Quicken and QuickBooks, both by Intuit, are two of the most important programs on my computer. Quicken keeps track of my personal finances. It knows how much money is in my bank account, how much money I've spent on tax-deductible expenses over the past year, and how much I owe to my credit card companies. I also use the simple invoicing features that are present in a special edition of the program, called Quicken 98 for Home and Business, to send out invoices for my freelance writing jobs.
I also help keep the books for a small organization, and for that I use Intuit's QuickBooks product. QuickBooks is similar to Quicken in many ways - both programs let you type in your checks and deposits, print fancy reports, and print graphs. But QuickBooks is more structured. For instance, QuickBooks knows about customers, vendors, and employees. It will print detailed invoices and customer reports, and track inventory. If you keep the books for a small business or a nonprofit organization, you should definitely look into this product.
Intuit has clearly discovered the secret to successfully competing against Microsoft: Compete with yourself, not the giant in Redmond, Wash.; keep your eyes focused on your customers; and never stand still. Intuit is now shipping major updates to Quicken every fall and major releases of QuickBooks every 18 to 24 months; the company recently rolled out Quicken 99 and QuickBooks Version 6. But while both of the programs represent significant improvements over last year's versions, this year I'm less enthusiastic about the upgrades.
Here's the problem: While Intuit has been exceedingly aggressive in adding new features to its Quicken and QuickBooks product lines, it's been less willing to fix problems that have been lingering in its programs. Hey, that's just like Microsoft. After several years on the feature bandwagon, we're left with a product that does a lot of different things, but doesn't do any of them with excellence or panache. Unless you need a new feature that is specifically in Quicken 99 or QuickBooks 6.0, I would recommend sitting out this upgrade cycle.
So what's new? Plenty.
The most important new feature in Quicken 99 is the Quicken Home Page. It's a concept that Intuit stole from Microsoft Money. The Home Page shows, at a glance, your entire financial picture. You'll see an analysis of your credit cards, the stocks on your watch list, the current holdings of your bank accounts, and a graph comparing your month-by-month income and expenses.
Quicken 99's second big feature is better integration with the Internet - specifically with Intuit's Web site, Quicken.com. For example, click the words ''Business CashFinder'' on your home page and you'll jump to www.cashfinder.com, which will walk you through a small-business loan prequalification. If you track stocks, Quicken will automatically download the stock's price each time you run it. The program can even fetch historical prices up to five years in the past. If you travel a lot on business, you can sign up and become a member of Quicken. com - it's free.
You can then use Quicken's Web entry - which lets you type your expenses and other transactions into a Web browser and store them on Intuit's site while you travel, then download the information into your PC when you return home. And Quicken 99 will automatically download bug fixes and other patches to the Quicken program itself when they are posted by Intuit.
I wish that more programs were this good about keeping themselves up-to-date. Unfortunately, there are still some rough spots to be worked out.
The Business CashFinder site wasn't working properly when I visited it earlier this week, so I couldn't get the names of all those banks that want to lend me millions of dollars so I can work on my novel while vacationing in the Bahamas. A bigger problem has to do with S&P Comstock, the company that supplies stock market quotes to Quicken 99: Many of the historical prices that were downloaded into my copy of Quicken 99 were simply wrong.
Web entry, meanwhile, is likely to get a lukewarm reception from the privacy crowd: In one breath Intuit says it never shares customer information with third parties, and in another it says it shares your name, address, and other personal information with Excite (if you give permission).
And while the company says it uses encryption and authentication technology to ensure privacy, the signup process itself is unencrypted. Furthermore, there is no promise that personal information - such as financial transactions - are stored encrypted on Quicken's servers, to prevent unauthorized use by Intuit's own employees.
If you run a small business, there is one compelling reason to upgrade to QuickBooks 6.0: The new version allows several users to simultaneously access the same QuickBooks file over a local area network connection. QuickBooks works this magic with file sharing; there is no need to set up a special machine to be a server.
But once again, this new feature isn't well-polished. For example, Intuit distributes updates and bug-fixes on its Web site. But it is a major chore to update a network of computers running QuickBooks 6.0: I never could get the update to work properly on a computer running Windows NT 4.0.
Overall, I love Quicken and QuickBooks, but I wish Intuit would slow down and polish some of the features it has added.
Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at plugged-in@simson.net.
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