Product Description

Quicken Starter Edition Personal Finance Software shows your bank and credit card accounts together for simple money management.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #282 in Software
• Brand: Intuit
• Model: 409959
• Released on: 2009-10-10
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English

Features

• Quicken Starter Edition 2010 helps you easily organize your personal and household budget
• Shows your bank accounts and credit cards in one place
• Avoid late fees with alerts on upcoming payments
• Shows exactly where your money's going--expenses are tracked and categorized automatically
• Get up-and-running quickly with step-by-step guidance

Amazon.com Product Description
Quicken Starter Edition 2010 offers simple money management and budgeting. Personal finance made easy.

Check in anytime to see exactly where your personal finances are for the week, month or year. Click to enlarge.

See your most important info in one place. Click to enlarge.

Getting started is a breeze. Click to enlarge.

Avoid late fees and penalties. Click to enlarge.

Simple money management and budgeting

• Easily organizes your personal and household budget: shows your bank and credit cards in one place
• Helps you stay on top of bills: avoid late fees with alerts on upcoming payments
• Shows exactly where your money's going: expenses are tracked and categorized automatically
• Gets you up-and-running fast with step-by-step guidance
• Upgrading your Quicken? See "What's New in 2010" for the latest features and benefits

Features and Benefits

See where your money's going
We'll guide you step-by-step through getting started, and help you create a personal or household budget. We show you what's coming in, going out, and most importantly, what's left over each month to spend or save.

View your accounts all in one place
Organizes your finances by bringing your online accounts together--including checking, savings and credit cards. Avoid the hassle of going to multiple websites. Now you can see it all in one place with just ONE password. Access over 6,700 banks, brokerages and other financial institutions--including PayPal.

Never miss a bill
See what bills have already been paid, what's coming up, and if you have enough left in your accounts to cover them--all in one convenient place. Set reminders to pay bills on time and instantly check the status of past bills.

Simplify taxes with TurboTax
Quicken Starter Edition pairs perfectly with TurboTax to save you time. Easily export your data directly to TurboTax for fast and accurate tax preparation.

Enjoy free support when you buy, install or upgrade Quicken
If you need help purchasing, installing or upgrading your new Quicken personal finance software, free phone support is available. For more information, visit our Help & Support site.

100% Satisfaction Guarantee
If you're not 100% satisfied, return your Quicken Starter Edition 2010 personal finance software with your dated receipt within 60 days of purchase for a refund of the purchase price (return shipping and handling charges not included).

Save money and shop smart
Our free service--Quicken Picks--seeks out the best online coupons and discount offers just for you, on the stuff you care about. You also get cash back on all your purchases, helping you save even more. You can sign up for Quicken Picks anytime within your Quicken software.

What's New in 2010

Already using Quicken? Reasons to upgrade now:

New--See your most important info in one place
The new Quicken home page puts all your most important financial information in one easy-to-understand window, so you can see how you're doing at a glance.

Improved--Find the tools you need, faster
The improved menu and toolbar make it easier to find the tools you need to help organize your personal finances.

New--Getting started is a breeze
It's simpler than ever to put Quicken to work for you--so you can reach your personal finance goals faster. With the new Guided Setup, you just answer a few simple questions; we'll show you how Quicken works, and what to do next. You'll see your total financial picture come into focus even sooner than you expect.

New--Avoid late fees and penalties
We help you avoid overdraft fees and penalties--by showing you how much you'll have left in your account until your next paycheck.

Improved--Check for accuracy
We've made it easier to review your transactions, so you can quickly spot anything that looks inaccurate or out of place. If a transaction requires follow-up, you can flag it with a reminder.

Improved--Get tips from other Quicken users
With Quicken's Live Community, you can get help and advice from other Quicken users without ever leaving Quicken. If you have a question about something specific you're trying to do, just look to Live Community on the right of the Quicken screen for the answer.

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Customer Reviews

Only useful for basic checking account functions
Before you read my review, understand this: I have been a quicken user since Quicken 4 for DOS. I have probably owned 10 versions of Quicken in my lifetime.

My last version was quicken 2005 Basic, which was okay, but not as good as the one I had before that. (I was only upgrading bc Intuit crippled it so that I can't import my bank data anymore.) Over the years, the features available in the "beginning tier" have slowly disappeared. Starter 2010 comes with so few features, it hardly qualifies as money management.

I started out pleasantly surprised, because it successfully imported my 2005 data, even though the box said it could only import from 2008 and 2009. But it was all downhill after that.

