Microsoft Money 2006: Hardly Any Improvements

Contributed by mm | July 10, 2005 6:29 AM PST

For 15 years, Microsoft has been tirelessly publishing Microsoft Money as an annual ritual during summer time. Is one and half decade too long for perfecting the way of individual bookkeeping? For two years in a row, I can hardly feel any major improvements from the annual upgrade.

Let me take point by point from the What's New section and explain why the new features are barely relevant to me:

IMPROVED! Spending Tracker. The improvement is you can track all spending categories instead of barely three in the 2005 version. Still, I don't have much variable-cost spending categories. For me, I only need to track clothing and dining out and no more. After all, how many variable-cost spending categories do you have?

IMPROVED! Transaction and account matching. The function is already good enough for me in the 2005 version.

NEW! Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) center. You can get it free from MSN Money ETF Center.

NEW! Automatic investment ticker. Yes, it is nice to see a customized ticker flying in your Money interface, but how long are you going to stare at your Money program every day? (The free QuoteTracker is a better program if you are a sophisticated DIY investor.)

IMPROVED! Portfolio stock pricing. "Automated price quotes keep your portfolio calculations up to date and help generate accurate return on investment (ROI) information." This is to admit Money 2005 has an unfixed bug in portfolio return calculation. (Last year it happened to me that a two-stock portfolio had a total return of $500, which two individual stock logged return of $300 each.)

NEW! Pay more than one bill at a time. This is good, but again it is not a big time saver: you will still need to pay several batches of bills every month based on the timing of the due dates.

NEW! Back up to CD. Big deal. I don't think one needs to back up to CD more than twice a year ... our hard drive is reliable enough these days. And when I do back up, I usually encrypt the file from my harddrive using special software first, before burn it to a CD.

I'm not complaining. After all, I receive free upgrade from my employer every year, and I'm using Microsoft Money extensively for bookkeeping and performance reporting. I consider a program like this is essential to DIY personal finance management; I just expect more innovations.

So the final recommendation:

- If you haven't used a personal accounting software, or still in versions earlier than 2004, consider to buy one. Microsoft Money 2006 Deluxe sells at $59.95 MSRP (or cheaper based on channels and includes bundling of a credit report and one-year credit monitoring service from Experian as a plus.

- If you are already in Money 2004 and Money 2006, you can safely skip this upgrade.

This Post Has Received 91 Comments. Share Your Opinions Too.

Matt Commented on July 10, 2005

What Bank of America Export Settings do you use? I'm having a hard time getting Money 2006 to display enough transaction information to reconcile my transactions.

hp Commented on July 11, 2005

Use Quicken. It is much easier and a better overall program. IMHO

mm Commented on July 11, 2005

Matt, I cannot answer your question. I don't use BofA for my daily transactions. Citibank, FirstUSA/BankOne and Discover card work good for me when it comes to automatic transaction fetching.

AW Commented on July 11, 2005

Thanks - good hear your review of this as an MSFT insider and Money power user. I tried to migrate to Quicken for Mac a couple of years ago and eventually moved back to Money on the PC. Combined w/ Ultrasoft Money on the Treo 650 it's a great combo. I'll stick w/ 2005.

Foo Bar Commented on July 11, 2005

I echo mm's sentiments on the lack of enthusiasm for some of the recent upgrades for packages like Money and Quicken.

Several years ago I devised a strategy to only update every couple of years, and to ask for Quicken Deluxe as a holiday present at that. ;)

George Commented on July 14, 2005

I am interested in the statement that you made say that your employer provides you with a copy of MS Money, do they pay for it? How'd ya ever manage that?

G

mm Commented on July 14, 2005

To George: my employer products MS Money, so it is an employee benefit.

Sarah Commented on July 21, 2005

For those who "haven't used a personal accounting software, or still in versions earlier than 2004", I'll point out that you can get Money 2006 Deluxe on Amazon for about $35, and there is also a $20 rebate available ( http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/CatImg/rebates/1/22/73d8be8c-6b51-49ea-9c84-93f779088e8d.pdf ; PDF format).

I've been using a homegrown system (at this point, it's an "outgrown system") and I'm thinking this might be a deal.

XX Commented on August 1, 2005

Costco has Money 2006 PREMIUM for $59.99 - $40(MIR) = $19.99.

CPA Commented on September 12, 2005

While Microsoft Money is worthwhile to keep a checkbook on, I feel it is worth the money to get a relatively new version of Quickbooks; you just can't beat double-entry accounting.

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