bit-tech Shopping: Intuit Quicken 2008 Deluxe (Full Product)

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Windows XP

Rating: 10

Time with product: 4 Months

Strengths: Very easy to use

Weaknesses: I haven't found any weaknesses yet.

Summary: I have thoroughly enjoyed my Quicken deluxe. It has made organizing my finances very easy. It is helpful in keeping up with several different bank accounts as well as a few credit card accounts. It makes budgeting easier and helps me track my spending.

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: If you can determine how to set it up correctly, it can do many sophisticated tasks and remove much of the tedium of bookkeeping.

Weaknesses: Determining how to set it up correctly is not always straightforward.

Summary: The built-in help is great in describing how to perform specific tasks, as is Intuit's support section of the web site and as are other books on the topic, but I've found nothing that speaks to the practical side of QuickBooks. I'm thinking in terms of something that can take you from "here is a problem that I'd like Quickbooks to help me solve" to "here is how to set it up in Quickbooks and here is how you extract the information you seek once you've set it up." For those of us who have not worked as or been trained as professional accountants and need to keep books for a small company, this type of reference would be great.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Months

Strengths: Great peronal finance program

Weaknesses: None found

Summary: I have benn using Quicken for many years, and I purchase upgrades every other year or so. Each upgrade is in my opinion minor, and not justifying yearly upgrade purchases, but there are improvements, none the less easily seen in a 2 or more year wait to go to the next version. Besides, If I and many others did not buy upgrades, Intuit may drop the product in some way. I feel they deserve my business and therefore can continue to produce and support this excellent progam.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 4

Strengths: Connects to most financial institutions, gives you a good variety o charts and graphs.

Weaknesses: Doesn't understand that the $100 payment to Electric Co. on the 1st is the same thing as the scheduled payment to the Electric Co. for $100 on the 1st. Nags you about it until you tell it to skip.

Summary: It definitely beats an excel sheet that you have to update by hand, but has a lot of quirks. Not that much of an improvement over 2007, unless you need it to connect to some bank that 2007 won't.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Permits downloading of financial data from banks etc.

Weaknesses: complex

Summary: Entering quaterly statements from financial institutions and banks is now cumbersome, but one-step downloading seems to work. When I tried to print personal networth data sheets, the preview window is larger than my PC screen. Some buttons can hardley be reached, Screen can't be moved. Seems like a program error. But networth data sheet prints correctly.