Quicken 2008 Starter Edition [First Time Users Only]

Customer Reviews

Quicken 2008

2008-04-15
This version is really bad, I can't add things, it's hard to get used to, there is no response if you send them emails with questions. Very unpleased. Don't buy it, keep the 2005 version.

Highway Robbery

2008-04-01
Quicken Starter doesn't import data. What a cheap shot. I remember when Lotus got cute and decided to password protect its retail software install. That was the beginning of the end for Lotus. Quicken will go the same way with its word games (Basic vs. Starter) and limitations. I WAS a Quicken user for over 10 years. Sayonara, Quicken.

Do not buy this software

2008-03-24
Quicken Starter Edition is absolutely wretched, one of the worst user experiences I've ever seen.

There are multitudes of annoying oversights. For example, once you've created a credit card account, there's no way to edit or update your card's credit limit. You have to enter the credit limit information when you first create the account, or not at all. To add insult to injury, the program encourages you to automatically download data from your bank to initially create the account, but then doesn't include the credit limit when it does so!

The few positive reviews here try to imply that the many many negative reviews are from people who are expecting too much. Well, for $30 I expect to be able to update my credit limit when it changes, without having to delete the whole account and then recreate it from scratch.

Customer service support is almost non-existent. This is a terrible product and a terrible company. Avoid at all costs.

Good investment

2008-02-15
A great tool for tracking expenses and managing the household budget. It is easy to use. I would never use all of the extra features of the upgraded versions, so why pay for them? This version has all I need.

Certain features stop working after set time, to force you to upgrade

2008-02-01
Every 3 years, Intuit forces users to buy the newest version or lose the ability to use the online features, such as downloading and synchronizing bank transactions. So, next year in April, the 2006 version will stop functioning online. They can call it what they want, but I call it sleazy, sleazy. Do a Google search, and you will find other lower cost options out there that don't have timebombs in them to force you to hand over your cash every few years.

Not as Expected

2008-06-01
Because it was called "Starter Edition" I expected it to be easy to use. I was looking for a simple program to keep track of basic finances. This was complex and much too detailed for what I needed. It may be a great program for those who need what it offers, but I found it was a waste of money for me.

Easy to use software, but connecting with your bank can be complicated - but that's not quicken's fault

2008-05-29
As this is only the "starter version" one could not merely export the data from the website in Quicken format and then import it into Quicken. If your online bank does not put the data into this Quicken's 2008 format it will not import it. That's why its called a "starter version", so heads up to those of you who usually import data to update quicken.

HOWEVER... Quicken is set up to actually do the downloading from the bank itself. In all honesty, its BETTER to let Quicken do the downloading because its more streamlined then exporting from your website and importing into Quicken.

Setting up this feature is where I had issues. I had to make several phone calls to get my online banking passwords to mesh with quicken. My online bank (National City) kept doing weird things. There were two passwords that one needed to log into the account, one for me to login to the online banking website, and then a separate one for Quicken to use to gather data. In the process of doing all of this the two passwords got confused, and I got very stressed. But after several calls to the help desk of my bank we got it all figured out and I now can EASILY do my banking with Quicken.

Quicken is a GREAT product and I'm very satisfied with it. I used my Dad's version in college but once I got my own computer I settled for Microsoft Money (it was only $10) and got so frustrated. It kept screwing up my data and was very confusing to reconcile, that I actually created my own program in Microsoft Access to do banking with. It worked wonderfully, but when I changed banks and had to reset all of the many complicated forms, queries and reports I'd created, I decided that I'd buy quicken, and I'm very happy with my choice.

Don't rely on it

2008-05-27
I was only in need of something to make my written register obsolete, as I wasn't keeping up with it as well as I should, so I chose the Starter Edition. For one thing, you can't upgrade it to a subsequently-released version. That's annoying, but I'll get around it.

What really makes this product infuriating is Intuit itself. 60-75% of the time I try to download my transactions, Quicken reports that there is an error or an outage with the Intuit servers. I can understand the application needing to contact Intuit to update its bank list, but I don't understand why it would need to do it every time and why having that fail would require my transaction download to also fail. On the surface, it seems like some bad design.

There are a myriad of other annoying things that I would change, but everyone has those with every product so they're not worth mentioning. I don't know if Microsoft Money is any better, but I don't know that it could be much worse. If I had to choose between the two again, I'd definitely let price drive my decision as Quicken Starter Edition doesn't give any good reasons in its favor.

Bugs and Crashes

2008-05-21
I have struggled with Q 2008 Basic for 3 months now and I GIVE UP...

Problem: Account log ons get lost, requiring many tedious to deactivate the account, backup the file properly, validate the new file, re enter the acct numbers and password, reactivate the account.
Problem: Downloads multiple identical transactions fro your accounts which have to be very carefully deleted taking three clicks per deletion. Try that on 2 weeks worth of CC and ATN transactions.
Problem: Auto Rename starts replacing with the wrong name WalMart becomes Costplus. The wrong date is entered for the transaction, making it look like you went wild all on one day.
Problem: Takes 6 days to update transactions from yr banks server. Last week's paycheck ???? Where is it ? Did they deposit it automatically or not? You have to go to you banks site and log on for the answer. It's there alright.

DONT WASTE YR MONEY ON INTUIT QUICKEN OF ANY VERSION

Excellent Product

2008-04-25
I work with Quickbooks every day in my job. However, for my home I didn't need the bells and whistles. Quicken is perfect. I would recommend it to anyone.