Alternatives to Quicken

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hrifraf
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Post by hrifraf »

hrifraf wrote:
Other quibbles; Every time I enter a "sale" Quicken drops to the exchange rate box - Why? - It's a $cdn account!

Altared wrote;
"It should not ask that if you have your Home Currency set to CAD. If it was set to USD, then it will ask. Did you not select CAD when you installed Quicken?"

Of course CAD is selected as my home currency! You wouldn't expect a multi-year user of Quicken to do otherwise, would you now? ;)

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Post by CROCKD »

hrifraf

Here is a link to a poster from another forum who is compiling a list of free open source financial software

http://daniel.carrera.bz/2009/02/person ... -software/

I can't comment on how good any of these programs are.

I am using Quicken 2003 deluxe which suits all my requirements and as I have records going back to the early 90's in my files I am not anxious to change to another program.
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Post by DanielCarrera »

CROCKD wrote: Here is a link to a poster from another forum who is compiling a list of free open source financial software

http://daniel.carrera.bz/2009/02/person ... -software/

I can't comment on how good any of these programs are.
Yay!

I didn't know that this thread was here, or I would have posted a link myself (I'm the author). I am indeed compiling a list of open source financial software and I am happy to hear suggestions.

Right now I'm going through a long list of programs in Freshmeat. It takes time to shift through all the projects and pick the good ones. But I do expect to add a few more entries to the list in the future.

Cheers,
Daniel.
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Post by pmj »

tightwad wrote:
Bylo Selhi wrote:All versions since 1998 or maybe earlier "phone home" to look for software updates.
There must be a setting that turns it off. My Quicken 2002 makes no attempt to access the web. Perhaps it's controlled by Edit->Options->Internet Options->Connection tab->Only during One Step Update. I do not use Quicken to download information from the web.
Quicken 99 does phone home when importing banking transactions. It doesn't have the setting described above.

I've chosen not to upgrade, based on numerous reports of badly-designed/hard-to-use/uncustomizable interface and features. I'd be more than happy to pay Quicken an annual fee to keep using the same program, and to maintain the ability to download stock prices. But I'm not willing to pay for a reportedly inferior program, plus waste my time figuring out what's been changed, and how to use it, just to maintain, effectively, the functionality that I already have with the old version. I've been helped in that decision because, notwithstanding Quicken's visits to the sunset website, I can still import my bank transactions. It does cost me less than 10 minutes once a month to manually update stock prices from my "Portfolio" at GlobeInvestor - I can live with that. I've considered trying one of the Excel download macros using Yahoo Finance or similar - but I can see a couple of hours to set that up and debug it - which is about a year's worth of regular updates.

However - I am interested in finding a program that will run on Linux - and if there's one that's has the breadth of Quicken I might make the jump. More research required.
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Post by tightwad »

If Quicken contacts Intuit as part of its online activities and you do not want it to, is it not possible to prevent it from doing so by adding appropriate entries to the hosts file, firewall, or router to block out Intuit servers? Wouldn't this negate the 'phone home' feature without impacting Quicken's primary functions?
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Post by j45 »

Wouldn't this negate the 'phone home' feature without impacting Quicken's primary functions?
Yes. With a firewall like Zone Alarm you have control over how and when programs access information from "home" etc.
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

hrifraf wrote:This is an attempt to return this thread to it's original topic.

Can anyone recommend an alternative to Quicken for the purposes of accurately accounting for investment transactions? Note that I am looking for accounting functionality for a Canadian taxpayer. My requirements do not extend to performance analysis (I have other tools for that.)
Have we missed the original question that hrifraf asked? I thought it was about software for an investment club.
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Post by Clock Watcher »

Bylo Selhi wrote:
Clock Watcher wrote:newer versions "phone home". Is there a way of bypassing that?
All versions since 1998 or maybe earlier "phone home" to look for software updates. Why would you want to disable that? But if you do, install a software firewall like ZoneAlarm and tell it to block outgoing Internet traffic from QW.EXE. Of course if you do that you'll also lose features like downloading security prices and banking activity, etc.

Again, why would you want to do that explicitly?
Can you even install the program if you don't let it phone home? I have a computer that I use for Internet access, and another one (which Quicken runs on) which never connects to the Internet.
Peculiar_Investor wrote:Have we missed the original question that hrifraf asked? I thought it was about software for an investment club.
I don't see anything about investment clubs in the first post?
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Post by crackrock »

Clock Watcher wrote:Can you even install the program if you don't let it phone home? I have a computer that I use for Internet access, and another one (which Quicken runs on) which never connects to the Internet.
There's an option to activate by phone IIRC.
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Clock Watcher wrote:
Peculiar_Investor wrote:Have we missed the original question that hrifraf asked? I thought it was about software for an investment club.
I don't see anything about investment clubs in the first post?
I've bolded what I thought was the question about investment clubs from the first post.
hrifraf wrote:Can anyone recommend an alternative to Quicken for the purposes of accurately accounting for investment transactions? Note that I am looking for accounting functionality for a Canadian taxpayer. My requirements do not extend to performance analysis (I have other tools for that.)

