Intuit Quicken Premier 2007 review

31 October 2006 13:00 GMT / By Stephen Patrick

Look after your money and it’ll look after you. If this is one of your mottos then you’ll be aware there are a wide variety of software tools out there to help you keep track of your money. Quicken Premier 2007 is the daddy of all tools and allows you to track your investments, either in the form of stocks and shares or bonds, as well as deal with your accounts from one single place.

The program installs quickly and if you’ve the previous version, you’ll find you can import last year’s records with ease. If you’ve already set-up online banking and investment accounts this information can be synchronised at the click of a button simply by putting in your account details and passwords. Quicken 2007 then lets you import data from over financial institutions including banks, creditors and brokerage services. The new interface is far cleaner than the previous version, giving you an overview of what is happening with your money straightaway, rather than forcing you to click around to find it. It does this by splitting the screen into three boxes, In, Out and What’s Left.

A new feature is the ability to customise the front page, so you can set-up which parts of the package interest you most. This seems like a simple idea but it has taken this long for it to become standard. A recent survey suggested that 1-in-5 British households don’t trust buying online for fear of data theft. To this end, Quicken's PIN vault locks away your various passwords for connected banking and other financial accounts so that they're inaccessible outside the program. So, even if you don’t buy online, you can invest and track your accounts with confidence.

The meat of the program can be found down the left-hand side of the screen, as you’ll find links to the Business Information, with cash flow, along with bills new and account features located there. There is also a far more streamlined calendar, which allows you to click on a date, review the bill and even pay it for within the calendar. When moving about the program, you can review your financial situation via a pop-up window, which highlights details and transactions related to that cell. For instance, you can get details of all dealings from a single buyer without having to go into their account.

To cut down on the amount of paper generated, you can use the "Virtual Filing Cabinet", as it will allow you to store PDFs of your accounts within it. Intuit also offers an online storage system, which is worth considering, as you’ll get 100MB of online space to store your records, which could be invaluable should the worst happen to your computer.

Verdict

Intuit Quicken 2007 isn’t for everyone, but if you’re in business and need to track your affairs easily and without too much fuss, there is plenty here to recommend. If your needs are less intense, we’d suggest looking at Quicken Basic or even Deluxe, both of which are components of Premier but are far more suited to keeping track of the family or individual accounts.

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Review Recap

Made by: Intuit
Price as reviewed: £75
The good: New interface, easier to use, ideal business tool
The bad: Too complex for the family accounts, won’t track student loans
Quick verdict: It’s the easiest version of the financial suite we’ve used but is only worth upgrading to if you’re a businessman with a variety of investments
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