money plus premium

Rating:
Date: 2008-01-22
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.

Rating:
Date: 2007-12-22
Minor changes/ hardly worth the trouble
I was a long time user of Quicken and Turbotax until about 5-6 years ago. Intuit decided to make registration and activation such a royal pain that it completely screwed up all of us legitimate users. I lost a hard drive suddenly and Intuit's approach meant that I could access my own taxes on my own software. The workaround and telephone calls were more trouble than doing things by hand.

If there were pirates, they were probably better off than us. It was not the first Customer-be-damned Intuit move. They eventually called and began apologizing to old customers. it was too late. I decided to switch to Turbotax and MS Money. The data is compatible, but it obviously takes a while to get used to the differences between the two (I'm including both the money and tax software).

Once you're used to it, Money is fine as is Taxcut. I inadvertently bought Turbotax last year and decided I didn't want to bother, so returned it and got Taxcut.

I'm only giving this two starts because, while it works well, the only reason I upgraded to this version was that I got sick of dealing with the Microsoft Reminder Screen every time I went to write a check. Yes, I know Microsoft, you've got a new version out and want to sell it.

True, MS doesn't support the older versions now and you can't get the data you do in the first two years. The truth is that I've switched most of my fiscal work elsewhere because I didn't care for the Money approach over those others. It's okay, but it's just updated bloatware that most of us wouldn'tneed.

I would have made more sense ot just offer a lower priced upgrade.

Rating:
Date: 2007-12-10
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.

Rating:
Date: 2007-11-17
Review of Microsoft Money Plus Premium
Money Plus Premium

Only reason I had to upgrade to Microsoft Money Plus Premium, is because Microsoft wants all its users to upgrade money every two years so that they can automatically download bank transactions into Money.

If you are MS Money 2005 user, you will find this product absolutely useless with no additional features and in some case very slow. Microsoft is shamelessly asking $70 from us so that we can use this auto download feature for next two years.

When I upgraded, My home page suddenly became very slow and took 10 min to load, I had to remove some of the portlets to make it work. So here I am paying $70 and compromising some capabilities. They have not even made any UI changes. I think Microsoft have run out of ideas of enhancing this further.

Only think MS has done in this is that they have taken out year reference from the title of the product. All its previous products were called Money 2001, Money 2003, Money 2005 etc. Is this surrender sign from MS, that there will not be any two year product revolution any more. ?

On the other hand, do I have alternative to MS Money ? Not at this time. I have seven years worth of transactions and not ready to switch to Quicken yet, unless I was forced to the wall by repetitive disappointments from Microsoft.

Rating:
Date: 2007-11-15
BACKUP BEFORE YOU UPGRADE
Make sure to backup your money files before you upgrade. This version of Money will "upgrade" your money files into some unuseable format for earlier versions. After uninstalling and trying to go back to Money 2007, I could not open ANY of my money files which had been converted! Make sure you do plenty of backups before you upgrade to this piece of trash, because you will want to go back.

List Price: $19.98
Lowest Price: $9.40

New Items Remaining: 46

List Price: $20.00
Lowest Price: $17.99

New Items Remaining: 2

Lowest Price: $4.99

New Items Remaining: 2

List Price: $64.99
Lowest Price: $47.97

New Items Remaining: 32

Lowest Price: $3.50

New Items Remaining: 1