-
Website
http://consumerismcommentary.com/ -
Original page
http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/2007/05/16/10-improvements-id-like-to-see-in-quicken-2008-and-a-giveaway/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
It'd be great if Yodlee had a makeover and implemented the expense account/double entry accounting you mentioned. That would really put Quicken and MS Money out of business.
The other complaint I have is that you have to upgrade every couple of years and buy a new version. This would be okay if the programs were changing and improving in corresponding amounts, but I think you get very little in return when you buy a new version.
I'd like to be able to see all the transactions in one place.
We are nearly done. Hit me up and I will get you early access...
I have about 12 sheets in a single workbook that can be printed as a report. It has a summary page with all my major monthly expenses/income/liabilities/balances/loans, etc, then breakdowns of my readjusted bills, graphs of spending by category, monthly gas/electric/water bills for the last 2 years with graphs to show cost & usage trends, car maintenance/mileage estimators, 2 years of monthly fuel spending with graphs to show seasonal cost trends, investment/savings balances and graphs, etc.
I just use my banks online features to gather my data. Probably a bit more tedious than using Quicken or other software to download it automatically, but I like the flexibility that Excel gives me (Quicken probably would have a function for me to enter my mileage and tell me when my car is going to hit the next service mile interval, for example).
Here are some of the worst headaches and near disasters:
1. Downloading doesn't always match correctly, you have to be very cautious to catch duplicates. These will haunt you when you try to figure out why Quicken disagrees with your bank's online balance.
2. Scheduled transactions vs. bank downloads: Say you pay your rent every month with a paycheck. You want a reminder from Quicken so you set up a scheduled transaction. Then you download your bank statement, incredibly the two won't match up.
3. Paycheck handling: Quicken lets you set up a paycheck, which is like a scheduled transaction. Every two weeks, Quicken enters it. However, your employer sometimes takes a cent off one of your taxes. Quicken will fail to match the scheduled paycheck with the downloaded transaction. Because of a difference of one cent. Incredible. You can't adjust that paycheck because it's a form, any adjustment will apply to subsequent transactions. Anyway, a total waste of time. The whole download matching with scheduled transactions needs an overhaul or some decision need to be made on whether this is even feasible.
4. Moving your Quicken files from one computer to another: extremely dangerous!
5. Part of the problems with downloading and reconciling have to do with peculiarities in the way banks go about implementing the download. For example, there may be transactions that haven't cleared yet, but are reflected in the balance. Quicken will not see uncleared transactions but of course will note a difference between known transactions and the bank online balance. It's hard to find a day when all transactions are cleared and reflected in the balance, and you can finally trust Quicken with downloading. Very frustrating.
6. The documentation is more of a reference than a guide. Newbies are in for a hell of a time trying to figure out what to do. I'm sure Intuit feels it through their support channels, which are possibly even profitable.
7. Investments: the portfolio design and balancing options are too basic. I can design my target portfolio as a reference for re-balancing, but there is no way to customize the chart to resemble your current one. For example, my current portfolio chart would show my international stocks in the top left quadrant, but in my target it would show at the bottom right. So forget about a quick glance to see how you're doing. You also can't be specific enough about the assets classes, for example, REITs fall under "Other".
8. Finally, I'm annoyed that Intuit litters my desktop and the Quicken interface with service offerings. I'm already paying and expect a clean and functional interface with no advertising.
But it's indispensable, so I'm willing to suffer through it. It has made a big difference in my net worth and spending habits.
Suggestions:
* Multi-user support. Quicken currently doesn't have a way to open it's files from networked computers which means that my wife and I can only enter transactions or view our information from one computer. There have been some horror stories of file corruption when people have tried sharing files as the program is not designed for this.
* Better financial institution support. You can download transactions from some banks right now but it's not done very well. As some people mentioned some banks charge for this which is outrageous. Our bank does not but this feature is not very reliable or as available as it should be. It should also go further and download our statements while downloading transactions saving us an extra step.
* Improved user interface. The UI has gone through alot of changes over the years. Quicken's strengths have always been reporting but there's so much of it that they've had a hard time figuring out how to organize it all. The budgeting tools haven't changed much from previous versions and could use a facelift. The UI should definitely be alot more responsive overall.
With that being said, I like Quicken alot because I've figured out alot about the program over the years and have gotten to be very good at using it. I look forward to seeing some of these improvements although I am very curious to see what Mint has in store for us because I think that is the future of personal finance software. I have a feeling Quicken is working on something like this too, if not they're in trouble. :)
Mike
I like the automatic downloading of transactions, but I wish Quicken wouldn't charge the banks. That's the only reason my bank hasn't converted.
