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Quicken vs Microsoft Money vs Whatever else

SuperCy

SuperCy

Well-Known Member
Nov 30, 2006
3,881
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Smallville/Metropolis
I've been tracking my finances manually for a few years now. While I like doing it, it has become a little tedious and time consuming. I like knowing exactly where I stand on everything that we have.

What are your opinions of the software that is available? This is just for my wife and I. There is no business involved.

Thoughts?
 
Mint has been solid for me.

I was a Money guy, but the simplicity of Mint swayed me. Plus its accessible anywhere, including my phone.
 
Mint.com

Personally I still like Quicken, but Mint is a lot less work for 90% of the same info.
 
MS Money is a dead product.

Mint is an online only - big draw back is that if your account isn't supported by them, you're SOL. Can't create a manual account. So if you regularly use store cards, or belong to a smaller bank - you have problems. And their services are a bit iffy. I have a Dell Credit Card that is "supported", but doesn't work. I, along with a few others, have reported via their help website - they're none too inclined to respond, much less fix. Going on 2 months now.

Plus is that's it's free.

Quicken Online is the same way, only worse. Doesn't have near the banks available. Mint is now part of Intuit, so expect a merger of Quicken Online and Mint, but not soon. I think at this point you can also consider Quicken Online a dead product.

Quicken Desktop is easily the most robust (allows you to manually add accounts). You'd think you could synch or access via online services.... you'd be wrong.

Intuits goal is to seamlessly integrate their products. I'll believe it when I see it.
 
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I have Quicken and I can't complain that much. A bit of a learning curve coming from Money.

My bank accounts, mortgage, credit cards all sync. Careful though, some banks charge a fee for syncing, others allow you to download a format that can be put into Quicken for free.

Mint is something I looked at briefly, but when it came to my money I wasn't comfortable with the online aspects.
 
bufante said:
I have Quicken and I can't complain that much. A bit of a learning curve coming from Money.

My bank accounts, mortgage, credit cards all sync. Careful though, some banks charge a fee for syncing, others allow you to download a format that can be put into Quicken for free.

Mint is something I looked at briefly, but when it came to my money I wasn't comfortable with the online aspects.
Click to expand...

Really? My bank (Iowa State Bank) isn't supported by Quicken services, but they do download via QIF which Quicken 2010 no longer supports. That was via tech support.

This has been a major hangup for me. Are you using an older version or something?
 
bufante said:
I have Quicken and I can't complain that much. A bit of a learning curve coming from Money.

My bank accounts, mortgage, credit cards all sync. Careful though, some banks charge a fee for syncing, others allow you to download a format that can be put into Quicken for free.

Mint is something I looked at briefly, but when it came to my money I wasn't comfortable with the online aspects.
Click to expand...

What banks do that? That's crazy. I'll avoid them if possible.
 
I really like Microsoft Money but they don't sell it any longer and if you have the program, the online license agreement only lasts until 12/10/2010 and after that there will be no online services. I export transanctions and statements from my bank to Money and it works great. I decided to switch to Quicken a couple years ago but ran into the same problem above with the new version of Quicken not able to use the Quicken files most banks have set up. So if I were you I would stay away from Money just because it's done.

I had Money on an old laptop and got a new one and wanted to load up the same program so I could use it till the online services were done. I bought it at one of two locations you could purchase downloadable versions but can't find the setup file to install it on my new laptop. I posted the question last night but got no replies yet.....:sad:

So I am in the same boat as you looking for something that can track all my finances and be able to download statements/transactions with not much issue.

What is this syncing that was brought up?
 
DaddyMac said:
Intuits goal is to seamlessly integrate their products. I'll believe it when I see it.
Click to expand...

Intuit's goal is to be the Microsoft of financial software.

And by that I mean that their goal is to produce and release buggy and bloated software that ekes out basic functionality while adding bells, whistles, and clippy.
 
jbhtexas said:
Have you used this one? Any comments?
Click to expand...

Yes.

- I don't download transactions, but it does support the QIF format.

- It seems to work well and is less "bloaty" than current versions of Quicken.

- Reports leave something to be desired - but if one had time they look easy enough to design and build so they can be customized to suit your needs

- stock & fund quotes are handled easily enough, but a third party PERL interpreter must be downloaded first.

Overall, I like it because it does work, it's free & open, and it's not from Intuit.
 
TykeClone said:
Yes.

- I don't download transactions, but it does support the QIF format.

- It seems to work well and is less "bloaty" than current versions of Quicken.

- Reports leave something to be desired - but if one had time they look easy enough to design and build so they can be customized to suit your needs

- stock & fund quotes are handled easily enough, but a third party PERL interpreter must be downloaded first.

Overall, I like it because it does work, it's free & open, and it's not from Intuit.
Click to expand...

My concern would be check printing...I just ordered/received MS Money "wallet" size checks (i.e. 3 checks per 8.5x11 page with a blank strip a couple inches wide at the bottom. Would you happen to know if this is a supported check layout? I don't want to trash all of my checks...
 
jbhtexas said:
My concern would be check printing...I just ordered/received MS Money "wallet" size checks (i.e. 3 checks per 8.5x11 page with a blank strip a couple inches wide at the bottom. Would you happen to know if this is a supported check layout? I don't want to trash all of my checks...
Click to expand...

Not something I do, but Printing Checks

Not sure if that's helpful?
 
DaddyMac said:
Really? My bank (Iowa State Bank) isn't supported by Quicken services, but they do download via QIF which Quicken 2010 no longer supports. That was via tech support.

This has been a major hangup for me. Are you using an older version or something?
Click to expand...

I have a new version, bought it about two months ago.

Bank Of America is who I bank with, I think they charge $9.99 a month to sync up. I don't use it. I did download a couple of statements to upload into Quicken when I first set it up, since then I haven't and I won't.

When I first downloaded the statements I saved them as a PDF and imported them that way. Not sure if it makes a difference, but I switched our finances to a Mac because of back up capabilities that we already had.
 
So if I am a user who likes to import transactions and statements into the financial program, am I better off trying Mint or GnuCash?

Can you import Money files into these programs?
 
bufante said:
I have a new version, bought it about two months ago.

Bank Of America is who I bank with, I think they charge $9.99 a month to sync up. I don't use it. I did download a couple of statements to upload into Quicken when I first set it up, since then I haven't and I won't.

When I first downloaded the statements I saved them as a PDF and imported them that way. Not sure if it makes a difference, but I switched our finances to a Mac because of back up capabilities that we already had.
Click to expand...

So you're importing the document image, not the transactions themselves?

I forgot you could do that. Good idea. I have all mine sitting on the nas
 
Cyclonesrule91 said:
So if I am a user who likes to import transactions and statements into the financial program, am I better off trying Mint or GnuCash?

Can you import Money files into these programs?
Click to expand...

I don't believe you could into mint, not sure about gnucash.

You could into the desktop version of Quicken and it went surprisingly well.
 
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