Quicken Home & Business Review

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Pros

• Numerous features
• Ample financial reports
• Personal and business accounting
• Good customer support
• Fair mobile apps

Cons

• Moderate learning curve
• Unsuited for large businesses

Overview

Since 1988, Quicken has been one of the biggest names in personal accounting software. Quicken Home & Business, however, does much more than personal accounting — it also provides almost all of the basics of regular accounting software so you can easily manage both your personal and business accounting in the same place. The software was run by the makers of QuickBooks until 2016 when it was acquired by H.I.G. Capital.

For years, Quicken has been a grade above the rest as far as personal accounting goes, but I was incredibly surprised to see how many business accounting features Quicken Home & Business includes. The software supports invoices, estimates, contact management, accounts payable, project management, and ample reports. Quicken Home & Business also has an impressive rental property manage feature set for managing properties and tenants.

Add good customer service and mobile apps to this locally-installed software, and Quicken Home & Business becomes a great solution for small business owners who want to take control of their personal and business accounting all at once. The main downsides are the lack of payroll and that the software is only compatible with Windows.

Read on to see if Quicken Home & Business is right for you.

Pricing

Rating: Good

While Quicken offers multiple personal accounting software packages, there is only that combines personal accounting and business accounting. Previously, customers could purchase licenses of the software, but the company has recently moved to a yearly subscription model. The company has also recently combined Quicken Home & Business and Quicken Rental Property Manager into one software.

There is no free trial of Quicken Home & Business; however, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. The software can be purchased directly from Quicken or through resellers like Amazon, Staples and Best Buy.

Here’s what Quicken Home & Business includes:

• $99/year
• Invoicing
• Estimates
• Contact management
• Tenant management
• Accounts payable
• Project management
• Manage rental properties
• Track income and expenses
• Track deductions
• Manage personal finances
• See personal spending trends
• Budgeting
• Track loans
• Track investments and retirement accounts
• Track home’s market value
• Reports
• Tax support
• Premium customer support

Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed

Quicken Home & Business is locally-installed. Unlike most locally-installed programs, Quicken Home & Business has mobile apps. There is also a new web application where you can access your account on the cloud through the Quicken website.

Hardware & Software Requirements

Rating: Good

Quicken Home & Business is only available for Windows. The software may be downloaded via disk or the internet depending on where you purchase. Here are the computer requirements for Quicken Home & Business:

• Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10
• 1 GHz processor or higher
• 1 GB of memory or higher
• 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1240 screen display

Internet may be required for setup and certain features. Mobile apps are available for iOS (9.0+) and Android (4.1+)

Specific Size Of Business

Quicken Home & Business is ideal for small business owners looking to manage their personal and business finances all in one. The software could be a good fit for freelancers, sole proprietors, and some small business owners who need to separate personal and business expenses. While the software may not have all of the accounting features you’d expect to find with traditional business accounting software, it covers all of the basics — and none of the competition even come close to offering the kind of personal accounting features you also receive with Quicken. The software is a great fit for individuals with rental properties.

The software is not ideal for small businesses with multiple users or that need payroll or time tracking.

Ease Of Use

Rating: Fair

Quicken Home & Business is well-organized and has a decent UI, but there is a semi-steep learning curve and the software can be difficult to navigate at times. When first learning the software, it can be hard to find features or know everything that the software is capable of. Luckily, Quicken has good customer service that can help you out as you get acquainted with the software.

Features

Rating: Excellent

Quicken Home & Business offers an incredible number of features for both personal accounting and business accounting. Here are some of the many features you’ll find:

• Dashboard: Quicken Home & Business has a dashboard with graphs and charts that show your spending trends, upcoming bills, an overview of your budget, your savings goals, and your personal property. On the left-hand side, you can see the balances for all of your banking accounts, business accounts, investments, property and debt, and savings goals.

• Business Center: In addition to a dashboard, Quicken Home & Business also has a Business Center that has detailed overviews of your profit & loss, cash flow, and business accounts. You can also set business reminders and analyze your business spending habits.

• Invoicing: Quicken Home & Business has one invoice template that you can customize with a logo. The software doesn’t have some of the automations you’d expect from accounting software, like recurring invoices or autoscheduling, but it does support customer credits, refunds, and finance charges. You can also add website links to your Yelp and PayPal accounts (this could be a good way of working around the lack of payment processing integrations). You can send invoices via email or snail mail and can add notes to customers within each invoice as well.

