Financial Software

[dannimal]

I've been using Quicken for like 10+ years. I upgrade every 4 years or so, and since my hard drive just died, I figured it might be a good time to upgrade from 2001 Deluxe.

I haven't found a single review that likes Quicken 2005. Apparently, Intuit has made it so that you can't import from the QIF format, or unless the bank you want to import from has paid to be "quicken enabled".

To add to the scummyness, Intuit's websites don't list Quicken 2005 Basic at all, only Deluze and up. I honestly have no need for anything beyond the ability to track a checking account and some credit cards. Maybe do a budget (although Quicken's budget tool as always sucked balls, IMO). I never liked their investment tracking stuff (though it may have improved in the last 4 years).

Is it worth upgrading at all? Is there some other financial software tool out there I should switch to (it'd need to be able to import old Quicken files, I have no desire to manually re-enter anything)?

[jeffd]

I use Microsoft Money and like it just fine. I believe you can import Quicken data.


I've been using Quicken for like 10+ years. I upgrade every 4 years or so, and since my hard drive just died, I figured it might be a good time to upgrade from 2001 Deluxe.

I haven't found a single review that likes Quicken 2005. Apparently, Intuit has made it so that you can't import from the QIF format, or unless the bank you want to import from has paid to be "quicken enabled".

To add to the scummyness, Intuit's websites don't list Quicken 2005 Basic at all, only Deluze and up. I honestly have no need for anything beyond the ability to track a checking account and some credit cards. Maybe do a budget (although Quicken's budget tool as always sucked balls, IMO). I never liked their investment tracking stuff (though it may have improved in the last 4 years).

Is it worth upgrading at all? Is there some other financial software tool out there I should switch to (it'd need to be able to import old Quicken files, I have no desire to manually re-enter anything)?

[DTG]

I've been using the same version of Quicken since 1998 (1999 Deluxe) when I upgraded for Y2K. It works fine for tracking my wife's business expenses (her accounts receivable are tracked in a separate program), our 3 bank accounts, 10 mutual funds, 2 529's, 2 IRAs, 1 401(k), and 4 credit cards. Every time I consider upgrading, I read up on the latest version of Quicken and don't see a compelling reason to do so. I don't want to have all the automatic - downloadable etc stuff - - it eventually expires, forcing an upgrade, and it's more hassle than it's worth to me to set up. I'm not a luddite...I pay all my bills on line, but I still want to keep my money management as simple as possible. For me, sitting down once a month for 2 hours and manually punching in the numbers helps keep me on top of our finances.

[Bull]

I'm with you DTG. I upgrade my copy religiously, but I am not even sure why. I could just as easy do without any of the new features. Each time a new version of Money comes out, I eagerly look to see what they've been working on. For the last few years, I am always dissapointed to find it's some new fangled way to pay bills on the internet or research purchases from within the program. All of this is a big Meh. I pay all my bills online anyway and don't really want to get locked into more middleware beyond using my browser. It would be really handy if they could make the budgeting stuff or tax preperation more robust.

[Marcus]

We recently upgraded from quicken 2003 to quicken 2005 and holy crap you can 100% tell its more bogged down. 2003 was snappy and 2005 is not.