Download Money 2007 Premium vs. Quicken 2007 Premier

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FEATURE
Money 2007 Premium vs. Quicken 2007 Premier
By Wayne A. Thorp, CFA
Investors basking in the relative
prosperity of 2006 over 2005 may look
to 2007 as the year to get their financial
households in (better) order. Those
looking to manage all of their financial
accounts under a single canopy or
hoping to get a better handle on their
spending or debt may be in need of
a personal finance software package.
These types of programs help users
answer key financial questions: What
do I have? How am I doing? and, How
can I do better? Today, the personal
finance landscape is dominated by two
heavyweights—Intuit and Microsoft.
Both companies offer several flavors of
their popular Quicken and Money programs, respectively; the most robust
versions are Money 2007 Premium
and Quicken 2007 Premier.
This article walks you through the
key offerings of both programs, including the most significant changes that
have taken place since our last review
of the 2005 versions. At the end, we
tabulate an overall winner based on
a check-box scoring system. Points
are awarded with functionality and
ease-of-use in mind.
New Features in 2007
The 2007 versions of Quicken Premier and Money Premium both lack
any eye-popping new features. While
Intuit claims that it has made over
120 “improvements” to Quicken, the
most useful change to the program
this year is the completely redesigned
home page that offers users a cleaner,
more intuitive picture of their current
financial situation. With Quicken Premier 2007, the focus has shifted from
providing lists of alerts and upcoming
transactions to projecting future cash
flows. This is done with the new In,
Out, and What’s Left boxes, which
allow you to see your cash inflows
and outflows, see if you have enough
money to cover expenses, and track
your spending patterns. The new
Money 2007 Premium
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home page also allows users to access
a wider array of data and information
without having to dig deep into the
program.
One other improvement in Quicken
2007 Premier worth mentioning is improved handling of digital documents
related to transactions. The documents
may be check images copied from your
bank Web site, statements, receipts,
bills, warranty information, etc. The
2006 version first allowed users to
attach digital documents to transactions, but Intuit has improved upon
the process. Quicken now has scanner
integration, which allows you to scan
and attach multiple images directly
from a scanner. Users can also now
attach multiple images to a single
transaction, attach multiple pages of a
document, and copy and paste images
to and from the Windows clipboard.
It is perhaps surprising that Microsoft
has made no attempts to offer similar
functionality in Money 2007.
Compared to the work Microsoft had
been doing in recent years in terms of
offering new features and enhancements, it appears that the company let
things slip a bit with Money 2007. It
may be that Microsoft chose to focus
its efforts on the newest offering in the
Money product line—Money Essentials. This program appears to mimic
the Essential mode that made a brief
appearance in Money 2005 and is
intended for those intimidated by
personal finance software or looking
for an extremely simplified means of
examining their finances. Frankly, I am
not sure that offering such a basic product to the apparent detriment of the
more robust and full-featured Money
programs makes sense. I only hope
that this does not signal Microsoft’s
surrender to Quicken at the upper
range of the spectrum in order to focus
on the lower end.
The most significant addition to
Money 2007 Premium is the new Savings & Spending Budget. This tool folCI
lows the budgeting strategy developed
by the editors at MSN Money, which
advocates holding “committed” expenses—recurring expenses that arise
every month such as mortgage or rent
payments—to 60% of gross income
and allocating 10% each to irregular
expenses, savings and debt, retirement, and “fun money.” However,
users can choose the percentages that
best fit their situation. To help you see
how well you are staying within your
budget, there is the new Spending
Tracker by Budget Group. This tool
graphs your spending behavior within
the “high-level” categories (committed
expenses, savings and debt, etc.) as
well as within more specific spending
categories that you specify.
Getting Started
Over the years, both Money and
Quicken have improved upon the ease
of using their programs right out of
the box. The number of steps it takes
to set up Quicken has dropped from
26 steps in 2003 to 10 in 2007. Within
minutes I had the program installed
and the latest updates to the program
downloaded and installed as well. The
only complaint I had with the installation and setup process for Quicken
Premier were the four unwelcome
start-up icons that appeared on my
desktop relating promotional services
offered to Quicken 2007 users. It would
be nice to have the option to decline
the added desktop clutter.
