What are the main differences between Quicken 6 and Quicken 98?

If you are a user of Quicken 6, be it for 3 months or 3 years, you'll find that the format of Quicken 98 hasn't changed too drastically. It still has the same user friendly, easy to use look about it, but within even more new features and help for new users.

The first thing you'll notice is the layout of the screen has not changed much from Quicken 6, which should be a relief for our experienced users ! The familiar features are still in their positions you are accustomed to and it gives easy access to all the new features.

The idea of any upgrade is to only fix what needs fixing. So when we at Intuit were deciding on what to change for Quicken 98, we mainly looked at the areas of Quicken 6 that customers were least satisfied with, and tried to improve on them.

Portfolio View for instance was getting a bit old and dated, so we decided it was time to scrap it and start again. The new look is very modern, and much more user friendly. One area of criticism was that the Portfolio View was confusing to new users. We have endeavoured to make it both easier to use and full of more features. As well as having a new look, the user can now do a lot more to customise the view to exactly how they want it.

The Reminders have also been updated. They now have a new layout which should make them more practical and easier to navigate. There is now a separate yellow folder for each file, which can be opened or closed, depending on whether or not you want to see the information on the screen. This makes the reminders a lot more manageable and efficient.

The program's general mathematics and calculations have been altered as well. This has improved the accuracy for loans above all else.

Getting on to the Internet is easier now than it has ever been. To show our commitment to the future Quicken 98 now has a lot more online features. An 'online feature' is a feature that involves a modem, telephone line and connection to the Internet. If you have these already setup on your computer then keep reading. (If you don't you might want to keep reading anyway because you may be interested in getting 'online').

We will only go through a brief summary of the online features, as there will be a separate FAQ with an in-depth description of the new and improved online features.

1. Share price download : this feature has been updated since Quicken 6, and is very much improved.
   
2. Symbol lookup: this feature has also been made a lot easier to use.
   
3. Embedded browser: this is a new facility that has been added to allow customer to ' surf the net ' while updating their accounts.
   
4. Online registration: the registration procedure has been made a lot easier, by allowing the customer to register online, this will allow instant access to all the programs facilities.
   
5. Currency Rate update: this facility allows you to update your currency rate directly off the Internet.

There is now a new Alerts facility in Quicken that allows the customer to be warned when certain limits have been reached.

One of the major new features is the integrated business package. QuickInvoice has been replaced by a new 32 bit integrated program, that will allow Quicken to run a lot more smoothly, and will also allow the customer to customise his/her invoices to their particular liking.

There is also a new tax setup program. If you used the tax lines in Quicken 6, then you will find it much-improved in Quicken 98. The new tax setup program will allow easy setup of tax lines to categories.

Quicken 98 now has an integrated database of customer addresses for use with the new business facilities.

Another new feature is the 'Estimate Interest'. This feature allows you to estimate the interest you would receive if and when a transaction goes through your bank account.