Are you looking for financial and budgeting software -especially one that will help you manage your business and investments? If so, you need to check out Quicken.

It offers the budgeting, account aggregating, bill payment, and expense management capabilities of typical budgeting software, but also provides tools to help you track and manage your investments, including rental real estate. And if you run your own business, Quicken offers invoice preparation and emailing.

Quicken is one of the oldest personal finance software packages. The service was launched back in the 1980s, though it has gone through a change of ownership since.

Interested? If so, read on to see if Quicken will be the right financial software for you.

Pricing.

Quicken has several versions:

Quicken offers four different plans, ranging from their Starter plan for basic financial aggregation, budgeting and middle management, to their Home & Business plan for business owners and real estate investors. You can choose whichever plan best matches your own financial profile.

Each plan has an annual fee that comes with a 30-day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied. The refund also extends to 30 days after automatic renewal of your membership each year..

Quicken Starter: $35.99/year

This plan is Quicken’s most basic. It enables you to aggregate all your financial accounts on the platform, and then to create a budget and manage your bills.

The plan comes with the following features:

Manage your money across desktop, web and mobile versions.
See all your bank and credit card accounts on the platform.
Create a budget to track your cash flow and spending.
Automatically organize your expenses.
Export your data into Excel.
Take advantage of free official phone support from Quicken.
Bill tracking (but not Bill Pay).

Quicken Deluxe: $46.79/year

Quicken Deluxe will help you to better manage your finances and improve your ability to save money. It offers everything in the Starter plan, but also enables you to manage and track your debt, as well as to set savings goals.

The Deluxe plan also has the following additional feature:

The ability to track loans, investments, and retirement accounts from the Quicken platform.

Quicken Premier: $70.19/year

Quicken Premier specializes in helping you to better manage your investments. It offers all the capabilities of the Deluxe plan, but adds the following features:

The ability to evaluate your investments using the Morningstar Portfolio X-ray tool.
Evaluating buy-and-hold options using improved portfolio analysis.
Compare your own investment returns with those of related market averages.
Track the cost basis of your investments, and even create Schedule D for tax reports.
The ability to make better investment buying and selling decisions using market comparisons.
Bill Pay (along with Bill Tracking).

Quicken Home & Business: $93.59/year

Quicken Home & Business gives you all the features of Quicken Premier but has an emphasis on better management of your personal and business finances. In fact, it even gives you the ability to separate and categorize your business and personal expenses. It’s designed to be the financial management plan for you if you have your own business, own and manage rental properties, or both.

It offers the following additional features:

Gives your business the ability to create and email custom invoices with payment links.
Simplify tracking of your business tax deductions, as well as the ability to regularly track your business profit and loss.
Run Schedule C and Schedule E reports to simplify tax preparation.
Manage lease terms, rental rates, and security deposits on the platform.
Rent tracking — both those that have been paid and those that are still outstanding.
The ability to save rental documents on the platform.

Features & Benefits.

If you have no experience with Quicken, many of the features of Quicken 2021 will be novel to you but have been around for quite some time.

Some popular features from previous versions:

Transaction and expense management is the hallmark of Quicken, with the ability to track transactions on the go.

Quicken Premium Support is a standard feature of Quicken Premier and Home & Business, but you can add it to the Standard and Deluxe plans for $49.99. It will give you unlimited priority access to Quicken customer care phone support for one year. However, standard customer support, including phone and live chat, are available on all plans.

Quicken Data Access Guarantee will give you access to — and ownership of — your data, whether or not you renew your subscription.

One subscription can be used on multiple devices — you can install Quicken on as many devices as you have.

Bills management lets you see, track, as well as pay your bills within Quicken.
A free credit score is included under Reports > Credit Score, you get a free updated score every three months. (there are now many free tools that offer a free credit score)

A powerful mobile app is now included, with investment tracking, offline usage, and charting tools.

Quicken World Mastercard is a credit card available specifically for Quicken members. You’ll also earn 2X points on payment of recurring bills, groceries, dining out, and other categories — all with no limits. You can even choose your own rewards. The card also comes with cell phone protection insurance, as long as the monthly phone bills are paid using the card.

What’s new for 2021 (just a small sampling):

Receive regular updates automatically with the latest product enhancements.

Faster investment management capability with Quicken for Windows — up to three times faster. Quicken for Mac is up to twice as fast.

Quicken has included more than 500 customer requested improvements and fixes.

Quicken now offers connections with more than 14,500 financial institutions and 11,000 online billers.

Monitor investments with up-to-the-minute portfolio values. You can also monitor multiple brokerage accounts.

Quicken for Windows now offers long-term capital gains showing scheduled transactions for the Premier and Home & Business plans.

5 GB of secure online backup with Dropbox.

Drawbacks.

Virtually no finance or budgeting software will be an ideal fit for all consumers, and that includes Quicken. Limitations you need to be aware of include:

Limited functionality on tablets and mobile devices. Since the program is designed for desktop and laptop computers, only a limited version is available for mobile devices and tablets.

The Starter and Deluxe plans may not be worth having if you want Premium Support. Adding premium support to either plan will increase the cost by $49.99. You can avoid this by subscribing to the Premier or Home & Business plans, where the higher support level is a standard feature.

In today’s complicated, fast-paced world — where all things financial seem to be in a constant state of flux — having some sort of personal finance and budgeting software in place is close to a necessity. Quicken should be on your short list of candidates for the job. That’s especially true if you have a small business or you operate as a freelancer, and need certain business services, like invoicing.

Quicken Review 2021: Features & Pricing.