Overview / Features- Model: 409959. Manufacturer: Intuit.
- 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
Product descriptionQuicken Starter Edition Personal Finance Software shows your bank and credit card accounts together for simple money management.
Most helpful reviews
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Only useful for basic checking account functions |   | | 176 of 177 find this helpful | Dec 05, 2009 | 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 | | | 56 of 58 find this helpful | Jan 10, 2010 | 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. |
Don't buy it unless you somehow already know how to use it! | | | 10 of 10 find this helpful | Feb 15, 2010 | We bought this product in order to set up a basic household budget. After doing some on-line research and reading about what the software would do, it seemed perfect.
Imagine our surprise when we opened the box and found a disk. That's it. No manual, no "getting started" guide, nothing else (except, of course, brochures wanted to sell you more stuff).
Figuring the manuals were on the disk, we loaded it. Surprise number two. Nothing there either. There's a "setup" screen that asks for a bunch of personal information, but gives you no idea what the information is going to be used for, where it's going to be placed in the software, whether or not it's important, etc.
We stumbled through that as best we could, with no instructions or explanations, and got to the end. And that was it - the end. The information didn't seem to go anywhere, nothing suddenly appeared in the way of pre-set forms, nothing.
So, we decided to do the tutorial instead. Surprise number three. There isn't one! Looked all over, couldn't find one. Entered that as a search in the "help" menu in every way we could think of, and it never came up.
As a last resort, we typed "budget" into the help menu. We got some information about how set one up. We printed out those instructions for reference, and set about following them step by step. Step one is to "Choose planning menu > budget". Fine, except there is no such thing in the software. We looked everywhere for it, and couldn't find it. Even did a "help" search, nothing. So I went back on-line and did a little more checking, and found out several people have had exactly the same experience. Apparently this particular menu is only for the upgraded, more expensive version of the software.
Nothing angers or frustrates me more than software manufacturers that won't provide adequate documentation on how to run their product, especially ones that try to immediately up-sell you.
So unless you were born with the innate ability to run Quicken without any further instructions from the manufacturer, or unless you want to go buy a book or take a class somewhere, don't buy this software!!
They have a 60-day money-back guarantee, and I plan to take full advantage of it.
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Caveat Emptor!!!!! | | | 8 of 8 find this helpful | Feb 01, 2010 | I bought this product after using Quicken's on-line financial management software for a few months. After discovering this product's shortcomings, I wish I could return it and I'm definitely dumping it.
Why? First, because it cannot download from my bank, which is not on its limited list of available banks. Second, because it cannot download from any investment company--yes, that's correct, not even one! In order to use this program to keep track of anything more than my credit cards, I would have to enter all transactions manually and that's certainly not what I had in mind.
The really peculiar thing here is that Quicken's on-line financial manager can download from both my bank, a local credit union, and my investment company, a large national institution. Don't people talk to each other at Quicken????? |
Quick - TRICK in a box -The Bait and Switch Starter Edition, expect to p... | | | 6 of 6 find this helpful | Apr 02, 2010 | I have been a quicken user for almost 18 years and today, Quicken has reached an all time low. While previous editions
frequently had glitches that would cause double entries to be made from transactions from several months earlier with
no way to correct it, it would do other weird things. However, upgrading every year as I do
I purchased Quicken starter Edition 2008, and then Starter 2009 last year, and then starter 2010 yesterday. Quicken automatically uninstalls
the previous version when it installs the new version. I tried to open my file 2009 from Starter 2010 and it would not. After
several hours of trying my own ideas and talking with several tech support people, I got no where.
Apparently because i used Quicken deluxe
3 years ago, the file will not unlock unless i PAY 30 additional dollars because starter editions do not accept deluxe restores (even when you
have used starter editions for the past 2 years as I had) Tech support gave me all sorts of things to download that took hours, that they said
would work and did not. They often couldn't understand because their first language is not English and it's been a nightmare.
I even tried to reinstall the quicken starter 2009 that i was using and it to STOPPED accepting its OWN files from the 2009 starter edition that it was created in. They will NOT give you another unlock code even though you are reinstalling it on the same computer.
The company lets you think that you'll get the software for 30 dollars, and then you get it home and have to pay another 30 more
if you want your current files from quicken starter 2009. The techs seems completely shocked that Quicken 2010 starter would not accept files from Quicken 2009 starter, and so aparently Quicken has failed in knowning the limitations of it's product. Their forced uninstall of the version makes sure you loose all compatibility
with your previous data, so the new program will not accept it, nor will the old one accept it, making a back up file useless. Apparently
I should have printed out my account data, because now I can not get to it at all- not with my old version of starter 2009 nor the new version
of 2010! What a horrible way to treat customers. They should have at least, told you on the box, "not compatible with ...." |
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