Money Plus Premium [OLD VERSION] | Good program if used carefully

Money Plus Premium [OLD VERSION] | Between Quicken and MS Money I choose Money

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Money Plus Premium...

	Money Plus Premium [OLD VERSION] Windows \| Microsoft Software, 2007 average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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Microsoft Money Plus provides all the tools you need to handle your finances in one place. The new Insights feature allows you to get a glance at your finances without even launching Money. Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe includes additional tools for managing capital gains and investment taxes.

Good program if used carefully

I have been using MS Money for several years now and it has been a good experience. The improvements from year to year are modest. There are still reasons to upgrade though. First, each version of Money is only good for two years of online services. These services include price quotes for stocks and mutual funds, banking services, and so forth. Second, if you upgrade only once in many years, then the program might have trouble performing the update for you. It has to convert your computer file of financial history to a new format (it changes every year).

I have started a discussion topic "How to enjoy Microsoft Money" that is visible on the product page. This topic explains how I have avoided serious problems using Money.

The most significant competitor to Money is Intuit Quicken. Both programs are good. Recent versions of Quicken became increasingly restrictive about exporting data from the program. That is what prompted me to switch to Money.

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Between Quicken and MS Money I choose Money

I have used MS Money since very beginning and found it simple, elegant and straightforward. It does everything you expect it to do but... there are no *new* features that make an upgrade worth the money. So get yourself a copy, connect to your bank, and know who's got your dollars.

Very useful program, but less stable than it used to be

--Existing qualities--
MS Money does an excellent job of tracking & reporting on net worth, account balances, and investments. I wouldn't want to handle my finances without it. This is the primary reason why it got 3 stars and not fewer. I've used Quicken before and find Microsoft Money much more intuitive (no pun intended). I've used MS Money since ~1998 or so across ~3-4 versions.

--Best new addition--
The only useful *new* feature I've encountered in the last few weeks since I upgraded is that MS Money Plus will download more statements than the 2004 version would. I believe this is because of the Yodlee integration. This is a big time-saver.

--Worst new addition--
MS Money Plus crashes regularly. I think part of this is because I upgraded from a previous version and possibly also because I have a good bit of data (as a reference point, Vista says my MS Money file is 25mb). A caveat is that I'm using a Mac + VMWare Fusion to run MS Vista to run MS Money Plus (I jumped through all those hoops because Quicken for Mac is that bad!). I've read reviews on Amazon stating the program crashes for them as well, so I don't think I'm alone in my annoyance with this program's stability.

--Wish list--
* Give me back the stability
* More powerful reports (it'd be cool to run a SQL query rather than try to jump through Advanced Search's hoops)
* Smart (social?) correction and categorization of transactions.
* Remote, secure viewing of financial data and ability to add transactions from the web (so I don't necessarily have to be at home to check). Trust is the main hurtle here, but Microsoft should be able to come up with something.

--Summary--
In hindsight If I could have just paid Microsoft to maintain MS Money 2004's ability to automatically download statement information & quotes (which expired 3 years after I bought it...how rude!), I'd have stayed on 2004. MS Money is a very useful program and I couldn't live without it. However, the year-over-year improvements are a joke. MS (and Quicken) will need to get their act together quickly before another competitor takes over their user base (Mint, Wesabe, etc.). I rely on MS Money because it gives me much more fine-grained, thorough tracking than the online apps I just mentioned, but it's only a matter of time before Web 2.0 fully replaces apps like Quicken and Microsoft Money.

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Money98/99 Users: WARNING!!!!!!!

Microsoft, WHY IS THERE NO WARNING ON THE PACKAGE FOR PREVIOUS MONEY 99 USERS?????

I previously have been using MS Money99. It had been working well for me for quite some time, until it recently started ignoring random expenditures during expense reports! This was clearly unacceptable, so I figured it was time to finally upgrade to Microsoft's newest product, MS Money Plus.

I read everything on and in the box, and followed all the available instructions (which were basically, "insert disk, follow instructions.") So I naively believed that I could install my upgrade, and it would recognize my previous financial files, from the same company's product bearing the same name. How silly of me.

After installing the program, it tells me that my files are corrupted and cannot be read. Not only did it not work, but it searched out ALL my backup money files that I had saved in SEPARATE folders, and destroyed them all!!!!!

I finally did some research on the problem (I know, too late), and came across this useful section of Microsoft's help site: [...] , where it tells me I clearly cannot do what I tried to do! Fortunately, it does have two solutions, the second of which worked for me. You must go through a very tedious uninstall process, and then either download a free temporary copy of Money05 (which didn't work), or (start all over again and then...) download a free temporary copy of Money04 (which did work), to convert the old files into a format the new program can recognize. I was extremely fortunate that I also had backed up my files on my PDA, or I would have lost everything. BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL THIS PROGRAM, SAVE YOUR MONEY99 FILES ON A DIFFERENT COMPUTER OR STORAGE DEVICE!!!

So, bottom line, you can use this program, but you need to follow the instructions in the above link before you install it. Why Microsoft didn't include these instructions in the box I have no idea. Better yet, why didn't they make their expensive new program have the capability to do the conversion automatically? I think they want us to hate them!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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