• Estimates: Quicken Home & Business lets you send estimates and easily convert them into invoices. You can also attach estimate to projects.
• Contact Management: Quicken Home & Business has a well-developed contact management section where you can record detailed information about your contacts, including contact information and personal information (like birthdays, spouse names, number of kids). You can also attach documents to your contact and create contact groups. Quicken Home & Business supports vendor management as well.
• Expense Tracking: You can manually enter income and expenses into Quicken or you can connect directly to your bank to download them. Transactions are not automatically downloaded, so you’ll need to refresh them each time you open the software. (While this is a bit of a hassle, you can schedule updates.) You can connect to both personal and business accounts or separate personal and business transactions if you use the same account for both. Quicken automatically categorizes your transactions and shows your personal and business spending trends. You can edit the categories as much as you like. You can also track projected transactions to see what your spending balance will be with any upcoming expenses deducted.

• Bank Reconciliation: You can easily reconcile your bank accounts in Quicken Home & Business.
• Account Payable: You can manage personal bills and vendor bills in Quicken Home & Business either by connecting to your online lenders or by manually entering bills. Quicken Home & Business also includes Quicken’s Bill Pay service where you can pay your bill directly online through the software.
• Items: Quicken Home & Business doesn’t have a section where you can view your items. However, when you add an item to an invoice, you can save that item so you don’t have to manually enter items every time you send an invoice.
• Project Management: You can create projects in Quicken Home & Business. You can add a description, custom project statuses, a start date, projected end date, and actual end date. You can attach customers and documents to projects and easily create estimates and invoices for your projects.
• Personal Property Management: You can add your assets, like cars, properties, etc., and their approximated value in Quicken. You can also add any debts, such as student loans or mortgages.
• Rental Property Management: You can also manage any rental properties you own in Quicken Home & Business. There’s a rent center where you can view all of your properties, your tenants, which properties are vacant, when rent is due, if a lease is ending soon, and more. There’s also a screen to view your rental profit and loss and your rental accounts. You also create rental reminders as well.

• Tenant Management: You can also manage your tenants and record their rental information, contact information, the lease’s terms and agreement’s, and details about their security deposit. You can also attach documents. This feature is particularly well-developed. You can even set grace periods for payments and late fees.

• Reports: Quicken offers nearly 50 reports to help you analyze your personal finances. Budgeting and spending reports are particularly insightful. The Home & Business edition adds an extra 13 business reports and four rental reports to Quicken’s already impressive report selection.
• Track Mileage: You can track your mileage directly within Quicken Home & Business, so you can take advantage of the small business mileage deduction.
• Budgeting: One of my favorite Quicken features is budgeting. You can create budgets by month, quarter, or year. When you connect to your banks for the first time, Quicken will automatically create a budget for you based on your spending, which you can adjust as needed.  You can also base new budgets off of existing transactions and spending trends. Quicken budgets can be as basic or as detailed as you want.

• Rent Receipts: You can easily create and send rent receipts in Quicken Home & Business.
• Tax Support: Quicken Home & Business offers a Schedule C report and Tax Schedule report. There’s also a tax center where you can view your estimated taxes, stay on top of important tax dates, and view your taxable income and tax-related expenses. There’s also a tax planner that helps you estimate your annual taxes.
• Sales Tax: You can create and save as many sales tax rates as needed.
• Importing/Exporting:  You can import data via .csv, .qif, or .qxf. You can export files and reports via .qif, .qfx, or to specific programs like Excel.

In addition to these features, you can set savings goals, track investments like 401ks and IRAs, print checks, use the debt reduction planner, and check your credit score in Quicken Home & Business. For more details about these features work, visit our Quicken review.

Customer Service & Support

Rating: Excellent

One much-need changed from Intuit was the customer service department. Intuit has never been known for strong customer support; luckily, under new management, Quicken now has good support with short wait times and quick responses. In my experience, representatives are generally kind and helpful, although it sometimes takes a while to get the answer you’re looking for. Quicken Home & Business users get premier customer support with their subscription, meaning you get bumped to the front of phone wait times.

