"Hugs & kisses from the friendly Quicken upgrade folks"...

[Nords]

For those of you who don't use Quicken, that thread title is sarcasm.

But they use brilliant marketing.

I got a Quicken CD in the snail mail today... just like the good ol' AOL days. I have plenty of coasters so I was about to toss it when I noticed the word "upgrade". So I read the fine print inside the package.

"Dear Valued Quicken Customer,
As of 30 April 2008, online services & technical support for Quicken 2005 products will no longer be available. Discontinued services include:
- Downloading financial data
- Online bill pay
- Downloading stock quotes
- Uploading portfolio info to Quicken.com
- Accessing the investing features on Quicken.com."

$40 to upgrade to Quicken Deluxe 2008.

It's not the money, although I have a lot fewer tickers to keep track of than I used to. It's the retraining hassle.

Maybe I could use this opportunity to break 15 years of data (over 100,000 transactions) into smaller chunks. That might at least fix some corruption problems that I've been afraid to touch. But I'll also be a free [-]abuse[/-] beta tester for software that's probably not even in stores yet.

If any of you Quicken users decide to go with 2008, let me know how you like it.

 

[Marquette]

Wow, they must have hired some marketing people from the mob.

"Hey boss, you want I should break his stock updates?" "Nah, let's see if he wants to buy a little 'protection' first. Hey buddy, hows about you give us $40 or we might have take your online bill pay for a ride."

 

[Arc]

Microsoft Money does exactly the same thing. Since I use the BillPay service I pretty much have not choice. Not a lot of money so not really a big deal. I just wish the the investment asset allocation capabilities were more robust. Would love to see something like the Xray tool that TRowe Price has.

 

[wallygator69]

Wow, they must have hired some marketing people from the mob.

"Hey boss, you want I should break his stock updates?" "Nah, let's see if he wants to buy a little 'protection' first. Hey buddy, hows about you give us $40 or we might have take your online bill pay for a ride."

Twice in the last 15 years of using quicken I had a computer crash and had to reload everything or get a new computer.

BOTH times my quicken back up data was deemed corrupt by the "reloaded" software. Yes, the same disk/version that created the data.

I was running my business and all personal info and nearly had a heart attack. Long story short but a quicken tech support guy mentioned one time someone upgraded in a similar situation with success otherwise I needed to send my data and for $xx.. they might be able to save it for me (3 weeks or more..)

Both times I went and got the newest version of quicken in desperation and both times I was back running with all the data intact in no time.

I swear there is some kind of "time bomb" in Quicken..

W

 

[dex]

I stopped using Quicken - too much work for the information it provided.
I think tracking your expenses can be done with an Excel spread sheet.
All my expenses flow through my checking account and 4 credit cards.
Here is how it works
Discover Card - for Gas only up to 1,200 to get the full 5% rebate
1 Visa Card for all companies that will direct bill to a credit card
1 Mastercard - grocery shopping - 3% rebate
1 Capital One Visa - Good rebate program
What isn't captured with cc; is in my checking account.

But, I really don't worry about what I spend too much. Last year (and possibliy this year) I spent less than I budgeted without thinking about it.

 

[Coach]

Nords, I got the same CD and after fuming about and kicking a few chairs, I upgraded. I don't see any significant improvements, and it's not different enough to make getting used to it difficult.

Coach

 

[Nords]

I stopped using Quicken - too much work for the information it provided.
But, I really don't worry about what I spend too much. Last year (and possibliy this year) I spent less than I budgeted without thinking about it.

I'm feeling the same way. Quicken or Money are great to get you to your goal, especially for us [-]anal-retentive[/-] keenly focused people who like to track every expense, but now that we've arrived I think it's (furtive glance over shoulder) not so relevant to count every penny.

I could probably add columns to our personal property spreadsheet for "date purchased" and "price" and be done with historical data.

I'm happy to use Quicken to track rental-property expenses (as long as we have a rental property) or to update a portfolio but otherwise it's just another tool to balance credit cards & checkbooks. And in the last 15 years the other tools have gotten a lot better.

Nords, I got the same CD and after fuming about and kicking a few chairs, I upgraded. I don't see any significant improvements, and it's not different enough to make getting used to it difficult.

Yup, and thanks. I'm mostly worried about bugs making it a miserable experience. I'm going to follow your lead in April after I [-]hike my pants up to my armpits, check the thermostat, and yell at the kids on the front lawn[/-] finish our tax returns...

