Quicken - Electronic Checkbook

Scheinin · 03-31-2019, 04:04 PM

I find Quicken to be a great checkbook program, especially since it can go to my bank and download all transaction automatically. You use to be able to go to Best Buy or Staples and purchase the program. It was good for 3 years, when Quicken forced you to rebuy the program. Now, you must buy a yearly subscription.

Does anyone else use this program, or does anyone else have a program that is as good or better than Quicken?

NJKris · 03-31-2019, 05:01 PM

Good question. I used to love Quicken, until they made it so you have to keep upgrading the program to retain any useful online connection features. Got sick of that BS and dumped it.

NJKris · 03-31-2019, 05:03 PM

What really pissed me off was you have to pay for the program, then any downloads from your bank/credit cards, which didn't even involve Quicken became obsolete and were turned off after a period of time. Screw Quicken.

La Plata View · 03-31-2019, 05:16 PM

I've been using my 2005 edition of Quicken for the last 14 years! Yes, they ended support for some features but I use it for basic check book management.

Thought about upgrading to a current edition but the cost $$

$$ and subscription requirement keeps me in 2005.

NJKris · 03-31-2019, 05:23 PM

The most valuable aspect of the program, downloading all your bank and credit card transactions, ceases to function after a built-in expiration date, unless you pay for the new program. Are you manually inputing your check book register or something?

My dinky local bank has a great online banking website to keep track of all checking/transactions/transfers and free online bill pay. It used to be nice to have it all consolidated under Quicken till I figured they would continually try to rook me.

JayArras · 03-31-2019, 05:32 PM

Intuit spun off Quicken to it's own company and now I don't feel it's as good as it used to be. Now I use Mint.com from Intuit which is entirely free. It's not for everybody though. You have to trust them enough to link all of your accounts to them, but the info and insights you get about your spending is awesome.

TomAR · 03-31-2019, 05:50 PM

I've got Quicken 2016 H&B; paid for it once. It's still running fine, with the occasional nag to upgrade - NO THANK YOU! It still gets an update every now and then. I like it just the way it is.

SailorSam20500 · 03-31-2019, 05:54 PM

X2. I hate the new model. In my mind, just a way to get more $ for a not great product. I wish Microsoft Money was still around.

Looking for good replacement that isn't web based.

I did get the subscription package but will be hard pressed to renew it. What really got to me, they offered a 2 year subscription that was zero discount from 1 year and download only... Bought a 1 year subscription from Best Buy that had a CD to keep Quicken from getting the full price.

**ependydad** · 03-31-2019, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayArras

Intuit spun off Quicken to it's own company and now I don't feel it's as good as it used to be. Now I use Mint.com from Intuit which is entirely free. It's not for everybody though. You have to trust them enough to link all of your accounts to them, but the info and insights you get about your spending is awesome.

Same.

llr · 03-31-2019, 06:45 PM

When MS stopped money they moved it to a sunset edition and made it free. It removed all account linking but I never used that anyway.
No idea if it's still available

briteday · 03-31-2019, 07:06 PM

I still like Quicken but only because it is the only program I know that lets you reconcile a checkbook. The down side is that it doesn't work with Chrome. I don't use the import/export features. I just log my own transactions.

Daycruiser · 03-31-2019, 07:10 PM

Ditch those Windows boxes and buy a Mac. Whole new world opens up, Banktivity is great and costs a fraction of Quicken. Additional bonus, you don't have to update your machine every 5 minutes when some hacker targets another vulnerability in Windows.

formerFR · 03-31-2019, 07:42 PM

I used Microsoft Money for the last 15 years, even to run my business checking, though only the 'basic' function, not the eventual integrated 'online' functions...even though they 'sunsetted' the program many years ago.

This year, though, I moved all my business functions to my Chrome book, which doesn't support MS products...including Excel, which I had ran my business accounting on.

So,
I eventually dove into learning Google Sheets, a mirror of Excel, and created my OWN versions of Money and Excel spreadsheets just like I had used for many years on my Microsoft laptop.

