I won’t lie, I am a Mint user. I love Mint’s simplicity, functionality, and, well, prettiness. There, I said it. However, I wanted to see what all of the Quicken hype is about. And not to mention, I got it for free from work as part of a drive towards “Financial Literacy” in the workplace.

A lot of people tell me that Quicken is much more comprehensive when it comes to investment tracking and budgeting. So, are they right?

Quicken 2010 – Comparing the Versions

As with most products that you have to pay for, they have released multiple versions (“tiers”) with different functionalities. The more basic versions come at a cheaper price and the more comprehensive versions come at a more expensive price.

Quicken has 6 flavors. I will only be reviewing the program itself, but the comparison chart (the link is below) will go over the free online service, too.

I got my hands on the Home & Business version, which is one step below the most comprehensive version for Rental Property Managers.

Where to Buy

Like I said, I got Quicken 2010 through my workplace. But if you don’t get it free or at least have a discounted option like some workplaces offer, you can buy it at Intuit’s site. You will be eligible to download it immediately after purchasing it. You can opt to get it via CD if you would like.

They are offering Willmaker Plus for free when you purchase Quicken 2010 Deluxe or better. This is a pretty awesome add-on, because if you don’t have a will you are missing a very important part of financial planning. At least until you get a more extensive will, this program can set you up with a basic one.

Just click on the image to the right and choose the version that is correct for you.

Quicken 2010: Let’s Go!

I will be posting a lot of screen captures. I will post them slightly smaller on the page itself, but if you click them they will open in a new window much larger so you can see what’s going on more clearly.

Installation

This goes very smoothly. Compared to installing a number of other programs, nothing is different. You must  check a box to agree with their license agreement, of course.

While installing, it also automatically updates itself so that you are guaranteed to have to have the most up to date version. This is convenient so that you don’t need to do it when you launch the program for the first time.

One thing I didn’t like, though, was that it added 5 shortcuts to my desktop. The only one that is (in my opinion) acceptable is the one all the way to the right as it is actually for the program. The other 4 are just trying to sell me extra services. They were deleted right away.

Opening Quicken

When you open Quicken 2010, you are presented with the following options:

I have decided to proceed as a new user for the purpose of this review. All you need to do is click the radio button you would like and then click “Get Started.” If you do select the bottom option, you will be prompted to locate the file in next screen.

Main Screen

Once you have told Quicken that you are a new user, they bring you to the main screen. Going forward in this review, I will be referencing it as the dashboard. It is pictured to the right of the text.

So far, everything is very user intuitive. Since it is being presented as a cookbook (which I think is a good thing), I  am going to proceed line by line.

To give you a sneak peak of what’s to come, though:

#1 See Where Your Money Goes = Adding Accounts (Savings, Checking, Credit Cards, Retirement, etc)

#2 Stay On Top of Monthly Bills = Setting up bill calendar, income planner, cash flow predictor

#3 Track Spending Goals to Save Money = Budgeting, planning

Adding Accounts

When you click on this, it immediately opens up a screen that allows you to add your bank accounts to Quicken. As you start typing your bank name, it auto populates with your options. For example, I was going to type ING, but as soon as I typed “I” it came up with a list. As I typed more it automatically narrowed the list. By the time I typed “ING,” the option for “ING Direct” was the only option remaining. (Pictured right)

Once I selected ING and went to the next screen, I was prompted to enter my username and password so that my transactions could be downloaded. If you don’t trust their privacy, you can opt to not download transactions. If you choose this option, you can manually upload the transactions. (Pictured left)

I entered all of my account information and clicked next. A screen popped up to let me know that it was downloading my account information. I didn’t take a screenshot of this, but it also popped up another screen after about 30 seconds with my security questions asking me for the answers. Once I entered my answers, it went back to the “receiving” screen and eventually downloaded all of my transactions. (Pictured below)

Once the download was complete, I was given a list of my ING sub accounts that were downloaded. Under “type” you can choose checking, savings, or credit card. Under “used mainly for” you can choose personal or business. For the nickname, I have just put the purpose behind the account (eg emergency fund, vacation fund, etc). (Pictured below)

Adding Other Accounts

Once I was done adding my savings account, I was presented with a screen to add another savings or checking account, add a credit card, or start using Quicken. I figured I should add some sort of liability  account before jumping into Quicken, so I chose the credit card option. This functions the same way as above, so I won’t bore you with the details.

After I was done adding all of those accounts, I was brought back to the home screen. At this point, I decided to add the rest of my accounts for retirement (401k, IRA), my car’s value for networth  calculations, and my PayPal that I use for My Life ROI. The image to the right shows where the button is found, and the image to the left shows what the screen looks like once you click that button. I have blanked out most of the significant values in the screenshots going forward. The process of adding these accounts is the same, so follow the steps outlined above. If for some reason you can not add an account, or Quicken doesn’t have an account, proceed throug the steps and choose the option to manually keep the account up to date. This will require you uploading the data from your financial institution manually.

Viewing Transactions

Once you’ve added accounts, the next thing to do to figure out Quicken is look at transactions. You can get to the screen to the right by clicking on the “banking” tab OR by clicking on one of the accounts in your sidebar on the left of the screen. I’ve purposefully not included the sidebar in this image.

This register should look pretty similar if you have used any budgeting tool before. Even if I were to have never used Quicken before, I would understand what this is doing just because of my knowledge of Mint. Some items are auto-categorized, otherwise you can choose the category as shown to the right. You can set up naming and category rules, as well.

