QUICKEN DELUXE @)2016 PERSONAL FINANCE AND BUDGETING SOFTWARE

Quicken Deluxe Personal Finance & Budgeting Software helps you manage your money and save. Organizes your personal finance, bank, credit card, investment, and retirement accounts in one place. Stay on top of spending and budgeting. Create and stick to a budget. Develop a personal debt reduction and savings plan. Securely imports your bank transactions through April 2019. Access your personal finance data on the go and make smart money management decisions with free Quicken mobile app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. New! Bill Center ­ see, track, and pay your bills all in one place. Most popular money management software.

FEATURES -

• New! Easy bill tracking. Free phone support. Even easier to upgrade.
• Categorizes expenses and helps you stay on top of spending and budgeting.
• Create and stick to a budget.
• Develop a personal debt reduction and savings plan.
• Securely imports your bank transactions through April 2019.

SAMPLE CUSTOMER REVIEWS –

1) Good software, but pointless to upgrade - I've been using Quicken for years. I don't upgrade yearly, though, because there are no significant advantages in doing so. This year was no exception. I moved from a very stable 2013 to 2016. Now, frequently when I run Quicken I have to kill the process because it hangs when I move between accounts. I've not figured out why, but if I update banking information, then move from one account to another to check balances, etc. it hangs. I've learned it's best to go in and just do one thing, exit, then come back. That's a bit sad. Otherwise, it pretty much works and acts like 2013. So, what did I pay for? The one benefit I did get is that it no longer pesters me to upgrade. That's good, I guess.

I give Quicken 2016 three stars because, in spite of its shortcomings, Quicken is still pretty good software. What it is not, however, is worth the price they charge to upgrade. It's definitely worth buying if you don't have financial management software of any sort, but the price of the upgrade is high for what you get. The software pretty much looks exactly like 2013 and the versions year-after-year before that. I've not found any new bells and whistles to get me excited.

Intuit claims the following new features for Windows (from their web site):
* Now easier than ever to stay on top of your bills
- Link your bills and Quicken will automatically track the due date and the amount due <= Not new
- Know exactly where you stand with your bills and cash flow without having to log into multiple accounts <= Not new
- Easily pay your bills* on time from right within Quicken <= Not new
(With respect to the above, I've been reminded of bills and pay bills electronically with Quicken for YEARS and is about the only reason I use Quicken. Otherwise, I'd just use a spreadsheet.)

* We’ve made it easier to upgrade <= Nonsense. Upgrading the data file was the same as before, but I actually had trouble opening the data file this time (whereas I did not before) after upgrading. Quicken upgraded the file and wanted to do it again when I tried to re-launch Quicken. I finally got it to work right by just double-clicking on the 2016 Quicken data file itself. Trying to open it from the menu was NOT working. Maybe only my issue, but this claim is nonetheless an exaggeration. Moving from one version of Quicken to the next has always been pretty simple.

* Increased reliability and accuracy of bank downloads and transactions <= Really? This is a "feature"? If it was not accurate before, I do believe any of us who are software engineers would call this a bug.

* Free phone support <= That is NOT a product feature. I guess I'm to spend $50 to get phone support I do not need? That absolutely should not be a selling point.

And that's it for the Windows version. What Intuit does NOT list on their web site are the new "advertisements". There is a link on the bottom of the accounts menu to allow me to get my credit score. I don't need to get my credit score and I don't want to send my SSN to Intuit, either. There is also a whole new menu of add-on features (retirement planning, more investment/tax tools, business tools, rental property) where you can give Intuit even more money for product features by upgrading to a more expensive package. If I needed those, I would have purchased a different version of Quicken from the outset.

I do have to wonder: why in the world doesn't Intuit try to grow its business by getting new customers and rewarding existing customers via a lower-price maintenance program? After all, the software has been (largely) in a sustaining mode for a decade or more. I appreciate that maintaining software costs money, but these minor upgrades are really more like bug fixes with new bugs introduced. That's really not worth the $50 or more every year. I'd gladly spend $10 for an annual maintenance program to get fixes to bugs, but it's disingenuous to present the software upgrade as some wonderful update over the last with lots of cool new things when it's not. Intuit does that with every release and I feel like the company is becoming a snake oil salesman.

EDIT: It would appear that an explanation exists for why we see so little in the way of new features. According to Intuit's 10-Q SEC filing made November 20, 2015, Intuit has "approved a plan to sell our Demandforce, QuickBase, and Quicken businesses" and also saying that "Demandforce, QuickBase, and Quicken businesses as discontinued operations in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015" (i.e., you're buying a discontinued product). They're just milking it for every penny, which appears to be about $60M annually right now. And they go on to say they wish to "focus resources on our core small business and tax strategies." In other word, TurboTax and QuickBooks are likely going to see more price increases, etc. The company is not innovating or growing, but rather shrinking and shedding the very product that was the foundation of this company.

By Paul E. Jones on November 22, 2015

2) Quicken 2016 for Windows - Delivers a promise of quality software and reliability to dedicated Quicken Users - In the past, I have complained immensely about Quicken - You should buy Quicken 2016 for all the reasons I complained about Quicken 2015, 2014 and 2013... I have used Quicken since 1995, this release is rock solid... quite simply it works and it fixes many of the items that never worked right in 2015.

This review should be printed and put on the bulletin board of the development team. You guys should be proud of this release. Thank you for taking the additional time to not release software that made me a unpaid beta tester. I also felt like in the past, the Quicken team hid behind the scenes, this year they are out front with free phone support and a video of the of the group VP talking about the new release, with his name and title, should I need it... thankfully I don't - the 2016 release is great.

I could complain that 2015 users should get the update pro-bono, given all the pain and agony anyone who had the stones to buy and install the software in Sept - Dec 2015 went through, I did and returned it after it wouldn't install and sucked 8 hours of my life on a Saturday, when i couldn't install the previous version. I waited for several releases down the road, there were still issues - I could never get my wells fargo accounts to grant access on the mobile app - resolved with 2016 along with many other annoying issues.

On behalf of loyal Quicken product fans, thank you to the executive team for making what was probably a tough decision and delaying the release and delivering a quality product.Thank you to the development teams for the great work. Hopefully when Intuit sells the product, the new owners will continue to invest and care about the users as you have demonstrated in 2016.

By LV Techie on November 19, 2015

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