OK I am Officially Fed Up with Quicken - Moneydance anyone?

[ShokWaveRider]

I am so fed up of Quicken asking me to upgrade EVERY time I start it (after a day) regardless of me telling it to go away and not remind me ever again, it is such invasive marketing.

I do not and will not use a cloud based system, IMHO it is simply an unsafe place for MY personal financial data. I worked in IT for 40 years the last 10 involved cloud based systems and services. I could share so many stories about the cloud, but this is not the forum. So please do not comment on my decision not to use it, or turn this post into a cloud discussion. I turn off any cloud based utilities offered such a MS Cloud products etc. To me a 1tb high speed SSD does the job fine and fits in my safe. I would rather use an Abacus than the cloud.

OK 'nuff said about that. The reason for this post is the that only REAL alternative for for ME on a PC (Sorry no Macs) is Moneydance. Does anyone have any info or opinions on it? It seems to support OFX and QFX.

 

[Lawrencewendall]

There's another thread around here somewhere where others gave their opinion. I personally went with AceMoney as it imports quicken files and free upgrades for life. YMMV

 

[ShokWaveRider]

There's another thread around here somewhere where others gave their opinion. I personally went with AceMoney as it imports quicken files and free upgrades for life. YMMV

Thanks I will look into AceMoney. Does it also support QFX?

 

[braumeister]

There are quite a few of us here who have happily used Moneydance for years.

You should be able to Google it and find a number of threads where it's mentioned.

 

[tulak]

I’m a happy Moneydance user. It’s not perfect, but neither was Quicken or MS Money. Each of these programs have their quirks and once you figure them out, they work fine.

Keep in mind that right now, they have an issue where you can’t automatically update stock quotes. They were using Yahoo for their quotes and they disabled external access on November 1st. I’m sure they are working on a fix, but it’s been taking them a while and their communication hasn’t been the best.

You can still manually update the stock quotes. I ended up writing a python script to update my quotes. This is the feature that I like best about Moneydance. You have complete access to their APIs in python. I’ve written numerous scripts to generate custom reports, which saves me a lot of time when looking over my finances.

You can download it free, so there’s no cost, except your time, to give it a try. And as others have mentioned, there have been numerous threads regarding Moneydance on the forum.

 

[Senator]

I am so fed up of Quicken asking me to upgrade EVERY time I start it (after a day) regardless of me telling it to go away and not remind me ever again, it is such invasive marketing.

I do not and will not use a cloud based system, IMHO it is simply an unsafe place for MY personal financial data. I worked in IT for 40 years the last 10 involved cloud based systems and services. I could share so many stories about the cloud, but this is not the forum. So please do not comment on my decision not to use it, or turn this post into a cloud discussion. I turn off any cloud based utilities offered such a MS Cloud products etc. To me a 1tb high speed SSD does the job fine and fits in my safe. I would rather use an Abacus than the cloud.

OK 'nuff said about that. The reason for this post is the that only REAL alternative for for ME on a PC (Sorry no Macs) is Moneydance. Does anyone have any info or opinions on it? It seems to support OFX and QFX.

I do not think the new version is a cloud based version. Your data is still stored local. You may have the option of using the cloud, but do not have to.

 

[W2R]

I love just doing my own thing in Excel. (Well, actually in the Excel knockoff spreadsheet available in Open Office, because it is free). But I might feel differently if my portfolio or personal finances were not extremely simple.

 

[OldShooter]

I just migrated (like last week) and I am parallel running both systems. So far, so good.

My migration was 25 years of data, certainly several tens of thousands of transactions. There were some very quirky migration errors, which took many, many hours to manually correct. It's pure dog work as the error patterns are consistent and relatively easy to spot, but each one must be individually dealt with. The main problems were with inter-account transfers being recorded twice and with Visa bills having splits being recorded twice. Another problem involved duplication of transactions in account activity downloads. I have not yet found more than a handful of actual errors in transactions.

Cosmetically and feature-wise it falls short of Quicken. For example, my securities list includes every single thing I've bought in the 25 years and there is no way to "hide" the dear departed from showing up in every list box.

