Any Quicken 2013 users?

[braumeister]

I only have two complaints about Moneydance and I think one of them is because I've been too lazy to figure it out.

The first one is that I always forecasted account balance in my primary checking account to make sure there's enough money in the account. With Moneydance, it seems to take into account the reminders, but not future dated entries already in the account. This is the one that I think I might be doing something wrong.

Maybe I can help with this one.
On the home page, look at the header over your bank accounts (the one that says "Bank Accounts". Just to the right of that is a changeable item that can be Current Balance (as of right now), Balance (as of the most future entry), or Cleared Balance (self-explanatory). The default, I believe, is Current Balance, but if you change it to Balance, you will see what you're looking for. I may have misinterpreted the question, but this might help.

The other one is the portfolio reports. In Quicken (and MS Money before that), I was able to display my portfolio based on the investment, not account.

I have to agree with you on this one. A number of people (including me) have asked for exactly this feature, but the developers haven't implemented it yet. I maintain my own external spreadsheet to handle this issue.

 

[tulak]

Maybe I can help with this one.
On the home page, look at the header over your bank accounts (the one that says "Bank Accounts". Just to the right of that is a changeable item that can be Current Balance (as of right now), Balance (as of the most future entry), or Cleared Balance (self-explanatory). The default, I believe, is Current Balance, but if you change it to Balance, you will see what you're looking for. I may have misinterpreted the question, but this might help.

Nope, that's not it. This just shows the balance after taking into account future transactions that are already entered. What I'm looking for is something that tells me the future balance of the account after taking into account future transactions and reminders for that account.

I downloaded an extension, Balance Predictor, which I thought would do the trick, but it seems to only take into consideration the reminders using the current balance. It ignores future transactions entered into the account.

Just searched and found the following post regarding Balance Predictor. It references another forecasting extension, which I'm about to try out*.

balance predictor major flaw ... / Suggestions / Discussion Area - The Infinite Kind Support

* Well, I need to think this over. I'm not sure I feel comfortable installing an unsigned 3rd party plugin that can access all my financial data. It's probably safe, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk.

 

[braumeister]

Thanks! That Forecaster extension seems to work beautifully.

And relax, the "unsigned" part just means it wasn't developed by the Moneydance team, but neither were most of the other extensions available for it. And it doesn't collect or send any information anywhere (the Little Snitch software on my Mac assures me of that).

 

[Masquernom]

I've been using Quicken for years. The only special function I use is downloading stock and mutual fund quotes. Of course, this is the function that Quicken uses to force you to buy the upgrade every few years.

I assume Moneydance can track stocks and mutual funds as easily as Quicken. Do I understand correctly that Moneydance doesn't have a similar update cycle as Quicken? I can buy Moneydance once use it for years?

I'd kind of hate to do the transition, but I'm really annoyed by Quickens update cycle. Is it possible to automatically transfer stock and mutual fund records from Quicken to Moneydance? I have years of monthly purchases for a number of accounts. It would take me a long time to type all that into another software.

 

[braumeister]

I assume Moneydance can track stocks and mutual funds as easily as Quicken.

Yes.

Do I understand correctly that Moneydance doesn't have a similar update cycle as Quicken? I can buy Moneydance once use it for years?

Since Moneydance is newer than Quicken, it has gone through a lot of development and addition of new features in the last several years. You will probably want to buy an upgrade license from time to time, but you don't have to (the price download function will still work).

Is it possible to automatically transfer stock and mutual fund records from Quicken to Moneydance? I have years of monthly purchases for a number of accounts. It would take me a long time to type all that into another software.

Yes, but there will always be some cleanup work required when importing records from one program to another. And apart from the comfort factor, do you really need all those old transactions? For me, the answer was yes and no, so I simply archived everything (so I can look up the historical record when I want to) and started out fresh by entering everything in Moneydance.

 

[Masquernom]

I think you're probably right. I can probably just load my current stock and mutual fund shares as totals and start tracking performance from scratch. I'll have to think about that one a bit to make sure I'm not losing something.

I think you have a great suggestion of downloading the Quicken records to Excel for historical purposes.

I just installed Quicken 13, but I may go ahead and make the switch soon anyway. I really, really hate being forced by Quicken to update....

 

[JoeWras]

Anyone trying GnuCash? Did a search on this web site and there isn't much recent talk. Everyone I know who has tried it hasn't been real happy.

What kills me is that Audacity -- another open source program discuss on many of the LP recording threads here -- is a thing of beauty. I wonder why GnuCash hasn't gotten the same traction.

 

[DeborahB]

I bit the bullet and bought Quicken 2013. ALL I do with it is download stock quotes, but I have 40+ stocks and it's too much to do manually. I started with MS Money but they stopped making it. I liked it better (for what I do). I downloaded the transactions but they screwed up royally (possibly due to the accounts having been imported initially) so I went back to hand-entering transactions. I don't keep my checkbook in it or track expenses in any way.

Haven't tried Moneydance since 2010 when I was looking for a replacement for MS Money. I'm sure it has improved and if Quicken 2013 irritates me enough I'll do it. I got it for $45 so it wasn't outrageous - it's $55 on Amazon but they offered me a $10 off deal if I got some card with them. Sure... will I ever use it again, no.

So - this was just last week. Thanks to all for answering my questions. What would I do without this group?!!!!

 

[braumeister]

I bit the bullet and bought Quicken 2013. ALL I do with it is download stock quotes, but I have 40+ stocks and it's too much to do manually.

Just a thought. If all you want to do is download stock quotes, you can easily do that in your own spreadsheet using the free OpenOffice.org Calc.

 

[Felix Mulier]

Just a thought. If all you want to do is download stock quotes, you can easily do that in your own spreadsheet using the free OpenOffice.org Calc.

You can also do it in Excel.

 

[Ozstache]

I use Quicken 2004, freely available from Quicken's website as a data migration version that just happens to be fully functional

 

[grasshopper]

You can also do it in Excel.

google financial spreadsheets.

 

[tulak]

Thanks! That Forecaster extension seems to work beautifully.

And relax, the "unsigned" part just means it wasn't developed by the Moneydance team, but neither were most of the other extensions available for it. And it doesn't collect or send any information anywhere (the Little Snitch software on my Mac assures me of that).

I tend to be overly paranoid with 3rd party software, just because you never know. But since you were kind enough to try it first, I'll give it a shot later today.

google financial spreadsheets.

+1

I've moved a lot of my spreadsheets to google finance. I still need to get my main finance (rebalancing) spreadsheet moved over. One thing I really appreciate is the built-in ability to get quotes. Excel had this ages ago - through a plugin - but now they force you to import the data from the web, which IMO, is a lame substitute.