Anyone using MoneyDance as a Quicken Substitute

[ShokWaveRider]

I am thinking about moving from Quicken to MoneyDance when Quicken stops allowing data transfers in their 2017 version.

I am against subscription type services. I also do not want to use any cloud based service, as after being in the in the industry for over 30 years (The last 5 of that deeply involved in cloud based systems), know how vulnerable cloud based services can be. I know things have evolved, but if the cloud is not good enough for NRC Data, then it is not good for my personal let alone financial information.

Has anyone successfully ported their Quicken data to MoneyDance?

 

[pb4uski]

I'll swallow hard an buy the latest version... probably a 2-year subscription.... currently on sale for $90.... Quicken is the cornerstone of my financial management process so $3.75/month is worth it for me. YMMV.

 

[OldShooter]

... Has anyone successfully ported their Quicken data to MoneyDance?

I tried. Tried hard. My Quicken DB has thousands of transactions and appeared to be just too much for the import tool. In particular, transfers between accounts were frequently duplicated. Most of my time (many hours) was spent finding a deleting these duplicates. I'm sure I deleted at least a hundred before I finally gave up. Other little warts needed attention, too, but that was the biggest.

This was a couple of years ago and I ended up buying a copy of the last non-subscription Quicken. Sometime soon they will try to force me into a subscription. At that point I will try again with MoneyDance, hoping that the import is now workable. If it's not, I guess I'll be stuck paying the subscription.

I'd (selfishly) encourage you to try it and report back.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I tried. Tried hard. My Quicken DB has thousands of transactions and appeared to be just too much for the import tool. In particular, transfers between accounts were frequently duplicated. Most of my time (many hours) was spent finding a deleting these duplicates. I'm sure I deleted at least a hundred before I finally gave up. Other little warts needed attention, too, but that was the biggest.

This was a couple of years ago and I ended up buying a copy of the last non-subscription Quicken. Sometime soon they will try to force me into a subscription. At that point I will try again with MoneyDance, hoping that the import is now workable. If it's not, I guess I'll be stuck paying the subscription.

I'd (selfishly) encourage you to try it and report back.

I borrowed the latest version from a friend (2019.3) to try, I am still reading about it. If it works, I will give credit where credit is due and buy it. I do not like trial versions as they too many have limitations.

 

[Montecfo]

I had a similar experience trying to port to Ace Money a few years ago. Eventually gave up after lots of manipulating.

One thing I may consider is starting fresh with Money Dance soon. My chart of accounts has changed a lot over time and and now my expenses are different. Might be a good time to reset things.

Of course would keep the quicken for historical database value. I guess I could do the same with quicken, start a new data file and just stop downloading transactions. That's also an idea.

I do not use quicken for investment tracking. So this seems a plausible approach. Of course, if you stay with quicken, it is possible you hit a problem eventually and only way to recover is upgrade to their latest. Something to think about.

 

[RonBoyd]

I have used Moneydance for going on ten years now and highly recommend it. FWIW, it was not, for me, an alternate to Quicken but was an easy transfer from Microsoft Money. (I never did consider Quicken to be in the same "ball park.")

 

[Gotadimple]

I have used MoneyDance for quite a few years - maybe 10 or so. And I did import data, but I used Quicken to archive all but the last 2 years. The import was managable, and I keep Quicken on my laptop for a few years just to look back at history. Really, I find I don't need to know what I spent in 2004, but 2014 might be important.


There is a cost to buying the software, then there is NO need to upgrade unless some new feature is important to you. They do not sunset versions, and will support you with any issues you have on their website in the Community forums. Should you decide to upgrade, there is either no cost (upgrading from version a to version b), or 50% off the standard price (upgrading from version a to version c).

That said, the disadvantages to MoneyDance, IMO, are its budgeting module and it reports. They are not as easy to use as Quicken's, or as robust. But they are servicable and give a good understanding of what you've spent where. HTH.

 

[cranberryjoe]

Long long ago I switched from Quicken to Microsoft Money, then when Money was abandoned I switched to Moneydance (about 10 years ago). In both cases (Quicken to Money, then Money to Moneydance) I successfully moved all the data, but not without some pain.

