Before I ask my question here is a contribution to the thread:
MS Money 2005 deluxe is $23.xx at Sams club, minus $20 rebate = under $4!!
There is a $20 Microsoft direct REBATE
it is not Amazon specific

On to my Quicken question:

My biggest pet peeve, and this could be a user error, is that on the account list on the left of the screen, I have lots of accounts (most from free offers, etc.) and want them to automatically be sorted from the lowest to highest. They're in categories now (banking, investment, real estate), however I want the 10 or so items in the bank accounts to sort itself.

Say right now I have accounts listed as:
CU Savings $1.00
PSECU $5.00
ING $51.00
CITIBANK $1,500.00
etc

If I move $1499.50 of the money from citibank to ING, I want ING to move to the bottom and Citibank to move to the top. Is that possible with Quicken (or Ms Money). Thanks in advance!


Edit: LINK to Veryhungry's Money 2005 Deluxe Trial Download Offer

Not good news here.. Update on the demo version:

I downloaded the trial, and let it convertt my Quicken2004 file. My file wasn't that complex (I thought) since I just started using Quicken a few months ago it had very little actual transaction history--mostly starting balances and a few transactions here and there..

What went wrong:
1) when it imported it printed an onscreen summary of the conversion. accounts that didn't match up included stock in a private company (money reported as $0 value despite about 10 manual entries in Quicken for price updates on the share price).

2) My IRA accounts didn't update correctly, shares that were purchased in the past 30 days caused cash account to be in the red by the exact amount of the purchase, so I had to manually zero out the cash. One cash entry was missing for 69 cents in interest, but it's right there in quicken.

3) I transferred some shares from Etrade to Ameritrade and they still showed up in Etrade with a negative number of shares. Just zeroing out them wasn't enough (it did fix the $$ but wouldn't let me delete the stock names from the Etrade account).

4) I had to re-make the etrade account completely, then connect to the etrade site for the auto download, then correct the cash balance that money 2004 didn't report correctly.

5) when setting up the accounts (click on one bank account, hit setup online access), it connects and then downloads the info. great. BUT it adds a completely new account. Yep, I had to delete the old account and rename the new account to the old name, since only the new one was setup for online access. Repeat this at least 5 times for other accounts. Makes me wonder if I'd have been better off starting with a blank money company file and adding new accounts manually.

6) when you quit and answer yes to backup, it asks you for a floppy disk. yes, floppy disk. No you can't change that one screen to let you backup to cdrw, another hdd, or a memory stick. Yes if you hit options you can pick a backup directory to backup each time you close money, but whenever it pops up 'would you like to backup now' you have to answer no if you don't have a floppy disk in the drive.

7) The Quicken file I use was 1.68mb, the Money 2004 deluxe file is over 7 megs.

8) I have an IRA and regular account at an institution, and when I connect online it downloads both accounts (as new accounts, had to delete the converted ones of course), but under account list there is only a "online update/last successful update xx/xx/2004" button next to one of them. They both get updated, but it only shows me that one is linked for online updates.

9) While it did import my etrade/presidential bank accounts (from scratch aparently since it made new accounts and I had to delete the quicken imported ones), it fudged the numbers to equal the new current balance. The cash bonuses and interest payments paid by Etrade show up as WITHDRAWALS. No deposit is shown under either account, just withdrawals. Still the ending balance is right. This error only occurred when it built the new account from an online update.. The error wasn't present on the quicken converted account.. If the update would have just updated the quicken converted account It would have been ok, but their update made a new account pop up for each institution.

Bottom line: STAY AWAY.. MAY BE ok for some new installs once they get the online updates working better. VERY risky though right now, because it made a mess out of the transacion logs for me from Etrade/Presidential. These errors happened during the setup account for online updates process, not during the convert from Quicken process. I would not risk filling out a single tax return or form based on data from Money at this point. How do I expect it to keep a cost basis in here when it showed interest payments to me as withdrawals and a negative amount of shares in a stock account.

Disclaimer: I switched from Quicken to Money in ~1999. I recently switched to GNUCash. I can't figure out if you're using Money 2004 or 2005. You say 2004, but my experiences are SO different from yours.

