Microsoft Money RIP

[DblDoc]

I know some posters here use this software. Apparently Microsoft will be abandoning it. Sales cease after June 2009, support after Jan 2011.

Microsoft to close the till on Microsoft Money | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

DD

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes. I got the pop-up notice this morning when I fired it up. I only use it to keep track of my portfolio, and not to do on-line banking or tracking expenses which my wife handles in her own way.

For portfolio tracking (I have 10 different accounts spread among 4 brokerages), it's superb and I hate to lose it. I don't know if the stock prices will still get updated via their server. That is all I need.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

For portfolio tracking (I have 10 different accounts spread among 4 brokerages), it's superb and I hate to lose it. I don't know if the stock prices will still get updated via their server. That is all I need.

From the article :

After that date, “the software will still work, but all the online services backing it up will be decommissioned — meaning no automatic flow of account, stock market, tax data, etc. So people can import that stuff by hand if they want to keep using the product.”

 

[rjsciurus]

2 years ago, after about the third cycle of Quicken's game of turning off your updates every three years to force you to buy a new version, I gave up and just updated my accounts by hand at the end of each month. I pay less attention to day-by-day movements in markets, and pay more attention to long-term changes in my finances. It's well worth the time spent.

 

[tryan]

I have over 15 years of data in MS Money ... never upgraded beyond 2005 thou. Been great at tax season.

Only thing that will kill me is if the bank stops downloading in MS Money format. No way I am entering this stuff by hand! Ceasing bank support is inevitable.

I wonder if Quicken has a download interface to MS Money?

 

[Coach]

I wonder if Quicken has a download interface to MS Money?

Apparently Quicken does have some conversion tools for Money users.

Coach

 

[ERD50]

Only thing that will kill me is if the bank stops downloading in MS Money format.

This is exactly why I try to stay away from proprietary formats for data.

I'd suggest everyone contact their financial institutions and encourage them to support an open format for financial downloads. Then anyone can use whichever program that best suits them.

A google gave me this as the first hit:

Open Financial Exchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Open Financial Exchange

List of software supporting OFX

* Accountz Personal (OFX file importing only) (for Mac OS X v10.4+, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux) [3]
* ACCPAC
* iBank [4] (for Mac OS X)
* iCompta [5] (for Mac OS X)
* GnuCash (since version 2.0)
* Microsoft Money
* Microsoft Office Accounting
* Moneydance
* KMyMoney
* Icarra [6]
* Apple iWork ’08, ’09 Numbers[7]
* Cha-Ching [8] (for Mac OS X)
* Aquamaniac Banking Interface [9]
* Squirrel [10] (for Mac OS X Leopard)
* Xero [11] (for PC, Mac and iPhone)
* SplashMoney [12] (for Windows, Mac, iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, WM)
* ClearCheckbook.com [13] (web-based application) Import Only
* Simple Home Budget [14] (import only)
* Fortora Fresh Finance
* Google Finance
* You Need A Budget (YNAB)

May be better alternatives, that was the first I saw.

-ERD50

 

[CoolChange]

I got fed up with both MS's and Quicken's forced upgrade cycle years ago and switched to Moneydance (Moneydance® 2008 - Personal Finance Manager for Mac, Windows, and Linux) after briefly trying a few other options in ERD50's list. Moneydance is cross platform (PC, Mac, Linux, etc.) and relatively cheap but not open source.

I do need to give GnuCash (Free Accounting Software | GnuCash) another look now since it now appears to support some direct transaction downloads (which was not the case a few years ago when I gave it a whirl).

Does anyone else have experience with other MS and Quicken alternatives? Specifically, I am interested in a free, open source, cross platform application which does support downloading transactions, balances, etc. from not only my banks but also my brokers.

 

[figner]

I've used gnucash (on linux) for a few years now and find it adequate. However, I prefer manually downloading the transactions from my accounts and then importing the transactions from the local files.

 

[dumadum]

This is exactly why I try to stay away from proprietary formats for data.

snip...
A google gave me this as the first hit:

Open Financial Exchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


May be better alternatives, that was the first I saw.

-ERD50

OFX is just a data exchange format & many of the banks use that when importing data to MS Money.

I think you meant the file format used by MS Money to store accounts,transactions etc on to your hard drive when talking about proprietary formats.