I've been a Quicken user since 1998. Nothing else comes close to the features that this software offers, and I use just about all of them. It almost does everything I want it to do, almost. It does not track restricted stock units (RSU's) or anything with an odd vesting schedule without playing crazy games. The vehicle mileage tracker allows "Rental Property" for the trip type, but it will not let you name which rental property. And other arcane examples.It is reasonably stable. I just upgraded to the 2014 version from 2011. I have not seen much stability increase in the 2014 version over 2011, it still crashes occasionally (probably about once a week), usually during or just after a One Step Update. It does appear to be better at hanging onto downloaded data through a crash however. Older versions would randomly forget downloaded transactions after a crash, 2014 appears to remember them. Maybe its the size of the data file. My QDF file is over 200MB now and contains 15 years worth of data.
A couple gripes I have: I keep getting faster and faster computers, and Quicken continues to run slower and slower. 2014 suffers badly from slow screen updates, and appears to repaint the screen multiple times after nearly every entry. It gets a little frustrating, watching the spinning circle after simple events such as accepting a downloaded transaction, knowing that my time is being wasted by what probably amounts to lazy programming (I'm a programmer, I know how these things work).
Quicken also suffers from some persistent and stupid bugs that have been there for years. For example, in the vehicle mileage tracker, it gets way to aggressive in auto-filling the text fields, to a point where it overwrites a value that I just entered. Then, when I save the entry, the screen spastically cycles through every entry I ever entered, showing each entry in the text fields for a brief few milliseconds before showing the next one, and I watch my entire history flash before my eyes. C'mon, Intuit, don't you ever test this stuff? This bug has been in there ever since the mileage tracker was introduced several years ago.
2014 did not add any features over 2011 other than a mobile app. It's more of a maintenance release that didn't change anything except a few UI tweaks. Upgrades are forced by the sunset provision every 3 years.
Having said all this, I will continue to use this software, as nothing else comes close. Nuisance bugs and miscellaneous problems aside, this is a good package for managing personal finances that may be more complex than many web or tablet-based packages can handle. Web-based packages are way too light on features and I have not found anything that offers the amount of investing tools, business tools (small business, anyway), reporting, etc. that Quicken has. I hope that Intuit does not abandon this software in favor of lightweight tablet-based apps or web apps.
The manufacturer commented on the review belowSee comments 79 of 80 people found the following review helpful 2.0 out of 5 stars Underwhelmed with changes from last year's version, September 27, 2013 By B. King - See all my reviews
BalasHapus(REAL NAME) Â Â Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) Changes to the UI from past years versions are virtually nil. The UI looks dated with Windows 95 era style icons in the toolbar.
The UI is slow in repainting itself while scrolling large datasets, this is particularly noticeable in the Investing tab if the number of stocks exceeds what will fit in a single window view, requiring you to scroll. If I edit a row then click off of it to edit a different row somewhere else in the window, the app will occasionally become non-responsive for up to 30 seconds before allowing me to edit the new row.
I have a high-end Intel i7 desktop PC with 16GB RAM and a high-end NVIDIA video card, so these types of performance issues are unacceptable.
Print to PDF functionality has never worked for me in the last version or this one (error code -20). Quicken installs a printer called "Quicken PDF Printer" which one would think is a general purpose PDF printer. I had to find a third party PDF printer in order to print to PDF.
Apparently new in this version you need to create an intuit id in order to download transactions from financial institutions. Be sure to read their privacy policy.
To Intuit's credit they do release frequent updates which is good and bad in that they are responsive to fixing bugs, but apparently many bugs get through their QA process.
In a few days of usage I have not seen anything to indicate 2014 is much more than 2013 + some bug fixes + carry over bugs that were never addressed. Will continue to update the review as things improve. Intuit should really rethink the price points for the quicken line considering each year's new "version" is more of a service pack.