If you aren’t familiar with the use of the register, though, be careful. Entering in manual transactions, or categorizing transactions as transfers, can really screw up your account balances. Quicken allows you to add manual transactions which opens the door for user error.

Defining Bills & Income

If you go back to the dashboard and click on “Get Started” for step 2, you will be prompted to set up a bill calendar / bill reminders. As shown to the right, Quicken automatically identified a few bills for me to pay.

I’m not exactly sure what logic it uses, but these are the bills it automatically identified for me: Rent ($512), Verizon Mobile ($47.44), Comcast Internet ($13.16), Gas (Variable), and Electric (Variable). This is pretty good as those are all of my regular bills that I have to pay. Of course I also need to send a payment to my credit cards to pay off the balance every month, but those were not included. And then there are variable bills like car insurance that I save for every month and only pay every 6 months.

To change the bill reminder, I clicked on the “edit” button. I wanted to see what kind of options I had (pictured left). A few of them were very exciting! You can set the due date and a reminder horizon, as I suspected. However, I was  real excited that I could sync this to Outlook (and thus to my phone). You can change the frequency (monthly? weekly?), amount (fixed? variable?), sunset clause (last bill to be paid), and even have Quicken automatically transfer the money for you from an account of your choice. However, this option, also known as bill pay, costs money. I think the option is awesome but not worth the $9.95/month surcharge. I would rather just schedule the payments myself. You should also be able to find a bank account that can do this automatically for you… for free.

You are also presented with a similiar “bill reminder” screen to plan your income. Likewise, Quicken picked up both of my direct deposits into my savings and checking.

Once you are done, the dashboard no longer shows a “Get Started” tidbit – it gives you a predicted cash flow until your next pay check based on your planned bills.

Setting Spending Targets

Back to the main screen and the only section left is section #3. Click “Get Started.” You are immediately presented with a few suggested categories to plan your spending. The middle column tells you what your average spending is and the right column is where you get to decide on your spending targets (aka budget). Please note: As shown to the right, my categories average spending is obviously a little funky. This information is entirely dependent on the accurate categorization of your transactions. No categories, no data. Short financial history in Quicken, skewed data. This information gets better and more useful as you use it longer, which is what I have experienced with Mint.

I entered some dollar amounts that I would like to plan my spending at and clicked next. The main screen is now a complete dashboard of information. To access more budgeting information, click on the “Planning” tab along the top.

Once on the planning tab, you are presented with all of the budgeting information. You can set up savings goals, add more categories to your expense tracking, and run spending reports. There is a column called “rollover reserve” that allows you to “move” money to or from it to make sure your budget is balanced. Think of them as rollover minutes. I haven’t set up Quicken to truly depict my situation, so you will notice that my allocations are greater than my expected income.

Financial Calculators

To further aid you in planning for the future, Quicken has some financial calculators readily available. For example, wondering how much you need to contribute to college for the next 16 years so that your 2 year old  can go to college for 5 years at a state school level tuition? Or are you wondering how much you will be able to afford given a certain contribution? However you want to figure out the math, you have the calculator to do it.

Other life events that there is a calculator available for:  Retirement, Refinancing, Savings, Loans.

There are also a plethora of tax tools for you to sink your teeth into (which I admittedly have not tried as of yet).

Investments

I feel a litle out of my league reviewing the investment part of Quicken because of how comprehensive it seems. The main screen I saw when I opened it up was a listing of each fund I own in my 401k along with the lot #, shares in the lot, and cost basis. If there is one thing that Mint is lacking for me, it is investment tracking. I want to learn more about investments, so I need a tool that can get me there.

There are a lot of fun reports that graphically represent the changing value and allocation of my portfolio.

The intriguing part, though, is all of the tools that are included. Asset allocation guide, capital gains tax estimator, portfolio rebalancer, portfolio analyzer, online research, etc. Then there are a ton of reports I can run, too!

I feel as if I could write a whole review on just the investment section of Quicken. Perhaps I will, but for most people, this should be more than you need.

Business

Right now as I have it set up, it is only accounting for transactions that I have tagged as business related. However, the category seems a lot more powerful as shown in the drop down menu I included in the screenshot.

If your business needs to invoice clients regularly, you can create a receivables account in Quicken. You can then create invoices for that account right from Quicken. This will then be included as expected cash flows for the business. You can also create estimates for clients that have been contacted but not sold.

If you travel for work, you can use the built in mileage tracker which I can only assume is then also used for tax purposes. If you run an established business (more complex than a small-medium sized blog like moi), a lot of these features seem like they could come in handy.

Quicken 2010 Recommended?

I will honestly say that I am impressed with this software. It does what Mint does, plus a lot more. It gives a lot more detailed reports and can tie into other tools that I use like Outlook and Turbo Tax.

If you are looking for a solution that is more comprehensive than the free solutions out there, Quicken seems to have a lot to show for all of the hype. If you like the fact that Mint does a lot of the work for you and you rarely have to tinker with anything, it seems like Quicken will not be your friend. I am not saying this is a fault of the program – rather it is by design that it expects the user to be actively engaged in their finances.

My Recommendation

For myself, I am at a cross-roads. I have a few years of data in Mint that is driving a very pleasurable user experience. It’s budget projections and suggestions are spot on, the data analysis allows me to look at my patterns over time, and it is simple.

However, my finances are starting to get more complicated and it seems like Mint is not as stretchable as Quicken is.

I will probably run Quicken in conjunction with Mint for a few months. This may take more work for me, but I’m hoping to see if I should make the jump. If you would like to purchase Quicken, start by comparing the different versions. Remember: There is a free online version if you don’t feel like spending any money!