I am hoping to get recommendations from users with hands-on experience.

Here's my background; I used Quicken 2000 for years and was reasonably happy with it. Recently I took on the Treasurer duties for a Club, which came with it's records on Quicken XG2005. Quicken was not happy with two versions on the same computer so, reluctantly, I converted my personal files over to 2005.
Perhaps Hrifraf could pop back in are clarify the needs and original question.
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Post by Bylo Selhi »

crackrock wrote:
Clock Watcher wrote:Can you even install the program if you don't let it phone home? I have a computer that I use for Internet access, and another one (which Quicken runs on) which never connects to the Internet.
There's an option to activate by phone IIRC.
I have both Q07 and Q08. I don't recall any activation. I've installed Q08 on at least 2 PCs so if they were doing activations why haven't they flagged me as a potential bootlegger?

See also their FAQ, Why do I have to activate Quicken?, paying special attention to this part:
This record applies to the following products:
Quicken XG 2005
Quicken Cash Manager 2005
Quicken XG 2004
Quicken Cash Manager
Quicken XG 2003...

Last Modified 2008-09-05 07:56:00
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Post by Clock Watcher »

Bylo Selhi wrote:
crackrock wrote:
Clock Watcher wrote:Can you even install the program if you don't let it phone home? I have a computer that I use for Internet access, and another one (which Quicken runs on) which never connects to the Internet.
There's an option to activate by phone IIRC.
I have both Q07 and Q08. I don't recall any activation. I've installed Q08 on at least 2 PCs so if they were doing activations why haven't they flagged me as a potential bootlegger?

See also their FAQ, Why do I have to activate Quicken?, paying special attention to this part:
This record applies to the following products:
Quicken XG 2005
Quicken Cash Manager 2005
Quicken XG 2004
Quicken Cash Manager
Quicken XG 2003...

Last Modified 2008-09-05 07:56:00
The need to phone home has been one of the major reasons why I haven't upgraded, but it looks like it is not required on the latest Quicken's. I like have daily currency exchange rates with the newer versions.
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Alternatives to Quicken

Post by hrifraf »

Sorry for my late reply - life intervenes and pulls one away from the computer from time to time. I am not accounting for an investment club - the club that I am Treasurer for is a Kayaking club. I only need to account for my personal investment transactions.

From the replies to my original post, and from the entire contents of this thread, it is apparent that at least for users of this forum there is no practical alternative to Quicken. Indeed, while I was investigating GnuCash I was reminded why I started using Quicken back in 2000 - it was far and away the most usable personal accounting software available. GnuCash looks like it might be good for a small business, but for personal finance it is leagues behind Quicken in terms of convenience and ease of use.

Now I just need to decide if I want to go back to using my original 2000 version of Quicken, or whether to buck up and spring for the latest version.

Thanks for everyone's input.

hrifraf
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Post by j45 »

I use MS Money, only because that is the program I started with. I've often thought of switching to Quicken, due to it's popularity here, but haven't bothered to make the switch.

I only use the program to track investment transactions and prices.

Can anyone tell me if it would benefit me to switch from MS Money to Quicken?

Thanks
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Post by tightwad »

Microsoft Money: suddenly canceled after 18 years.
Microsoft abruptly announced Wednesday it would stop selling its highly regarded personal finance software, Microsoft Money at the end of the month.

Money will be completely functional until January 2011. After that time, all the data currently downloaded automatically including stock quotes and banks statements will cease. After that time the software will still function, but users will need to enter many data, including stock prices, by hand.
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RE: Microsoft Money suddenly canceled

Post by zeno »

Thank you Microsoft. You just keep giving me reasons to love you. I have 10 years of data in MS Money. I see I have a painful conversion process ahead of me in in Jan 2011.

Anybody here had any experience converting large MS Money data sets to Quicken?
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Post by kjmcrae »

Does this mean that the MSNStockQuotes Excel functions won't work beyond Jan/2011 as well?
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Re: RE: Microsoft Money suddenly canceled

Post by Bylo Selhi »

zeno wrote:Anybody here had any experience converting large MS Money data sets to Quicken?
Intuit does (or soon will.) Microsoft working with Intuit to ease Money discontinuation
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Post by IdOp »

Perhaps it's a good time to mention again one of the ever-possible alternatives, GnuCash. It's free, apparantly can import Microsoft Money QIF accounts, and has been ported to Windows.

