Quicken 2008 Starter Edition [First-Time Users Only]

Because it was called "Starter Edition" I expected it to be easy to use. I was looking for a simple program to keep track of basic finances. This was complex and much too detailed for what I needed. It may be a great program for those who need what it offers, but I found it was a waste of money for me.

As this is only the "starter version" one could not merely export the data from the website in Quicken format and then import it into Quicken. If your online bank does not put the data into this Quicken's 2008 format it will not import it. That's why its called a "starter version", so heads up to those of you who usually import data to update quicken.

HOWEVER... Quicken is set up to actually do the downloading from the bank itself. In all honesty, its BETTER to let Quicken do the downloading because its more streamlined then exporting from your website and importing into Quicken.

Setting up this feature is where I had issues. I had to make several phone calls to get my online banking passwords to mesh with quicken. My online bank (National City) kept doing weird things. There were two passwords that one needed to log into the account, one for me to login to the online banking website, and then a separate one for Quicken to use to gather data. In the process of doing all of this the two passwords got confused, and I got very stressed. But after several calls to the help desk of my bank we got it all figured out and I now can EASILY do my banking with Quicken.

Quicken is a GREAT product and I'm very satisfied with it. I used my Dad's version in college but once I got my own computer I settled for Microsoft Money (it was only $10) and got so frustrated. It kept screwing up my data and was very confusing to reconcile, that I actually created my own program in Microsoft Access to do banking with. It worked wonderfully, but when I changed banks and had to reset all of the many complicated forms, queries and reports I'd created, I decided that I'd buy quicken, and I'm very happy with my choice.

I was only in need of something to make my written register obsolete, as I wasn't keeping up with it as well as I should, so I chose the Starter Edition. For one thing, you can't upgrade it to a subsequently-released version. That's annoying, but I'll get around it.

What really makes this product infuriating is Intuit itself. 60-75% of the time I try to download my transactions, Quicken reports that there is an error or an outage with the Intuit servers. I can understand the application needing to contact Intuit to update its bank list, but I don't understand why it would need to do it every time and why having that fail would require my transaction download to also fail. On the surface, it seems like some bad design.

There are a myriad of other annoying things that I would change, but everyone has those with every product so they're not worth mentioning. I don't know if Microsoft Money is any better, but I don't know that it could be much worse. If I had to choose between the two again, I'd definitely let price drive my decision as Quicken Starter Edition doesn't give any good reasons in its favor.

I have struggled with Q 2008 Basic for 3 months now and I GIVE UP...

Problem: Account log ons get lost, requiring many tedious to deactivate the account, backup the file properly, validate the new file, re enter the acct numbers and password, reactivate the account.
Problem: Downloads multiple identical transactions fro your accounts which have to be very carefully deleted taking three clicks per deletion. Try that on 2 weeks worth of CC and ATN transactions.
Problem: Auto Rename starts replacing with the wrong name WalMart becomes Costplus. The wrong date is entered for the transaction, making it look like you went wild all on one day.
Problem: Takes 6 days to update transactions from yr banks server. Last week's paycheck ???? Where is it ? Did they deposit it automatically or not? You have to go to you banks site and log on for the answer. It's there alright.

DONT WASTE YR MONEY ON INTUIT QUICKEN OF ANY VERSION

I work with Quickbooks every day in my job. However, for my home I didn't need the bells and whistles. Quicken is perfect. I would recommend it to anyone.