Quicken 2003 Premier 6 

by Stephanie Nordlinger, LACS

Many of you use Quicken or are familiar with it, so this review will emphasize the changes in the latest edition. My Quicken records go back to 1988, so I assume I have been using it since then. Intuit has regularly updated the program, and in recent years it has added a number of optional auxiliary services including discounts if you open accounts with particular banks or a Siebert brokerage account, references for purchase of insurance, cars, etc.

Look and Feel

Generally, I like Quicken 2003's new look and feel. Navigation is often easier. While retaining its checkbook format and certain customization features, the default is now light blue and white, with a list (bar) of your accounts at the right (or left, if you prefer). The accounts are neatly sorted by type: bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts, other assets and debts, etc. The current value of the accounts can be shown or not with a click of a button. As before, you can edit accounts and hide old accounts. Only one account is open at a time. You no longer have to close accounts, and you don’t run out of RAM by having too many open at once.

Quicken 2003 installed easily from a CD and is generally quite intuitive, especially if you have used previous editions. You must go through the menus and set your preferences. You will go nuts if you like to use the Tab key to change fields and the program is set to use the Enter key (or vice versa). Each version converts the accounts from at least several previous versions. It also partially imports Microsoft Money 2001 and later files.

A person, family or business will have a file containing various accounts for different assets and liabilities. If you are starting for the first time, you need to create files and accounts – a simple, fill-in-the-blanks process. If you choose the right kind of account, anything else can be changed later. You can set up files for different purposes such as to keep track of your Frequent Flyer miles and files for clients, a trust or a small club or organization that doesn’t need double-entry bookkeeping.

The major difference between Q2003 and earlier versions is improved integration with Internet resources. For example, Q2003 prompts you to download bank, credit card or brokerage account data whenever you try to reconcile an account whose data hasn’t been downloaded recently. If you are in an account in the program, you can import the data directly into the account. Quicken produces a list of the items and tries to match them with your data. You choose which to accept, delete or edit. You can also download data into a .qif (Quicken information file) that can be imported in whole or in part into your file. Quicken also provides links from itself to various services including insurance and mortgage shopping, estimating your car’s value, etc.

Quicken Premier is the next-to-the-highest version. Quicken Home & Business has additional invoicing and accounting features, but I handle my home business (a law office) just fine with Premier. Below it is Quicken Deluxe and, formerly, Quicken Basic. Charts comparing their features are on all of the retail boxes and the Intuit website. The prices vary from about $30 to about $80 and are often combined in deals with Intuit’s TurboTax and discount coupons. Current prices for Quicken are at the end of this review.

I pay many of my bills online, but I use my bank’s system instead of Quicken BillPay because it is half the price ($5 vs. $9.95 a month). Some banks offer free online bill paying if you have your payroll check deposited electronically. Nor have I used Quicken’s MasterCard which is supposedly more integrated with your Q2003 files, but I don’t see how as I can download my credit card account data just fine. I chose not to do so and enter the credit slips to be sure I actually made the purchase. Data entry is very quick for repeating transactions. After you type a few characters, Quicken will finish the entry. Be sure the amount is correct if it varies.

While I don’t keep Quicken’s Billminder as a TSR program, it reminds me of upcoming and recurring bills, which I enter in the register somewhat in advance. If a check has been entered but not printed and is due, a check mark at the left of the account name will remind you to send it.

Quicken is exceedingly useful in managing your investments. In Q2003, you no longer have to pull up an investment account to reach the Portfolio screen, from which you can update your stocks and mutual funds with a single click. I do this every weekend, which gives me daily prices for stocks and mutual funds plus alerts for major price changes and links for news items. You can download prices up to five years back, but daily data is provided for only the last month. You can add or edit price data by typing it in from another source.

You can use Quicken to manage real estate investments by using your usual categories for income and expense items and then using classes for each apartment or building. This lets you do reports by the property or overall.

If you create accounts for all of your major assets (real estate, financial accounts, loans, automobiles or other significant assets), you will have a running account of most of your net worth in that right column of your main screen. This number would exclude clothing, jewelry and miscellaneous household and personal items unless you entered and set values for them. Quicken also has an Inventory feature.

Q2003 provides much better stock data handling than previously. You can do much research on its website, www.quicken.com/investment/ from within Quicken or directly. A tremendous amount of corporate investment data from numerous sources is available without registration and without having the program running. The data is, however, not unique to Quicken. It is available from other brokers’ websites, other investment websites, the SEC, etc. You can maintain a Watch List portfolio there.

You can sign up for an account with Quicken Brokerage Powered by Siebert. Intuit describe this as, "the only online brokerage designed specifically for Quicken software users — with unique tools that can help you minimize your taxes and make better informed investment decisions." Details are on the Quicken investment website.

