Fed Up of Quicken, Moving to Moneydance 2021 in the New Year.

ShokWaveRider

ShokWaveRider

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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I have made the executive decision to archive our historical financial info using my current version of Quicken 2019 that runs out in May June timeframe.

I Will setup all new MoneyDance database for 2021. I may try to port some accounts from quicken into MoneyDance, but will not go overboard if QIF or QFX exporting/importing involves too much cleanup.

It is not as if we do not have time in these Covid Days, before we get our Vaccinations. Seems like good make work project and learning exercise. I have downloaded the new version so the commitment has been made.
 
Let me know how it goes. I use Quicken to manage our finances and it does a lot for us. Virtually every financial account we have is updated automatically but I review/approve transactions before they are posted. There are less than a handful that are not automatically updated and those have negligible activity. I also use Quicken for cash management/forecasting.

While the ~$50/year that I pay is aggravating after getting it for less before for so many years (~$70 every 3 years as I recall), the benefits and time saved are worth it to me.
 
I'm curious also. I have used quicken for decades, but do not use it for investment tracking or budgeting, and I download transactions from only one account. So I think I rate as a light user.

if I did switch, I certainly would not try to put Mom my historical data into money counts, as I tried that with Ace Money and it seems like it's kind of a fool's errand.
 
Saving $30-35 /yr wouldn't be worth time spent setting up a new and abandoned package. I wish you the best with your experience.
 
I dumped Quicken over 10 years ago. I posted the reasons in another thread earlier today. Basically, it was buggy and I got tired of constantly searching for workarounds while waiting for fixes. But also, my process had changed over the years and Quicken was just not as relevant as it had been.

I now use Fidelity Full View, which is a free account aggregator available to Fidelity customers. We only have two small, non-Fidelity accounts. So I feel OK providing those credentials to Fidelity. I'm less comfortable providing my Fidelity credentials to aggregators like Personal Capital. Personal Capital (PC) was really helpful on the investing side when I first retired. But it was sorely lacking on cashflow and budgeting functionality.

Anyway, Full View meets all my current needs. It's fully automated. All I do is correct a few spending category assignments every month. And if I'm really inspired, I'll split a few transactions here and there. The investment analytics are not as sophisticated as PC, but Fidelity has other tools for that when I get the itch to tinker.

But the cashflow and budgeting functionality seem to be on-par with Quicken circa 2010 and a lot less buggy. But in all honesty, I only really use it to accumulate transactions and balances. I export monthly summary data into Excel where I do all long-term tracking and analysis.

I'm sure Quicken has improved over the years. And I'm sure it has some functionality that Full View doesn't. But I earned a good living using Excel to help make sense of numbers. I'm very comfortable with it. I really just need a tool to accumulate the data and organize it for me. I get very frustrated trying to squeeze my analytical needs out of a black box that somebody else built.
 
I archived my old stuff and started fresh with Moneydance at the beginning of 2012. I've been very happy with it for the past nine years.

There is no doubt that it seems a little quirky at first, but once you learn all its little eccentricities, I find I can do everything I need with it.
 
braumeister said:
I archived my old stuff and started fresh with Moneydance at the beginning of 2012. I've been very happy with it for the past nine years.
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What is the Moneydance model, do you still get software updates, do you have to pay to continue to get updates?
 
They have a new version every few years. I've updated mine in 2014, 17, and 20. $25 each time, so not a big deal. But you don't have to update it if you don't want to.
 
braumeister said:
They have a new version every few years. I've updated mine in 2014, 17, and 20. $25 each time, so not a big deal. But you don't have to update it if you don't want to.
Click to expand...
I'm still using the 2014 version. It is still supported through their product forum. If there are updated or new features that will be useful, then it's worth upgrading.

The limitation on upgrading is that the half-price cost applies when upgrading from an older version to the new version. Otherwise, there is no charge for upgrading every time they have a new version available. It is stable and does a good job as a checkbook/budget manager. I don't use it for investment tracking - but others do.

- Rita
 
I moved to Moneydance in 2012 from Quicken. Primarily because I moved to a Mac and Quicken wasn’t fully supported on a Mac.

No regrets. It does have its quirks, but I found that to be true with all these programs. I started mostly from scratch. I entered cost basis for some of my investments, but that was about it.
 
I'm sticking with Quicken for awhile, but still looking for other options. I think that given the decrease in the amount of data we actually enter into quicken, we will probably move to a spreadsheet at some point.

FWIW, I was just working on the budget for 2021 and the report for the budget versus actual for 2020 (used for my starting point), did not balance. What a joke. Being anal and a CPA, I check stuff like that. I wonder how many do not.

And, one of my pet peeves with the reports - who the hell puts the total on top of a report and in each of the sub categories? Not accountants, that's for sure. Sub totals and final totals are at the bottom of each category. Oh well. So far it's still better than the trouble it would take for me to program it myself using a spreadsheet.
 
Jerry1 said:
I'm sticking with Quicken for awhile, but still looking for other options. I think that given the decrease in the amount of data we actually enter into quicken, we will probably move to a spreadsheet at some point.

FWIW, I was just working on the budget for 2021 and the report for the budget versus actual for 2020 (used for my starting point), did not balance. What a joke. Being anal and a CPA, I check stuff like that. I wonder how many do not.

And, one of my pet peeves with the reports - who the hell puts the total on top of a report and in each of the sub categories? Not accountants, that's for sure. Sub totals and final totals are at the bottom of each category. Oh well. So far it's still better than the trouble it would take for me to program it myself using a spreadsheet.
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Yes. Always found that totalling thing puzzling. Also a CPA. Perhaps product is not "aimed" at us?
 
