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General Meeting Report
by Eric Saca - January 23, 2002 at 23:58:16:
In January, we had an amusing yet informative presentation by Matt McCan of the McKatz Brothers. Matt presented the new Quicken 2002.President Alan Pearlman opened the meeting. Several announcements were made.
Cathy Grammer-Margolin mentioned that everyone should ensure that NOCCC has their current e-mail address, to receive meeting reminders, the latest Bytes password and other information through e-mail. With that, Alan asked how many people would like to receive the Bytes in electronic form only in the future. He said that the idea was being considered to cut costs. The biggest cost in producing the Bytes is not the postage but the printing. If members could download it every month instead of receiving a printed copy, it would save the club considerable money.
Cathy and George mentioned the importance of keeping your virus software current. They warned that viruses are now being embedded in websites. Such viruses can be downloaded and activated without warning just by opening a website.
Alan then introduced Matt McCan.
Matt started off by briefly demonstrating a useful on-line database system found at www.quickbase.com. It's like having a Microsoft Access database that you can use anywhere in the world. With this website, you can build complete databases, specifying fields and views, entering data and printing reports. Then because that information is on the Internet, you can access it anywhere and share it with anyone. Soon the website will also allow you to download the data to a palmtop.
Matt and his partner Richard Katz use the website to share information for their business, McKatz Brothers Marketing. They both travel different parts of the country, presenting and selling software. Yet they easily maintain and share company data through www.quickbase.com. Matt demonstrated the website using part of their company database, containing a list of user group demonstrations. They maintained complete information on all their demonstrations, including date, time, location, user group and whether or not the demonstration was completed.
A member asked how much it costs to use the website. Matt said that prices start at $15 a month, depending on the features you use.
Next it was time to demonstrate Quicken 2002. Matt started off getting some statistics from the audience. He asked how many people used the various versions of Quicken,from 2002 to the beginning. A few were using 2002. Most were using 2001 and 2000. Some were using older versions. Matt also asked how many were using Microsoft Money. A few dared raise their hands. Then Matt asked how many were not tracking their finances on a computer at all. A few raised their hands. He asked how many of them were thinking about maybe doing it. The same people raised their hands. He said that hopefully his demonstration would get them interested in it.
Matt noted that he was demonstrating Quicken 2002 Deluxe because it included all the standard features plus a few more. As there was so much to the product and he could spend hours demonstrating it, Matt said that he would concentrate on providing an overview of Quicken 2002, highlighting its new features since 2001. He also noted that there is a Home & Business version. In 2002, they added mileage tracking to that version.
Matt began the demonstration in the My Finances section. He went to the Setup tab. In this tab, it was easy to create banking, investment, property and loan accounts for tracking personal finances. Matt demonstrated how easy it was to create a new checking account. He noted that you could set alarms in accounts, to notify you when they go below certain minimums.
Next, Matt demonstrated the automatic categorizing feature. Quicken will automatically categorize all your transactions as you enter them, based on historical data. If the categorization is not appropriate, you can easily change it. Transaction categorizing is necessary to keep your finances organized, print meaningful reports and determine which transactions apply to your taxes.
Matt showed us how easy it was to create and delete categories. When entire categories are deleted, Quicken makes it easy to reassign all their transactions to other categories.
Quicken can reconcile accounts automatically when you download transactions from a bank. As you enter transactions, it will also memorize them so that future transactions are quicker and easier to enter. For instance, it memorizes the payee and category so that when you create more transactions for the same payee, the information automatically appears in those transactions, saving data entry time.
All these features show the ease with which transactions can be entered in Quicken 2002.
Next, Matt took us into the Quicken Investing Center. In this section, you keep track of investment accounts and transactions. It allows you to group information by several fields, such as account name or transaction type. You can create and save different views of your data. Quicken also makes it easy to graph your investment portfolio.
Matt went into the Property and Loan section, demonstrating the new feature to download sales prices of nearby homes in your neighborhood. This is necessary to determine the possible sale price of your own home.
He went into the Tax Center and showed how Quicken lists all the important new tax law changes. It also provides dates when each law goes into effect. Quicken 2002 data can be exported to Intuit's Turbotax for ease in completing taxes.
Matt next showed us the Reports & Graphs section, which allows you to report on your spending habits by any criteria required. It can also help you quickly list the times you paid a particular creditor. Matt noted that this is probably the most important section for anyone because it is where you generate meaningful financial information from your transactions. The reports and graphs you generate can be used to help make important financial decisions.
Matt finally presented Quicken's Year-End Copy feature. It allows one of three operations to be performed on financial data at the end of a fiscal year. With the Archive feature, you can copy all data from the old year to another file but still retain it in the working file. With the Start New Year feature, you can copy all data from the old year to another file, then delete it from the working file. Finally, if you use neither feature, you will simply start the new fiscal year by retaining the old year's data in the working file.
A member asked if Matt has any tips on backing up financial data. Matt said that after you back it up, the most important next step is to take the backup tape or CD to another location. That way, if a fire or other disaster destroys your computer, the backup will still be intact at another location.
As he wrapped up his presentation, Matt mentioned that two copies of the Quicken 2002 Home & Business Suite were being given away in the raffle. He also presented us with special user group pricing for all versions of Quicken 2002.
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