What?

...do we do with Quicken?  We use it to:

• Track, code and monitor every expense we make with a check, credit card, online account and even cash. (In recent years the memorization features make this coding quick or often automatic!)
• Monitor checking and saving accounts, download data to verify clearing of transactions at the bank and once balanced and then for years thereafter, balance to our monthly statement in minutes:
• Make transfers between accounts
• Track credit chard charges and identify questionable ones within a day or two of when they occur.
• Track stock and mutual fund investments including detailed transactions, dividends, etc. that make monitoring 'Cost Basis', 'Total Investment' and 'Profit/Loss' a straightforward exercise of reviewing and reporting.  (That's not to mention producing an annual tax-time report that is invaluable.)
• Track 401k investments via a link to 'The 401K Company'
• Track Home, mortgage and auto values to create a continual tracking on our Net Worth.
• Keep track of account numbers and passwords using the various notes in each account
• Keep track of credit card bargains by tracking percentage rates and expiration dates in the credit card's title of short-term low-interest credit cards and then noting our cancellation request in the account notes area.
• Prepare a series of reports at tax time that we've designed and memorized to correspond to the various tax schedules. (Quicken will link it's data to TurboTax, but we prefer to use a CPA)

Why?

We've been Quicken users since early in 1991 and consistently upgraded every couple years just to stay up and to take advantage of new features.  We wouldn't think of not having it available to monitor our checking and savings accounts, or to track investments.  There is a sizable investment of time to set it all up, but tremendous time savings week-by-week and month-by-month once that's done.  And, that's not even mentioning the value of having a clear tracking of finances and investments updated and available to use and review all-the-time!

How?

The 'how' of using quicken is very straight-forward until there's a problem.   There are very useful forms and reports built-in, and ready to help a new user be productive quickly.

Over the years, we've had just a few problems keeping it all working as intended.  Most often we resolved minor problems with just a clean re-boot of the PC and a single (e.g. Quicken-only) application focus on whatever we needed to do next.  Occasionally we've encountered a problem with file data and we were rescued more than once by routinely using the built-in file validation and backup tools.  (Currently under [File]-->[File Operations]-->[Validate], and [File]--> [Backup]).  We suggest that you try to backup to an alternate location either directly as in using a network connected drive on another PC, or via a two-step process that might include a first-step of backing up to your hard disk and then a second-step of copying the backup (e.g. '.Qbb') file to a CD, DVD, or even a memory stick.

Recently we were adding a new checking account and had problems getting the new account to register.  Each time we'd try the process would proceed to identify the target account we were trying to link, the user name and password, and finally to match the account found online with the on we'd set up. This unfolded over the course of 5+ minutes ending in a sudden shutdown of Quicken.

In troubleshooting we tried to set up a new (just for testing) Quicken file on our desktop, that was able to make the desired link easily.  This confirmed that we has a problem with our data file, even though it would validate (as above) 'OK'.  To fix this problem we used Quicken's built in copy tool ([File]--> [File Operations]-->[Copy]) to make a complete copy of our file.  Then we used the new copy to link the accounts.  It worked!

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