This book is a must have whether you are new to Quicken or already a Quicken owner. The extra tips and new sidebars are worth reading. Quicken has so many features, you need a guide to truly get the most out of your software. Whould you know that Quicken Dexlue and Premiere come with a Household organizer and Emergency forms without the book? You don't have to read cover to cover, you can reference the sections covering the differing financial centers. I bought last year's edition and when upgrading for 2005, this was a must read. If you have Quicken or are considering purchasing, this book should be read. Maria covers all features in an easy to read format, and the screen shots are very helpful. The Dummies editions for Quicken can't compare.

As an "official" guide, you would think that this was a definitive source of information to help with the many esoteric challenges that Quicken presents. As powerful and mature as Quicken is, it still suffers from an enormous number of quirks, particularly as it relates to on-line connectivity with banks and brokerages. This books simply does not proceed past the basic operation of each function and does nothing to help you fix or mitigate problems with share balances or, for that matter, how to really move to paperless financial management. You either need to endure Quicken's minor irritations, find another source of information, spend money to talk with someone at Quicken, or tinker endlessly. I was looking for some in-depth help and insight. It's simply not here.

The first time you start using Quicken you first come away with a sense of awe that these people have thought of so many things it would really be nice to know. Then when you see how they have integrated all these things into a software package that makes it easy to keep all of your record integrated together with all the nice extra features you literally wonder how you got by before. Third, when its time to start preparing stuff for the evil tax collector along about April 12th (presuming you're an early bird) it's all there. The computer hasn't forgotten where those missing receipts are. And when combined with the tax preparation software it automatically fills out all of your forms. And if you are using this for a business, it'd deductible.

This book is not only the official gude to Quicken, it's the #1 best-selling Quicken guide. That just could be because it's been around through six editions and had time to get feedback from its millions of users to polish off any rough edges and make it as smooth as silk.

With this new edition, the new features that have been implemented for 2005 are discussed along with the basic introduction that continues to be refined each year.

Like good wine, each year it simply gets better.