I'm done with Quicken! - What else?

[gauss]

I have been using Quicken 98 (for Windows) for quite some time now. I never need a password for anything, but I manually enter or import all results. It never updates itself on the Internet or anything like that.

For formal dual-entry accounting tasks I have also used GnuCash.

-gauss

[Hermit]

I just went through the Quicken password reset. Again. I have to do it at least once a month now. It isn't easy. I have to drive a few miles to get in text message range for my cell phone.

My investment data in Quicken is messed up and I think instead of trying to fix it, I will just start anew with Money Dance for checking and savings and use Vanguard for investment tracking because that will be where all my investments will be. I also use Quicken to track net worth, but I don't keep values up to date, so it is not accurate at all. Net worth is just an arbitrary number, so I think I will just drop tracking it. I plan to transfer all my 401k to a Vanguard IRA in the next year or so. That will allow me to do Qualified Charitable Distributions instead of RMDs when I turn 70. I will limp along with Quicken until I move everything to Vanguard, but it sure is a PIA.

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hermit I just went through the Quicken password reset. Again. I have to do it at least once a month now. It isn't easy. I have to drive a few miles to get in text message range for my cell phone. My investment data in Quicken is messed up and I think instead of trying to fix it, I will just start anew with Money Dance for checking and savings and use Vanguard for investment tracking because that will be where all my investments will be. I also use Quicken to track net worth, but I don't keep values up to date, so it is not accurate at all. Net worth is just an arbitrary number, so I think I will just drop tracking it. I plan to transfer all my 401k to a Vanguard IRA in the next year or so. That will allow me to do Qualified Charitable Distributions instead of RMDs when I turn 70. I will limp along with Quicken until I move everything to Vanguard, but it sure is a PIA.

I was in a similar boat several years ago with Quicken. But one day, during spending more time than I really wanted trying to figure out something out in Quicken (Quicken had the included manual..about 1/2 inch thick back then. Not sure of manuals still included in book) decided to abandon.

Now, though not as unified, I'm happy with a system (a spreadsheet here, a spreadsheet there, separate budget software, Vanguard summary) that tells me what I want instead of head scratching or too many options.

[wanaberetiree]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R A lot of us do not use a canned program like Quicken, but instead just use Excel or one of the Excel-like freebies, such as Open Office (which I use), or Libre office. We did a poll on that once, and IIRC spreadsheets were a popular option. I actually bought Quicken back in 2010 because so many forum members that I respect use it. I tried and tried to like it, and absolutely HATED it. So I uninstalled it, threw the disk in a drawer, and went back to Open Office. Personally I much prefer being able to do what I want to do, in the way I want to do it, and if you are like that then you might love a spreadsheet approach.

I've been thinking about this approach and wondering - are you able to automate data downloads from bank and brokerage accounts, e.g Wells Fargo and say Vanguard?

[cathy63]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanaberetiree I've been thinking about this approach and wondering - are you able to automate data downloads from bank and brokerage accounts, e.g Wells Fargo and say Vanguard?

For Wells Fargo, you can't automate the downloads unless you are going to rebuild the Quicken logic that logs in for you and parses the data it retrieves. However, you can do manual downloads and then import the files. Starting from WF's main account lists page:

1. click on an account name then scroll down to the Activity tab
2. click on the Download Account Activity link
3. enter the appropriate date range if your import tool does not handle duplicate entries
4. scroll down and select the radio button for Comma Delimited (ASCII, Spreadsheet) (the other choice is Quicken Web Connect)
5. click the Download button
6. scroll back up and select the next account in the drop down list and click the Download button for it; repeat until you've downloaded the transactions for each account you track

This gives you a csv file for each account, which you can import into a spreadsheet or database. Excel or Access can easily add the downloaded records to the end of an existing table. I assume all the freebie office tools like LibreOffice and Google Sheets can also do that.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanaberetiree I've been thinking about this approach and wondering - are you able to automate data downloads from bank and brokerage accounts, e.g Wells Fargo and say Vanguard?

You can, IIRC, but it makes no sense for me to do that because I only have five funds at Vanguard. I type them in by hand - - about 20 total keystrokes for the five share prices, which I don't feel is too onerous. Excel multiplies by the number of shares and adds them up for me. All in all, it takes maybe 20 seconds or less versus hours of aggravation battling with Quicken in the fruitless effort to get what I want out of it.

As for my bank account, I check it everyday anyway to record my spending. After doing so, I type in the balance, just one number. It's really not hard, although it would be if I had carpal tunnel, I suppose. I don't.

[bobandsherry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by conversationalphrase After resetting my newly required Intuit password half a dozen times and still not being able to get logged in I'm fed up and done with Quicken. I've used Quicken for 20+ years and it's only gotten worse.

Perhaps I see the problem. You mention you are setting up a new Intuit password, you actually set-up a new Quicken account and password. If you are trying to do with with Intuit that's the problem.