Installing Money 2007 Premium was
also hassle-free, as was the downloading and installation of program
updates. However, be aware that if
you’re buying Money for the first
time, 2007 versions will only run on
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed. Quicken 2007 Premier, on the
other hand, will run on Windows 2000
and XP. In addition, Intuit offers a Mac
version of Quicken, although it is not
as full-featured as Premier. While installing and registering Money 2007, I
strongly suggest that you uncheck any
boxes that may land you on unwanted
mailing lists.
One bothersome feature of Money is
the need for a Windows Live (formerly
January/February 2007
Passport) account to even open the
program.
Program Navigation
Upon opening Quicken 2007 Premier, I was immediately impressed
with the clean new home page. The
gap that had been narrowing in recent
years in terms of ease-of-use and navigation between Quicken and Money
has once again split wide open. The
intimidating register is gone from the
home page, although it is still available for individual accounts. From the
Quicken home page, you can monitor
scheduled bills and deposits and see
projected inflows and outflows for the
month, data you used to have to go
further into the program to see. The
new In, Out, and What’s Left boxes
give you a quick projection of your
income and expenses for the month
so that you can see if you will have a
cash shortfall or surplus. The calendar
is now also visible at the home page,
providing access to any accounts you
are tracking with the software as well
as scheduled bills and deposits. If you
are not satisfied with what is displayed
on the home page, you can also create
and save your own custom views.
Compared to Quicken Premier,
Money 2007 Premium’s default user
interface is “cluttered” with links to
various topic areas of the program.
However, the Web-like layout is
easy to navigate when trying to access your accounts, bills, budgeting,
reports, investments, planning, and
tax resources. As with Quicken, the
Money 2007 Premium home page is
customizable.
Overall, Quicken’s new home page
significantly improves the program’s
overall ease-of-use and navigation.
Money, while not difficult to manage,
tries to give you access to everything
all at once, which could be a little
overwhelming to new users.
Personal Finance Features
Personal finance software helps you
to examine your current financial position and provides a framework for
achieving various financial goals—developing a budget, reducing debt,
planning for retirement, etc. For many,
the list of personal tasks is long and
varied. Both Quicken and Money can
serve as mere recordkeeping diaries
that track your income and expenses,
or they can function as planning applications that consider only your net
worth and focus on generalized long-
Quicken 2007 Premier
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term goals and objectives.
When examining individual accounts such as savings, checking,
credit card, etc., the focal point is typically the “account register,” or merely
the register. Data that is downloaded
from financial institutions into the
register or that you enter manually
flows into budget accounts, updates
net worth values, and helps estimate
tax liabilities, just to name a few possible actions.
Financial Account Setup &
Transaction Downloading
Like most finance- and investmentrelated programs, data is required in
order to perform the desired analysis.
In the case of personal finance programs such as Quicken and Money,
the required data relates to your financial accounts—savings and checking,
credit cards, mortgages and loans, and
investment accounts. While you have
the option to manually enter transaction information for various accounts,
both programs allow you to download
transaction data directly from the respective financial institutions.
With Quicken, setting up my primary savings and checking accounts,
credit card account, and investment
accounts went effortlessly. You type
in the institution name and Quicken
attempts to match it. If the institution
is supported by Quicken, you indicate the type of account it is and then
enter your custom ID and password
information. If you have already set
up on-line accounts with your various
financial institutions, chances are you
will use the same log-in information
with Quicken—99% of the 4,400 banks,
credit card companies, and brokerage
houses accessible by Quicken (up from
2,700 in 2006) support this one-step
data update.
Setting up these same financial accounts with Money 2007 Premium,
while relatively easy, is not nearly as
straightforward. Unfortunately, there
is the annoying need for a Windows
Live (formerly Passport) ID in order
to connect on-line to your financial
accounts. This is because all of your
financial data that is used by Money
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is stored on Microsoft servers, and you
need the Windows Live account to access the servers. Undoubtedly, some
potential users may be turned off by
the fact that their financial information is housed on Microsoft servers,
although the data transmissions are
encrypted. This is in stark contrast to
Quicken, where all of your information
is housed on your own hard drive.