I'm using Quicken Premier H & B 2004, so these issues may have been fixed/enhanced in more recent versions.
They need to come up with a better way to handle loans and income streams created by the user instead of focusing on the debts of the user. Better T-Bill support would be nice as well.
And then there is the forced upgrade for continuous online access.
That said I've been using Quicken for nine years now and enjoy it a lot. I keep an updated net worth graph on my wall at work so I can track of my progress. One must always know where one stands.
Also, this may be by design by Intuit, but there does not seem to be a lot of support for Quicken on the web. Not a lot of how-to/support blogs for Quicken. Not third party support forums. Just Intuit's official forums.
Also with budgeting, if my income changes and I adjust the budget then it seems to retroactively apply that, why won't it leave previous months alone?
The biggest issue that I have always had is with the budgeting feature. If you want to track your paycheck deductions, you can't have the budget calculator use the net income of your check. You have to itemize your monthly taxes, etc. as monthly cash flow expenses, which I don't see as germane to managing my cash flows. However, budgeting will work if you only count your paycheck as a net deposit. Hello! Who is the mythical user that both uses software like Quicken, and doesn't have paycheck deductions? I brought this up in the last beta with no response. I have posted this question to Intuit, and nothing. Oh well, just one of the features that I would live by, but can't actually use.
There was a great post on the HSA/Flex spending accounts, and I second that notion. I have the "Medical Expense Manager" software, but since there is so much double entry between it and Quicken, I don't really use it. Fortunately, it was free at the time.
One other missing feature (since they keep adding so much) is some type of a mortgage qualification calculator. Since Quicken tracks all my income and expenses, it would seem pretty simple to use the data to calculate what type of home I could purchase next.
However, I still stand behind Quicken and remain a loyal user. Yes, they are trying to arm wrestle the banks and make extra fees, but since I use a national bank, I don't see it. The software is getting bloated and can get slowed down, but so does my operating system with every MSFT "patch". You just have to take the good with the bad.
Washington Mutual (WaMu) is touting itself as a break from the norm as far as banks and how they do business. Anyone check them out?
I have tried both, and I perfer Quicken, since I can start right off using it and getting more detailed as I go. Money on the other hand has a longer setup time before you can start to use the program in my experience.
I only update it a couple times a month. I like to track where I spend and where my investments are, but I don't use Quicken for billpay or run any accounts through it. I use it only for tracking.
Oh please, oh please.
This year I want to become more in control of my personal finances so I may return to Quicken. I just wish it didn't feel like such a chore.
However Quicken seems to be the most beneficial for my church, which is in dire need of a financial software right now. We originally were looking for Quicken for Non-Profits, but after looking at some reviews, it differs very little from normal Quicken, just a few name changes.
BofA is getting close to having most functionality of Quicken online with their My Portfolio feature. Now if they can clean up their interface online I may switch only to using my bank.
I just need one stop shopping for my finances. i do not want to go between different applications.
To do so, one must enter each as a separate security, add each again in an account, then enter each yet again into the US Treasury's Savings Bond Calculator, then enter value data for each security, then possibly a go through again to add additional entries for each if a reasonable recent history is desired (i.e. not have a large unrealistic jump at the time values are entered).
It would seem so simple for Quicken to just understand the few different bond types and the rules for each to automate all the above to a single set of entries based simply on purchase date and ammount.
- That they charge for BillPay. Since I pay for the software and for upgrades regularly, I don't see why I should pay another recurring charge. So I pay bills through my bank which is free.
- The downloads tend to be problematic. I often run into issues when my bank posts the transactions a day later than my mutual fund account. The placeholder transaction generation functionality is very poor and almost always gets it wrong. With my bank and my credit union I have ongoing download issues although it works like a charm with my credit cards.
- I agree with the person that restricted stocks and performance unit tracking is sub-standard.
- I don't like the reporting interface at all especially reporting investing returns.
- I also agree that the performance is way too slow for this day and age. The UI is non-standard and chews up too much real estate.
Also can the Mac 2007 version be improved to the look and feel of the PC version? The converting/ importing from Windows to Mac COULD definitely be revised. I lost the historical mortgage data with the conversion along with bring forward data inaccurately for my credit card accounts creating a major problems with the checking account payments.
Can't seem to make it work for me.
Plus I use paypal for 90% of my business transactions and that is a complete disaster with the auto update in quicken. It just does not work! I'm very disappointed b/c reading the quicken box, this software was what I needed- but it just doesn't seem to do what it said it could.
Beware. I'm going back to 2007 since I've made very few entries so little time lost at this point. Something is very much wrong.