I just received upgrade for Quicken that required me to set-up my new Quicken account instead of Intuit. Set-up was easy, upgrade went find and I'm now logged into the latest Quicken version with my Quicken account. No problems encountered.

[Hermit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobandsherry Perhaps I see the problem. You mention you are setting up a new Intuit password, you actually set-up a new Quicken account and password. If you are trying to do with with Intuit that's the problem. I just received upgrade for Quicken that required me to set-up my new Quicken account instead of Intuit. Set-up was easy, upgrade went find and I'm now logged into the latest Quicken version with my Quicken account. No problems encountered.

My 2016 version still forces me to login to Intuit. I just went through this a couple of days ago.

[24601NoMore]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobandsherry Cost $99 with upgrades costing $39, not sure how often one needs to upgrade.

Not often (unlike Quicken). I'm still using FundManager 2014 and have not had any compelling reason/need to upgrade..

Worth every penny IMHO. There are things I can do in FM that I've wanted to for years in terms of managing my portfolio. Really a very well done piece of software. If I'm not mistaken I think they have a trial / 30 day eval version available..

[bobandsherry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hermit My 2016 version still forces me to login to Intuit. I just went through this a couple of days ago.

I'd suspect then you'll be getting the new upgrade soon. As I mentioned, mine just had upgrade listed today when I did an "update" of my transactions. It's now R14 (Home and Business).

[ncbill]

So, what's everyone's favorite for (reasonably) accurate automatic assigning of transactions to categories?

I'd like to like Mint...but it uses a different backend and so won't pickup a couple of my major accounts (Yodlee or anyone who uses them works fine, but I hate the new Yodlee Money)

[Lawrencewendall]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ncbill So, what's everyone's favorite for (reasonably) accurate automatic assigning of transactions to categories? I'd like to like Mint...but it uses a different backend and so won't pickup a couple of my major accounts (Yodlee or anyone who uses them works fine, but I hate the new Yodlee Money)

AceMoney imported all my categories from Quicken. It will download transactions from USAA and ALLY. The only one it will not download is PenFed. One shortfall is that it will not download all accounts simultaneously. You have to go into each account and say download. It does detect duplicates and you can hide reconciled transactions.

[gear2th]

I use Quicken 2000, but I make all entries manually, not downloading from the Internet. For one thing, this serves as a check. I do have a significant task to update investment accounts monthly, as I update their values manually.

[GalaxyBoy]

I got the dreaded upgrade today for Quicken 2017. It went well, generally.

It told me to re-register for investing.quicken.com in order to download quotes. OK, "np" I say. Clicking on the "register" button next to the prompt took me to the normal one-step-update screen. Only after going through this endless DO loop a half-dozen times did I notice a button at the bottom of the OSU screen to activate investing.quicken.com. It would have been nice if the first button had taken me to the correct place.

The other issue is that after signing into the iOS mobile app with my new quicken ID I was presented with two copies of the quicken data file. "The Google" took me to web pages that claimed that the only way to delete the second data file was to telephone tech support. No thanks; I'm sure they're swamped with this new upgrade.

Otherwise, all seems to have gone well (knock on wood).

[aja8888]

I use Quicken Deluxe 2006 and run it in compatibility mode on Win 10. All I use it for is keeping track of our Chase checking and CC accounts. We gave up on trying to track everything years ago. Investment account web sites do a good job of keeping track of what's there.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R You can, IIRC, but it makes no sense for me to do that because I only have five funds at Vanguard. I type them in by hand - - about 20 total keystrokes for the five share prices, which I don't feel is too onerous. Excel multiplies by the number of shares and adds them up for me. All in all, it takes maybe 20 seconds or less versus hours of aggravation battling with Quicken in the fruitless effort to get what I want out of it. As for my bank account, I check it everyday anyway to record my spending. After doing so, I type in the balance, just one number. It's really not hard, although it would be if I had carpal tunnel, I suppose. I don't.

Can't spreadsheets query mutual fund prices directly these days?

[zinger1457]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Can't spreadsheets query mutual fund prices directly these days?

You can with Excel using the WEBSERVICE formula and pulling the quotes from Yahoo finance but I believe you need Excel 2013 or later.

[googily]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Can't spreadsheets query mutual fund prices directly these days?

I use Google Sheets. Lives in the cloud so I can get it from multiple computers (and my phone), and also has a lot of functions that automatically pull current quotes.

(When the market is open, the current values are either for the stocks/ETFs themselves or the matching ETF for a mutual fund--then at the end of the day, the "final" numbers are the mutal fund numbers)

I only look at it 20 or 30 times a day. ;-)

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Can't spreadsheets query mutual fund prices directly these days?

Absolutely, yes they can as thought I implied in my post that you quoted. Or, at least Excel could do that years ago which was the last time I looked at that question. In my case seriously, to save 10-20 seconds/day of attention to my mutual fund share prices (which I value doing anyway), there is no reason to automate this and several good reasons not to.

[pb4uski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by googily I use Google Sheets. ...

Given your screen name, we would expect nothing less.