The manufacturer commented on the review belowSee comments 17 of 19 people found the following review helpful 3.0 out of 5 stars Bugs As Usual, September 25, 2013 By J. White - See all my reviews
BalasHapus(REAL NAME) Â Â Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) Installed and bugs as usual are there. This years goof up is the calculator. Click the calculator button on the toolbar and NOTHING. No response. Also on startup the screens flash weird on my Dell computer. Apparently some kind of incompatibility with my very common Nvidia video card. Another Quicken first. Will add more bugs as I find um.
Note: I just uninstalled Quicken 2014. Then I reinstalled it. During reinstall it downloaded some updated files from Quicken(which it did not do very early this morning). Now the calculator is working OK!!
Update 1: The IOS companion application for Quicken DOES NOT work with this version!!!
The manufacturer commented on the review belowSee comments 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful 1.0 out of 5 stars Don't touch this without having made a couple backups, October 21, 2013 By Santon H. Craig (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews
BalasHapus(REAL NAME) Â Â Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) I tried this latest 2014 version as a tax consultant said that the Quicken 2014 version handles options properly.
As Quicken 2014 attempts to convert my 2012 file, it crashes on both of my Windows 8 machines. (Technical support indicates that the windows 8 operating system is not an issue.)
I strongly suggest that you have at least 2 backup copies if you feel the need to upgrade, as the conversion process I was told by Quicken support corrupts your Quicken file!!
The manufacturer commented on the review belowSee comments 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful 1.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Failure, October 9, 2013 By Stephen "Listen and learn!" (Mason, Ohio, United States) - See all my reviews
BalasHapus(REAL NAME) Â Â Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) I am really amazed that Intuit has released a product I have installed and reinstalled, gotten on line with support, and they even overnight-ed a CD and it still will not install properly. I had seen other reviews saying this was a messed up version but after days of trying to install it, it will will not work as advertised. DO NOT recommend upgrading because you will lose access to your data while they figure out what the heck is going on. A real nuisance because I also learned that this version is not much of an upgrade....so I guess I just made work for myself...
So I worked with support and the converter could not validate the 2013 data file. The software worked up until it tried to convert the data file then crashed. After that, the validater could not even validate the old datafile. I think they have a problem with the data conversion in the new version and that is what shut the software problem. Returned to 2013 without incident other than losing downloaded data since the last backup.
The manufacturer commented on the review belowSee comments 31 of 35 people found the following review helpful 3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Upgrade!, October 3, 2013 By Jordan G. - See all my reviews I've used Quicken for way too long than I care to admit. I used to drive to their headquarters to pick up my copy! I also was a beta tester for a few years. The reviews of Quicken 2013 were so bad, that I skipped that version, but when I heard that Quicken 2014 was largely a bug fix, I jumped in and ordered it. I like it a lot so far. One Step Update is so much better than it was. The software prompted me to fix errors in accounts, and fixed a problem that I couldn't fix in Quicken 2012, even after several tech support calls to both my bank and to Quicken.
BalasHapusThe software seems to work much smoother, and I haven't encountered any of the issues that I had before. This isn't a major upgrade, but it does fix issues that Quicken had and it seems to work more logically. However, Quicken 2014 has introduced a multitude of new problems:
1. COM Error - Quicken Window has stopped working. Not sure what this means, but it happens to me nearly every time I use the program. Essentially, the program crashes and I'm done until I restart. NOT ACCEPTABLE!
2. Renaming conventions that make no sense. Company names are changed to the point of being unrecognizable. I change them back and delete the renaming rule that Quicken created and it continues to make those changes anyway.
3. Long time transactions with nonsensical categories. Many transactions that I have done for years with the same category were changed. For example, a regular payment I make to a vendor changed from a specific expense to another. I change the rules and it ignores my changes. Very strange.
So, while Quicken 2014 fixed issues I was having before, it now has introduced many new problems. Hopefully, Quicken will fix these in the next update. Until then, I've given this product a lower rating than my initial review a few months ago.