Quicken 98 6-in-1

Peter Kitson

ISBN : 0789713535

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Quicken at a Glance

At its simplest level, Quicken is a personal accounting system that will help you to track your income and expenses. Quicken does this by helping you take note of every sum of money that flows into or out of your checking, savings or other accounts. These transactions are recorded in an account which, just like the register used in any manual accounting system, is cross-referenced according to certain income and expense categories. By assigning every transaction to a particular category, Quicken can generate graphs and reports that total your sources of income and show you how that income was distributed.

This type of functionality is the genesis of Quicken. It is where the program began--essentially as a checkbook balancing product--and that same method of operation remains central to the Quicken software of today. However, as you probably already know, there is a lot more to this product than the juggling of a checkbook or two. The Quicken package is a powerful collection of extended capabilities, useful utilities, online reference and particularly refined interface. While the register system can track any number of checking, savings, liability, asset and investment accounts, this is only a small part of the Quicken product.

With Quicken 98 for Windows, you will be able to easily perform each of the following tasks.

Manage Your Accounts

Quicken\'s accounts are the most-used part of the program. You will use accounts to record your income and expenses. You can also transfer funds between accounts, and set up accounts to track your credit cards, assets, or investment account balances. Each entry placed into an account is known as a transaction. You will use your accounts by accessing them through a register. Figure 1.1 shows a typical Quicken register.

Almost every transaction you make is assigned to a particular category. The standard Quicken categories record and subtotal the amount spent on utilities, automobiles, educational fees, household maintenance, and the like. Categories can also record tax-related income and expenses, simplifying the preparation of your tax return.

This book will help you learn how to use registers and categories to record a large variety of general and specialized financial transactions. Part 1 deals with the general details while Parts 3, 4 and 5 turn to more specialized matters such as taxes, online services, investments and managing a small business.