In its latest annual update, Intuit's Quicken Premier 2004 maintains past strengths, is easier to set up and offers stronger investment tracking capabilities. It's the most powerful version yet, but not a necessary upgrade for current Quicken users. And it's not going to pull any serious users from Microsoft Money.

As in past versions, Quicken continues to do a great job of creating and tracking budgets, managing and balancing checkbooks, monitoring investments and developing financial plans. Quicken's interface remains intuitive and easy to use. The program separates tasks into centers---for example, "cash flow" and "property & debt,"—that provide related options for performing analysis, obtaining reports, viewing accounts and carrying out transactions. And you may customize reports for each section.

software - Quicken Premier 2004

For novice users, the interface can be a bit intimidating with all of its various alerts, links, tabbed windows and menus. But after a short while, most will appreciate the amazing quantity of information that the program serves on a single screen so they may obtain useful information at a glance and find immediate links to obtain additional details. You may also customize pages as you wish.

To setup Quicken in the past, you had to refer to bank and other financial statements and enter a lot of account information. The impressive new Express Setup lets users who have online access to their bank accounts enter the name of their bank, along with ID and account information, and than have Quicken download and input the financial data. It's a true time saver. In this respect, Quicken has an edge over rival Microsoft Money.

Express Setup also helps investors by downloading the latest quotes, news and alerts that pertain to their portfolios. Quicken works with some 2,000 banks and other financial institutions, so there's a good chance that your financial institution will let you take advantage of this and Quicken's other online banking features.

This latest version of Quicken has improved some investment features. Sophisticated investors can now compare average annual returns against key market benchmarks and verify that their asset allocations are diversified and match their financial targets. The program also keeps investors informed of Morningstar Rating changes and hidden fees and can estimate after-tax performance.

Quicken's investment screens have undergone a makeover. The account area now resembles a brokerage statement. And a new tab in the Financial Overview Center tracks net worth, breaking it down by asset areas. A useful new Investing Activity Year-To-Date Snapshot/Report lists money that has been contributed or withdrawn to show if account balance increases are due to contributions or to changes in market value.

As before, Quicken provides strong tools to plan for retirement or large purchases and offers options for revising and comparing plans. Step-by-step 401(k) tracking downloads information from 401(k) providers and offers analysis and summary on retirement. A Capital Gains Estimator compares the potential tax impact of gains and losses before you make a trade.

If you're content with Microsoft Money, there's no reason for you to move to Intuit's Quicken. However, if you are looking to begin managing your finances on your PC, you'll definitely want to consider Quicken Premier 2004 . And those of you already rely on Quicken may or may not find enough in the latest version to warrant an upgrade.

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www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff 10/10/03