Once setup is complete, downloading data from financial institutions
is also extremely easy with Quicken
2007 Premier. The program’s express
Web connect automates the process of
downloading transaction data from all
your financial accounts at the same
time. Furthermore, the program’s PIN
Vault protects this vital account information in an encrypted, passwordprotected folder that is inaccessible
from outside of the program. After I
downloaded the transaction histories
for my accounts, it was also reassuring to see that the balances displayed
within Quicken matched what I found
on-line for each institution.
One complaint I have when it comes
to downloading financial transactions
with Quicken is the apparent lack
of ability to specify the time period
you wish to download. It appears
that Quicken defaults to roughly 90
days of transaction data. Money 2007
Premium, on the other hand, allows
you to specify how far back you wish
to download, provided the institution makes that data available for
download.
Microsoft Money, similar to Quicken,
uses the same user names and passwords when accessing on-line accounts in order to download data from
financial institutions. The software’s
Password Manager also allows you
to save this information so you do not
need to re-enter it each time you wish
to download the latest account data.
However, I found that I had to keep
re-entering my log-in information for
one account.
I hit a snag with Money 2007 Premium when trying to download data for
my retirement account with Vanguard.
When attempting to track my positions
and transactions with Vanguard, I was
never able to arrive at an account balance that matched what was shown at
the Vanguard Web site. The only way
I found to do this was to merely track
my positions and bypass tracking the
account’s transaction history. Also, I
repeatedly had trouble downloading
data from an account through a wellknown credit card company, with all
attempts being unsuccessful.
Given all of the unique data both
programs use, it is not surprising that
both pay a good deal of attention to
data backups, although the programs
take two very different approaches.
Money takes more of a “brute force”
approach, asking if you wish to backup your data every time you exit the
program. This is despite the ability to
specify a back-up schedule. You can
back up your Money data to your
hard disk as well as to a CD, DVD, or
floppy disk.
Quicken is a little less intrusive with
its backups. Users are asked every
three times they close the program if
they wish to back up their data to a
floppy disk, CD, or DVD. New this
year is the option of backing up your
Quicken data files on-line using Quicken Online Backup. For $9.99 a year you
have access to up to 100M (megabytes)
of on-line storage for all your Quicken
data files. Additional storage space
is also available—1G (gigabyte) for
$49.99 per year and 10G for $149.99
per year. This is a feature Microsoft
Money is currently lacking.
Automated Transaction Entry
When you download transaction
data for your various financial accounts, both Money and Quicken
attempt to automatically categorize
them into specific spending categories, with varying degrees of success.
Categorizing transactions, while
seemingly mundane, allows you to
get a more accurate picture of your
spending habits since both programs
allow you to view expenditures within
individual categories.
Intuit claims to have improved
Quicken’s auto-categorizing, which
in my testing did do a better job of
accurately categorizing transactions
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compared to Money 2007 Premium.
If a transaction is miscategorized, or
if you wish to use a different category
for a transaction, Quicken and Money
allow you to change the category. In
addition, both programs are able to
“remember” the categories for a payee
for future entries.
Bill Scheduling & Payments
For bill management and payment,
the Scheduled Bills & Deposit report
that is now at the Quicken 2007 home
page provides easy access to pending
bills along with those that have been
paid. From the home page, users can
now see how their overall cash balance
will be impacted by future expenses
and income. The on-line Quicken Bill
Pay service is also fully integrated
with Quicken 2007 Premier, so users can schedule payments directly
from their account register or from
the Quicken Bill Pay Web site. These
same payments are then synchronized
with the Quicken software. You enroll
with Quicken Bill Pay directly from the
software. First-time users of Quicken
Bill Pay can sign up for up 20 free
payments during the first month, after
which Bill Pay costs $9.95 per month
for up to 20 transactions and $2.49 for
every five additional payments.