Requirements for using GnuCash include:

* a spirit for financial software adventure,
* a dislike of Intuit,
* a tolerance for bloated software.

While I haven't used GnuCash, or either of the other products, it might be worth a look for some to try to use it along side Money for a while and see if it's appropriate for the job. If it's not doing the trick by 2011, there's always Quicken.
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

Post by Norbert Schlenker »

[url=http://www.financialwisdomforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=102426&p=137764#p137764]Almost four years ago[/url] Bylo Selhi wrote:In other threads people (including moi) have complained about Quicken's lack of functionality, arbitrary end to free data download, exorbitant price of updates, frozen support for Mac, etc. This thread is intended to explore alternatives, especially free alternatives.

...
jGnash wrote:is a cross platform personal finance application written in Java. jGnash is a double entry system with support for multiple currencies. jGnash can import Gnucash and QIF [i.e. Quicken... Bylo] files...
I see that the beavers have been busy since. I would be interested in hearing the views of any members who are using this software.
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

Post by SkaSka »

A question for the Mac users: I'm looking at iBank to use natively on my iMac for finance tracking, has anyone used it or have any comments on it?

From what I've read here, Quicken for Mac is out of the question. I don't necessarily want to install Windows on my iMac to use Quicken for MS. I'd personally rather just use a native Mac program. I know anything native on Mac at the moment does not compare to Quicken for MS, but is iBank at least usable and fairly competent?
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

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SkaSka wrote:A question for the Mac users: I'm looking at iBank to use natively on my iMac for finance tracking, has anyone used it or have any comments on it?

From what I've read here, Quicken for Mac is out of the question. I don't necessarily want to install Windows on my iMac to use Quicken for MS. I'd personally rather just use a native Mac program. I know anything native on Mac at the moment does not compare to Quicken for MS, but is iBank at least usable and fairly competent?
I am cross platform. I have a laptop that is apple, but my desktop is a Windows machine. I have never used iBank, but when I was looking at this sort of software I always found them to be oriented to the US. So you have things for IRAs, ROTHs, 401k's. Some things linked up directly to my credit card (Mint i think was one) and I didn't like how it was quite unable to properly categorize it all. I pretty much couldn't find anything that could meet all my requirements. I wanted to track my expenses, track my investments, track my overall assets, etc and the only software that I found to work for me and work across both platforms was Excel. If you want something done right, do it yourself. I've been tweaking it over the years and it works pretty well, though if i go into some of the larger "superformulas" I have created, they are a bit complicated to the point where even I can't quite recall how it works...but it does. Much of the stuff I have was inspired by the formulas used by Gummy, so thank you Gummy for all your wonderful spreadsheets; I learned a lot from them.

I did go to iBank's website and they do have a 30 day trial, so perhaps download it direct from them and try it out first. http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/downloads.php.

Good luck in your hunt. Let us know if you find anything good!
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

Post by AltaRed »

MALDI_ToF wrote:I have never used iBank, but when I was looking at this sort of software I always found them to be oriented to the US. So you have things for IRAs, ROTHs, 401k's.
One can always ignore the things one does not use and use IRA for the RRSP category. The bigger problem in my mind would be currency unless iBank has the option to select other 'home' currencies, and secondly if SkaSka wants the software to perform automatic market pricing data for equity/mutual fund holdings, and thirdly if he wants to auto download transactions from financial institutions. IF the latter 2 items are of no interest to SkaSka, then the 'home' currency issue would be single most issue.
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Re: Alternatives to Quicken

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SkaSka wrote:A question for the Mac users: I'm looking at iBank to use natively on my iMac for finance tracking, has anyone used it or have any comments on it?

From what I've read here, Quicken for Mac is out of the question. I don't necessarily want to install Windows on my iMac to use Quicken for MS. I'd personally rather just use a native Mac program. I know anything native on Mac at the moment does not compare to Quicken for MS, but is iBank at least usable and fairly competent?

Tried most of the Mac packages. The one I like the best is Moneydance. Its quotes work with the TSX, but not for mutual funds unless you use add on packages. The It can be made to calculate the ACB of securities the "CRA's" way (average cost) vs. all the others which use the IRS' fifo approach.


iBank was crap, it did not reconcile correctly; for all its talk about double entry accounting, it completely unlinks the two sides of a transaction (e.g. transfer money from a chequing to VISA to pay the VISA bill. Change the amount in the VISA register, no corresponding change in the chequing register).

Quicken for the Mac is possible, but not without its quirks.


Search the website macintouch for user reviews of various packages. The topic keeps coming back every 6 months or so.
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