Product Description

The standard bearer for personal financial management software, Quicken 99 does it all. Quicken is the program millions of home and small-business users depend on for balancing their checkbooks, creating invoices, working out budgets, tracking investments, or evaluating mortgage loans and insurance policies. Users of the latest version get the added bonus of direct connection to Quicken.com, one of the most respected personal finance sites on the Web.

To guide them through this wealth of services, Quicken 99 users need Quicken 99 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. Covering all four software versions-basic, deluxe, home and business, and suite-with clear instructions and plenty of illustrations, this book enables readers to quickly make sense of their present finances, plan for the future, and even face tax time more easily.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3450644 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From the Back Cover
To guide them through this wealth of services, Quicken 99 users need Quicken 99 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. Covering all four software versions - basic, deluxe, home and business, and suite - with clear instructions and plenty of illustrations, this book enables readers to quickly make sense of their present finances, plan for the future, and even face tax time more easily.

About the Author
Tom Negrino writes books and is a contributing editor for Macworld magazine. He's been working with the Macintosh since the innocent, halcyon days of 1984. Shortly thereafter, he began his writing career with MacGuide magazine , joining the Macworld ranks in 1987. His work has also appeared in Digital Video magazine, where he was a contributing editor and monthly columnist. Tom is a frequent speaker at Macworld Expo, Thunder Lizard's conferences, and other computer trade shows, and is a freelance computer consultant. He has served on the board of the Los Angeles Macintosh Group since 1985, recently ending his tenure as the group's president.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Money pervades our lives, simultaneously desired and disdained. Most of us can't get along without it and would love to have more of it. Yet despite its importance, many of us don't do an especially good job of managing the money that we do have. How often have you heard people say things like I don't know where all my money goes? Many people live from paycheck to paycheck, just floating along with no financial plan for the future and hardly any control over their financial present. In the meantime, they're building up consumer debt and digging themselves a hole that will take a long time to get out of.

Sound familiar? It certainly does to me; I was one of those people for many years. I finally got fed up with feeling that my finances were out of my control, so one December evening

I bought a copy of Quicken Deluxe and promised myself that I would start using it when the new year began. I kept that promise, and melodramatic as it sounds, it changed my life. I used Quicken to take stock of my finances and identify where I was handling my money poorly. Then I came up with a plan to pay off my debts and start saving for the future. Today I'm happy to say that I no longer wonder what my financial picture is, because Quicken gives me all the information that I need.If you want to get better control over your finances, this book is for you. I'll show you how to use Quicken to help you get out of debt, manage your present finances, and invest for the future. Just the facts, Ma'amPersonally, I don't have a lot of patience with computer books that are so big they'll cause injury if you accidentally drop them on your foot. I'd rather open a book, find out how to do a task, and toss the book back on the shelf without wading through endless blather and more details than I ever wanted to know.In this book, I've organized different financial tasks into chapters, and within each chapter are step-by-step directions that tell you exactly how to accomplish various tasks.On occasion, you'll see these icons: They point out the differences between the four versions of the Quicken package: Quicken Basic 99, Quicken Deluxe 99, Quicken Home & Business 99, and Quicken Suite 99. Whenever you see the icons, it means that the feature under discussion is only for that version.My Assumptions About You

In writing this book, I've made the following assumptions about you. First, you own one of the versions of Quicken 99 and a Windows PC that's powerful enough to run the program. That's not a difficult requirement, as Quicken 99 will run on machines using a 486 processor at 66 MHz (though a Pentium-class machine is recommended), with at least 12 MB of RAM, running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.

I've also made the assumption that you're familiar with the basics of Windows. You don't need to be a Windows guru, although concepts such as selecting text, clicking and dragging, and using files and folders shouldn't stump you. If you need to brush up on the essentials, allow me to suggest that you pick up a copy of Windows 98: Visual QuickStart Guide by Steve Sagman, also published by Peachpit Press.

Last, I've made the assumption that if you have bought this book, you're a person of uncommon discernment, style, and grace. If you're just leafing through these pages in a bookstore, I'm trusting you not to let me down.What's Not in This Book

Because I wanted to write a book that was genuinely useful, rather than one that slavishly touched every base and documented every Quicken feature, I had to decide what I didn't want to put in the book. So I looked through Quicken for features that were little used or that weren't that great. The first feature to get the heave-ho was Budgeting. Making budgets is one of those things that everyone says they want to do, but hardly anyone really does. This isn't just my opinion; I've seen surveys of real Quicken users that bear me out. My apologies to you if you are one of the few, the proud, who really do budgets. A close relative to Budgeting is Forecasting, which also did not make the cut.While I've included three chapters on investments, those chapters are intended for the relatively light-duty investor. If you have a modest stock portfolio, some mutual funds, and some other savings plans, the investment chapters should work just fine for you. But it you're constantly churning your portfolio, buying and selling options, and otherwise seriously playing the markets, you may find my investment chapters a bit thin. If that's the case, you'll find more detailed help in the Quicken User Guide and on Intuit's Web site, Quicken.com (http://www.quicken.com).I've also skipped over some of Quicken's less interesting features, such as the Progress Bars (they work with Budgeting; check out the online help if you really need to know more about them) and the Quicken Home Inventory program-the latter is one of the few outright flops in the otherwise excellent Quicken package.Let's Get Started

A popular bit of philosophy states that the journey is the reward. I'm afraid my pragmatic side says that when it comes to money, the reward is the reward. In this case, using Quicken can mean smarter control over your finances, and in turn a better and richer life for yourself and for your family. That's a journey well worth taking. Thanks for joining me.

Tom Negrino

Customer Reviews

The online help is more helpful!!
Pages and pages of pictures, but not much else. I learn more from the interactive online help that comes with Quicken. Buy a book that has more detail on how to use Quicken, or enjoy the excellent online help that Quicken comes with.

Packed with all the right stuff
I heard about this book by Tom Negrino on the "Into Tomorrow" radio show. It really seems packed with all the right stuff for Quicken users.