Upgrading to Quicken Deluxe 2008
I got a notice the other day that Intuit will soon be discontinuing support and online access for Quicken Premier 2005, which I have been using happily for years. Prior to that I was using Quicken 2002, and I think I was even using the ‘99 version previous to that. So I have been a Quicken user for as long as I can remember.
I use the one step update feature all of the time - so I don’t want to lose that. Plus the new 2008 version had a couple of new features that I’m interested in, namely PayPal integration and some improved budgeting features. They sent me a coupon for $20 off Quicken Deluxe 2008, so I figured I should give it a try.
I got the new version installed last night, and I haven’t seen any great improvements so far. Installation was easy enough, and it converted my old data just fine. But right off the bat, I was annoyed that it stuck 3 icons on my desktop. One for the application is fine, but it had two others - one for a credit card offer and another for a free credit report - which are unnecessary and annoying. I don’t have much respect for companies that do that.
Overall, the general feel of the application is the same. I did notice that the scroll wheel on my mouse doesn’t work in a few places. Also, trying to sign up with your bank so that it can be integrated with the one step update process didn’t work very well. I ended up going in circles a few times before giving up.
The big thing that I was frustrated with was that the PayPal integration is pretty useless. After I didn’t have any success with it, I started googling a little bit and found several horror stories. Evidently at one point (and I have no idea if this is fixed yet), using the Quicken one-step-update would flag something in PayPal that locked you out of your account and required some intensive process to get your account back. The deal breaker for me though, was that I use PayPal’s security key for added security, and Quicken currently has no way to work with them. And evidently they have no plans to incorporate it according to one post. That means I’m stuck with hand entering transactions in a cash account still.
I did notice a couple things fixed in this version though. My old version always prompted me to update my quicken billpay information when the program started - even though I have never used the service. That no longer happens in the 2008 version. Also, the file backup seems to go smoother. The 2005 version I was using would back up the data, then seemingly restart quicken, prompting for my password again only to tell me that the backup was complete. Another welcome fix.
Overall, I guess it’s about a wash. A few annoyances were fixed, and I’ll learn to deal with a few different ones. Hopefully by time they stop supporting the 2008 version in 2011, GnuCash (or something else) will provide an open source product that is more competitive.
I tried to convert Quicken 2000 Deluxe to 2007 Quicken for Mac and it has been a horrible experience! I have been trying for over a week to get it into the Mac. Worked with Quicken paid for support several times and they couldn’t get it to convert. I was advised to upgrade to 2008 Home & Business which I did and didn’t like it. Then Quicken support guided me through removing Home & Office and reinstalling 2008 Deluxe. Still Quicken couldn’t get to convert. Quicken had me contact Data Services and they worked with it awhile but it hasn’t been converted yet. I had some classes with sub-classes and Data Services said that although it was OK in the PC it would not convert to the Mac so they deleted the sub-categories. Still wouldn’t convert. I had made some notations in the Ref column in registers like “CheckOut”, “?” etc and was told that messed up the transfer. Quicken still has not got it transfered. I am under a IRS deadline and frustrated.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:37 pm