A few years ago, Intuit promised an innovative new Quicken interface, then disappointed us. This year, however, the company came through with Quicken Premier 2007. The new home page is better than anything Microsoft has done with Money, and it's Intuit's best effort yet. Add features such as the built-in ability to scan documents, an improved calendar, a better setup and update process, and dozens of smaller enhancements, and you've got a powerhouse upgrade that everyone should spring for. It's not just the best personal-finance product this year, it's the best ever.

If you've already created usernames and passwords on your financial institutions' sites, interfacing with Quicken will only take a few minutes. The payoff for using online tools to manage accounts is big: Quicken's new home page offers just the right information. Ac-count balances appear on the left, with a current cash-flow tally in the middle. Additional windows let you set up or view scheduled bills and the bill-pay calendar (which now displays a running daily cash flow) and see critical graphs. This view is customizable, but I wouldn't touch it: It's simple, clean, and tells you what you need to know at a glance.

The home page also houses the controls for One Step Update, which grabs new activity from all your online accounts, using one password. Downloaded transactions move into the familiar Quicken register, and you can enter new transactions either from the register or the Online Center.

I could do without the ads (for Quicken services) peppered throughout the program (though there are far fewer than there used to be), but that's about my only complaint, other than occasional interface confusion caused by a full-featured program with multiple navigational options. I love the new capability that lets you scan documents such as invoices and receipts and attach them to individual transactions, and I'm glad to see support for more than 4,500 financial institutions.

Every program area—cash flow, investing, property and debt, tax, planning, and reports—has its own "center" that lays out the tasks you perform there and the tools available to complete them. Quicken continues to excel in all of these areas, although I do prefer Money's planning tool, which is more streamlined. Reports—critical to your understanding of where you've been and are going—are exceptionally comprehensive and customizable, and you can edit them from within.

You won't go wrong using either Quicken or Microsoft Money 2007 Premium for your personal-finance management; they both do a stellar job of tracking your accounts, budget, tax and investments, and financial planning. This year, though, Quicken has the edge. Its new home page pulls together the critical information related to your finances better than any product, past or present, and the ability to attach documents to transactions is something I'd have expected Microsoft to do first, frankly.

Quicken has also streamlined setup and account updates this year and added support for thousands more financial institutions. While Microsoft Money remains a formidable competitor, there's no question that Quicken Premier 2007, with its dozens of improvements stacked on top of an already capable personal-finance manager, takes top honors this year.