Quicken 2003 Premier Home & Business

Use Quicken 2003 Premier Home & Business to create customizable estimates and invoices, see at a glance where your business stands, and manage and simplify business taxes. You can also track accounts receivable and payable, and track vehicle mileage, jobs, and projects.

Quicken 2003 Premier Home & Business also includes everything in Quicken 2003 Premier to help you optimize your personal finances. Enjoy intelligent and tax-smart investing insights, new Schedule A, B, and D reports, and an Investor's Reference Guide with step-by-step tutorials. Use Buy/Sell Preview to view your estimated proceeds and potential capital gains. In addition, the Schedule Updates feature tells Quicken when to go online and download your data, so your information will be up-to-date when you open the program. Quicken's guided setup suggests what to set up and track in Quicken based on your goals. A fresh, more intuitive design provides faster access to your accounts, as well as the features people use most.

"Windows XP is bad at processing 16-bit printing," a Quicken service rep told me today. His advice? Remove the latest and greatest HP printer drivers and install drivers for Windows 98. Of course, full-featured printing will suffer with most every other application on my computer, and XP poses serious obstacles to such a ploy since Win98 drivers are not certified for XP, but Intuit offers no other solution.

When I pointed out that I run a lot programs and that only Quicken won't print in XP, my exasperated tech rep sighed, "I know, I hear that a lot." Publicly, Intuit is clearly in denial. There's not a clue about XP printing problems to be found on Quicken's support site.

It's sad, really. Intuit once brought personal and business accounting into its full glory on the PC platform, but they've stumbled and fallen flat today. ...Unless you're one of the few still running Windows 98, forget this retro dinosaur.


Trust me: Don't buy it! Don't install it! Donyt use it!   May 22, 2003
Kevin Klasmeier (Cincinnati, OH United States)
25 out of 25 found this review helpful

I have been with Quicken since 3.0. I have loved the software and have been a strong advocate for it. Now that I have upgraded to Quicken Premier 2003, my attitude has complete changed. I have never seen such terribly written software before. This is purely pitiful.

I have recently upgraded from Quicken 2000 Deluxe and I have had nothing but trouble. First of all, of course, it couldn't convert my old data file. I had a ton of errors to sort through. Secondly, the interface constantly locks up on me (I am using XP). Thirdly, the interface is so obscure, you will find yourself running in circles just trying to accomplish what used to take minutes. The help is pitiful. The support is even worse. The interface is absolutely retched, extremely slow (I am running at 1.3 GHz) and riddled with bugs. Intuit is no longer interested in making good software.

I hate to sound so negative. I am not one who complains so much, but this software is more than a disappointment, it has been a complete waste of my time. Trust me, don't buy it, don't install it, and don't use it. You will be very sorry. Even if you are given it for fee.


Terrible Upgrade   May 3, 2003
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

I've used Quicken along with CheckFree to pay bills for ten years. It has been an OK method to pay bills and schedule payments, and there is some limited but useful categorizing and reporting capability. There have been no significant new features for several years--just pointless cosmetic and not very helpful changes in the user interface. I don't need a package like this to manage my brokerage account; my broker has a better one.

This year I was forced to accept a "free" upgrade to receive the "exciting new features" with Quicken Bill Pay, which is operated by CheckFree. They really wanted to force me to use an Internet connection rather than an 800 number so they could save money. Some of the features in the "free" upgrade must be "unlocked" for a fee.
The transition was a nightmare and required several calls to what turned out to be CheckFree tech support.

By the way, don't forget to get on the Net before you use this package. If you aren't logged on and attempt to do anything signficant, it will crash and you will have to reboot. At least I have XP. I shudder to think what would happen with earlier versions of Windows.

The user interface is significantly worse. The 2001 and earlier versions were relatively simple minded. Good. I want to pay bills, not play mystery games with the software. This thing has numerous bugs and requires ten steps to do what could be done in a keystroke in older versions. Some things, such as changing the dollar amount of a periodic payment, can no longer be done. They now require you to completely delete the old name and address and re-enter the entire thing. You can't use this for mortgage payments with an escrow account.

At one time you could set up a recurring payment and it just appeared on schedule in the check register. Now you are required to download it from the Net and "approve" it. This is a complete waste of time. Not only that, you'd better "match" these payments with ones in your register. Otherwise you will have the same payment duplicated in the register.

Every time I open the software it demands that I register the product, demands I also register for its web site, and demands that I download my account data from my bank (horror), which does not support this software. These demands continue even after I gave up and registered a name.
I manage software projects and I would be embarrassed to put out things like this. I have never tried Money so I can't say if it is any better. But this is terrible.