Money 2000 Deluxe Offers a Quick and Complete Solution for Organizing Personal Finances
REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 1, 1999 — Software that helps you create a budget, file your taxes, track your investments and reduce your debt — it sounds like the perfect solution for anyone striving to get their personal finances in order. Yet while thousands of users purchase software to help them manage their money, two out of three households end up letting it gather dust on the shelf.
Most financial software is too complicated to set up and too time-consuming to manage, according to Christine Winkel, product manager for Microsoft Money 2000.
“Software that’s easy to set up is essential to overcoming that first hurdle of getting started,”
Winkel said.
“And ongoing management should be equally seamless.”
To address this issue, Microsoft this week announced the release of Money 2000 Deluxe, the newest version of the company’s financial management software. Money 2000 Deluxe includes new features designed to make the product easier to set up and use. It also comes with a comprehensive set of tools to enable consumers to quickly manage their day-to-day finances and achieve both their short- and long-term financial goals.
“By making Money 2000 easy to use and integrating it with our MoneyCentral online service, we’ve eliminated virtually all the reasons for putting off this essential chore,”
Winkel said.
“In fact, with our new program, users will find it easy to stay on top of their day-to-day finances as well as manage investments and create a long-term plan.”
Money 2000 Deluxe includes a new
“Money Setup Assistant”
that walks users through the basic steps required to set up accounts, pay their bills and track their investments, Winkel said. The software also includes a
“Step-By-Step Navigation”
feature that provides users with clear directions and easy access to the financial activities they use most often.
In addition, Money 2000 Deluxe comes with a comprehensive set of features to help users manage all aspects of their personal finances, Winkel said. For example, Money 2000 Deluxe helps users track and analyze their investments by offering close integration with MSN MoneyCentral, Microsoft’s popular Web site that provides consumers with a broad range of financial information and tools. As a result, users will be able to receive expert financial advice and find information on more than 17,000 stocks. The software also includes a
“Customizable Investment Portfolio”
and
“Portfolio Review”
that enable users to set up and analyze their personal investments. Users can synchronize investment information between Money 2000 Deluxe and their MoneyCentral Investment Portfolio to automatically update investment activities in both locations.
To help consumers plan their financial future, Money 2000 Deluxe includes a
“Financial Event Modeler”
that evaluates the effect of different scenarios — such as retiring early or cashing in on stocks — on their overall financial plan. To assist users with taxes, the software includes a new Tax Center that simplifies the process of tracking, managing and filing taxes. And to help consumers manage their budgets, the software offers a new
“Money Web Express”
feature that provides access to information such as account balances, bills due and budget reminders on MoneyCentral.
“Improvements to Money address top feature requests from consumers and help users keep pace with new financial trends, including the use of the Internet to manage and track investments and bank online,”
Winkel said.
“We’ve developed Money 2000 to help them manage their personal finances easily and efficiently at any time, from a computer connected to the Internet.”
Noting that Sept. 3 is National Procrastination Day, Winkel said Microsoft is issuing a challenge to consumers to stop procrastinating and start organizing their finances now.
“What better way to go into a new century than with your finances organized and your long-term goals clearly in sight?”
she said.