Here are the support options and resources you can expect from Quicken Home & Business:

• Phone: With quick phone answering times, this was my go-to support method quick answers. If you have a particularly difficult or confusing problem, phone representatives will often do a screen share session with you until your issues are resolved.
• Live Chat: Quicken Home & Business has a live chat feature on their website that can be used for all sorts of question including how to use the software.
• Help Center: There is a developed help center with how-to articles to help you learn and use the software.
• Community Forum: There is a community forum where you can ask questions to fellow Quicken users and suggest new features.
• In-Software Help: Within the software, there are often help icons that teach you more about certain features. The in-software help search feature offers short how-to explanations for common questions. There’s also advice and guides on topics like getting out of debt or creating a budget.
• Small Business Guide: There’s a developed small business guide that covers how to start and run a business, the legal requirements of an employer, and tax savvy tips for business owners.

User Reviews

Rating: Good

Negative Reviews & Complaints

Quicken has been well-loved by many loyal users over the years; however, the recent acquisition and new subscription-based pricing model has significantly increased the number of negative customer reviews, although complaints about Quicken Home & Business specifically seem less common. Here’s what users have to say about the Quicken Home & Business specifically:

• Downgrade From Intuit: Several users believe Quicken has gone downhill since the acquisition. Many users find the software more buggy and some have had issues accessing past files after converting their data to the new version.
• Subscription-Based Pricing: For many, the appeal of Quicken was being able to buy a one-time license and renew that license only every few years. Many users dislike the new yearly subscription pricing model, especially since it’s less cost-effective than before.
• Bill Pay Broken: For several users, the bill pay feature won’t work correctly.
• Trouble Connecting To Bank Accounts: Some users report issues connecting to their bank accounts.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Despite the rise in negative complaints, Quicken is still loved by many and Quicken Home & Business receives decent ratings across the board. The number of positive reviews still outweighs the number of negative ones.

Quicken Home & Business receives 4.2/5 stars on Best Buy (based on 45 ratings) and 3.5/5 stars Software Advice (based on 80 ratings). Here are the points users like about the software:

• Improvement From Intuit: While some users miss Intuit, the same number praise Quicken’s new owners, saying the software is better than ever. Several also mention that the new version of the software resolved previous issues.
• Good Features: Users appreciate the features available with Quicken Home & Business. Many particularly love the ability to track rental properties.
• Easy To Use: Many users find the software easy to use.
• Gives Financial Control: Users love that Quicken gives them control over their personal and business finances.
• Makes Taxes Easier: Many appreciate that Quicken makes tax season easier and a few say that their CPAs like Quicken Home & Business.

Here’s what a few users are saying:

I have never felt so in control of my finances as when using Quicken…Highly recommended for anyone up to a small business owner who wants complete control of finances.

There is no other system more sophisticated or as easy to use! Makes year-end work with accountant a breeze!

I have used Quicken for over 28 years. It gets better every year. This tracks my business expenses and income as well as my personal bills.

Integrations

Rating: Fair

Quicken Home & Business has seven integrations and connects with thousands of online lenders and banking institutions so you can easily pull in your bills and transactions. While this selection is great for personal accounting software, the integration offerings are small compared to other accounting programs.

Security

Rating: Fair

Since Quicken Home & Business is locally-installed, security is predominantly up to you. Quicken does the first step for you by allowing you to password-protect backup files. There is also a password manager within the software. Read our post How To Keep Your Locally-Installed Accounting Software Secure to learn more ways to keep your information safe.

Some Quicken Home & Business features require internet and have built-in security features like 256-bit SSL encryption. Quicken has read-only access to your banking information and all data is stored in a monitored database with firewall protection.

Final Verdict

Quicken Home & Business has a lot going for it. Strong personal management features, like budgeting, spending trends, and savings goals, allow people to have a ton of control over their finances. In addition to the unbeatable personal accounting, the Home & Business edition adds basic accounting features like invoicing and contact management as well as more advanced features like accounts payable with online bill pay and project management (which even some full-fledged accounting programs don’t have).

In addition, Quicken Home & Business has impressive rental property management features and good customer support. Plus, this locally-installed software still offers mobile apps so you can manage your finances on the go. You simply can’t beat Quicken Home & Business if you want to manage your personal and business accounting side by side in the same program.

However, the steep learning curve and advanced features may be overkill for some business owners looking for simple finance management. And, while the software does offer most basic accounting features, there are some key missing elements — like time tracking and payroll — that make the software unsuited for large businesses. The software also doesn’t support multiple users, has limited integrations, limited accounting automations, and only works with Windows.

Businesses that need more developed business accounting should check out our comprehensive accounting reviews. But if you want personal, business, and rental management all in one, Quicken Home & Business is the way to go.