Functionally it seems to be doing the job and since I will not risk losing access to my data via subscription model, I'm committed.

 

[neihn]

I just migrated (like last week) and I am parallel running both systems. So far, so good.

... I'm committed.

Did you migrate to Money Dance? or Ace Money?

 

[OldShooter]

Did you migrate to Money Dance? or Ace Money?

Moneydance. Sorry to be unclear; I was focused on the OP's question.

 

[AndyS]

I love just doing my own thing in Excel. (Well, actually in the Excel knockoff spreadsheet available in Open Office, because it is free). But I might feel differently if my portfolio or personal finances were not extremely simple.

I do the same ... Excel from an outdated version of MS Office 2003 my sister gave me for free some years ago. Office 2003 is not even supported by microsoft anymore, but I don't care ... it does everything I need it to do and I didn't even have to pay for it. Call me "old-school"

Also, being early-retired, .... I have lots of time to sit around and play with my spreadsheets. (Sometimes, it's almost like w*rking. But not really. )

 

[neihn]

Moneydance. Sorry to be unclear; I was focused on the OP's question.

Thanks, I am doing the same now. Migrating from Quicken to Moneydance. I am using the trial version, so far so good, I am still figuring out how to download transaction from Vanguard, Fidelity, Amex, Chase, etc...

Wonder if the trial version would allow me to download the above.

 

[Jerry1]

I agree, I'm getting tired of being asked to update/upgrade every time I open Quicken. However, I'm going to keep saying no until it is forced like the last time. I'm on 2016 and don't want to update until I get a better understanding of what I'd be "agreeing" to. Unfortunately, it just seems to cumbersome to transfer to something else and other products do not get good reviews. I'm hopeful that will change, but for now, I guess I'm sticking with Quicken.

 

[HadEnuff]

I have been reading the various threads regarding leaving or not leaving Quicken. I've been running Quicken on a Mac for about as long as Quicken on a Mac has existed. Like many have expressed, every time I "upgrade", it's a huge PITA. Right now, every time I open it up, I am prompted to upgrade.

All I do with my Quicken is run a check register, and a couple of credit card registers. I don't track investments, nor do I have any payments of any kind automatically taken out of any bank accounts.
I do like the ability to track expenses, and I like to have access to my history.

So far, it all seems to work OK.

I would prefer to never upgrade, to just let it keep doing what it does for me. Is there any reason to expect there will come a day when Quicken will manage to somehow make it not work for me anymore?

 

[audreyh1]

I have stuck with Quicken 2007 on the Mac (when they initially "abandoned" the Mac platform) and don't get annoying update prompts.

I expect my version will eventually become unusable due to OS changes or other things, so I'm paying attention to alternatives.

 

[CDRE]

I'm getting the nag screen too. I'm a long time Quicken user that upgraded to the 2017 Version about a month ago. Depending upon the yearly price of the Quicken's subscription model that begins with the 2018 Version, I may not be a Quicken user in 2020 when Quicken disables my 2017 version from downloading account updates.

 

[JoeWras]

I drank the Kool Aid and took the Blue Pill. I don't know what you guys are talking about. I'm going to pony up to The Man and pay the upgrade bill when it is due. It may taste bad, but I want to spend my time in retirement doing other things, like sorting my containers of screws and nails.


Come to think about it, that's about as much fun as fixing transactions after a conversion.



Maybe I shouldn't have taken the blue pill after all... There's this thing called moneydance, eh? Hmm. Anyone have a red pill? I may need to check it out.

 

[OldShooter]

Thanks, I am doing the same now. Migrating from Quicken to Moneydance. I am using the trial version, so far so good, I am still figuring out how to download transaction from Vanguard, Fidelity, Amex, Chase, etc...

A couple of things I saw:

Transfers between accounts got entered twice. Two entries on the same date with exactly the same text except only one of them had the transfer account name. Keep that one and delete the other.

My split transactions on Visa payments got entered as a list of individual transactions. No real problem, just clutter. But the Visa payment amount also got entered. So you have to delete that one.