The only types of accounts it supports are checking, savings, and credit cards. You can't find out what your balance is in your 401k. Can't track how much of your last mortgage payment went to principal vs interest. Can't track your return on stocks. Needless to say, this data won't be available when you fire up TurboTax.

For anyone with online banking, Quicken Starter will offer almost no value. In that case, there is really only one useful feature: expense categorization (i.e., what did I spend my money on last year?). My bank gives me a doc at the end of year with my expenses categorized, so I don't need it, but some people might. I don't know if buying (and rebating if avail to you), installing, entering all the info on a regular basis, etc is worth the hassle.

If you don't have online banking, then you can also use it to balance your checkbook, and remind you to pay bills. That's it. For these kinds of users, I am giving the product a second star, even though there are surely several less expensive apps that do these same basic functions. It is otherwise a 1-star product.

The most shocking aspect of the program was how shoddy it had become. I've always considered Quicken to be a user-friendly, intuitive program. However, in this version, I found myself clicking on buttons repeatedly, because they didn't do anything. I went in and out of the menus because I couldn't find features. In some cases, there would be two buttons, but they overlapped each other, so I'd have to click something else and then the first button would appear again.

In my 20? years of using Quicken, I have rarely had to check the Help/read the manual, and never had to ask someone how to do something. Try this test. Note the heading on Intuit's Starter Edition page[...]. "Simple money management and budgeting" it says in bold. So, you'd expect to be able to create a budget, wouldn't you? I challenge anyone to figure out where to enter a budget. Maybe you'll figure it out eventually, but I never did.

Intuit seems to have lost interest in their lowest tier product, perhaps because they rebate them to 0. In several cases, when I went to Help to try to figure out how to do something, the instructions would tell me to click on something that didn't exist. "To setup a loan, click the Net Worth tab." Presumably, this tab exists in the Deluxe version. Why don't they at least save my time and try to upsell me? "Setting up a loan requires the Deluxe version, upgrade here." At least I would know right away to quit looking. Further evidence that Intuit doesn't respect the Starter Edition: if you go to Intuit's site to compare the "Quicken 2010 Desktop Personal Finance Products", guess what's not even listed? [...]

On the Quicken site, one user suggested that Intuit should stop making this product bc it's an embarrassment. I agree. Someone responded that there's no harm in providing a free "intro" product, but I disagree: many people will be turned off by such a lousy version and never return. Like me.

Bait and Switch
I purchased Quicken 2010 Starter Edition last week in an effort to start the new year off right with sound money management skills. My parents used Quicken growing up and always spoke very highly of the products and how they helped them stay on track financially. I had also used the FREE Quicken Online on a limited basis and found it helpful. However, I felt a bit uncomfortable having all my financial information on the internet and decided to purchase the real program for my computer. When I purchased it in the store, I checked the back of the box to see which version to buy, and the additional upgrades such as "tracking investments" and "rental income" do not apply to me so I settled on the Starter Edition.

However, I was very dismayed to find that when I installed the program on my computer and added all my accounts...that there was no option to include loans. I searched all through the help options, and online to find out how to add loans and finally had to log on to the Quicken site and chat with a service representative to fined out that the Starter Edition doesn't include loan tracking.

I am very dissatisfied because nowhere on the box or on the website does it make it clear that in order to have loan tracking functionality, you must have the Deluxe or higher edition. Loans such as student loans or mortgages seem to be VERY basic financial items that most people have and want to keep track of. It seems a little strange that this wouldn't include this in program. And if they aren't going to include this in the program, it seems that you would want to make this clear on the packaging so people could truly buy the version that works for them. This seems like a bait-and-switch.

In addition, the FREE Quicken Online includes loan tracking so why would this not be included in the version I paid $30 for?

I truly am disappointed with my experience with Quicken. Previously, I thought of Quicken as the gold-standard of financial management and after my experience this week, I'm not so sure anymore.

What a dissapointment!
With MS Money gone I had to try a new product for my new PC, so I thought I would give Quicken Starter a try. In general, its fairly simple, but it does not allow you to set up any loan categories (other than Credit Cards). I simply wanted to add my mortgage...NOPE, NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I'm not sure whats more basic then a mortgage tracker, but Quicken doesn't think its important. You have to upgrade to get the loan features. I wont upgrade to other versions and guess Ill just have to use a spreadsheet to monitor the mortgage. While the price is reasonable, you can get free software to do basic expense tracking...this product turned out to be one step about the free ones.