Intuit Quicken Deluxe 6 Versus Microsoft Money 97 A Scaled-Down Personal Finance Package Douglas Smith
A scaled-down personal finance package without the advanced features of the competition, Money 97 is the electronic checkbook of choice for rookies with simple needs. Microsoft knows it's in a one-on-one battle for your electronic checkbook; Quicken is the enemy. The signs are plain. Not only is Microsoft giving away a trial version of Money 97, but it's also seducing existing Quicken users with a snappy wizard that makes it extraordinarily easy to shift years' worth of data from Quicken to Money 97. Like Quicken, Money 97 uses a task-based approach to finances. From a central contents screen, you pick chore categories like Reports, Checkbooks, Investments, or Electronic Banking. The most common financial jobs, such as writing checks and balancing accounts, are easily completed. But Money 97's stubborn use of a fill-out-a-form entry screen for writing checks (instead of the instantly recognizable check metaphor) is puzzling. Money 97 doesn't show any dramatic interface shift, but it does add some useful tools and techniques (some, in a tit for tat kind of swap, are "borrowed" from Quicken), notably pop-up calculators and calendars and new Payment and Paycheck wizards. But even with these additions, Money 97 lacks the far-flung flexibility and broad financial skills of Quicken. Step outside the basics--into investment management, for instance--and you're using secondhand tools. In particular, Money 97 lacks advanced elements like debt reduction, and its tax planning features are not as sophisticated as Quicken's. Money 97's attention to online banking is very similar to Quicken's. Setup is simple--enter your bank's routing number (it's on your checks), and Money 97 retrieves the necessary info. Money 97 has a numerical edge over Quicken in online banking, though. It currently connects with over 60 banks and other financial institutions--almost double the number of the competition--which typically offer the full suite of services, including electronic bill payment, transaction downloads from banking and credit card accounts, and online fund transfers. But the one-click access from Money 97 to Microsoft's financial Web site, MoneyZone, is disappointing. You'll need an ISP account to download for-free stock quotes, and the quantity of financial information on MoneyZone is meager compared to Intuit's pages. Whether Money 97 is the trendsetter is unclear. What is apparent is that Microsoft's betting big on online banking. Without the backing of advanced features, Money 97 is essentially a souped-up checkbook and this year it can't lay sole claim to ease-of-use. Without that advantage, Money 97 remains a second-string financier.
