News and Reviews > Mini-Reviews by Members
Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review
IainB:
Original post date:2015-05-28Updated:2016-04-06
Basic Info
Application name: Microsoft Money Plus Sunset
"Sunset" versions of Microsoft's leading commercial product, MS Money - a set of comprehensive accounting and budgeting software. Released by Microsoft in 2010 as $FREE software.Thumbs-Up Rating: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:Support:This is a fully-finished, but discontinued and unsupported Microsoft product.
Refer:
* Support (MS Money Sunset notice)
* Support for Microsoft Money (old MS support site)
* KB2118008 - What Is Microsoft Money Plus Sunset?
* Microsoft (MS) Money Help, Information and FAQ Pages
* Gaier Software - Restore Microsoft Money Online Quotes with MSMoneyQuotesThere are/were various discussion forums on the Internet, possibly the main one being: http://money.mvps.org/
Download the software from:
* Money Plus Sunset Deluxe - from Official Microsoft Download Center
* Money Plus Sunset Home and Business - from Official Microsoft Download Center
Info. in the software package:
* Help file.
* Flash videos (relate to pre-Sunset versions): Money tour, Manage your accounts, Pay bills online, Create a budget.
Application Version Reviewed:The Deluxe and the Home & Business versions are the two "Sunset" versions of this leading accountancy software package that Microsoft decided to give away ($FREE) when they pulled out of the market for such software.
Application Specs.:The functionality and features of the Deluxe and the Home & Business packages are listed in a table below.
Test System Specs:Win7-64 HP, Win8-64, Win8.1-64 and PRO, Win10-64 PROSupported OSesCompatible with:
* WinXP
* Win Vista
* Win7-32/64-bit
* Win8 and 8.1 32/64-bit and PRO
* Win10-32/64 and PRO - refer also Re: Windows 10 Announced - legacy app. support.Upgrade Policy:No upgrade. This is a "Sunset" version - a complete and fully-functioning product, wrapped as a self-contained and licenced package.Pricing Scheme$FREE
1.0 Intro and Overview:
Both versions are excellent accounting packages and were generally recognised as being market leaders up to the point when MS pulled out of the market.
Whether you want a tool to help you better manage your personal finances, or to manage a business, this software will do extremely well. You'd have to pay out quite a lot of money to buy anything similar.
As a lapsed accountant with long experience of, and a keen interest in, accounting systems and software, I can say from that experience that I have yet to come across a better-written or more comprehensive commercial accounting package developed for home or business use.
The "suck-it-and-see" approach (try it out for real) would probably verify that for most users who might be interested in finding out.
The table below shows a comparison of Sunset (and earlier) version features:
2.0 Using MS Money (Sunset)
2.1 Start-up: After installation (using whichever of the 2 Sunset versions you wanted), when you start up MS Money you will see this screen:
2.2 Home screen: You will then get to the Home screen: (click to enlarge)
Note that this screen behaves like a browser, but with the apparent constraint that it can take you to relevant MS Money links only.
Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review
2.3 Help file: Accessing the Help file will show you this. Note the differences highlighted.
2.4 Tutorials: There are some quite useful/helpful video tutorials. These can be started from the menu, or directly from the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Money Plus\MNYCoreFiles\WebCache\ (Start with the smallest file, MSMoneyTour.swf, which will load the others.)
Filenames:
* Accounts.swf 5.6MB
* Bills.swf 4.7MB
* Budget.swf 26MB
* MSMoneyTour.swf 16.2kB
* tourIntro.swf 4.1MB
3.0 Who this software is designed for:
Home or business users wanting to manage their financial affairs and budgets.
4.0 The Good:
Software which is just very good and well-designed for what it does.
Ergonomically very good and intuitive GUI, and a very good Help manual and context help/tips.
Suits elementary and complex requirements alike.
If this was the first accounting and budgeting package that you started to use, then it could very well be the last, as you would probably stick with it.
5.0 The needs improvement section:
Nothing to report here.
However, if you had wanted the costly service add-ons of an accounting package that can operate online service transactions with your bank account, then you would be out of luck. Those bundled services were disabled in the Sunset product, since banks would be (or were) unwilling to support online services to a retired product.
6.0 Why I think you should use this product:
For home or business users wanting to better manage their financial affairs and budgets, this software could be of enormous help.
7.0 How it compares to similar software
It used to, and probably still does, outclass most other accounting packages in this market sector (home & business accounting and budgeting software).
When MS pulled out of the market, the leaders included:
* Quicken,
* Intuit, and
* MYOB. - producing variously good desktop accounting package and/or online accounting services (e.g., similar to MSN Live MS Money).
There is a lesser-known product called NewViews that was a superb DOS-based accounting package, which was belatedly rewritten with a full GUI for the Windows OS - it could well be a a good alternative to MS Money or the other contenders.
