Which to buy: 2004 or 2005?

Personally, I prefer Q05 to Q04. Q05 has many new and useful features and seems generally more reliable. However, Q05 has some QIF import options removed relative to Q04. If you don't use them (as I don't) then this should be a non-issue. Otherwise, consider them carefully if you want to use Q05.

See the Intuit site for more info on Q05:

Hope this helps, Peter

Thanks. I think I will stick with 2004 because of the qif issue until I have more time to evaluate its impact on what I plan on using Quicken for.

Also check out the posting by Mike in this group yesterday named "Quicken 2005 - feature removed for no reason". He identified a transaction scheduling capability that appears to have been munged by Intuit in Q05. If you use that feature, it may be another reason for you to stay with Q04.

Thanks Jeff. More reading for me to do.

I use Q2004 at home with my credit union. I use web connect files to update my bank accounts, but have only the qif option to download payments made online. With Q2004 this is no problem. My mom has Q2005 installed and has the same download options from the bank. This means entering the online transactions by hand. If I wait for the transactions to show up on the webconnect download, they have the clear date, not the pay date. Are we unique in having these problems with Q2005?

I hate to go to the trouble to create a credit card account to cut and paste from if I can avoid it. Can I rollback Q2005 to Q2004 and still be able to read the data? There are only 2 bank accounts involved that could exported if that will make things easier.

wayne - wseldr at swbell dot net

What types of transactions are we talking about here? Are these regular monthly bills? Why not get them in your register via Scheduled Transactions?

What problems (plural)? The only Q2005 problem I see identified (and only by inference) is that Q2005 does not import QIF files to checking, savings, and investment accounts. So, yes, everyone who would like to import QIF files to those account types is having that problem.

Are you referring to creating a Quicken account that can accept imported QIF files? If so, you probably should plan on using a cash account since: a) they are more like a bank account and b) you will still be able to import to them in versions after Q2005. And what is the problem with importing to QIF and doing a select/cut/paste?

Do you mean, can you return to using Q2004 on a permanent basis? (Actually, do you mean, can your mom return to using Q2004 - you only indicated that your mother was using Q2005). Yes, if you want to go to the trouble to export your Q2005 data to QIF files and import to Q2004 ... and manually setup any Quicken data that can not be transferred by QIF (scheduled transactions, for example). But Q2004 will, very likely, eventually lose the ability to download via any method other than QIF, and you will be back to square one-half.

I tried both 2004 and 2005 and decided to stick with 2003. If you have a large number of monthly investment transaction to handle I found that the procedures in 2004 and 2005 were so "klutzy" I decided to stick with being able to work directly in the registers for investments.