NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, March 2003
Quicken Premier 2003
A Review by Betty Davis, Past President
bdavis2001@cox-internet.com
(click to email author)


I find that this program has really been improved. I'm still using Quicken 2000 and was waiting for some major changes before I upgraded, and 2003 has a lot of the things I was looking for.

As usual with Quicken, 2003 was easy to load and it politely asked me if it could import my old data. Yes! This was the first big improvement. Last year I had a problem importing my data so I had a ball playing around with my hypothetical millions. This year it's down to sensible business.

The interface has been changed which is an improvement. It only took a few minutes to feel at ease with the new look, and the data were so much easier to find. Particularly the spending totals. For example, if you want to find out how much you spent on a particular item….say, gas or electricity…a couple of clicks will pull up the information. With 2000, I know it's in there somewhere because I've been there, but it's a major time waster trying to find it again.

The Home Page has a One-step Update that includes stock quotes, Financial Institutions, and goes to Quicken.com for updates on portfolio, banking accounts, reminders, and to automatically schedule updates. It's a split screen with part of it showing all your accounts and assets and the grand total. You can click on whatever accounts you want and go directly there.

Other changes include:

    Intelligent Investing Alerts
    Tax-Smart Investing Insights
    New Tax Reports – Schedules A, B and D
    Investment Sale Optimizer
    Investor's Reference Guide
    Buy/Sell Preview
    Capital Gains YTD Snapshot
    Guided Setups for Startup, Bills and more

The Investment Sale Optimizer and Buy/Sell Preview are pretty neat. You can set up as many as three different scenarios and play "what if" until you get an answer you are comfortable with. This really helps to keep from getting a big surprise from a sale that kicks you into another tax bracket.

Another feature of the Home Page: you can go directly to the Planning Center and/or the Tax Center. The Planning Center is really something else! It has the usual retirement, college education, homebuying, etc., but one I liked was "Can I afford it?" I went hypothetical here and said I wanted to buy a new car on July 4th, , (a Lamborghini Testarossa, of course) and filled in the necessary information. The estimator told me how much I would have to save a month to be able to pay for it. So let's forget that and get back to reality. And forget the Maybach, also.

An option there was information on taking out a loan, and from whom. With a click I got a popup Help screen that gave really sensible advice about loans. In fact, every Help topic I checked gave good advice, such as when to use a financial planner. Everything I checked out was solid and useful. Didn't find a thing about Pork Belly Futures or naked options.

The Tax Center was pretty standard, but included tips on using TurboTax and filing directly on-line. One section I liked was finding out whether or not I could deduct various items. I couldn't deduct a cell phone or computer, but I could deduct a chiropractor and acupuncture. It was fun to play around with, but I can see that it would be helpful if you wanted to fudge on your taxes. At least you'd know how much trouble you are getting into.

Quicken.com offers Siebert brokerage as their online connection. Muriel and I date back to the First Flood and I've heard good reports about the business.

I've been watching the local ads and there is a big push on for TurboTax. Office Depot offered a free copy of Quicken 2003 Basic with a purchase of TurboTax. The one I'm reviewing is the Premier version. You can download that from Quicken.com for $69.95 or order the CD for the same price. Office Depot and has the Premier for $79.95 for the box with a manual, and you get a $30.00 rebate if you buy TurboTax, too. I'm still ticked off at Office Max so I didn't call them.

I think there is only one thing that bothered me, and I can understand their reasoning though. I'm still using Win98SE and every time I want to access 2003 I have to change resolution to 800x600.

I mentioned this to Bill Shook and he said it was probably because XP runs at 800x600. If I was in step with the geek world, I wouldn't have to keep switching, I guess.

All in all, I really like Quicken 2003, and I'll download it. According to the "Can I Afford It?" feature, I have to pay for my new fence first.

Investors note: Last Fall I was out of the country for a couple of months and during that time the market went up about 1000 points. If anyone feels that it would be a good investment to keep me overseas, all donations will be gratefully accepted. Thank you. (And it is not deductible).

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