Quicken 2003 Basic

Quicken Guided Setup asks you your goals, suggests what to set up and track, and offers practical next steps to help you get there. Track your checking, savings, and credit card transactions in one place. Reconcile your bank statements in minutes. Pay bills right from your computer. Write and print checks or pay bills online.

Use Quicken 2003 to sort your expenses by date, amount, payee, or category. Choose from dozens of reports and graphs that show where your money goes. Get answers to such questions as "How much did I spend on dining?" and "How does that compare to last month?" You can also create a personalized budget to help meet your goals and monitor your cash flow to cover your spending.

Quicken 2003 Basic makes it easier than ever to download your data from online sources. Access your account balances, transfer funds, and pay bills. Quicken works with more than 1,900 banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions.

Don't get me wrong, I've had my beefs with Intuit products through my business. They do use their products to market other services. Even though this is a pain for the consumer, it is smart business practice. Their customer support "is bad." I've used it for the Quickbooks product I have and it's not pleasant. But this is BASIC personal finance software for "a good price" Even on the outside of the box, there's a list of all the functions the Quicken 2003 software family can do and only "Track your checkbook & spending" is highlighted for the basic version. So they are being honest from the beginning. If you want software that tracks investments or does business functions this is not the software for you. If you want to keep track of your checkbook, bills and credit cards it seems to do it quite well.


A Quicken User Since Version 2.0!   August 28, 2002
David Wilson (Massachusetts)
61 out of 71 found this review helpful

I've used Quicken since 1994 when I bought my first computer and Quick 2.0 came preinstalled. Since then I've tried MS-Money twice. I keep going back to Quicken. It's intuitive, logical and makes reconciling the check book a breeze. I admit that my finaces are fairly simple and others may need the deluxe or small business versions of the program, but I think for the average person the basic program is perfect. I don't upgrade every year. I don't think there's a need to. I upgrade about every two years. So, if you haven't upgraded recently or have never used Quicken give this version a try. The program is very stable. I haven't had problems with bugs or crashes in any version. I recommend it.


Very simple and works great.   March 5, 2003
30 out of 34 found this review helpful

After reading some of the negative comments I just about did not buy Quicken 2003 Basic even though I had a $30.00 rebate making it free. My wife takes care of all the finances and usese Quicken 99 on her computer to keep track of it. So when I received Quicken 2003 I installed it on my computer just in case there were problems I could just uninstall it and not worry about it. I installed it and updated it on my computer with no problems what-so-ever. I rarely used Quicken 99 since my wife took care of this but I still had no problems using Quicken 2003. I read no directions since everything was simple and straight forward. Someone mentioned that you cannot hand enter checks but I had no problem at all doing this. I transferred the data from my wifes computer to mine and it worked perfectly. (Over 5 years of data). I then loaded it on my wifes computer with no problems. It does everything we need it to. It takes care of our checking account, savings account, credit card accounts and personal loans. I set up a personal loan I have for a friend and it even breaks down the principal and interest amount for me with the option of compounding it daily, monthly or yearly. I have to recommend it because it does everything it advertises. As far as customer service I do not know because I have not had a need for it. If you can use a checkbook and have just the smallest amount of computer knowledge this program should work great for you. Especially at the end of the year come tax time when you can print out a year of expenses itemized however you choose.


Quicken is the best home finance program   August 5, 2003
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I've been using Quicken for about 13 years. Quicken is easy to use and gives good snapshots and graphs of your finances in one centralized place. Don't take the negative reviews too seriously, Quicken is the best personal finance program on the market. While I've had my beefs with Quicken over the years, the negative comments here are WAY off base and ill-informed. The ability to download transactions directly from your bank is awesome. Not all banks support it, but when it is available, it's great. To use Quicken properly requires personal committment, you get out of Quicken what you put into it. Quicken has a MUCH easier and more intuitive user interface than Money. I tried Money a couple years ago, and was totally lost. If you try Quicken and find your head swimming, then go buy a Quicken instruction book, possible "Quicken for Dummies", something to explain it in simple terms. It's a great product.


Quicken 2003 is easy to use   July 16, 2003
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

As a long time user of Quicken I am happy with the latest version. Their Guided Setup when you initially run Quicken 2003 allows you to easily set up your accounts. It also allows you to easily set up Online Banking (which is an improvement from Quicken 2001). Your accounts are visible from the home page making Quicken 2003 easy to navigate. The Budget function is a bit more cumbersome than 2001 but once you start working with it you can get the same results, it just takes a little longer. All in all a good product.