Side question: Does anyone’s bank charge them to access their accounts via Quicken? I made a new account with Chase and they started dinging me 6.95 a month for Personal Finance Software access. Luckly my main account is so old they just linked the two and I was grandfathered in to free access, but what the heck?

Anyone have this come up?

For the record, I do not do “automatic payment” for most recurring bills I have via those companies so that they can pull the money from my account(s); I push the payments out via my online banking.

If I put ALL my eggs in one basket (Quicken.com), a single security breach can compromise me COMPLETELY. All it takes is a single set of backup tapes with insufficient protection getting “lost” in transit to an offsite facility (and it’s happened to me, I’m on alert for a few more years still).

I still recommend the free online version. It is fast and easy to use.

I suspect Ashtrom’s difficulties with Quicken are *because* he’s a professional accountant. Quicken doesn’t adhere to professional accounting practices everywhere, so it’s quite different from what he’s used to or expects to see.

With that being said, I would recommend that people try the online version before buying the software version. The free/online version that is hosted by intuit has most of the same functionality, and it doesn’t cost you anything.

I recently made the switch to ‘09 from ‘06, because, as mentioned by another user, Intuit stops supporting older versions after several years. I’ve gotta say, I’m not too impressed with all the changes. The interface is a little prettier, but I’d take something that was easier to understand and not quite as good looking.

Also, from a functionality standpoint, it’s not as reliable as I’d really hoped it would be. The update manager doesn’t interface well with my banks (granted, they’re local banks) and it’s more unreliable than ‘06 with the American Express. Sometimes I’ll have to update twice to get the data. Specifically with my local bank, it says it’s updated but hasn’t downloaded a thing. I just end up logging into my accounts online and download the data. Tried and true!

I’d also hoped for an easy way to switch out some of the graphs and reports on the summary pages with my own with the option of restoring the default graph or report. I know it’s only several clicks away, but it’d still be nice. It’d also be nice to be able to left click on a category in a report and get a menu that allows me to remove it.

All that being said, I highly recommend Quicken ‘09. I’m sure, they’ll work out whatever bugs it has and it’s only $40 ($20 discount when I bought it straight from their site). The benefit of having it for the full time it’s supported rather than buying something cheaper more often.

Check it out. http://www.gnucash.org/

I got of the Quicken update train with Quicken 2006 and will never look back.

I come to find out that the one feature I really wanted (the portfolio analysis stuff) was only available as part of the online features I already had in 2008 – I just had never known about them or used them.

I’m strongly considering taking advantage of Intuit’s satisfaction guarantee and getting my $70 back.

Regardless of that, if I had not already owned 2008, I would’ve been reasonably satisfied with this version. I use Quicken daily and I highly recommend it overall, even just for personal finance. You might want to see if you can find a reduced 2008 edition around, or perhaps wait until the 2009 edition’s bugs are fixed before jumping in.