 

[SecondCor521]

Nords, try to wait for Quicken 2008.1, Quicken 2008 Service Pack 1, or whatever they call it. You'll save yourself a bunch of grief.

I'm happily running 2006.6 for over a year now. Nowhere near as many transactions as you, though.

2Cor521

 

[Walt34]

I feel like an antique - I'm still running Quicken 99. Every year I looked at the new "features" and decided that I didn't need them since all I use it for is balancing the checkbook, savings, deferred comp., etc. The question always was "what will the new version do, that I need, that the current one doesn't?" So far it's been nothing.

 

[Kwirk]

I'm happily running 2006.6 for over a year now. Nowhere near as many transactions as you, though.

2Cor521

About this time next year you can probably expect a notice from Quicken stating:

" "Dear Valued Quicken Customer,
As of 30 April 2009, online services & technical support for Quicken 2006 products will no longer be available. Discontinued services include:
- Downloading financial data
- Online bill pay
- Downloading stock quotes
- Uploading portfolio info to Quicken.com
- Accessing the investing features on Quicken.com."

I was using Quicken 2004 and was coerced into upgrading last year with the same pitch. I didn't install the 2007 CD until the 2004 version stopped working (and it did stop working for downloads). No problems with the upgrade.

I do find it irritating that there is no warning that your software has a 3 year expiration date but that does seem to be the model.

 

[Jeb-NY]

I had ther same loss of services on an earlier version of Quicken and they didn't send the warning. Never occurred to me till about a year later that they had shut off service, just thought I had a bug in my sedtup. I'm currently using 2006 and will probably update when i have to, even though I don't use a fraction of it's ability. Still cheap bookkeeping.

Jeb

 

[saluki9]

Nords, I have to do a fair amount of Quicken work for clients. I have every version going back to 1997 in the office.

2008 isn't too bad, I have not found any serious bugs yet.

 

[FinanceDude]

I bought Quicken 2007, and uninstalled it because it kept failing on the bank downloads, and after talking to numerous customer service folks in India, downloading a patch, etc, I gave up.......

 

[Nords]

Nords, I have to do a fair amount of Quicken work for clients. I have every version going back to 1997 in the office.
2008 isn't too bad, I have not found any serious bugs yet.

I bought Quicken 2007, and uninstalled it because it kept failing on the bank downloads, and after talking to numerous customer service folks in India, downloading a patch, etc, I gave up.......

Saluki, Intuit should be paying you to consult on their products or to browse your archives!

Thanks, guys, I don't download bank or CC data anymore either so it sounds like I can live with the "upgrade".

I don't want to keep entering security prices by hand. Or at least not until we own fewer different securities...

 

[DangerMouse]

I used Quicken for years, but got tired of the never ending problems with the program not doing what it should and Quicken wanting me to pay a fee for technical support for something that was obviously an issue with their program.

I no longer do anything too detailed to record performance. I have a 1 page spreadsheet where I record my net worth and I just update individual account balances rather than by individual investments. It has been strangely freeing to not worry from day to day as to what is going on.

 

[Nords]

Well, I finally finished the taxes and decided that it was safe to upgrade. The software converted over 130,000 transactions from nearly 16 years of data.

I skipped from 2005 to 2008. Quicken 2008 is more bloated, dumbed down, and has less display area. The software takes even longer to start up than 2005 and it still has that XP-crashing memory leak that keeps me from leaving Quicken running overnight. The icon bar insists on taking up a good half-inch of the display, whether or not you actually have any icons on it, and it can't be turned off. (Maybe they think you can't live without "forward" and "back" arrows. The "scheduled transactions" screen always pops up in an undersized window with excess columns and it's unable to fully display most of the columns until you maximize the window-- a two-step process that the user can't edit or modify in any way whatsoever. And with all the additional ads, buttons & and drop-down menus in 2008, I'm convinced that the [-]marketing[/-] programmer's long-term goal is to have its basic screen display only one transaction at a time-- surrounded by useless data, features, and advertising.

Maybe there are good (user-suggested?) features. It adds a new category called "Tags" for those of us who can't stand to classify our data "only" by categories and groups. It lets you attach images, files, or extra comments to transactions. I wouldn't have spent the money for these features.

I upgraded at gunpoint and the only other motive was because spouse likes the one-click data download that updates the value of our ER portfolio. Now that I know how to do that with an Excel spreadsheet, I wish I'd dug in my Luddite heels and refused to upgrade.

