Last Thursday, MacCentral first got confirmation from Intuit that the Quicken 2002 Deluxe for Mac was shipping, but today the company made it official. Today, Intuit announced Quicken 2002 Deluxe for Mac’s release.
Quicken 2002 Deluxe for Mac is the latest version of Intuit’s popular personal accounting system. It’s been built natively for Mac OS X, according to Intuit, and it sports new and improved features to help users keep track of personal checking and savings accounts, credit cards and stocks. (It also supports Mac OS 9.0.4 and later.)
The software now features a Capital Gains Estimator which enables you to see the tax impact of potential investment decisions, to help you to forecast your tax situation all year round. An improved Tax Category Setup feature also helps to make sure Quicken users properly account for taxes.
The new version has “Assistants” which help with the setup process, walking users through the establishment of financial accounts and the connection to banks and credit card companies. Assistants can also be used to configure recurring payment schedules and prompts to remind users to pay bills on time. Quicken Assistants also enable users to track investments by entering their securities list, the numbers of shares held, and the current value as listed on the brokerage statement.
Quicken 2002 also has a One-Step Update feature which is used to download bank, credit card, brokerage transactions and stock quotes from multiple accounts in one step. Quicken Mac product manager Adam Samuels explained in a statement that this feature is controlled by using the “PIN Vault,” a secure location in Quicken where PIN numbers for various accounts are stored.
A new Automatic Reconcile feature can be used to — as the name implies — automatically reconcile online bank balances and Quicken register balances, when they match. Discrepancies cause Quicken to notify the user.
Quicken 2002 Deluxe for Macintosh supports OFX, an industry standard for online banking and payment. TD Waterhouse and Fidelity Investments both support OFX, which enables Quicken users to download recent transactions from participating brokerages.
Quicken 2002 Deluxe for Macintosh should be available at retail stores this week — customers who pre-ordered the software directly from Intuit should be receiving it shortly, as well. The suggested retail price is US$59.95, less a $20 mail-in rebate for previous users.
You can get more information about Quicken 2002 Deluxe for Macintosh from the Intuit Web site.