Editorial Product Review:

Item Description:
Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe provides important financial information at a glance and helps you manage accounts, spending, and budgeting to improve your financial outlook. Manage your day-to-day finances and stay on top of the day to day information you need most.

Amazon.com:
Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe provides all the tools you need to handle your finances in one place. The new Insights feature allows you to get a glance at your finances without even launching Money.

Money Plus Deluxe home page.

Spending Insights alert you when you've reached or are nearing your spending limits.

Cash Flow Insights show what's flowing in and out of your accounts.

Bills Insights alert you if bills are overdue or due soon.

Taking Money's award-winning features to a whole new level.
Microsoft Money Plus still provides all the tools you need to handle your finances in one place. But it also gives you a quick glance--without launching Money--at the financial information you need to keep you on top of your finances like never before.

Money's key features are still here:

• Manage your money your way, from the big picture down to the details.
• Forecast cash flow and stay on top of monthly spending.
• Tackle tax time with ease, from finding deductions to estimating taxes.
• Improve your investment strategy with help from the experts at MSN Money.
• Help protect and improve your credit, and reduce your debt.

Plus, there's so much that's new--Insights!
With Insights, get a desktop glance at the information you need most, without launching money.

Spending Insights--Alerts you when you've reached or are nearing your spending limits.

Cash Flow Insights--See what's flowing in and out of your accounts.

Bills Insights--Alerts you if bills are overdue or due soon.

Plus, enjoy even more new and improved features:

Link to statements, checks, or images from a transaction. Quickly add links to images and other files to keep important records and information handy, organized, and up-to-date.

Background banking helps ensure your account information is up-to-date.

Which version is right for you?

	DELUXE	PREMIUM	HOME & BUSINESS
KEEP YOUR FINANCES IN SHAPE
Balance your checkbook	•	•	•
Cash Flow Insights give you a glance at spending	•	•	•
Automatically categorize spending	•	•	•
Bills Insights show upcoming and overdue bills	•	•	•
Know which bills are paid and due	•	•	•
Enhanced background banking keeps information up-to-date	•	•	•
IMPROVE YOUR FINANCIAL PICTURE
Create and manage a budget	•	•	•
Link to statements, checks, or images from a transaction	•	•	•
Stay on top of credit and debt	•	•	•
Spending insights help you stay on top of spending	•	•	•
Tips, tools, articles, and integration with MSN Money	•	•	•
Value pack of financial services		Up to $450 Value	Up to $900 Value
Plan for retirement, college, and other goals	•	•	•
MANAGE TAXES
Export to tax preparation software	•	•	•
Estimate taxes and find hidden deductions	•	•	•
Minimize capital gains taxes		•	•
MANAGE INVESTMENTS
Analyze your portfolio, manage 401(k) and IRA	•	•	•
Track U.S. markets, commodities, currencies, and more	•	•	•
View Morningstar ratings in the popular ETF Center	•	•	•
The Motley Fool CAPS on MSN Money	•	•	•
Make tax-smart investment choices		•	•
MANAGE YOUR SMALL BUSINESS
Create estimates and invoices			•
View business reports and graphs			•
Do your payroll online			•
Monigot invoices and receivables			•
Track Schedule C items			•

Accessories available:
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Accessories available:

• Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008

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Customer Rating: - Crashes every time!
I, too, was faced with the expiration of Money 2006 online services and needed to upgrade. I downloaded the trial version of Money Plus Deluxe and have tried multiple times to install it, but it crashes every time I try to launch it. After fighting with it for a couple hours I gave up and re-installed 2006 again, which is working perfectly, except of course for the lack of online services. Not sure what to do. (Running XP SP2 on a Dell Precision M20)

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Customer Rating: - Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe Stinks!
I, too, owned Microsoft Money 2004. Never had a problem with it. Then, lately, it's been acting kind of buggy so I thought, what the heck, I'll buy the latest version.

I purchased the download version of Money Plus Deluxe from Microsoft. Although it imported the Money 2004 files flawlessly, it also made it impossible to ever view those files again with Money 2004. If you try to uninstall Money Plus Deluxe (with the intention of re-installing Money 2004), you get a little message that says, in effect, "you won't be able to read your Money files (even the ones you might have backed up using Money 2004) with versions of Money that pre-date Money Plus Deluxe." Nice, huh?

Well, the program works fine except ... EVERY time I close it I get this message: "Microsoft Money has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

I emailed Microsoft support with all the pertinent information, including all the error reports. They sent me back a link with an article in MS's "knowledge base." Didn't work; sent another email to MS. Got another article link. Didn't work and didn't even address my problem. Told MS this; got another article link that wasn't germane to my problem. MS wrote back that I should try removing XP's Service Pack 3 from from my computer.

I'd heard enough! I requested and received a refund from Microsoft.

I purchased Quicken Deluxe 2008 because Intuit's web site said it could import MS Money Plus Deluxe files. Guess what? It can't! Research Intuit's troubleshooting tips and you'll find that they admit that there's a "problem." So back goes Quicken to the store today.

I tried some other finance programs you can download (free or for a fee) from the Internet, including GnuCash and AceMoney. Don't bother. When they import the Money files, you get duplicates, negative balances, and all sorts of other problems.

So I'm going to stick with MS Money Plus Deluxe. If the only problem is receiving an error message every time it closes, I guess I should count myself lucky. And I'll keep sending Microsoft the error report it requests and perhaps they'll do something about it in the future.

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Customer Rating: - Nothing but trouble
I "upgraded" to Money Plus Deluxe from 2004 and I have had nothing but trouble. Data files get corrupt, so I had to recreate everything, application crashed occasionally, updates from banks are spotty at best. What a horrible application. I have never tried Quicken, but it looks like I am headed that way.

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Customer Rating: - This is probably the worst piece of software I have ever bought
I have used Money for at least 10 years to manage both my personal finances and my investments. I originally switched from Quicken because Money offered me the ability to get updated prices for my investments. I loved Money 1998 and was OK with Money 2002, which I have used for the last six years. Everything was fine until I decided to upgrade. I first tried Money 2004 because I got it for a good price. Unfortunately, after I updated I found out that Microsoft no longer allows Money 2004 to update quotes- they required an upgrade to the 2008 version. I was not happy about this, but one of the insidious things Microsoft does is to prevent you from switching back once you have decided to upgrade- the upgraded files are no longer backwards compatible so any work done with the upgraded file cannot be opened with an earlier version of Money. So I pretty much had to upgrade again if I wanted to update the prices of my investments. I then bought Money Plus Deluxe 2008 which is a disaster. It is extremely slow, it crashes frequently, it does not remove itself from memory when shut down, and worst of all, saved my backup files with a mystery password so that they are useless (stay away from Microsoft Live ID). And, to top it off, it still does not allow me to update quotes, saying that my subscription to Microsoft online services has expired. After numerous hours on the phone with support (and uninstalling the program, sniffing around in the registry for traces of the "uninstalled" program, then reinstalling it with an "override key" obtained from another Microsoft number) I finally gave up and asked for my money back. I've gone back to Money 2002. Although I lost some work, it is easier to redo it than to deal with this abomination of a program. I guess Microsoft cannot make enough money by making good software, so they try to force people to buy their services. Their software gets more and more bloated and less and less useful. Is this a sustainable business model? I think they are doomed.