For those folks that moved from Quicken to Money Dance:

What kind of "quirks" did you encounter?

Anything you miss but make due without?

And what is better with Money Dance?
 
Montecfo said:
For those folks that moved from Quicken to Money Dance:

What kind of "quirks" did you encounter?

Anything you miss but make due without?

And what is better with Money Dance?
Click to expand...

Why not just download it and try it out for yourself?

We offer a free trial of Moneydance, which is fully functional but limited to entering up to 100 manually entered transactions. We also have a 90 day money back guarantee if you're not happy with Moneydance for any reason.
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I am having a little trouble figuring out the online banking part for downloading transactions. Not sure if I can automatically setup an account by downloading the info from the bank, or whether I have to create the account first. Still casually working on it. It would be nice for the experts to help us beginners out with some tips to make our lives easier.

For Example: Does one need to create each account manually before downloading transactions? I seem to remember Quicken getting the info from the respective bank.
 
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ShokWaveRider said:
I am having a little trouble figuring out the online banking part for downloading transaction. Not sure if I can automatically setup an account by downloading the info from the bank, or whether I have to create the account first. Still casually working on it. It would be nice for the experts to help us beginners out with some tips to make our lives easier.
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There is a knowledge base full of FAQs.
https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/kb

There is also an active user forum where you can ask anything.
https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions
 
braumeister said:
There is a knowledge base full of FAQs.
https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/kb

There is also an active user forum where you can ask anything.
https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions
Click to expand...

I have just been searching the web for info just ask google and it comes back from their knowledgebase. But it would still be nice to get tips.

Another one is importing calendar data from Outlook. Cannot find any info on that yet, plenty from Google Calendar, but we do not use that. I am sure one can transfer outlook to google then do it. But I do not like my calendar data on Google so they can sell it. Then bombard me with ads.
 
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Reached the point where I won't pay the subscription to Quicken anymore. Have 2017 running on parallels. Built Excel sheets to do what I need, actually refer to them much more than Quicken anymore.

Big reason I did this is residing outside the US as of now. The Quicken disc is back in the US. Wanted something I could put on wife's computer as a back-up if the Mac crapped out on me. Excel and Office are on all our computers, Quicken only this one.
 
ShokWaveRider said:
I have just been searching the web for info just ask google and it comes back from their knowledgebase. But it would still be nice to get tips.

Another one is importing calendar data from Outlook. Cannot find any info on that yet, plenty from Google Calendar, but we do not use that. I am sure one can transfer outlook to google then do it. But I do not like my calendar data on Google so they can sell it. Then bombard me with ads.
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You know you really will get an answer from either staff or an experienced user if you post a question to the discussion group at Infinatekind.

The knowledge base probably contains the background info you are looking for in regards to downloading transactions from your bank.

The calender issue: is that to set up reminders to pay? You may not be able to transfer that in. But ask the question on the community board - you will get an answer. Moneydance is far better supported than Quicken ever was as respects providing info and responding to questions/issues.

- Rita
 
ShokWaveRider said:
I have made the executive decision to archive our historical financial info using my current version of Quicken 2019 that runs out in May June timeframe.

I Will setup all new MoneyDance database for 2021. I may try to port some accounts from quicken into MoneyDance, but will not go overboard if QIF or QFX exporting/importing involves too much cleanup.

It is not as if we do not have time in these Covid Days, before we get our Vaccinations. Seems like good make work project and learning exercise. I have downloaded the new version so the commitment has been made.
Click to expand...

Good idea. While Quicken 2017 still works for my purposes and I have a workaround to deal with the loss of downloading price quotes, In January I will test importing my data into MoneyDance to evaluate it.
 
OP Here. Slowly dealing with MD quirks. I Actually have a Canadian Bank account fully updated from 2003, exported from quicken. Took a while because of repetitions (My fault) but no real issues. AND it actually supports the Canadian Export QFX where quicken did not. All Items had to be updated manually in quicken. So that is 1 for Moneydance. Backups were challenging as the filename changes with every import, appends the backup data, you have to rename the backup file in order for it to maintain the original Filename. (eg. Name Finance File)

Note: Importing from QFX from Banks works great. But Exporting from Quicken as QFX does not. I guess quicken is making life difficult for competitors. Of course QIF works well.
 
One annoying feature in MD is Investments Accounts (for CD) show NEGATIVE amounts in the account but in the summary it is cumulatively POSITIVE. Not sure I understand the logic there. Cannot find anything in the Knowledge base on it.

These comments are based on importing info from Quicken so it could be an importing issue.
 
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Looks like porting from Quicken is becoming more of a distant dream. Not worth the effort. The issue seems to be with the linked accounts. For example; if you pay a CC from Checking, it automatically appears in both accounts as such.

So after my initial review as a complete novice to MD. It is only feasible for me to start a new in 2021 with a clean slate. Although I have managed to transfer accounts that are standalone, like CDs or foreign bank accounts with no links. As my Quicken subscription runs out in June 2021, I will have plenty of time to get used to MD.
 
I know Quicken is very popular here, and I even bought it a few years ago after I learned that, to see if I might like it too.

Sadly, I hated it. It seemed so inflexible to me. I would probably hate Moneydance too, for the same reasons. I am the type who prefers to do these things in Excel, instead. But each to his own, and good luck with Moneydance!
 
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