The good news is that our 15-year-old is thrilled with all the new features and spends hours configuring her display, building budgets, adding categories & reminders, tweaking settings, and generally cackling with glee at her net worth. So I guess Intuit has found their target demographic...

 

[Gotadimple]

I skipped from 2005 to 2008. Quicken 2008 is more bloated, dumbed down, and has less display area.

I upgraded at gunpoint ...

What Nords said. Next version will be something other than Quicken or Money. My only motiviation was the discount on the new version. Next time they come to me with the gun and the discount coupon, I'm moving on to something else.

--Rita

 

[TromboneAl]

In this situation you should definitely upgrade. The newest version will fix all the bugs you've experienced, be faster, and have a nicer interface. None of the good features of the software will be eliminated, and the new version will smaller and take up fewer system resources.

How's that for sarcasm?

 

[ladelfina]

I'm always amazed at how Quicken consistently seems to take one step forward and 2 steps back. I used to think the pain was only on the Mac side.

I only use Quicken because of the lack of full-featured alternatives. I do like the downloading of transactions.

With all the money they extort from people yearly, you'd think over the course of, what is it? more than TWENTY years now?.. they'd be able to provide a stable product that is a pleasure to use. If I were the CEO or product manager I would be sorely embarrassed. They are also very vague and shifty about WHICH features are really in the product and WHAT exactly the changes are from version to version.

Quickbooks, OTOH, was a decent little small-business accounting package over the years I used it.

 

[waltwill8]

I tried Quicken 2000 while waiting for the millenium. Hated it!
Went back to Managing Your Money ver.12 (FOR DOS!!!)
Still use it. Still love it. Minimal graphics. It's all text and numbers, like a financial program should be. I took me a couple of days to figure out how to have it run on XP (whew!). I'm all set until Bill Gates does me in.

Believe it or not, it's slower to load on XP than before.

 

[ladelfina]

Went back to Managing Your Money ver.12 (FOR DOS!!!)

walt..COOL! Yes, I long for the stripped-down, faster, essential approaches of many old Mac (and PC) programs. That's why I can never fully divest myself of old computers. Each one has a SINGLE app that's "obsolete" yet still functional and near and dear to my heart.

To paraphrase Dr. Johnson.. having a 80Mb hard disk and 4Mb of ram "concentrates the mind wonderfully."

 

[TromboneAl]

I have to say I've reached the point with Quicken that I am aware of most of the bugs in my version, and am able to live with them. I'm always amazed at how a major product can have such major bugs, but right now it's working for me. Doesn't mean I don't hate it.

A good example: every time I download data from my normal checking account, I know that it will match the interest (typically 11 cents), with some interest payment from years ago. Doesn't matter that the dates are wrong, and it's already cleared, Quicken still does it. I know to fix this each time it happens.

Another example: If I save a report, but not to a folder, it will not appear in the list.

 

[ladelfina]

T Al.. I feel your pain, but have not reached your zen transcendency.

The minor "bugs" you declaim, to me, are UTTERLY INEXCUSABLE in an accounting software. I don't care if it's eleven cents or one cent...!!! WHat the hell are computers for if not to compute things with accuracy?

Cue "the restaurant/dirty fork" sketch!
YouTube - Monty Python - Dirty Fork

"GASton!.. SACK the entire washing-up staff!"

"to me [$0.11] is like a mountain.. a VAST BOWL OF PUS!"

"the WOUND!"

"It's THE END!"


T Al, say nothing about the dirty knife.

 

[Walt34]

Went back to Managing Your Money ver.12 (FOR DOS!!!)

And here I thought I was the only one. I didn't go back quite that far, but still using Quicken 99, and only bought that for the Y2K upgrade.

 

[Nords]

I'm always amazed at how Quicken consistently seems to take one step forward and 2 steps back. I used to think the pain was only on the Mac side.
I only use Quicken because of the lack of full-featured alternatives. I do like the downloading of transactions.
With all the money they extort from people yearly, you'd think over the course of, what is it? more than TWENTY years now?.. they'd be able to provide a stable product that is a pleasure to use. If I were the CEO or product manager I would be sorely embarrassed. They are also very vague and shifty about WHICH features are really in the product and WHAT exactly the changes are from version to version.

To be fair, you could replace the word Quicken with the words "Windows XP", "Microsoft Excel", "flight avionics", or "fire control system" with much the same result... but that doesn't make it right. Just a symptom of the software process in general.