All direct connection online banking features in Quicken use secure 128-bit encrypted Internet connections to protect the security and privacy of your financial transactions. Internet Explorer v. 5.5 or later and Netscape’s later versions (4.73+) have this capability. If you have more than one financial institution, you can send and receive data from all of your accounts in one online session. You do not need to log off from one financial institution server and then dial another. If you like, you can open an account with another company endorsed by Intuit to upload your data files to a secure website for backup and storage purposes. Others can access the data if they have the password.

Tax planning and reporting has been significantly improved. Q2003 Premier includes several tax planning routines. A year ago I wondered how the program had arrived at totally wrong items in its preliminary tax estimate (e.g., that I had thousands of dollars of W-2 income, when I had none). This year, the reporting was more transparent, and I could easily edit the input for these numbers so that my federal tax estimate payments weren’t called W-2 income. There was, however, no category for state income tax estimate payments. All reports are fully customizable and can be memorized. Reports you made with previous editions are there. Reports can be printed in color and exported in various standard formats.

Quicken 2003 automates the naming of categories. If you write a check to X Restaurant, it will probably be allocated to Dining. You may need to adjust the data if it was a business meal or if you have your own categories set up that don’t match the default categories. Setting up, combining, and deleting categories and adjusting the related tax form lines are easy and intuitive. If you establish a clean set of categories, you will get good reports for tax and other purposes. Tax data can be exported to TurboTax and TaxCut.

Quicken 2003 has unfortunately dropped the Windows standard of Control-P printing what is on your screen. Long ago, Quicken made several other Windows commands optional (as a group - e.g., Control C can go to the Category List or copy highlighted text). I preferred the Quicken choices. But not this! Now I can’t print a check without clicking twice (on Print and then on the only menu item, Checks). If you type Control-P, the program prints the account’s Register. Worse still, it printed my "Quicken Home Page" when I tried to print a page on its website! It even printed a Register of an account that I wasn’t in (and hadn’t been in lately) when I used Control-P to print the Register of another account. This shouldn’t happen.

I tried to set up downloading for some bank and brokerage firm accounts. I didn’t notice that one brokerage account was no longer active, and the broker didn’t respond to the outdated account number. I also couldn’t remember the PIN for a bank account. Every time I started or tried to close the program (at least twice a day for weeks), Q2003 nagged me, "Your last online session was not completed. Do you want to try again now?" I finally called tech support and the online banking company’s toll-free number twice, zeroed out the old account, hid it, cleaned up the password on the other account and obtained clean downloads which finally got rid of the error message. Much better was Quicken 2002's just listing the dates of the last Internet contacts for various accounts and whether or not these contacts were successful. Then, I could easily delete or ignore any item that I didn’t think was worth pursuing.

Documentation includes a QuickStart card, a 76-page "Getting Started with Quicken" booklet and context-sensitive Help files. Plenty of well-written information on the Quicken website can be read and printed.

Aside from the usual free web-based support, there’s telephone support (a toll call). For installation and certain other issues it is otherwise free, and you are warned if there will be a charge. The technician answered fairly promptly and was helpful. Online banking tech support is a toll-free call. Quicken’s technical support is Good.

When you are in Quicken and go to its website, Intuit checks to see if you have the latest version of the software and automatically updates your files if needed. There may be several free updates a year, until the next version is issued in the autumn.

An IBM or compatible Pentium 133 (Pentium II 300 recommended) running Windows 95/98/2000/Me or XP, 32 MB of RAM (64 MB RAM recommended), 67 MB of hard disk space, plus 45 MB for Microsoft Internet Explorer if IE 5.5 or higher is not already installed, a Super VGA (800x600) monitor with 256 colors (1024x768 with 16-bit color recommended), a CD-ROM drive (4X speed or faster recommended), an Internet connection and modem (56 Kbps or higher recommended). Optional: a sound card and speakers. Any printer supported by Windows will work.

I don’t know what I would do without Quicken. It is such a versatile, low-priced, easy-to-use program to manage your household and business finances. It (or MS Money - which I haven’t tried) is essential to a well-organized, computerized household. Its reports will speed up tax return preparation and reduce costs. Every year it gets better, and using an older edition is pennywise and pound foolish unless you have very simple needs.

Quicken 2003 Premium, $70. Home & Business is $80; Deluxe is $50 and the Mac version is $50. These April 2003 Intuit web prices include a $10 instant rebate and approximate street prices. The Basic version is not listed for sale on the Intuit website.

Pocket Quicken is available for both Palm and Pocket PC formats. $30-$40 from Intuit.

Intuit, Inc., 2632 Marine Way, Mountain View CA 94043. (650) 944-6000. www.intuit.com and www.quicken.com.¨