Quicken 2012 merits

If you are considering going to a newer version of Quicken than what you are running, you should consider the newest version, 2013, not

Right. The difference is usually tiny, and there's normally no need to upgrade.

I normally plan to upgrade ever other year, rather than every year, but if I find a good price for a bundle of Quicken and TurboTax, I end up upgrading when I didn't plan to (as I did this year).

"jo" wrote

What's in Quicken 2012 that might be interesting? Any major outstanding bugs?

I know the difference between versions is not usually much.

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Not sure what version you would be upgrading from.

A few thoughts (I'm sure this is an incomplete list):

If you make much use of the Quicken budget feature, you probably won't care for Q2012.

If you have problems getting downloaded transactions for transfers correctly "categorized" as transfers, you may appreciate the new "Transfer Detection" feature (as long as you don't allow Quicken to "automatically create transfers").

If you dislike the fact that the Holdings pane for investment accounts can not be individually sized, you may like Q2012. But if you like having Quicken open to the Overview tab of an investment account (where the Holdings pane is located), you may not like Q2012.

The old Cash Flow Forecast is gone; there is a new "Projected Balances" line graph, similar in function to the bar graph beneath Bill & Income Reminders.

There is a new Quicken import/export feature (Quicken Transfer Format) that allows the export/import of Quicken non-investment accounts from one file to another. You can't select accounts (it's all non-investment accounts), and the account names can not already exist in the file you import to (meaning it won't merge data into an existing account).

Non-investment account register columns are virtually all optional. And can be individually sized.

You can now see many of the fields as they were in downloaded transactions (before you may have modified them, after Accepting the transactions). Quicken keeps such fields as "Downloaded payee", Downloaded FITID", "Downloaded memo", "Downloaded posting date", etc. You can now elect to display those fields in your Quicken non-investment account registers.

Non-investment account registers always display the register "Ending Balance" (and "Current Balance", when different from Ending Balance) for all transactions in the register, regardless of whether all register transactions are displayed. [Q2010 displays an Ending Balance equal to the net amount of "displayed" transactions.]

If your security price is not current for the Portfolio "As of" date, Quicken now displays a small clock icon (instead of "est"), which will display the date of the price that does appear, when you hover your cursor on the clock.

I believe Q2013 is better than Q2012, but Q2013 has its own problems that seem to bedevil some users.

I have Quicken 2013 Deluxethat I've upgraded from Quicken Premier 2010.

It's generally not necessary to upgrade that often, except if you download transactions from the bank in which they sunset it every 3 years and don't support the older versions.

ugs? I know the difference between versions is not usually much.

Thanks everyone for the detailed feedback. I would be upgrading from Quicke n 2010 (actually from the H & B version, which I really don't need anymore but I don't want to lose the history). I get my software from Ebay and an older version, even one year, as always been considerably cheaper than gett ing the current version. I also made the assumption, rightly or wrongly, th at the bugs might not have been shaken out of version 2013 as well as in vs n 2012.

John, I think I understand your list and some might appeal to me if I could visualize them better. I tried to use budgeting, but gave up. I don't foll ow a budget anyway, just keep track of whether I seem to be spending too mu ch in any category.

"jo" wrote I would be upgrading from Quicken 2010 (actually from the H & B version, which I really don't need anymore but I don't want to lose the history).

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You won't lose your history, if you downgrade.

You will lose some capabilities (you won't be able to create "invoices" for example; or view accounts receivable as "invoices" (the create invoice capability and the invoice "form" will no longer be available).

Another example: you won't be able to create a stand alone Schedule C report; but your Tax Schedule report will still include Schedule C (if there is any data for Schedule C for the date range selected).

But your data will still be there. Your invoices, for example, will be in "asset" accounts instead of "accounts receivable" accounts. And the invoices will just be plain split transactions.

And don't forget; you have 60 days from date of purchase to return Quicken (the "current year" version Quicken - Q2013 as of today) for a full refund. If you purchase Quicken Deluxe and don't like the results, you can get your money back and purchase Quicken H&B.

I know the difference between versions is not usually much.

Thanks John, I didn't realized this history would be maintained in any form. It's probably all I need.

jo