I actually now like my own 'sheets' versions of doing these chores versus the old MS products, but, then again, I like Excel/Sheets and have enjoyed the work in developing my own banking an account 'software' that meets MY needs - totally custom, of course!

La Plata View · 03-31-2019, 07:57 PM

NJKris asked "Are you manually inputing your check book register or something?"

Yup, sit down every few days and hand jam receipts into the checkbook register.

**Bama Rambler** · 03-31-2019, 08:21 PM

Moneydance is a good program that's not cloud based and it reads Quicken files so you can transfer your data to it easily. They also have an app that syncs between it and the program easily.

Scheinin · 03-31-2019, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayArras

Intuit spun off Quicken to it's own company and now I don't feel it's as good as it used to be. Now I use Mint.com from Intuit which is entirely free. It's not for everybody though. You have to trust them enough to link all of your accounts to them, but the info and insights you get about your spending is awesome.

Before I posted here, I looked into Mint.com, but I can't click a button and have it automatically download the transactions from my 15 accounts. (unless I am missing something).

Scheinin · 03-31-2019, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daycruiser

Ditch those Windows boxes and buy a Mac. Whole new world opens up, Banktivity is great and costs a fraction of Quicken. Additional bonus, you don't have to update your machine every 5 minutes when some hacker targets another vulnerability in Windows.

I have a Mac. What is Banktivity? Will it download activity from my accounts? Will it reconcile my accounts, like Quicken?

dward51 · 03-31-2019, 10:06 PM

I started using Quicken back when it was a DOS based program in the 1980's. However, I no longer use it. Their new business model of forcing you to buy or license it over and over did not set well with me. I find I can pretty well get what I need from my banks' software now. I do dump the data to an Excel spreadsheet and tab them by years in addition to the PDF monthly statement backups, but their online software lets me generate reports going back years if I need it (and it's free).

See what options your bank has. Also at one time, some banks had promo-licenses of Quicken for certain level depositors. Not sure if that applies since Intuit sold Quickin in 2016.

Not to hijack the thread, but I fully expect Microsoft to license their operating systems on an annual subscription basis soon (all of them). You can do it now, and they are steering business users to the online Office365 subscription based product. But one day (in the not to distant future), I predict you will pay al-la-cart for everything on your PC and your internet, and cable, broadcast TV and satellite will be a thing of the past.

JayArras · 03-31-2019, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scheinin

Before I posted here, I looked into Mint.com, but I can't click a button and have it automatically download the transactions from my 15 accounts. (unless I am missing something).

You have to provide the userid and passwords for those accounts in order to be accessed by Mint. Again, not everyone is comfortable with this.

dalford · 03-31-2019, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scheinin

I find Quicken to be a great checkbook program, especially since it can go to my bank and download all transaction automatically. You use to be able to go to Best Buy or Staples and purchase the program. It was good for 3 years, when Quicken forced you to rebuy the program. Now, you must buy a yearly subscription.

Does anyone else use this program, or does anyone else have a program that is as good or better than Quicken?

I have you Quicken for years and still do to this day. I use Quicken for Mac and I use direct connect to my financial institutions. I don’t think there is another package that has the capability of Quicken and even if there was I’m not willing to go through the swap over/learning curve/hassle...lol

I see many complaining about the ‘annual subscription ‘ but I think it is about $75/year. With direct connect I don’t have to enter cleared checks at the bank, I just download them. I can write a check in my Quicken register and then send the instruction to the bank to make the payment, I can set recurring payments and Quicken will send the instructions to the bank. Just those three functions have to save me several hours each month. Even if they only saved me one hour a month, how much is my time work. 12 hours over a year at $75/year... hmmm my time is not worth much..lol.

I’ll stick with Quicken for Mac.. I’ve given up on the PC world and this comes from a die hard PC user just 10 years ago who grew up on MS-DOS and beyond, what was that XP, windows 7 no XP, no windows 10.... but each to his own.

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