With Money 2007 Premium you can
also pay your bills on-line. However,
you must first enroll in your bank’s
on-line bill payment system or with a
bill payment service provider, a process not quite as efficient as Quicken’s.
However, some banks offer free on-line
bill payment, so paying bills on-line
with Money 2007 could be cheaper
than using Quicken Bill Pay, depending on the service you use.
Budgeting & Financial Planning
Beyond being able to track your financial accounts, personal finance programs strive to help you better manage
your finances to plan for the future.
As discussed earlier, both Money 2007
Premium and Quicken 2007 Premier
allow users to assign budget categories within account registers. Taking
the time to categorize your transactions accurately allows Quicken and
January/February 2007
Money to maximize their budgeting
capabilities. If you do not categorize
your transactions, the budgets and
plans developed by these programs
may not accurately reflect how much
money you actually spend.
Money 2007 offers two budgeting
options—the Essential Budget and
the new Savings & Spending Budget,
which we covered in detail earlier.
The Essential Budget is designed to
handle day-to-day budgeting and
tracks income versus expenses. Users
can choose specific expense categories
to monitor, or they can create their
own. The program will then issue
alerts when you have exceeded your
budgeted amount. Money 2007 also
provides a budget summary so you
can monitor your progress in following your budget.
The Savings & Spending Budget
allows you to plan for a long-term
goal such as retirement or college
tuition as well as plan for “irregular“
expenses such as a vacation or major
car repairs.
Beyond these two budgeting tools,
Money 2007 Premium also offers
planning tools to reduce debt, create a
lifetime financial plan, plan for retirement, and save for a specific goal.
The Quicken 2007 Planning Center
offers tools to help you reach a number
of long-term goals, such as retirement,
college, buying a home, reducing debt,
or making a special purchase. Quicken’s “auto budget” module allows you
to manually enter the amounts you
spend each month on various budget
categories or the program can create a
budget based on your past spending
patterns. Once again, however, the accuracy of this and any other budget is
dependent on the proper categorizing
of your financial transactions.
Both programs offer a long-term
planning tool, which looks at your
total current financial situation, including current income, savings and
investments, assets such as a home
or rental property, loans and debts,
and expenses. Based on assumptions
such as expected inflation, rates of
return on your investments, expected
contributions to retirement accounts,
increases in your income, and any
expected pensions, the programs will
give you an idea of the amount of
money you will have at your desired
retirement age.
Given the depth of tools both programs offer for budgeting and financial
planning, as well as their relative easeof-use, users of either program would
be well served in their endeavors.
Reports
Looking at column after column
of numbers can eventually become
mind-numbing. In addition, many
people respond to or interpret graphical information more easily. For this
reason, reports are a key component
of any personal finance program. They
allow the user to pull their financial
plan together in an easy-to-understand
visual format.
Within both Quicken 2007 Premier
and Money 2007 Premium there are a
bevy of reports that provide a coherent and useful breakdown of your
financial information into a variety of
specific categories.
Quicken 2007 has an improved Reports Center that offers six new reports
and now allows users to customize
reports before they are generated,
organize saved reports in folders, and
create toolbar shortcuts within the
program for quick access to frequently
used reports. In all, Quicken 2007
Premier has over 40 reports for individuals covering banking, spending,
investing, and taxes. I am especially
impressed with the EasyAnswer reports that show you where you are
spending your money, what your savings habits are, what your net worth
is, and how well you are sticking to
your budget. You can export report
data from Quicken to spreadsheet
programs and to PDF format.
Microsoft Money 2007 Premium
offers its fair share of reports—over
30 in all—dealing with income and
expenses, investments, assets and
liabilities, and taxes. The program’s
monthly reports allow you to compare your income and spending for
one month to the prior month. These
reports show you how much you saved
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for the month, break down spending
by budget categories, and tell you
how your spending within these categories differs from the prior month.
The monthly reports also display your
net worth over the last year, how well
you are sticking to a debt-reduction
plan suggested by Money, and the
performance of your investments held
in your various accounts. Users can
customize reports to cover specific
time periods and also create favorite
reports for easy access. In addition,
you can export report data to an Excel
spreadsheet for additional analysis.
