The program, to be sure, is superb. And in many ways it makes the home personal computer as productive as the PC you use at work. The trouble with the Quicken cult is that users spend too much time tracking those nickels–and not enough time on more important concerns, like drafting wills. Many users are so dazzled by what it can do that they ignore what it can’t. Quicken should be just one part of a broader plan. By allowing users to think they have control over their finances, it gives cover to those too lazy–or too full of denial–to take more basic financial steps. It’s fine to ask Quicken to make you more productive. But compulsively entering each day’s expenditures into a computer won’t protect your family from financial turmoil.
To be fair, Intuit doesn’t claim Quicken will meet my every financial need. The software does offer a smorgasboard of options that intoxicate control freaks: cash management, tax records, projections on how much to save for college. But Quicken just isn’t preachy enough. The opening template should demand sworn answers to three questions before users are permitted to obsess on their budgets like Elmer’s glue: Have you drawn up a will to protect the assets you’re so eager to record? Do you have disability and life insurance so you won’t ever burden your family? Have you written a letter explaining how you want the loose ends of your financial life tied up–all the stuff you’d frantically arrange if you were terminally ill?
On all three counts, the oak drawer and floppy disc beat Quicken. The drawer holds copies of our wills, insurance policies, and other documents. The computer file is a letter listing assets, debts and suggestions on how to apply the former to the latter. The letter also explains in detail where everything we value–from bank accounts to pictures of our kids–can be found.
Updating the letter takes one hour a year. We print a copy for the drawer and mail another to the attorney who wrote our wills. If my wife and I both die, the lawyer has a road map to help our small children–and make sure nothing important gets lost in the shuffle. Here are two more questions for Quicken users: Does anybody other than you know what’s stored in there? Don’t you think somebody should?
Nobody recognizes Quicken’s shortcomings better than Intuit. It’s easy to customize the software to handle greater responsibilities, though many users confess they don’t bother. Quicken does offer some limited, long-range advice, from the practical (give someone else a list of your possesions) to the strange (“Include your shrubs in your inventory”). Intuit hopes to develop software with far better tools for financial planning. Suna Kneisley, a Quicken product manager, says that effort stems in part from an uncomfortable discovery: too many women realize too late that they know little about their family’s finances. But even the best new program won’t spare any of us from our real responsibilities. Until Intuit comes up with a software feature that lets you take it all with you, better do the basics first and enjoy Quicken after that.