8.0 Conclusions:
The MS Money Sunset packages are superb value-for-money at $FREE.
You would probably have to spend several hundreds of dollars to get anything else as good.
IainB:
Cross-posted from: Re: Windows 10 Announced - legacy app. support.
A few days ago, the MS Money user forums were buzzing about how Win10 had disabled MS Money - when MS Money started up, it suddenly stopped and said it needed IE6 to be installed.
(For those as might not know it, MS Money uses IE as its primary UI.)
When my MS Money (Sunset version) failed on this error, I clicked the "Send Error Report" button.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
Reading the forums, a workaround to the problem was soon discovered. A good description of the problem and the workaround is here: Windows 10 Compatibility with Microsoft Money | Ameridan's Microsoft Money Offline Weblog
However, following a Win10 update today, MS Money is now working perfectly again.
Kudos to MS for fairly swift action on this. I don't know whether the error was a bug, or if it only affected MS Money, but the effect of fixing it seems to indicate that MS is listening and just might be aware of the need to support this and other legacy applications in Win10.
I am cross-posting this to Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review
-IainB (August 13, 2015, 09:07 AM)
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IainB:
I recommended this package in the thread: Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model
IainB:
Useful post in thewindowsclub.com: Free Personal Finance & Business Accounting Software for Windows
EDIT: 2016-06-03 correction to mistake in the last paragraph in the quote below.
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
Today, in this post, we will take a look at some of the free finance software for personal & home use, as well as accounting software for small, medium business – along with one for enterprises. All of these are free to use on your Windows computers.
Free Finance & Accounting Software
Free Personal Finance & Business Accounting Software
1] Microsoft Money Plus Sunset
Microsoft Money Plus Sunset versions are replacements for expired versions of Microsoft Money Essentials, Deluxe, Premium, and Home and Business. It is available in two versions and can be installed stand alone, or as an upgrade to any existing installation of Microsoft Money. Money Plus Deluxe Sunset is designed to replace Essentials, Deluxe and Premium and Money Plus Home & Business Sunset is designed to replace Home & Business.
2] GnuCash
GnuCash is free accounting software for Small Business. If you run a business and are looking for a good and free accounting software for small business, then GnuCash is perfect for you. It is a free and open source accounting software, and comes with a double-entry book-keeping system.
3] HomeBank
HomeBank is a personal accounting software that is simple to use and has a user friendly interface. The software lets you keep a track of budgets, archives, assignments, payees and accounts, very easily. There are multiple categories present in HomeBank such as credit card, asset, cash, bank and liabilities.
4] Manager for Windows
Manager for Windows is free financial software for small business. It is capable of tracking all the income and expenses, and even maintaining a database of clients with sales records. It keeps a record of all your financial dealings, classifies, and summarizes all your business transactions which are of financial nature, efficiently.
5] Money Manager Ex
Money Manager Ex is a third-party free personal finance software for Windows that you may want to check out. It helps you manage your finances easily. You can manage your personal as well as business finances with this application. It is free to use software. This open-source and cross-platform finance software creates an overview of your financial worth.
6] BS1 Enterprise Accounting freeware
The main modules that BS1 Enterprise Accounting freeware are – General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, Sales Analysis & Bank Reconciliation. The free version of BS1 Enterprise Accounting software has limited features, but is still good enough for a single user.
7] Microsoft Money
Microsoft Money is a personal finance management software program from Microsoft. It has capabilities for viewing bank account balances, creating budgets, and tracking expenses, among other features. However, Microsoft Money has been discontinued in 2009 and an alternative named Microsoft Money Plus Sunset mentioned above, was released in 2010, but it lacks some features that were provided by former version. It is not free [this is patently wrong - MS Money is $FREE] but since many still like to use it, we have included it. This post will show you how to use Microsoft Money on Windows 10.
Suggestions are most welcome.
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IainB:
Copied from another thread:
... @IainB
Thanks for the tip, I didn't realise MS Money was still an option. Does it have any mobile apps, like YNAB or Moneydance, to keep the budget etc. updated on the go via Dropbox?
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-dr_andus (April 06, 2016, 09:08 AM)
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Sorry for belated response, I only saw your Q today (2016-06-03). Sorry, I don't know. It might do. I use the proggie, but am not interested in, nor aware of, the options you ask about. However, if you have a mandatory requirement for mobile apps or (say) Dropbox integration then I suspect that the answer would probably be "No". For example, I don't see any reference to those sorts of things on the features comparison chart at Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review
That doesn't necessarily mean that someone won't decide to write an app/add-on to the proggie to do those things though. There's a huge existing user base for MS Money, and they wouldn't want to migrate away from it to a costly system unless they had to (and they don't). There are already some people writing add-ons for it, I gather - e.g., feeds for tracking (asset) stock prices.
-IainB (June 02, 2016, 08:31 PM)
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