Home >> Software
Microsoft Money Deluxe 2005 | List Price: $59.99
Discount Price: $24.95
|
Platform: Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000
Brand: Microsoft
Binding: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2004-09-13
Features: - Personal finance solution with award-winning Portfolio Manager
- Automatically consolidates online bank and credit card information
- Essential tools for improving credit and organizing taxes
- Provides current account balances and transactions in one place
- Set up a full budget, or compare actual spending to financial plan
Save your cash, don't upgrade. [Posted on 2006-09-27]
I have been using Microsoft Money 2000 for years and figured it was time to upgrade. The 2006 & 2007 versions got low marks so I decided on 2005 because it offered updated online services.
This product is the same as 2000 but with more graphics. Not only that, but it still cannot download csv files which are used at most major financial institutions (Fidelity). When I was able to download data, it only picked up the last 90 days when I had years of data online with my broker. Because it didn't download detailed transactions from beyond 90 days the cost basis and gains calculations were completely off. And if you create an online account for an account where you already have transactions entered (going back years), there is a merge function, but it only allows you to keep the new account and you lose all of the history! Why not allow us to pick which accounts we want to merge and what data to keep?!?
The budgeting module is muddled and confusing. I get a regular paycheck, yet for some reason it decided to only pick up 20% of my income and I couldn't edit it. Plus it defaults to showing the budget by month so if you have an annual expense it shows up for the month and makes it look like you are running a negative budget. The budget module in 2000 was much more simplistic, yet it allowed the user to make more edits and review the data easily by month and by year.
Also, they decided that you no longer need a subcategory for expenses so you can no longer create multiple categories under one heading. For example, I like tracking all of my food under one category, but I want a subcategory for groceries and a subcategory for dining out so I don't have to manually add two categories together when analyzing spending. I guess Microsoft thinks people are too stupid for that. Because of the missing subcategories tracking things like rental property is next to impossible.
I thought 2000 was extremely simplified but did the basics (yet I'd like more online features that are simple to use and retain historical data), and I thought this would be an improvement, but I'm going back to the old version.
Money is as Money does [Posted on 2006-11-04]
OK, I've tried them both, and for me, Money is the hands down winner over Quicken.
I've been using Money since 2000. I'm also a Mac user, and bought Quicken for the Mac. It would have been great if Money ran on the Mac too. Although Quicken is my only option for the Mac, it's shelfware at my place. Just don't use it.
It's all the the design. When software developers tout their software, they talk about ease of use, intuitive, flexible, powerful. And with a product like Money, you get what they mean - especially if you run it alongside another product that's designed to do exactly the same thing.
It's not that it acts like it knows what you want to do next, but the navigation built into it means you smoothly move from one task or view to another, without needing to think about how to do it. That's design.
I'm putting Windows on my new Intel Mac - just so that I can run Money on it. It's that good.
It's clean, simple to use, but don't let that understate the sheer functionality of it. If you want to manage your money, this is the way to do it.
Pretty Good Financial Software - and the price was right! [Posted on 2006-11-09]
I had to replace the DOS-based financial software (Managing Your Money) I had used since 1993 when I corrupted the database through some careless saving of data from 2 separate instances open at the same time. So I bought Microsoft money purely because it was cheap, and had moderately good reviews. My experience has been generally good, especially with the automatic updating feature, which allows me to track my credit card spending in close to real time. It's missing some feature I liked in MYM (auto-budgeting, and a very useful review screen with actual vs. budget vs prior year by month). In fact, it's one big weakness is that there is not a simple one-step way of looking at revenue and spending categories by month in one place (that I have found), which is how I track the family finances and flag unusual or excessive or missing items. But I'd definitely buy it again - it works as well as Quicken, and at $10.99, how can you miss?
Good Features [Posted on 2007-01-11]
I'm currently using this product. I am satisified with the features that Money 2005 offering to me. Kumar
Get something else. [Posted on 2007-07-19]
Not going to go into a lot of detail as other reviews already have.
Navigation is good in some respects and convoluted in others.
The software should simplify money issues. Now I spend twice the amount of time as before trying to make the software work reliably. The online updates are great when they work. However, they are the least reliable part of this software. It has reverted back to old passwords on several occasions for no apparent reason. Budget section is OK if you don't deviate at all from the predefined categories. The budget handler of my old MS Money 1990 something was far easier to use and manipulate. Adding new categories and actually properly utilizing them in some meaningful way, downright mysterious.
Click here for more details and discount information...
|
){kind=link}