expert5186 said:2) My IRA accounts didn't update correctly, shares that were purchased in the past 30 days caused cash account to be in the red by the exact amount of the purchase, so I had to manually zero out the cash. One cash entry was missing for 69 cents in interest, but it's right there in quicken.If it was only the past n-days, it sounds like an online-update issue. I dont see why your cash account would be in the red unless it charged you twice for the purchase. Did it?3) I transferred some shares from Etrade to Ameritrade and they still showed up in Etrade with a negative number of shares. Just zeroing out them wasn't enough (it did fix the $$ but wouldn't let me delete the stock names from the Etrade account).This type of transaction works fine in Money 2004. Again, I don't see why you have a negative number of shares unless you transfer more shares than you have.5) when setting up the accounts (click on one bank account, hit setup online access), it connects and then downloads the info. great. BUT it adds a completely new account.Again, this isn't the case in Money 2004.6) when you quit and answer yes to backup, it asks you for a floppy disk. yes, floppy disk. No you can't change that one screen to let you backup to cdrw, another hdd, or a memory stick. Yes if you hit options you can pick a backup directory to backup each time you close money, but whenever it pops up 'would you like to backup now' you have to answer no if you don't have a floppy disk in the drive.Again, in 2004, the change was permanent. So you could backup to devices other than a floppy on close.7) The Quicken file I use was 1.68mb, the Money 2004 deluxe file is over 7 megs.Money now uses a database file, which allows for easier upgrades & for companies to make nice add-on programs. It should be easier for Intuit to import from this, but that wasn't my experience a few years ago. Intuit's small, proprietary file is one reason Money had any difficulties importing your data. Which means it may be hard to EVER change products. Still, my five-year old money file was under 5 MB. This can be reduced my archiving old data, but I never did this. On imports, Money retains a lot of extra cruft in the file that you don't need. As you use Money, it does eventually reduce this cruft considerably. Finally, I believe that the Money file can be compressed a lot more than the Quicken file if that is an issue for you. Accessing the file should actually be faster in Money.
Bottom line: STAY AWAY..I strongly disagree with most of your negative experiences. I don't use the product anymore, so perhaps your conclusion is still valid. But a lot of your headaches seem to be in transitioning from one product to another. Not only would you not have to do this more than once, but you don't know who to blame for this: Is it Intuit for making a format that is hard to read or Microsoft for not being able to read the format?

I've been using MS Money for about 4 years. Currently on Money 2003.

The best thing about Money is Ultrasoft MoneyLink, which is a free Excel add-in that let's you easily sychronize your data with an Excel spreadsheet.

It requires investing time in setting up a good spreadsheet, but it's pretty much impossible to beat customized reporting via MS Excel. MSMoney is great for entering/importing transactions, but neither Money nor Quicken give me the budgeting/reporting flexibility I want.

I once tried switching from Money to Quicken Premier 2003 but was stopped when my memos in the transactions got truncated in the process.

Used Quicken for about 7 years. From time to time I would try Money, when I get it for free in some deal, each time it was not wroth it for me - different interface, troubles in conversion (had previously mentioned trouble with setting online access). The only reason I would have switched was if Money supported more financial instituions for online download and/or did that in a more automated way. I liked when I was able to do all accounts update with a single click of the mouse. Slowly but surely Quicken is dispensing with that. One has to go to each account and click update, and it goes to the instituion's website and you have to start OFX download. Not a big deal, but it is somewhat annoying. Must say that online setup became much more convenient with OFX.
Bugs: about a year ago, several months into upgrading into Quicken 2004, I started to experience quicken crashes, with a memory reference error. At the time there was no mention of it anywhere on the net. Reinstallation helped but only for a short period of time, than crashes resumed. Eventually Intuit published info in their knowledge database, that the error is related to the growing size and complexity of the Quicken file. They said to remove older accounts from it. That worked, however I am kinda upset that their is a limit of approximately 10 credit cards, and 10 banking accounts. I cant believe that this limit is so low.
Didnt try Quicken 2005, I will do it once the new bugs will be fixed with new release.

noksagt said:Can anyone else confirm?

Confirmed. It's not Quicken, though, it's ING that does not allow it.

meehawl said:bk330ci said:Do you know when this limitation was introduced? I'm wondering if a good compromise would be to use the very last version BEFORE Microsoft limited the ability to use online services.

Money 2004 specifies no limited duration for online services. Of course, because MS reserves the right to amend the terms and conditions of Money's online services and partner offers unilaterally, your guess is as good as mine as to how long Money 2004 will be able to access online services.

This is not correct. From the Money 2004 Online Services Policy (About Microsoft Money in the Help Menu):

Microsoft® Money 2004 Deluxe, Premium, and Small Business include up to three (3) years of Online Services and three (3) years of product support. You will be able to use the Online Services in Microsoft® Money 2004 Deluxe, Premium, and Small Business for a period of three (3) years from installation of the product or until September 1, 2007 (whichever is earlier). If you elect not to upgrade to the then-current version of Microsoft Money after the online service period ends, you will not be able to automatically update your accounts and investment values inside Microsoft Money. You will still be able to view and edit your financial data inside Microsoft Money and to manually update your accounts and investment values. Please read below for more details.

Quicken does not offer a free trial.

MS Money does.

I am now D/ling ms money 2005.. 90 day free trial.. I will let y'all know what i think of it.

veryhungry said:Does MS Money automatically keep track of mortgages (as with credit cards)?

Does Quicken?Sure, Money and Quicken both allow for mortgage amortization as well as other loan types. Money has two options for credit card tracking, either detailed expenditure tracking or only the total amount owed. Not sure about Quicken.

-z

veryhungry said:thanks.. but, say I have a Mortgage Loan with BofA or CountryWide..

Can Money or Quicken login as with CC's and update the f info for me?

or its as if I have a private mortgage?

seems kinds dumb if not...It depends on whether or not your bank supports that feature. Some banks support direct download, some support you logging into the website and exporting then importing your data into Money and some don't have online support for exporting data at all.