Overall, I liked the setup and look
of the reports in Money 2007 Premium
more than those in Quicken 2007
Premier.
Taxes
Since taxes impact your finances,
they should also play a role in the budgeting and planning process. Personal
finance programs can help you review
pending tax liabilities and can offer
suggestions and adjustments to potentially reduce your taxes or to modify
your tax withholdings. Quicken and
Money link to tax preparation programs such as TaxCut from H&R Block
and Intuit’s TurboTax; data entered
into Money and Quicken can also be
exported for tax analysis and calculation. Both Money 2007 Premium and
Quicken 2007 Premier also have entire
sections devoted to tax-related issues.
However, it is worth mentioning that
both Quicken and Money fall well
short in their management of student
loans for tax purposes.
In Quicken, you can set up your
paycheck within the program as well
as tax-related expenses such as federal
income tax and Medicare deductions.
Quicken’s Deduction Finder can help
you identify additional tax deductions
to lower your tax liability. Just like the
diligence needed in assigning budget
categories to your transactions, it is
important to set up your gross pay
and deductions to get the most out of
the program’s tax-related tools. Once
you have done this, Quicken’s Tax
Planner can estimate you current-year
tax liability. Then, you can adjust your
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payroll exemptions, if necessary. The
Tax Planner offers additional tools
that allow you to perform “what if”
analysis to judge the tax implications
of certain tax-related financial actions,
including selling stock or buying a
home.
Quicken offers a better array of taxrelated reports, including a capital
gains report, a tax schedule displaying
tax-related transactions subtotaled by
tax form line item, and a tax summary
with tax-related transactions subtotaled by category. The program can
also generate IRS Schedules A, B, and
D. It also offers seamless integration
with its tax counterpart at Intuit—TurboTax—as well as the TurboTax Web
site. Within Quicken there is information on exporting data to TurboTax and
importing last year’s TurboTax data
into Quicken
Like Quicken, Money 2007 Premium is equipped with a deduction finder that suggests potential
deductions after you answer a set
of questions. Once you have set up
your deductions, Money can monitor your tax-deductible expenses in
order to estimate your tax liability.
This helps you know whether you
are having enough taxes withheld
from your paycheck. When it is time
to file your taxes, you can print reports to refer to while filing by hand,
export your data to a tax preparation
program, file your return with the
IRS via the Internet, or even E-mail
your information directly to your
tax preparer. Money is a bit lacking
in the reports it offers, but you can
print reports displaying tax-related
income and expenses, capital gains
or losses, loan interest, or an itemized
list of tax-deductible expenses.
Portfolio Management Features
Any investments you have will impact several aspects of your finances,
including your taxes and long-term
retirement plans. For this reason, personal finance programs such as Money
and Quicken offer basic portfolio tracking and analysis functionality.
Buying and selling a security, receiving cash or stock dividends, and
receiving interest income are the
transactions the average investor will
need to record. Moving beyond these
standard transactions, Money and
Quicken offer additional recording options such as margin purchases, short
sales, and the reinvestment of dividends. Both programs also allow for
three different security lot assignment
methods—average cost, FIFO (first in,
first out) and specific lot. Transactions
and security lot cost basis methods are
handled in relatively the same manner
with both programs.
Although Money comes in multiple
versions—Essentials, Deluxe, and Premium—the Premium version is geared
toward the investor, with modules to
analyze investments and provide tax
analysis of stock transactions. Money
tracks a standard set of securities such
as cash, stocks, options, mutual funds,
and bonds, and the program has a
special account type to track employee
stock options.
Quicken 2007 Premier’s Investing
Center offers a variety of portfolio
analysis tools, charts, and graphs.
Users can see how their investments
are doing relative to the market and
how they have done over time; what
securities are driving your portfolio’s
performance; whether or not your
portfolio is balanced; or whether you
are invested in top-rated mutual funds.
There is also an analyzer that helps to
describe your portfolio holdings, performance, asset allocation, risk profile,
and tax implications. Support for IRAs,
employee stock purchase plans, and
short sales is also provided.
