's hard to tell if they have fixed much at all with release 2.

I've been using Quicken since its early DOS days, and since that time, many new features have been added. Not all releases have significant new features, but this one has more to offer than some recent past releases. Aside from Quicken 6 for DOS, though, I've never come across a version that corrupts my data and for which Intuit does nothing to fix it.

If I had to rate this product based on its features, assuming they all worked, I would give it five stars. Quicken is a premiere financial management tool to begin with, and this version is even better. The interface has been improved to give you a lot more relevant information at your fingertips with a lot less work. For a long time user, this provides nothing that you could not have gotten on your own, and if you have customized your starting point, that part will look no different. But if you want an immediate snapshot of where your money is going, what is coming in and going out, and whether you are ahead or behind for the month, this version shows you at a glance. It can easily forecast your financial future by using your existing assets, expected income and investment contributions, major expenses or plans, such as college for the kids, and so fort to figure out if your retirement plan is on target.

Another improved feature is the ability to download information more easily from many more financial institutions. It is no longer necessary to go to the websites of banks that did not connect directly in the past. A one key download (actually, one key, a password, an intermediate screen that lets you change your defaults, and another key click) will go to all your banks, investment institutions, and credit grantors, and get the latest transactions from all of them. The exception is that if your bank is not willing to pay Intuit, the product will refuse to accept your data. The data gets imported in an industry standard OFX format, but Intuit requires banks to add a single line to the file, purportedly so they can verify the validity. In reality, the file has your bank's name and your account number anyway, and this restriction does nothing whatsoever to help you or your bank. If you modified the file to change the bank's number, the file would import fine, albeit with the wrong bank name, thus accomplishing the exact opposite of what Intuit claims to be the benefit. The other problem is that the update process seems to go to Intuit's server a lot, and they are unreliable. The product often gives messages about bugs on their server that they are working on. Plus, when the product fails to connect in a timely manner, it takes quite a while before it times out and moves on. So if you have a large number of accounts, what should take a few minutes might drag out to a half hour on a bad day. Intuit says that you can use the product while the updates are occurring, but experience has shown me that this is dangerous and can have unwanted side effects.

This version also handles attachments a lot better. Since the idea of Quicken is to be a total solution for financial management, it makes sense that you should have statements, check images, bills, receipts, warranties, or anything else associated with a transaction or account at your fingertips. If you have a scanner, or if you merely download your statements and check images from your bank, then when you search your register or go to an account, you can pull up the relevant information and not need drawers or boxes of old paperwork. One issue with this is that they have not fixed HTML support. If your bank gives you any of this information as a web page, Quicken will accept it as an attachment, but it will fail to copy over related items such as images. Thus the relevant parts might not display, and you may get JavaScript errors popping up that do nothing to help. Overall, the way attachments are handled is much improved, and you can now attach checks written against an investment account, trade confirmations, and many things that were not supported in the past, plus there is no longer a restrictive limit on these items.

I would have to make this review several pages longer if I wanted to cover all the bugs, so I won't get into them. It's not that previous versions were bug free. But those bugs were more inconveniences than things that would corrupt your data. For example, in the past, if you and your spouse had 401(k) holdings at the same institution under the same corporate account, Quicken would accept only one of them for download, and give an incorrect error message for the other. Now, they claim it is fixed, but the new version often takes downloaded transactions that belong to one spouse, places them in the account of the other, and then complains that your register does not agree with the institution's records. It will also fail to register the transactions for the other account. Since this is a data corruption issue, I would have expected it to be one of the first things they fixed, but fixes are not coming very quickly.

Perhaps after a few maintenance releases, this will become the five star product that it should be. But for now, I would suggest waiting this one out. If you are willing to avoid some of the new features, you are probably no worse off for using this version than you would be with an older one, but if you are considering an upgrade for the new features, consider carefully.

UPDATE: Almost two months after I wrote the review above, I am not seeing any hope for improvement. I came across another bug that results in data loss. Copying certain transactions results in deleting those transactions (without warning the users) and Intuit is in no hurry to fix it. I found a post in Intuit's forums about this, and Intuit has known about this one for a while now. Other companies prioritize fixes based on severity. Bugs that cause serious problems such as security issues or corruption of financial data are typically given priority instead of quietly waiting until the next maintenance release. This is not the case with Intuit. They seem perfectly content throwing even the most serious of bugs in the same heap with enhancements such as color changes that will be released when they feel like it. I don't expect fixes on a daily basis, but if they know that customers are experiencing data loss, possibly without the customer even knowing about it, I would expect them to make it a top priority.

Unfortunately, waiting it out is no longer advice I can give. Since Intuit sunsets products (i.e. causes them not to work after a few years) sticking with a version that works is not a long term option either. The best advice I can give at this point is to look for a competing product. It may not have all the features of Quicken, but the risk of paying interest, penalties, or having a check bounce because your balances were off might be more than you are willing to risk.

