Disclaimer: First, let me state as full disclosure I did receive a copy of Quicken Home & Business 2012 so that I could review it, thus while I am not being paid directly for this review, I did receive compensation (i.e. a free copy of the software).
Quicken 2012 My Right Hand Finance Tool
As most of my readers know, I live and die financially by Quicken, so someone asking me to review the new release of the software is like asking a Trekker to review a new Star Trek movie (yes, I am also a geek). I have used Quicken for many years, and it holds in it information about my financial life that even I have not looked at, but I do know the information is there (and thanks to the backup capabilities, it is also safe).
If you don’t have a tool to track your spending and your money, I recommend this product (which is a rarity, I don’t usually say anything definitive about anything). Quicken has helped me unravel the Gordian Knot that is my finances more than once. It hooks into most banks and credit card companies web sites directly, so you can download all the transactions and use it as a logbook if you wish, or you can use the tools they give you to try to track your spending a little more closely.
Why Should I Buy Quicken 2012 ? (if I already have Quicken)
I must admit I should be careful here because up until last year, my mother ran Quicken 2005 year after year with no problems (I finally bought her a new version because her bank didn’t want to support her using the old version). I find it helpful to stay up to date with software releases year after year (easier to get patches and support), however with this release of Quicken, yo. You the following benefits:
- Better budgeting: easier to set goals, save more, and stay in control of your finances with the fully redesigned budget tool. Yes, that is directly from the web site, but it is also true, so I have no problem stealing it from there.
- Improved bill and income reminders (?), well they have changed how it works that is for sure. It took me a little while to get the hang of how the new system works, but I was able to set up a recurring bill payment with a known end date, so that was a good test of the system.
- New larger font option, which is important for folks like me who need glasses to see and our eye sight is starting to deteriorate. I will be using this feature very soon (I those numbers are just too darn small for me to see).
- Redesigned debt-cutting tools (Home & Business only): create a customized plan to reduce debt. Easy-to-use interactive tools make it easy for you to stick to your plan. I can’t vouch for this one just yet, but I will be trying this one out in the near future as well.
All in all, the software works very well (I have been using it for the past month), updates are working fine, and I can download from TD Canada Trust, AMEX, PC Financial and CIBC with no problems, so I think it is well worth using.
Funny, my review last year got a ton of comments. Does anyone care to point out any issues with the software? Leave a comment. I’ll pass it on to my contact at Intuit.
Quicken 2012 is full of bugs. Quicken are aware of some and cannot give me a date when it will be fixed. Bugs include:
1. Enter customer credit, when saved, converts it to a Customer Invoice. Workaround, use a negative number and it will save it as a Credit.
2. Enter a vendor invoice, when saved, converts it to a vendor credit. Workaround, use a negative number and it will save it as a Vendor Invoice.
3. Scheduled invoices drops the taxes.
4. Incredibily slow
5. Support was good until they told me the scheduled invoices were designed that way. BS. All my scheduled invoices created prior to upgrading to 2010, still work for the taxes. Any new ones created since the upgrade do not copy the taxes.
I’m not happy with Quicken and I looking at switching to Simply Accounting.
I still use MS Money. I read some people stopped using it because ‘Microsoft stopped supporting it’??? So what? What kind of support you require for software which works well? I tried Quicken many times but MS Money still does what is suppose to do.
Intuit is just after your money changing file formats and creating other headaches. Enjoy your Quicken…
I am using Q-2010 (I was forced to convert from MS Money when MS stopped supporting it). It is slow and buggy program but serves the purpose. i only use it to track my investments. for banking ann credit cards i prefer mint.ca.
I started using Quicken for DOS and faithfully updated and prompted Quicken and Quickbooks to everyone. But then they got more & more expensive, forced updates or lose funtionality (i.e. data files no longer compatible) all to force sales. It also turned into bloatware and tried to be too helpful and in the way. As they became the market leader intuit itself became a marketing copmpany and no longer a software company. I cannot speak on it currently but it became increasing hard to get information or even contact info if you looking for the CDN edition.
I finally switchd to MS Money out of protest. Too bad they are no longer publishing. Granted it was not as good as quicken but as consumers we need the comptetion. Quicken 2010 is no longer compatible with data update files – riduculous too lose that functionality so quickly and no upgrade offer. Why do many (Canadian at least) financial instituions not have downloads for quicken? Why do those that do only support the most recent version but still have downloads for out of print MS Money. Why does quicken not support csv for accouint data from banks? All money I suspect and control by intuit.
Under duress I will likely purchase 2012 quicken (have to buy the ‘business’ version just to get personal TFSA accounts!) but keeping an eye out for alternatives.
Your mother run Quicken 2005 year after year? That’s nothing, I’m still running Microsoft Money 1999! 🙂