Quicken includes the basic holding and performance reports for
securities and asset classes for single
portfolios only. These reports can be
customized and generated between
periods. Quicken only generates a
value-weighted rate of return.
While both Money and Quicken have
significantly expanded their handling
and reporting of investments over the
last few years, the reality is that neither
of these programs can satisfy the portfolio tracking and management needs
of many investors. That being said, I
believe that Money 2007 Premium is
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better equipped for portfolio tracking
and analysis. As in past years, its tight
integration with the MSN Money Web
site, one of the best overall investmentrelated Web sites, is a definite bonus.
For more information on portfolio
management and tracking software
and services, refer to the July/August 2006 Computerized Investing for
a comparison of Web-based portfolio
management services and the July/
August 2005 issue for a comparison of
portfolio management software; both
articles are available at AAII.com.
Companion Web Sites
Despite being software-based in
nature, Intuit and Microsoft also have
a formidable presence on the Internet
with the Quicken.com (www.quicken.
com) and MSN Money (www.investor.
com) Web sites.
Money 2007 offers near-seamless
integration with the MSN Money Web
site via an integrated Web browser. In
Quicken, on the other hand, the Web
browser opens in a separate browser.
The MSN Money site is a comprehensive
one-stop investment super center, offering analysis tools, research capabilities,
company reports, current and historical
financial data, company and market
news, advice, and educational materials.
The site offers a portfolio tracker and
stock and mutual fund screening that
are among the best on the Internet.
The portfolio tracking module offers
customizable displays and a multitude
of sorting techniques.
With over 12,500 funds in its database and over 80 screening criteria, the
site’s deluxe fund screener is a highly
sophisticated free screening tool. There
are also over 200 data points on each
fund. The stock screener has nearly
200 criteria for screening, and over
1,500 statistics on individual stocks
are provided. Both programs are
highly flexible and easy to navigate.
Price charts date back to 1962. Chart
data, stock and fund screening results,
and portfolio tracking data can all be
exported to Excel.
Finally, users of the Money software
can also view their accounts and bills
tracked in the software on-line at the
January/February 2007
Table 1. Rating the Programs
Quicken 2007
Premier
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Money 2007
Premium
Account Transaction
Management Features
Transaction Data Downloading
Automatic Data Updating
Automatic Transaction Categorization
Attach Electronic Images
Personal Finance Features
On-Line Banking
On-Line Bill Payment
Budgeting/Long-Term Planning
Cash Flow Forcasting
Debt Reduction Planner
Financial Reports
Tax Features
Tax Estimator
Tax Deduction Finder
Tax Withholding Estimator
Capital Gains Estimator
Tax Schedule Preparation
Export to Tax Software
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Portfolio Management Features
Securities Handled
Portfolio Tracker
Portfolio Review
Capital Gains Tracking/Optimization
Security Lot Assignments
Basic Holdings Reports
Performance Reports
Return Calculations
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Technical/User Support Features
On-Line FAQs, Knowledge Base
Free Phone Support
E-mail/On-Line Support
X
X
X
Companion Web Site
View Investment Portfolio
View Financial Accounts
Financial Planning Resources
Finance/Investing Resources
X
X
X
TOTAL POINTS
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21.5
Scoring System: 1 point per account management feature; 1 point per personal
finance feature; 1 point per tax feature; 1 point per portfolio management feature;
1 point per technical support feature; 0.5 point per companion Web site feature.
MSN Money Web site.
The Quicken Web site has had a bit
of an identity crisis over the last couple
of years. Once a highly rated Web site
accessible to all, the site has gone from
being strictly a repackager of Yahoo!
Finance data to a “members-only” site
providing some unique analysis tools
and integration with the Quicken software. Quicken software users can track
their bank and credit card accounts
and view their investment portfolios
on Quicken.com.
