Quicken Online Overview

Quicken Online is a free, web-based personal finance tool you can use to keep track of your money.  Quicken Online product manager, Barron Ernst, got on the phone with me a while back to talk about the tool and some of the features it offers.  I’ve been busy with our new baby and my job so I’m just now writing up our conversation.  We talked about a lot of things so I’ll break it up over a few posts.

I’ve been using Quicken at home for more than 10 years so my first question was, “is there any benefit for me to use Quicken Online?” What I didn’t realize is that Intuit has setup Quicken Online to be more of a cash flow tool than a total personal finance application.

The desktop products, like Quicken Deluxe and Quicken Premier, have capabilities such as investing research, portfolio management, tax information, net worth tracking, etc.  You could spend hours with these Desktop tools doing financial analysis and planning. 

Rather than try and squeeze all that into Quicken Online, Barron and his team created the online version to be a tool to help you know where your money was going for cash flow purposes.  It’s setup to help you avoid overdrafts, not spend more than you make, and to look at how you spend your money and make spending recommendations.

They’ve seen a lot of people using the advanced features of the destop software at home but also taking advantage of the “anywhere access” offered by Quicken online.  Next time I’ll look at the mobile options they’ve created that let you use Quicken Online when you’re out to help make spending decisions.

Ben Edwards, the founder of Money Smart Life, saved up enough to buy a Nintendo back when he was 12 years old. When he used the money to buy shares of Wal-Mart stock instead, he knew he wasn't like the other kids... His addiction to personal finance has paid off for his family and now he's helping you to afford the life that you want. Check him out on the web at Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook.

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