Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual

by Bonnie Biafore

Overview

Quicken is one of the many convenient ways to keep track of personal finances, but many people are unaware of Quicken's power and end up using only the basic features. And sometimes Quicken seems to raise more questions than it answers: Return of capital from stock? "Net worth"? What are they and why do you need to know about them? Luckily, Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual picks up where Quicken's help resources leave off.

You'll find step-by-step instructions for using Quicken on your Windows PC, including useful features such as budgeting, recording investment transactions, and archiving Quicken data files. You also learn why and when to use specific features, and which ones would be most useful in a given situation. Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual helps you:

• Set up Quicken to take care of your specific needs
• Follow your money from the moment you earn it
• Make deposits, pay for expenses, track the things you own and how much you owe
• Take care of financial tasks online, and quickly reconcile your accounts
• Create and use budgets and track your investments
• Generate reports to prepare your tax returns and evaluate your financial fitness

And a lot more. This book is designed to accommodate readers at every technical level. If you're a first-time Quicken user, special boxes with the title "Up To Speed" provide the introductory information you need to understand the topic at hand. For advanced users, there are similar boxes called "Power Users' Clinic" that offer more technical tips, tricks, and shortcuts for the experienced Quicken fan.

For a topic as important as your personal finances, why trust anything else?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596515157
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/15/2007
Series:	Missing Manual Series
Pages:	446
Sales rank:	896,367
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.19(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Bonnie Biafore has always been a zealous planner, whether setting up software demos, cooking gourmet meals, or scheduling a vacation to test the waters of spontaneity. Ironically, fate, not planning, turned this obsession into a career as a project manager. When she isn't managing projects for clients, Bonnie writes about project management, small business accounting, personal finance, investing, and technology. She's also branching out into other "dry" topics with articles for the Wine Enthusiast. As an engineer, she's fascinated by how things work and how to make things work better. She has a knack for mincing dry subjects like accounting and project management into easy to understand morsels and then spices them to perfection with her warped sense of humor.



Bonnie is the award-wining author of more than a dozen books including Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual, QuickBooks 2009: The Missing Manual, Project 2007: The Missing Manual, the Better Investing Stock Selection Handbook (which won an APEX Award of Distinction), Online Investing Hacks, and On Time! On Track! On Target!. She also writes regularly about financial topics for Better Investing bankrate.com and interest.com. When unshackled from her computer, she hikes in the mountains, cycles, rehabilitates horses, cooks gourmet food, and, most importantly, tries saying no to additional work assignments.

Table of Contents

Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual; The Missing Credits; About the Author; About the Creative Team; Acknowledgements; The Missing Manual Series; Introduction; Managing Personal Finance with Quicken; What's New in Quicken 2008; About This Book; About the Outline; The Very Basics; About MissingManuals.com; Part I: Getting Started; Chapter 1: Setting Up Quicken; 1.1 Launching Quicken; 1.2 Setting Up Your Data File; 1.3 Using Express Setup; 1.4 Opening a Quicken File; Chapter 2: Taking Quicken for a Test Drive; 2.1 Recording Payments and Deposits; 2.2 Reviewing Your Finances; Chapter 3: Setting Up Accounts; 3.1 How Accounts and Categories Work Together; 3.2 Choosing Which Account Type to Use; 3.3 Creating Bank Accounts; 3.4 Editing Account Information; 3.5 Closing Accounts; Chapter 4: Categories and Tags: Tracking Transactions; 4.1 Understanding Categories and Tags; 4.2 Adding New Categories; 4.3 Editing Categories; 4.4 Removing Categories; 4.5 Organizing Categories; 4.6 Setting Up Tags; Part II: Getting Down to Business; Chapter 5: Recording Banking Transactions; 5.1 Transaction Basics; 5.2 Recording Checks; 5.3 Recording Deposits; 5.4 Recording Credit Card Charges; 5.5 Recording Cash Transactions; 5.6 Editing Transaction Fields; 5.7 Reminders, Notes, and Attachments; 5.8 Tagging Transactions; Chapter 6: Quicken and the Web: Online Banking; 6.1 What Quicken Can Do Online; 6.2 Connecting Quicken to the Internet; 6.3 Setting Up an Account for Online Services; 6.4 Downloading Transactions; 6.5 Updating All Accounts: One Step Update; 6.6 Renaming Payees; 6.7 Paying Bills Online; 6.8 Setting Up Online Transfers; Chapter 7: Transaction Timesavers; 7.1 Transferring Money Between Accounts; 7.2 Voiding Transactions; 7.3 Splitting Transactions; 7.4 Searching for Transactions; 7.5 The Transaction Edit Menu; 7.6 Scheduling Transactions; 7.7 Automatically Recording Paycheck Deposits; 7.8 Recategorizing Transactions; 7.9 Managing Memorized Payees; Chapter 8: Reconciling: Making Sure Quicken and Your Bank Agree; 8.1 Prep Time: Reviewing Your Account; 8.2 First Steps: Telling Quicken What to Compare; 8.3 Reconciliation: The Actual Review; 8.4 Modifying Transactions During Reconciliation; 8.5 Stopping and Restarting a Reconciliation; 8.6 When Your Records Don't Agree with Your Bank's; 8.7 Reconciling Automatically; Part III: Tuning Your Financial Engine; Chapter 9: Tracking Property and Debt; 9.1 Property and Debt: An Introduction; 9.2 Setting up Asset and Liability Accounts; 9.3 Making a Loan Payment; 9.4 Editing a Loan; 9.5 Refinancing a Loan; 9.6 Changing the Value of an Asset; 9.7 Acquiring and Disposing of Assets; Chapter 10: Monitoring Spending and Saving; 10.1 Creating a Budget in Quicken; 10.2 Filling In Budget Values; 10.3 Making a Budget Current; 10.4 Saving or Restoring a Budget; 10.5 Choosing Budget Categories; 10.6 Comparing Your Performance to Your Budget; 10.7 Using a Savings Plan; 10.8 Watching Cash Flow; Chapter 11: Investments and Planning; 11.1 Quicken Investment Tracking: Details or Overview?; 11.2 Choosing the Right Type of Account; 11.3 Creating an Investment Account; 11.4 Setting Up and Tracking Securities; 11.5 Recording Investment Transactions; 11.6 Downloading Investment Transactions; 11.7 Adjusting an Investment Account Balance; 11.8 Evaluating Your Portfolio; 11.9 A Tour of Quicken's Planning Tools; Chapter 12: Creating Reports and Graphs; 12.1 A Guide to Quicken's Reports; 12.2 Running Reports; 12.3 Printing Reports and Graphs; 12.4 Customizing Reports; 12.5 Saving and Reusing Reports; Part IV: Quicken Power Tools; Chapter 13: Backing Up and Protecting Your Quicken Data; 13.1 Backing Up and Restoring Data Files; 13.2 Password Protection; 13.3 Archiving and Compacting a File; 13.4 Quicken File Maintenance; Chapter 14: Customizing Quicken; 14.1 Setting Preferences; 14.2 Customizing What You See; Chapter 15: Exporting and Importing; 15.1 Exporting Quicken Data; 15.2 Importing Data into Quicken; Part V: Appendixes; Keyboard Shortcuts; Task Shortcuts; Working with Transactions; Dates; Moving Around in Quicken Windows; Quicken Help; Help for the Task at Hand; Working with Quicken Help; Quicken Product and Customer Support; The Quicken Forums; Installing Quicken; Installing Quicken; Upgrading Quicken; Registering Quicken; Colophon;