Entered CNET Catalog: 08/06/2003
SKU: S66-00004
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Manufacturer description
Introducing the latest addition to Microsoft's award-winning family of personal finance products, Microsoft Money 2004 Premium. Easy-to-use tools to help you manage your complete financial picture, from balancing accounts and paying bills to managing investments and planning for the future. Save time organizing and managing your finances. Download checking, credit card and other transactions from your bank automatically for up-to-date information. Consolidated view of financial information. View and access information from multiple financial institutions in one place so you always know your overall financial health. Achieve financial goals. Whether your goal is to get out of debt, save for retirement, or for a major purchase. Money provides easy-to-use tools to help you achieve your financial goals. Maximize tax-savings opportunities. Money can help you optimize your investments to help maximize tax-savings. Microsoft Money 2004 builds on what is available in Money Deluxe, but offers even more benefit to the personal finance customer! Money Premium comes with everything in Money Deluxe, plus…. The most complete package of investment tools. Money 2004 Premium is all new and designed for investors! Get in-depth stock and investment information at your fingertips, including quick access to stock quotes, news, and powerful online tools to help your investments grow. Sophisticated portfolio tracking. Integrated GainsKeeper provides comprehensive investment tracking and account integration. Automated investment analysis. Robust decision-making and analysis tools help you minimize year-end taxes. "Double-down" strategy tools, asset allocation, and much more to help optimize tax-savings opportunities.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 08/20/2003
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| Money 2004 Premium adds new credit-management and capital-gains tools to its task-based interface. |
Money 2004 Premium's main interface changes little from the 2003 version, retaining the browserlike navigation icons and embedded links to content both online and offline. But some of its new features are confusing. For example, in the Premium edition, when you click the Experian icon on the home page, you're whisked away to Experian's Web site and invited to subscribe to the Credit Manager service for $79.95. But wait--isn't this service free for one year? It is, but you'll need to click another link on Money's Credit Center page to find the correct setup screen. Money 2004 Premium's main interface includes new features such as Top Stories, a listing of the latest financial headlines from MSN Money, Kiplinger's, Briefing.com, and other Web sources. The new Choose A Task drop-down menu takes you quickly to common activities such as the account register or the Credit Center.
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| Money 2004 Premium's new Credit Center provides one free credit report and 12 months of credit monitoring. |
Also new to Microsoft Money 2004 Premium is MSN Alerts, e-mail warnings regarding a user-selected group of stocks and personal accounts. For instance, MSN Alerts could notify you when your checking account falls below a certain amount, to avoid the bank's minimum-balance fee. Microsoft .Net Passport registration is required for this service.
Included with the Deluxe and Premium versions is the new Credit Center. An obvious nod to the mortgage-refinancing boom of recent years, it provides one year's free credit monitoring and one free credit report from Experian--one of the big three credit reporting agencies--and supplies lots of self-help data on how to clean up a credit score. Additional services, such as receiving a three-agency report, cost extra. The Premium edition also includes a capital-gains tax optimizer from GainsKeeper.com, a provider of automated financial tools, and generates a printable Schedule D form for federal taxes.
We were miffed by the so-called backup-to-CD feature in Money 2004 Premium. You can back up your Money portfolio to a floppy or hard disk; however, to write to CD, you must copy the backup file manually from the hard disk--tedious. We think a better approach would have been to write directly to CD upon exiting Money. In its never-ending battle with Quicken, Money's biggest advantage is its free, toll-free, phone support available every day (weekdays from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., weekends 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. PT). Quicken users get no weekend support and must pay $1.95 per minute to discuss issues other than installation and data conversion.
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| Money 2004 provides excellent support, including an online query form shown here. |
Our calls to Microsoft support were answered promptly and politely. Hold times were never longer than a few minutes, even on weekends. Our online queries received e-mail replies within 24 hours. In addition, Money's support site offers a wide selection of FAQs, tips, and other product-related advice.
User opinions
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User Rating: 
7/10
DESPITE PROBLEMS, STILL BEST ON MARKET
Pros: Most transactions easy to understand
Cons: Each new version drops valuable tools
I had no problems with Money 2004 until I imported transactions from an online file. They corrupted two of my accounts, which could not corrected with the Money repair tool or third party repair programs.
Thus, I had to manually repost over a thousand transactions to correct the problem.
Money 2004 is still a good financial program but do not attempt to download any information from online accounts. The real downside of online downloads is your accounts do not indicate any problems for couple of weeks which renders all of your backups useless.
The only way to fix this problem is delete the corrupt individual transactions but Microsoft does not provide that kind of access.
User Rating: 
8/10
Reluctantly upgraded from Money 2001 - Glad I did!
Pros: Just about every feature possible, the program can pull together all of your financial information and help you find out your financial status quickly - and then get you on the road to improving it. Very in depth financial package
Cons: Annoyances, really... having to use a passport just irks me, I liked the Money 2001 version where it just connected to your banks when you came online. Also, some features require a bit of playing with to really get a handle on.
User Rating: 7/10
Value value value
Pros: Been a Quicken user since the DOS era and I'm glad I made the switch last year. Money has better support for options trading than Quicken, many features are much easier and intuitive (ironic that Intuit makes Quicken). I had never have a problem updating
Cons: I miss a good financial calculator (or planner) similar to the one in Quicken. Standard calculator from Windows just won't do business calculations. I like to play the what if scenarios by just changing a few variables. Microsoft should have no problem cr
User Rating: 
9/10
Comprehensive software
Pros: Does lots of things, everything I want and some things I didn't know I wanted until I found them in this software. Updates to MSN Money, so you can enter bills paid or money spent from any internet connected computer. Easily customizable reports show me w
Cons: Users who aren't willing to read the fine manual will have to spend time learning the interface, which gives you enough options to overwhelm if you don't learn how to use them properly.
User Rating: 
3/10
Upgrade from 2003 is pure theft
Pros:
Cons: Of the many bugs I emailed Microsoft about from Money 2003 Deluxe, they fixed only one...the display problem after accepting a downloaded transaction. The others are all still there! I have used Money for 12 years and have done most of the upgrades. I k
User Rating: 
10/10
Cnet writes dumb reviews
Pros: Cnet rated Money an "editors choice" last year. Now they're trying to act as if Quicken was better by saying "Quicken remains the easier and more intuitive package." Which is it? By the way, I saw that you changed some wording in the review since you f
Cons: Only cons is that CNET cannot be consistent in their reviews. And they change them without notice like this one was.
User Rating: 
6/10
Best available
Pros: Quicken remains the easier and more intuitive package?????????????? C'mon Cnet, you rated Money over Quicken last year. I BOUGHT Money based on your recommendation. It's a great package. But I don't understand what the heck it is your're trying to sa
Cons: Not really much that is DIFFERENT from 2003. Not worth the upgrade.