I have used Quicken since its DOS days, and am way disappointed with this release. Some idiot colorist has purposely screwed with the readability of the user interface. Quicken now features lots of screen of black type on a dark gray background. Whose bright idea was this? Don't they realize they have a lot of users with 40 year old eyes? But what really gets my goat is the colors now employed in the net work bar graph. I am using a IBM Thinkpad T40 laptop with an excellent graphics card, and the way to describe Quicken's color choice is PUKE green. This stuff is just awful. There used to be two finance application packages with stunningly beautiful AND useful interfaces: SAP (big league package) and Quicken.
With the release of Quicken 2007, the count is now down to one. Functionality? I can't see the difference, where is the list of 123 user suggested improvements? Several months I made a trivially easy to implement suggestion: in investment reports how about giving users the option to list the stock symbol beside the name. Well it didn't make the list of 123. If I hadn't converted my database to the 2007 version, I'd de-install and reinstall 2006. I am beginning to think Quicken is quickly losing its touch, its ability to create software which delights. Just my 2cents.

I have never written a review on Amazon before, but I have been a loyal Quicken customer for a decade now and I'm extremely disappointed with this upgrade for the following reasons.

1. If you back up to CD from a disc formatted by InCD or any other program but XP, it won't work. Not that Quicken tells you this; you have to find it on their support message boards. Evidently, Intuit got tired of everyone having problems with backing up to their CDs from programs other than XP that they decided to drop the capability for doing so for discs formatted by other third party software companies. That's all well and good, but they should explain their decision in an easy to find place. I had to screw around on their support message boards for almost an hour before I found out why I could no longer back up to the same CD that I had in version 2006.

2. If I access the help files or the web through the Quicken browser, I get runtime script errors. Tech support's solution is to have me switch my default browser from Mozilla Firefox back to IE. No thanks; your program shouldn't dictate how I use my computer. They also guided me to solutions listed in their FAQS that don't work. Hey, I checked those out before I contacted Tech Support in the first place and I even switched back to IE just to see if their FAQ solutions would work, and they don't.

I've uninstalled the program and gone back to Quicken 2006. At least I know that program works reliably. I'll reserve complete judgement on Quicken 2007 if I can get Tech Support to give me a real answer to the runtime/script error programs or if they come out with a workable patch. Otherwise, I'll request a refund and continue using Quicken 2006.

Intuit has a "sunset policy" in the license agreement of only providing support for 3 years. I understand the sunset concept, the manufacturer can't support a product forever, however that is not what Intuit's policy is limited to...
What you need to realize is that after 3 years, they DISABLE key functionality of the software, forcing you to upgrade to the next version.
I was a SATISFIED user with Quicken 2004. However, I had to upgrade because Intuit disabled the key functionality of being able to download transactions from my bank.
Instead of forcing me to upgrade with a "timebomb policy" how about creating a product that I want to upgrade to?
Imagine if Honda came to your house and disabled your car after 3 years?
Look for other software solutions! Don't become an Intuit crack addict.

I have upgraded from Quicken 2006 to Quicken 2007. Quicken 2007 is constantly crashing. It does this during must attempts to download on-line transactions. ALso, I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but Quicken 2007 is not allowing me to use the key board to copy and paste. The enter and tab key don't work either. I hope you like your mouse. I am returing mine to the store. I did call Quicken Support, they ran me through some stuff that helped, but it didn't solve it completely. My experience has been that every version since 2004 has gotten much worse.

***Also, Quicken makes the registration very deceptive on this one. I don't want to use there on-line access. I have had personal information stolen twice now, so I really don't want to give very valuable personal information to a company.***

Keep your old file if you upgrade.

Please listen to all the reviews from long-time users.

This version of Quicken is not worth upgrading to. Intuit has made a poor decision to release this unfinished product.

If the features that are built in would work correctly, this would be rated much higher. If ethics of releasing such a poorly tested product counted, it would be rated much lower.

The attachments feature is very much improved over prior versions. You can now scan statements, receipts, invoices, checks, directly from a scanner, clipboard, or directly select from a file location.

The program has good cash flow graphs indicating amount of funds available in cash spending accounts.

Also improved is the ability to update multiple accounts with fewer keystrokes and using one update button.

The negatives are plenty and can be seen through other reviews (server errors that prevent updates, installation issues, tool bar icons disappearing, color change limitations, register calculation errors, flickering screens, flaky start-up screens, missing downloaded bank data, and lousy support from half-way around the world from our friends near the Indian ocean).

Three words. Don't do it.

It's a good thing that I am a long time Quicken user and not an Intuit basher or this would really be a negative review.

Select your finance program carefully because it is very difficult to change programs and move data to another program without losing significant amounts of data after you have acquired several years of data.

The difficult conversion process may be the one thing that is saving Intuit with this disaster of a release.

If you have not selected a program yet, would you really want to be with a company that released Quicken 2007 and provided such little support afterwards?

The accuracy and stability of your important financial information depends on your decision.