Quicken 2003 Premier

The Web-based system is simple to understand at a glance, easy to customize, and fully integrated with Internet Explorer--so users can quickly find financial information online from banks, brokerages, and Quicken.com. This makes most banking and investment account record keeping trivially easy, though of course not all institutions are Web compatible yet. Simple planning of investments, retirement, and debt reduction is just as easy, using the templates and wizards easily available from the software's start page.

More adventurous users will find a wealth of online resources enabling them to automate tasks related to investments, but should take great care when setting up such assistance. Some of the advanced features are difficult for novices to understand; they are well-advised to consult with professional financial planners before committing resources on their own.

Quicken 2003 Premier won't make anyone rich overnight, but it will help people frustrated by the complexity of today's financial world get a good night's sleep. --Rob Lightner

Amazon.com Product Description
Quicken 2003 Premier was designed to help you optimize your personal finances. It includes all the timesaving features of Quicken 2003 Deluxe to help you manage your finances easily, plus insightful and effective tools to help you optimize your investment portfolio and maximize tax-saving opportunities.

Quicken 2003 Premier includes tax-smart investing insights that alert you to more tax-efficient investments, opportunities to offset capital gains or losses, or when taxable events occur. New Schedules A, B, and D reports help you stay on top of deductions, interest, dividends, and capital gains. The investment sale-optimization tool helps you figure out what to sell based on specific criteria you set. The Investor's Reference Guide provides step-by-step tutorials on getting started with investing, stocks, bonds, investing strategies, and more. Use Buy/Sell Preview to view your estimated proceeds and potential capital gains.

The Schedule Updates feature tells Quicken when to go online and download your data, so your information will be up-to-date when you open the program. Quicken's guided setup suggests what to set up and track in Quicken based on your goals. A fresh, more intuitive design provides faster access to your accounts, as well as the features people use most.

Enter Quicken 2003 Premier. The upgrade to the interface is the best in years. The only criticism that I have is that Intuit does have to work on allowing the user to have more control over the features on the screen. For example, there is a wonderful account bar that you can move to the left or right of the screen, but there is no way to hide it. In certain screens, such as the register screen, it would be nice to have a clean interface.

If you have a reasonable investment portfolio you will really appreciate the added tools that Premier brings to the party.

Overall, I highly recommend this upgrade for current users and this software for new users.


Used them all....Quicken is the safe bet   September 16, 2002
24 out of 24 found this review helpful

I'm a long time (more than 10 years) Quicken user. My only beef has been that the interface has always veered away from the Windows standards. But it never lets me down. I recently took a mistaken journey and converted to MS Money. What a let down. Money is sexier than Quicken but is missing basic functionality and can't hold my 10 years of quicken data...slow as a snail unless i purged years of transactions. The final straw...the portfolio tracking does not allow for the most basic asset allocations. Doesn't show International asset category.

If you only do simple checkbook tracking either product works fine...but if you want to track your whole financial picture...run to Quicken!

I ran back to quicken and life is good again!