The main issue I recall with both conversions was that the starting balances were sometimes carried over incorrectly. Easy to fix by entering one transaction at account opening. The other big issue I recall when going from Money to Moneydance was that certain rare or exceptional transactions in brokerage accounts were handled incorrectly (stock splits, mergers, acquisitions, etc.). It was a weekend of hide and seek to find and correct them. The vast majority of transactions carried over just fine.

This was 10 years ago for me, so who knows how much better (or worse) the conversion is now. Moneydance claims it's better. The good news is that MD has a free trial during which you can import your data and make any necessary adjustments.

 

[NW-Bound]

Would an acceptable option be to switch to another software package from scratch, and to just keep the outdated Quicken to look up old records as necessary?

I did the above when switching from MS Money to Quicken. Not everything was imported correctly, so I just patched up the info to have the correct balance and stock holdings at that point, and moved on. Have not needed to look up the old MS Money record for anything for many years.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Maybe the New MoneyDance will be better for moving data. When I get it loaded I will do some testing.

 

[bobandsherry]

Honestly, look on eBay, you can find Quicken pretty reasonable. Quicken Deluxe 2019 with 14 months for $12-14 is just dang reasonable. Premier for $17-20. Buy from reputable seller, you'll know what feels right.

 

[wanaberetiree]

I had similar unpleasant experience trying to move data from Quicken.
Decided that it's not worth time and effort. So still using Quicken.

I wonder, being in high tech for long time myself, what so dangerous in cloud services you found ? (not to say it's 100% safe , of cause )

Also, all banks and other financials institutions nowadays are using Internet services, APIs etc, how does it make you safer if you don't use it?

 

[SumDay]

I'll swallow hard an buy the latest version... probably a 2-year subscription.... currently on sale for $90.... Quicken is the cornerstone of my financial management process so $3.75/month is worth it for me. YMMV.

Ditto. I easily spend $3.75 a month on things of FAR less value. I figure Quicken has to pay all those programmers somehow. I benefit, so I'll pay.

 

[Kwirk]

I ported from Quicken to Moneydance a few years ago. The data transfer wasn't as smooth as I would have liked (but the newer version may be better). Moneydance, for me, works best with bank and credit card accounts though easy downloads are not available with every account. Investment accounts have been a little more problematic but I've been able to make it work well enough. I don't do budgeting and I rarely run a report.

 

[bobandsherry]

Ditto. I easily spend $3.75 a month on things of FAR less value. I figure Quicken has to pay all those programmers somehow. I benefit, so I'll pay.

Exactly, when less than $5/mo makes a difference to my lifestyle it's probably point in my life I no longer have a need for Quicken. But I snagged a copy on eBay that cost me about $1/mo.

 

[NanoSour]

Honestly, look on eBay, you can find Quicken pretty reasonable. Quicken Deluxe 2019 with 14 months for $12-14 is just dang reasonable. Premier for $17-20. Buy from reputable seller, you'll know what feels right.

I've been using Quicken for the past two years. I purchased a 24 month subscription which runs out Apr 2020. If I purchase it off ebay, will I just put a new code in to extend my subscription usage? Not sure this will work, but definitely willing to pay the $12.95 for 14 months.

 

[smoghat]

I moved from Quicken to Moneydance when I finally figured out that my problems with balancing my books were literally because Quicken (on the Mac) couldn’t add properly. I moved to Moneydance in 2012. The process of importing (lots of accounts, tied together, business and personal) was much easier than the hell that Quicken was putting me through. I’ve never looked back.

 

[NW-Bound]

I ported from Quicken to Moneydance a few years ago. The data transfer wasn't as smooth as I would have liked (but the newer version may be better). Moneydance, for me, works best with bank and credit card accounts though easy downloads are not available with every account. Investment accounts have been a little more problematic but I've been able to make it work well enough. I don't do budgeting and I rarely run a report.

It looks like many posters here use Moneydance, compared to some other programs I read about. Think I will spend time to research it, as my Quicken [-]Deluxe[/-] Premier 2017 is about to require a renewal.