The site’s One-Click Scorecard allows you to rate your stocks using investment strategies of some top investment experts—Robert Hagstrom’s The
Warren Buffett Way, Geraldine Weiss’
Blue Chip Strategy, and The Motley
Fool’s Foolish 8 Strategy. Lastly, the
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Stock Evaluator lets you review a
stock’s growth trends, financial health,
management performance, market
multiples, and intrinsic value.
While Quicken.com has seen some
improvements over the last two years,
the MSN Money Web site continues to
be in a class by itself.
Support
Given the wealth of features both
Money 2007 Premium and Quicken
2007 Premier offer, it is good to know
that users have at their disposal an
abundance of support resources.
Money users have access to “how-to”
videos and a built-in searchable user’s
guide and FAQs. On-line you can find
a knowledge base, user discussion
groups and RSS feeds for support
updates. Microsoft does outdo Intuit
in terms of telephone support. If you
are having a problem with the software, you can call, toll-free, or access
free on-line support between 5 a.m.
and 5 p.m. (Pacific) on weekdays and
between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday
and Sunday.
Quicken, too, provides its users with
an on-line knowledge base and FAQs,
animated tutorials, and a 6,000-member-strong user forum. However, if you
wish to speak to someone regarding
anything more than the most basic of
issues, be prepared to pull out your
credit card, as it will cost you $24.95
per incident. Toll-free phone support
for issues related to software registration, upgrading, Bill Pay, and program
defects is available on weekdays from
5 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Pacific). Free on-line
live chat assistance is available 24/7,
except between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.
(Pacific), and E-mail support with
promised 24-hour turnaround is also
available 24/7.
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The Bottom Line…
Over the last several years, Quicken
and Money have been locked in a
struggle of one-upmanship as they
strive to out-feature one another. For
those who simply enjoy the competition between these two giants, the
2007 versions of Money Premium
and Quicken Premier may somewhat
disappoint. Quicken achieves some
tangible separation from Money this
year with its revamped home page,
improved digital document integration and Express Web Connect.
That being said, Money 2007 Premium and Quicken 2007 Premier are still
closely matched applications. In cases
such as this, the reasons for selecting
one program over another become
extremely subjective, with users often
simply opting for the one with the
bigger name. However, here we have
two programs that have established
themselves as the top choices in the
personal finance arena.
For Mac users, the choice is quite
easy, since only Quicken offers a
Mac-compatible version in the form of
Quicken 2007 for Mac. But many Mac
users will probably once again feel
slighted as this Mac version is lacking
many of the more advanced features
found in Quicken Premier.
It is important, however, to ignore
the hype when it comes to any type
of finance- or investment-related software. The overriding factors when selecting software of this ilk are whether
it fits your needs and how closely it
matches your computer skill level.
Table 1 provides a checklist showing our head-to-head comparison of
Quicken 2007 Premier and Money 2007
Premium. Each check in the finance,
portfolio management, and technical support sections rates one point.
One-half point was awarded for each
checkmark in the companion Web site
section. A checkmark was awarded
when I felt one program clearly excelled over the other in providing an
easy-to-use and functional feature. In
those cases when neither program held
a clear advantage, both were awarded
a check.
In the end, Quicken 2007 Premier
emerges as this year’s winner. Its
newly redesigned home page makes
the overall program much easier to
navigate, a big plus for those new to
personal finance software. This is not
to say that Money 2007 Premium is
difficult to navigate. But compared to
Quicken’s slick new layout, Microsoft
has its work cut out for it. I feel that
Money does a better job compared to
Quicken in the tracking and analysis
of investment portfolios—but, realistically, one should not be looking to this
type of a program to manage their portfolio. Furthermore, the MSN Money
Web site is far superior to Quicken.
com. Again, however, the site is accessible to everyone and should not play
a significant role in swaying a person
to one program or another.
For current users of either Quicken
or Money, there is no compelling reason to switch programs if your needs
are currently being met. Furthermore,
there is no pressing need to update
if you are using the 2006 versions of
either Money or Quicken. However,
if you are using an earlier version of
either program, you may need to upgrade in order to access on-line data
for your financial accounts.
Wayne A. Thorp, CFA, is editor of
Computerized Investing and AAII’s
financial analyst.
CI