Pissed off at Quicken

I bought Quicken and could never figure out how to get it to work. I think the automatic download from my credit union didn't work and when I looked at doing it manually it was ...well, what did I buy this for? If you come up with a good alternative that's easier to use, let me know.

 

Yes, I shared your furiousness about one year ago when they cut the cord between me and my bank for Quicken 2002.

Fortunately, I quickly learned that you can continue to download your transactions by a two step process that really is not too bad once you get used to it.

First, go to your bank's web page and hopefully, they have a feature to download their transactions. Choose Download Transactions and save them to a .gif file in My documents or any other convenient directory of your choice. For my bank, WAMU, they tell you when your last download was as well so you don't overlap your downloads.

Then, in the Quicken dropdown menues, choose "File Inport" feature, select the acount you want to import the trasnsaction too, and then browse to the directory and file you donwloaded from your bank. Hope this will work for you too.

After a little practice, it has become second nature and I continue to use my QUicken 2002 forgetting about how mad I was at Quicken.

 

Don't you retain the functionality if you upgrade? IIRC, that is how they forced me to buy my last two upgrades (2002->2005->2007), by dropping support for one-click online banking downloads in the older versions.

 

I'm with you. I've been using Quicken for close to 20 years. First started using the DOS version, to give you some idea. In part because it's been a great product and in part because it's not Microsoft, I've been very loyal. Until now. I also have started wondering whether there is an alternative. Problem is, all that historical data is in Quicken. I haven't investigated to see if, by some slim chance, another product will import Quicken data.

Meanwhile, regardless of whether I upgrade, I have already decided to drop the BillPay service as one small protest. I can pay bills either through automatic credit card billing or through my Credit Union's web page. I'll have to look into NoMo's workaround for the transaction download.

 

Most banks have the online records exporting feature. While it is a little inconvenient at first, I learned that I have a little more control over which records I want to export.

If you decide to switch from Quicken to something else then don't delete Quicken until you have verified all your data has transferred to your satisfaction. I had an older version of Quicken that had a limited number of records and decided to switch to Microsoft Money because it was already on the computer when I bought it. The new look took some getting used to but I didn't realize that some mutual fund transactions were missing until later -- they hadn't all transferred correctly. I had the mutual funds for while in a traditional IRA before most investment firms kept good records. It all came to a head when I rolled the traditional IRA into a ROTH. I had to compute a cost basis on my own and I had to recreate every lost transaction from other sources.

 

Remember the Y2K scare? Quicken said that I needed to upgrade to avoid errors due to the date format they used (nice planning, numbnuts).

So I upgraded: It hosed the records and the balance was now off by thousands of dollars. Last time I used that program.

I don't use any program now; all of my money goes to the house payment and car payment so its easy to track.

 

Don't fall for their marketing ploy. Just use your financial institutions transaction download feature instead.

I am starting to get mad all over remembering how I felt when Quicken tried to extort money from me for an upgrade. Someone ought to initiate a class action lawsuit for Quicken's lying to their customers by implying the upgrade was the only way to keep downloading the transactions.

Most upgrades are more trouble than they are worth anyway, only requiring you to relearn how to do things you once had a good handle on.

I sure hope Toyota doesn't do this Anouncement.

"Attention all Prius owners of model year 2007 and earlier - you must purchase new software version Prius 2008 or you will loose HSD functionality on April 1, 2008. If you choose not to upgrade, your Prius will revert to a gutless gasoline only car getting about 14 mpg and with a top speed of 45 miles per hour. Hurry, make a service appointment today!"

 

When I started looking for a program to track my expenses it was seeing various stories and reviews of Quicken (and to a lesser degree) MS Money like these that turned me off of them. Also the programs always seem to be needlessly complex and feature-heavy. Way more than what I needed to do.

I searched around and ended up buying a program called AceMoney. (AceMoney - The Personal Finance Manager) I've been using it for about 4 years now and it works perfectly. Nice, simple, clean layout. Very flexible. Produces a few neat graphs and tables.

I enter all my transactions manually so I can't speak to its ability to import downloaded statements from accounts (though I do believe it handles all the major open formats - .qif, etc).

It's cheap - I paid $35 - and all future upgrades are free. The downside is that it's nowhere near as full featured as Quicken or MS Money and probably isn't so good for folks who are heavy into investments or have gone beyond basic expense and net worth tracking.

(Sorry if this sounds like an ad. I'm not associated with the company in any way - just a happy customer. )

 

Open Source alternatives to Quicken. Disclaimer: I've never used any of these. I do my record-keeping with Neo-Office's spreadsheet. But there's so much good open-source software out there that unless you absolutely require 100% compatibility with Micro$oft, you don't really need to buy all that much software. Open-source is free, and since the source code is public, there's never any problem with proprietary file formats or whatnot.

 

A few years ago, I did telephone support for companies like WaMu... Quicken, Quickbooks, and MS Money are all POS.

The best thing to do is what NoMoShocks said... download as a .gif file, and then import.

In order to import Quicken (or other software) data into a new software program, export it from the program as .gif or as .csv (for excel-type spreadsheets. I use OpenOffice), and then import it into the new program. I would also keep a backup copy in case the new program doesn't work out.

Quicken is terrible about supporting older versions. You can hunt all over their website's "support" section, and maybe you MIGHT find an article that will help, but they seem to purge the knowledge base a bit too often. And, really, it isn't your bank's fault (most common complaint was why doesn't WaMu support older versions of Quicken. Answer: it isn't WaMu's software, it is Quicken's), though often your banks support people MIGHT have a fix that works... on behalf of support people everywhere, please don't kill the messenger if they don't have a fix for it.

 

Maybe that's the answer.

Banks have all of these different accounts, plans, etc. Some you pay for, some you don't.

Maybe they should provide the equivalent of an online Quicken for their customers who have accounts. It would allow them to be competitive with credit unions, and other financial and online services. People would be less inclined to move banks too.

I mean, they are "financial institutions" right? Maybe it's time to move beyond the 19th century piggy bank vault and into the 21st century.

 

I'm a long time user too. Really have no complaints. Don't download much of anything, so I spend a lot of time entering my transactions. Guess it's one devil or the other.....

 

We just got a notice that our credit union is now providing online financial software!!

Perhaps if you have a credit union handy, you could see if yours is, too. I think the back end of a lot of credit unions is through a common financial service (MoneyHQ is the name of the one ours uses).

 

Do you guys really trust putting your financial information on the web like that? At least with Quicken and MS Money it's just encrypted instructions and transactions that are sent back and forth but the data remains on your home computer.

Wildkow

p.s. I have used Quicken since it first came out, I quit using it over a year and a half ago because of this policy.

 

After taking some to time to change all my scheduled online payments to something other than Quicken Bill Pay (and after a little procrastination), I finally called Quicken yesterday to cancel the Bill Pay service. The rep told me that they will be offering the Quicken 2008 upgrade free to Quicken Bill Pay customers. I asked, "Why haven't I been notified of that? The software prompt I'm getting says I gotta pay for it." Rep says, "They just recently made the decision and they haven't gotten the details finalized right yet. They had a lot of complaints over the upgrade, so they decided to make this offer to keep customers."

So I'll hold off canceling for now, wait for the offer, and read the fine print. If it looks feasible, I'll get the upgrade, wait a couple of weeks, and then cancel Bill Pay.

 

Oh, hey, I was wrong.
The credit union financial software has a fee attached.
Sorry.

[I hadn't really looked at it, so when I did, I was surprised.]

 

Where do they Get Off charging for a bill pay service when most banks probably offer it for free. When it comes to Quicken, I am nust not In To It "Intuit" any more.