Track Your Spending: Microsoft Money Plus Home & Business 2008

This year I decided that I would spend some time investigating new ways to track my finances. In prior years I’ve used everything from paper and pen to simple Excel spreadsheets. For 2008 I thought I’d go all high tech and so far it’s been interesting. Here’s my first review:

Microsoft Money Plus Home & Business
According to Microsoft’s website the price of this software should be $59.99**. I have no idea what a ** is, but apparently it translates to roughly $30 additional US dollars.

Strike #1: Don’t play around with pricing on products for people who actually care where their hard earned dollars go. I tried to buy the software from Microsoft’s website and imagine my surprise when the shopping cart had a mysterious $30 Microsoft tax associated it it.

I downloaded a 30 day trial figuring if it was worth it I might bite the bullet. After installing the software I tried to connect to my bank and download my statement. Apparently to use Bank of America online I need to pay a surcharge. While technically this is a BofA problem (one I will be rectifying shortly by switching to a new bank… I’m tired of them and this is just the last straw), I didn’t see anything anywhere in the product summary which hinted that there might be a problem.

Strike #2: Whatever problem Bank of America has with Money and it doesn’t appear to have with some other financial management applications; so either Microsoft failed to use its monopoly powers to benefit the consumer here or more likely they are taking a cut of this new revenue stream from the bank. Either way at $9 a month to use Microsoft Money with my bank, I’m not impressed.

Online I can download a copy of my statement in a Microsoft money compatible format and import it. I tried this and couldn’t get it to remove the other account or really work with it in any meaningful way after nearly 30 minutes of trying. I’m sorry, I want something to make my life easier when it comes to managing my finances and I didn’t see anything here that would do that.

Strike #3: I manage complex enterprise level networks and applications serving in excess of 2 million users. I understand computers. I’ve been using the Internet since before there was a Word Wide Web. If I can’t figure out how to open your financial management application and use it like a simple check register in under 30 minutes who in the hell is your target audience?

So Microsoft Money has struck out. It has been uninstalled and deleted. Sadder still, I could have gotten a copy for free if I actually liked it.Even at free, I don’t see this as being better than other applications I am testing or for that matter, better than pen and paper.

I’m sorry this review is so short (both in length and in terms of technical and functional detail). But life is short as well, and I wasn’t going to waste another second on this <searching for a word I can use in public> application. This thing makes Microsoft Bob look like a brilliant piece of programming. Sorry Microsoft, I’d prefer managing my finances in PowerShell to this.