The way Moneydance handles downloaded transactions is kind of quirky when the account detail already has the transactions. I have not totally figured that one out, but as they say "be careful out there."

Wonder if the trial version would allow me to download the above.

All the documentation that I found talked only about bank account downloading but investment accounts are handled exactly the same way. I did download bank account transactions as part of my testing before I paid. The main test version prohibition is on manually entering more than 100 transactions. Downloading and importing did not count against that number for me.

 

[RonBoyd]

I just migrated (like last week) and I am parallel running both systems. So far, so good.

To Moneydance?

... and there is no way to "hide" the dear departed from showing up in every list box.

If you are referring to Moneydance, I am unsure what "list box" you are referring to but typical of the settings for everything would look like this:



Simply check or uncheck to "customize" the list.

For help with this product, Moneydance (Infinite Kind) has a Support Forum that is one of the best: Welcome - Infinite Kind Support.

 

[Amethyst]

I'd like to try Moneydance, but I'm fearful I'll just end up with the same issues Quicken had (I ended up returning Q for a refund and deleting all my files).

The different log-in requirements for different accounts - some requiring multiple security words, numbers, images - just flummoxed Quicken. Vanguard and T. Rowe Price loaded pretty reliably, but Q. couldn't even find my credit union or some other accounts, nor could it find all my credit cards. And if I'm going to have to manually input 75% of my transactions, what's the point of financial software?

 

[Montecfo]

For what it's worth, I tried Ace Money a couple of years ago. I found that with 20+ years of history, the sheer number of duplicate entries I needed to edit made the task more than I cared to bite off. So back to Quicken.

Having said that, if I was committed to change, I would just choose a starting point and let my quicken history remain as "archive". Most of it is not needed that often. That and I do not need to use my books to manage investment balances. Just a thought.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

For what it's worth, I tried Ace Money a couple of years ago. I found that with 20+ years of history, the sheer number of duplicate entries I needed to edit made the task more than I cared to bite off. So back to Quicken.

Having said that, if I was committed to change, I would just choose a starting point and let my quicken history remain as "archive". Most of it is not needed that often. That and I do not need to use my books to manage investment balances. Just a thought.

This is a good point. Maybe just start a new proggy January 1 and keep quicken as an archive. Hmmmm. Food for thought.

 

[tulak]

This is a good point. Maybe just start a new proggy January 1 and keep quicken as an archive. Hmmmm. Food for thought.

This is what I did. I did enter all purchase information for currently held investments. For regular transactions, who cares what I bought 10 years ago? And if I ever need that info, I can still load up my old copy of Quicken/MS Money and take a look.

It made migrating to Moneydance a lot easier.

 

[braumeister]

When I switched to Moneydance I knew that the import of old records would be a pain, so I skipped it entirely and simply started over fresh, exporting all my old Quicken data to spreadsheets.

In order to look up old information I just did a Find operation in the appropriate spreadsheet. A bit tricky on occasion, but not bad.

That was about six years ago. I still, on rare occasions, have a need to look something up in those old spreadsheets, but it's pretty trivial to do so. All my recent six years of information is in Moneydance and except for a few extremely minor annoyances I'm very happy with it.

I like the way Moneydance opens with every account on one page, along with assorted other information (very customizable). Just click an account to start working with it.

I admit I don't let it download anything because I would never give one bit of software the password for another, so I enter transactions manually. I don't mind that a bit; it's one of the advantage of being retired.

 

[OldShooter]

To Moneydance?



If you are referring to Moneydance, I am unsure what "list box" you are referring to but typical of the settings for everything would look like this:

View attachment 27236

Simply check or uncheck to "customize" the list.

For help with this product, Moneydance (Infinite Kind) has a Support Forum that is one of the best: Welcome - Infinite Kind Support.

Thanks. The specific list I was referring to is the stock list that comes up when I want to manually update a price. MoneyDance support has confirmed that there is no way to "hide" items on that list. I assume there will be other situations like this on other pages but I am not far enough into the exercise to have found them.

The best support suggestion was to rename the old items with something like an "x" prefix so it sorts to the bottom of the list.