By William LaMartin, Editor, Tampa PC Users Group
lamartin@tampabay.rr.com

I have been a satisfied Quicken user since 1991, starting with the DOS version and moving up to their first Windows version when it became available. Over the years I updated to their newest version when it became available until the 98 version, when I stopped updating since it did about everything I wanted. I did, however, install their patches that would make Quicken 98 year 2000 compatible. My review of Quicken 98 Deluxe is at our website at http://www.tpcug.org/reviews/quicken98.html.

But with a new computer it was time to upgrade to a new Quicken, since if I were to install the old one on a different computer it would no longer be year 2000 compliant, the patches all having been done online with no software to save for future use.

The Quicken installation asks for no serial number or other type of authentication. It gives you the choice of what components you wish to install. I chose not to install

Quicken Home Inventory
Debt Reduction
Emergency Records Organizer
Deduction finder

Quicken 2002 Deluxe requires 59,290 KB of space. I think the original DOS version used at most two 3.5 floppies.

I installed it fresh on the Compaq computer - not my new Gateway computer. I like to use two computers with some software on one and other software on the other. Right after installation I got a message that _delis has caused an error in _ISDELEXE. _delisio will now close. This seemed to cause no problem, and a search at http://groups.google.com/ indicates it has to do with cleaning up temporary installation files after the installation is complete.

Quicken asks you some personal questions - married, children, house, etc, which I would have just as soon preferred to skip but found it easier to just go along and answer so that I could finish the installation. There is then the option to watch a video. I don’t believe the video is a good as the one for Quicken Deluxe 98.

To register Quicken is very slow. It took a long time to make the Internet connection to their server. Once I got the fill-in form to display, filled it in and then tried to send it to Quicken there was another long wait and the process never completed. I might note that I installed Quicken 2002 Deluxe (their copy) on another person’s computer, and their registration didn’t even get as far as mine did. So Intuit needs to improve the registration process.

After the registration you click Done and get the chance to set up accounts. I didn’t want this. I wanted to use the Restore from Backup feature to get my old data. You don’t use import since that only brings in one account at a time. So I first backed up my Quicken data on the computer it was on one last time. Then I mapped the drive this backup was on as a network drive on the computer I was installing the new Quicken on and restored from that location. You want to use the QDF file. Everything appears to have come in perfectly, including the printer settings for printing checks from Quicken.

The interface is completely different from Quicken 98. For each account, you have a register view and an overview. The register view is just that-a listing of the transactions in tabular form for that account. The overview presents the account attributes, like account number, interest rate if applicable, etc. and also has a graph of the account balance each day for the past month, quarter, 12 months or whatever interval you choose. I was surprised to see from the graph of my checking account for this quarter that on one day the account was $2,000 in the red. I never actually overdrew the account so that simply indicates that I wrote checks to pay bills (which would take several days to reach the payee by mail) before I credited deposits to the account. But this is an instance where a graphic points out something that you might not note in the register.

In the overview there is also a pie chart of expenses. You can make this full screen to better view it. Again the graphic can literally open your eyes. In my case it is a bit depressing how large the percentages are that go to taxes and insurance.

Finally, at the bottom of the overview screen is a list of the scheduled transactions to be paid from this account in the near future.

I feel that it is very important to backup my Quicken data to media that I can remove from the computer so that it won’t be lost in something like a lightening strike. For this I use a Zip drive since my main file is now almost 12 MB-much too large for multiple floppies.

I at first had a problem backing up my files to the Zip drive connected to another computer on my network until I realized that I couldn’t simply browse the network from the backup location folder dialog in Quicken. When I did this to select the location, I would get an error when I tried to backup. What I needed to do was first map that Zip drive as a network drive on the computer with the Quicken program. Then I could use the backup location dialog to select the backup folder in the Zip drive. However, none of this matters anymore, for now the Zip drive is connected to the computer with Quicken.

One nice feature is that when you reconcile a credit card bill and have Quicken print a check for payment, it will look at your scheduled transactions list to see if there is something there that matches what you are doing. It then asks you if the scheduled one and the one you are paying are the same and if so it removes the scheduled transaction from the list. In the past-at least in Quicken 98-after paying the bill from the reconcile process you then had to go to the scheduled transaction list and have it entered in the checking register and then delete it from the checking register.

When I enter a payment or a change in a scheduled transaction, I sometimes get a warning that this action will cause me to exceed my budget. Do I want to change my budget? Apparently at one time very long ago I set up a budget.

I have two Quicken files I use-personal and business. When I want to backup a file, the screens I get are much better than in Quicken 98, but there is still the problem of Quicken choosing the target folder to be the one most recently used. For example, if I most recently backed up my Personal file, and I then want to back up the Business file, the default backup folder is the one I used for Personal, and I have to browse for the Business folder. It is a small thing, but it would be nice if Quicken would remember which backup folder went with each file.

Quicken is much more than a simple checkbook or register for your credit card accounts. It allows you to track loans and investments, to do planning and to present all this in reports to view on screen or print. If you desire, Quicken will gladly handle all your financial transactions-for a fee.

One such service is online bill payment. This is basically $10/month for 20 bills. If you actually had 20 bills you could use this feature with, it would come to $.50/bill which is just a bit more than a stamp.

Quicken would like to help you with investing in stocks, funds, etc. Above you see a portion of a screen capture of Quicken’s choice of Small Cap Value Stocks. Of course, you have to be connected to the Internet to use this feature. You can set up alerts to know when selected stocks reach certain values. Quicken provides plenty of current information on stocks, mutual funds, etc.

One final thing I would like to mention is planning. As the screen capture below indicates, Quicken provides a number of planning features. I could have used the Home Purchase Planner 26 years ago when we bought our first home. I recall running all sorts of calculations in a FORTRAN program through a main frame computer that I had access to at the time to convince myself that it was better to buy than to rent.

Of course, in the process of helping you understand how much house you can afford, Quicken will also give you the opportunity to visit QuickenLoans.com. And that illustrates the direction the software has taken over the years. You have the original record keeping with which Quicken started, the added Investment and Planning features, and now all of the financial services they offer over the web.

The program is around $59 retail, and I recommend it. If you are not interested in all the bells and whistles, then there is a Basic version for less. u