Quicken 97 Can Generate Faulty Data, Intuit Says

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Intuit Inc. said its Quicken 97 personal finance software for Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh has a bug that may cause customers to generate incorrect information about some financial transactions.

Quicken’s software for Apple’s Macintosh Version 6 fails to calculate capital gains or losses from companies that had two spinoffs in one year, such as AT&T; Corp., which spun off both Lucent Technologies Inc. and NCR Corp. in 1996.

This may lead users, who own shares of companies that had two spinoffs, to report erroneous data if they use that data to calculate their federal income taxes.

“If someone runs into this problem, we would, of course, give the customer a new version of the software,” said Quicken group product manager Roy Rosin.

The Quicken 98 software for Mac, introduced last month, doesn’t have the bug, Rosin said. The Microsoft Corp. Windows version of the software also doesn’t have the problem.

Mountain View-based Intuit, the top maker of personal finance and tax software, said it would post information on its Web site, www.intuit.com/support/quicken, today to inform Mac users about the bug. Customers can also call (520) 618-7101.

About 200,000 Mac users bought the Quicken 97 software, which was introduced in late 1996, Rosin said. Of those customers, the company estimates about 20% use the program for investments.

“It’s a pretty unusual situation,” Rosin said.

Mac users said the problem could be damaging. David L. Sobin used the 97 version this month to calculate capital gains for his AT&T; holdings.

“It looked like I had lost a lot, when in fact I hadn’t,” he said. “I could have easily missed this because I trust Quicken,” he said.

Sobin said that when he entered the AT&T; spinoffs into Quicken, the program failed to register the change in stock and miscalculated, displaying a paper loss on his investment.

Mac users account for 10% of its 10 million Quicken customers, Intuit’s Rosin said, and because of this the company has a smaller development team working on Mac software compared with those working on Windows programs.

The basic Quicken 98 software costs $39.95 for Mac and Windows, and the Quicken Deluxe 98 software retails for $59.95 for both versions. The bug appears to be in both the regular and deluxe Mac versions of Quicken 97, the company said.

Separately, Intuit shares rose $3.56 to $30.88 after the company said its loss for the first quarter ended Oct. 31 narrowed to 26 cents a share from 31 cents a year earlier.

Analysts said they were encouraged by the narrower loss.