They are offering a 40% off deal, which is $90 for 2 years. I think I need to decide soon.

PS. Downloading free trial copy of Moneydance as I type this.

 

[NW-Bound]

Just export a QIF file from Quicken to import into Moneydance.

Moneydance shows I have $29 billion in I bonds, while all my IRA accounts are negative.

This is not going to be simple to fix. It looks worse than when I transferred from MS Money to Quicken.

 

[CaptTom]

I've looked at MoneyDance, and it's on my list to migrate to one of these days.

My needs are pretty simple. I never used the automatic statement downloads or anything like that. Just tracking my various checking, savings and credit card accounts. I used to track investments too, but the on-line tools are easier anyway.

I'm still using MS Money. I have a "thing" against Quicken (long story) and moving to a subscription model was the final straw. They'll never get another dime of my money, even if it its a relatively small price to pay for a pretty robust program.

I have MS Money backups going back to at least 1993. And that was my first archive, so it probably has a few years' worth of data before that.

I figure I'll convert all the old MS Money backups into a spreadsheet or something, just for future reference. Then I'll archive everything but a few critical accounts, and start fresh in MoneyDance with minimal migration.

Hearing some good things about MoneyDance helps, thanks. And I know to plan for some effort migrating. My thought was to export to flat files, massage them into a format MoneyDance likes, then import those.

 

[braumeister]

I started fresh with Moneydance at the start of 2012, and have been very happy with it since. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it does everything I need.

I archived all my old records from Quicken, MS Money, etc. into spreadsheets for easy searching (seldom needed).

 

[NW-Bound]

Regarding Moneydance, despite the dismal import from Quicken that I tried last night, perhaps I can start it using from scratch at this point as mentioned earlier.

So, I played with it a bit, and do not see that I can view my entire stocks/MF/option positions in a large spreadsheet view like with Quicken. And the reason I liked Quicken when I moved from the defunct MS Money was that they shared the same presentation of the investment positions. I use these two programs more for investment tracking than for expenses, because I am an active investor. This is very important for me, and I cannot give that up. With MS Money, I did not even use it to track expenses and credit cards.

I have read that the free Personal Capital can also aggregate your accounts, but do not like to expose my financial data on the Web. I also do not know if it has the same spreadsheet presentation as Quicken does.

It looks like I will stay with Quicken for now. They offer Premier renewal for $45/year. On Amazon, they gave a 14-month subscription instead of 12 months for the same price.

Earlier posters mention cheap copies on eBay, but I see that they are mostly 2019 versions. Is there any difference between annual versions when Quicken pushes updates to all of them?

 

[RonBoyd]

So, I played with it a bit, and do not see that I can view my entire stocks/MF/option positions in a large spreadsheet view like with Quicken.

I have read that the free Personal Capital can also aggregate your accounts, but do not like to expose my financial data on the Web. I also do not know if it has the same spreadsheet presentation as Quicken does.

Not knowing what you are comparing in Quicken, I can only offer this:

Moneydance has many reports and graphs to chose from and options to personalize each. Go to the "Tools" menu (or the left side column) and select "Graphs & Reports." Select the graph/report you desire. Edit it to personalize or accept default. Select either "Print" or "Copy to Clipboard" to export a file for use with, for instance, Excel.

As far as Personal Capital is concerned. A little research should ease your fears. The data you are so concerned about is already fully available to all those in the world that PC operates -- banks, for instance. If you have, for example, a bank account somewhere (open or not) you have no secrets.

 

[NW-Bound]

I imagine most programs would have the reports similar to Quicken's. I wonder about the spreadsheet view that shows the real-time value of each position. Well, not real-time but with the price delayed by 15 minutes.

I do not daytrade, but like to watch the stocks move up/down. Some people like to watch ball games, I like to see stocks going up/down, even if that does not really change anything. I used to watch Level II screens meant for daytraders and that is real-time. That's too much.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Maybe just start using MD from 2020 onwards may be a good solution, importing a short history perhaps.

I tried DL a QFX from one of my bank web sites. I expected MD to ask to create a new account, however it did not. Does the account have to be created first before QFX DL works?