Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual

An easy read with clear instructions and a great index. Well worth your money either veteran or newcomer. Troubleshooter's delight.

I found the manual to be very helpful. The product does not come with any written instructions, so this manual becomes a necessity.

If you don't consider yourself an experienced Quicken user, the best solution is a good book. Even veteran Quicken users need help when they update to a new version. In response to these needs, Bonnie Biafore continues her jargon-free, step-by-step instructions in this volume covering Quicken 2009. Just as Quicken seems to balloon as it adds annual bells and whistles, the 2009 Missing Manual is nearly 75 pages longer than last year's edition. However, unlike some of Quicken's additions, these are valuable and highly understandable pages, covering what has become a pretty complex program. And for those upgrading from an earlier version, there's a whole section in the Introduction that describes what's new this year. (Not too much.) To my jaded eyes, the true gift of this book is that the author not only tells you WHAT Quicken does, but WHY and HOW it's done, as well as why you might want to use the feature she's describing. This Missing Manual is divided into fve parts: Getting Started; Getting Down to Business (follows your money from paycheck, to deposit and spending, to reconciling accounts); Tuning your Financial Engine (budgeting, tracking assets, debt and investments, planning, using Quicken reports and tax planning); Quicken Power Tools (customizing Quicken, protecting your data, exporting and importing data); Appendixes (keyboard shortcuts, guide to Quicken resources, and installation and upgrading instructions). The book is written to accommodate readers at all levels of Quicken knowledge. The main text discussions are aimed at beginner or intermediate users. But special boxes titled "Up To Speed" add basic information in more detail to clarify an issue. "Power Users Clinic" boxes offer technical tips, tricks and shortcuts for the more experienced user. There also are "Frequently Asked Question" boxes, covering such things as where on earth your data fIles are kept by Quicken, and "Troubleshooting Moment" boxes, covering panic-causing incidents like the sudden loss of a window. Actually, there are more box titles than this, but all of them are useful, and the tips they offer are very valuable. In addition, black and white illustrations abound, providing screen shots that help you visualize instructions. As a fairly experienced Quicken veteran, I found it fun to just leaf through the book and read the special boxes fIrst...I picked up some tips I'd never heard before and found other information that I never saw documented before. As O'Reilly says of its "Missing Manual" books," this is the book that SHOULD have come with the program". But even back in the days when most computer programs came in a box with a bound User Manual included, rarely were they as comprehensive, clear, and amusing as this one. (Not to mention the fact that some of those old manuals lost something in the translation from an original unknown language!) Biafore presents us with a must for your bookshelf and sanity when using Quicken.

As an experienced user, I skipped a lot of the book. I bought it because I have not read "the manual" in 4 years. About 20% of the book of was useful to me, but that was enough.

'Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual' is a must buy for all Quicken 2009 users that want to get the most out of their financial software. With over 550 pages of material (up 30% from the previous version of this book), this is the EASIEST way to not only start doing the basics with Quicken, but EVERYTHING Quicken has to offer!!! My only complaint is the lack of color in this book, there really is no reason for not having color in all of these books nowadays. Here's a McKinnon Overview for the readers: 01. Set Up 02. Starting Off 03. Setting Up Accounts 04. Tracking Transactions 05. Banking Transactions 06. Online Banking 07. Transaction Goodies 08. Reconciliation 09. Property & Debt 10. Taxes & Insurance 11. Spending And Saving 12. Investments 13. Quicken Tools 14. Reports And Graphs 15. Backing Up Data 16. Customizing Quicken 17. Exporting & Importing I've reviewed a dozen+ 'Missing Manual' books and I feel they are some of the best computer books EVER written. Exceptionally designed, laid out, written, they really should have been in the boxes of all the software they were written for. My reviews were all so glowing I finally started to just say BUY THE BOOK and I am not changing my stance here at all. If you use Quicken 2009 or want to become an uber-user, BUY THIS BOOK TO-DAY!!! ***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED