Personal Finance Software

Charles Maurer wrote:

>We used Quicken for several years but eventually it started misbehaving
>during downloads from the bank. The bank's support guy told me that
>Quicken's data file was corrupted.

Probably correct advice.

> He told me that I was seeing the
>first signs of this, that they were archetypical, that I would be unable
>to fix the file--nobody seeing these signs ever could--and that my only
>recourse was to start a new file and re-enter all the data by hand.

Bogus advice!

Some years ago I had problems with my data file, finally calling
Intuit's help line. They charge for this service, but I went ahead.
Their man talked me through several recovery procedures, until we
finally recovered almost everything. I had to re-enter a few dozen
checks, but that was small potatoes compared to what I might have
lost.

After a while I got a charge on my VISA account for this help, which
I paid. Then I reviewed carefully's Intuit's policy for free help
and charged help. It's free if it's for a known problem, otherwise
charged. I decided that that the fact that their person seemed
quite familiar with the problem indicated that Intuit knew about
it, and that I shouldn't have to pay. I wrote a polite letter to
Intuit pointing out these facts and requested a refund. This was in
March, and I got a form letter saying they couldn't even think
about my problem till after Tax Season (they make TurboTax) and
that I would hear from them later. Sure enough, I got a letter
later acknowledging that I was entitled to a refund and stating
that they would credit my VISA account for most (not all) of the
charge. I was satisfied.

To my way of thinking, there are three morals to this story:

   - For a serious problem for which I really need a fix, paying for
     help is the right way to go. For almost any value of my time, it's
     cheap.

   - Complaining politely is sometimes a big win.

   - Get your help from the right place. I think you made a poor
     choice in asking your bank rather than Intuit.

I use Quicken for tracking only checking and VISA accounts. My
present data file has five years of data and hasn't given me any
trouble.

I tried their features for managing investments but found them
seriously inconvenient. I have my own software now for investment
management, using a Hypercard stack and Excel for reports. Not
surprisingly, this combination does exactly what I want. (I change
it when it doesn't.) I'm retired now, so writing this kind of
software is fun. Since I'm satisfied with what I have, I haven't
revisited Quicken's feature in years; maybe it's better now.

Art Evans

At 08:51 AM 12/23/2004 -0800, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>Same file on all versions -- quicken may have this.

No, Quicken does not -- and this is a Very Big Deal. And the only
communication format, QIF, does not encapsulate sufficient information to
rebuild a file as it was. In a day and age where cross-platform files are
the rule, this is inexcusable.

In recent years I've been forced into using mostly Windows systems due to
my work. For a long time it didn't matter that my personal stuff was still
on a Mac. But with extensive travel in the past year carrying a Windows
laptop, I've moved almost everything onto it. And naturally my finances are
something I'd like to have with me.

So last March I got a copy of Quicken 2004 for Windows and started the
procedure to port my files. At first I even had this screwy notion that I
might be able to move them back and forth at will. I followed the long list
of instructions which Intuit publishes. One might give them some credit for
publishing the instructions, if the instructions worked. At the end of a
long day, I tried to import the QIF file into Windows Quicken.

The first sign of disaster was when Quicken said it failed to import 131
transactions due to "invalid category/class". OK, which transactions?
Sorry, can't tell you. Looking at the results, it failed to do the right
thing on a lot more than 131 transactions. Almost every account had the
wrong balance, so the method of comparing balances to find the errors was
useless.

Quicken also violates Windows conventions in many ways. The Windows UI
bears no resemblance to the Mac version. You can't even display two
registers at the same time, because a register is not a window. Worse, you
can't put a laptop to sleep with Quicken running -- it actually blocks the
system from sleeping! -- the only software I've encountered which does this.

So I trashed it and wrote off the $70 as a bad decision. I looked at
Moneydance at the time, and based on what I've just read here, I think I'll
give it a shot.

All this is sad. Ten to twelve years ago, Quicken was an excellent program,
starting from when it gained the ability to handle multiple accounts around
1992. It gained smaller but useful improvements up through 1998. But since
then each new release has been a downgrade -- slower, clumsier, and less
reliable than the one before. And Quicken 98 wasn't even Y2K compatible!

Quicken clearly isn't being developed for end users any more. It's being
developed for banks and sold to banks. Note the hefty fees that Intuit
charges banks to use its proprietary QFX file format -- fees large enough
that small credit unions are opting out. Online banking is the default mode
and is difficult to disable. At this point, Quicken seems to be oriented to
1) maintaining a revenue stream for a large company whose software product
is mature and whose users therefore mostly don't need upgrades, and 2)
elbowing out as much of the market space as possible in the competition
with MS Money.

Edward Reid

At 8:51 AM -0800 12/23/04, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>Same file on all versions -- quicken may have this.

Anybody know if (current) Quicken/Mac does or does not use the same
file format as Quicken/Windows.

I currently use Quicken 2002 Deluxe, but have been planning for some
time to move to Quicken (something) on Windows. Intuit maddeningly
prices their superior Windows product cheaper, and since ours is a
multiplatform household, I'm going to vote with my wallet.

However, I found out that this version of Quicken does *not* have the
same file format as the Windows version. Intuit's documentation for
migrating basically boil down to doing an export/import via OXF
format - and the instructions include options for "if it totally
chokes, do this."

If current versions of Quicken/Mac actually update to a
platform-independant file format, I'll buy the upgrade just for the
exit strategy.

--
Andrew Laurence
atlaurenuci.edu

On 1/3/05 1:23 PM, "Andrew Laurence" <atlaurenes.nacs.uci.edu> wrote:

> However, I found out that this version of Quicken does *not* have the
> same file format as the Windows version. Intuit's documentation for
> migrating basically boil down to doing an export/import via OXF
> format - and the instructions include options for "if it totally
> chokes, do this."

Not only that, but if you ask for tech support once you've upgraded your mac
version to windows (which I did this weekend, painstakingly changing all of
those 1903 and 1904s it changed back to 2003 and 2004, entering all the loan
accounts it deleted, fixing the categories on all 10,000+ entries and then
re-reconciling everything from old statements), they won't provide any
support except to suggest that you should pay them $200 to do the migration
for you, even if you're asking about features that have NOTHING TO DO with
the migration.

This is quite maddening after spent about 50 hours in one weekend doing all
of the migration yourself, and they now won't support the format you
migrated to.

I knew I hated Intuit, first for not providing a Mac-compatible product (I
have 401(k)s, dammit, and want to use Quicken to track them like I can with
Windows. Instead, they give me the feature where I can add pictures of my
home inventory on the Mac. If ever find the person responsible for
prioritizing Mac features, I may kill them.)

But now I hate them for not supporting those Windows products, even after
I've paid them $24.95 for support and $70 for the crap piece of software in
the first place.

If only there was another choice.

Sigh,

Ben

--
Ben Stanfield
Executive Editor, MacSlash
http://macslash.org
benmacslash.org

Well, this is a bit why I asked the question that started this
thread, and if I'm a good boy I'll try to summarize the posts here
and send them back.

I based my extremely limited parameters so far on whether a program
could import a QIF export from a Key Bank checking account totaling
about 40 transactions. My results (and I use the word advisedly) on
OSX 10.3.7 to date are:

iBank - no
Quicken (Mac 2004) - no
GnuCash - yes
MoneyDance - yes
Finance 5 - (didn't even get beyond the limited interface).

So far Moneydance is ahead except for the very bizarre system of
making accounts and categories the same: let's not get into
accounting here, I don't need to learn new theories of accounting.
GnuCash looks very good (see the post by Nigel Stanger - {I think,
I'm on the wrong machine here}) but I cannot handle the interface
despite having some formal training and experience in Linux.

Moneydance on points, but it's close, and I wish I had something
w/Quicken's interface and functionality but w/o the bugs - ROTFL -
and I might even finally have to take up the suggestion to do it in
Excel.

--
Dan Hinckley, Gingins, Switzerland
home: dbhsuiattle.org
work: dahhq.iucn.org; http://iucn.org/
the Suiattle: 48º 19' N, 121º 32' W

At 10:23 AM -0800 1/3/05, Andrew Laurence wrote:
>Anybody know if (current) Quicken/Mac does or does not use the same
>file format as Quicken/Windows.

As of the 2004 version it doesn't. (I haven't upgraded to 2005 yet.)
A Mac Quicken document is a package (ie, really a directory) with a
bunch of stuff in it, and the main data file in the package uses
resources. I'd be surprised if 2005 changed this.

--
Larry Rosenstein
lsralum.mit.edu

At 14:36 -0800 04/01/2005, Dan Hinckley wrote in Re: Personal Finance Software:
>Moneydance on points, but it's close, and I wish I had something
>w/Quicken's interface and functionality but w/o the bugs - ROTFL -
>and I might even finally have to take up the suggestion to do it in
>Excel.

I'm not familiar with Quicken and have forgotten the original
question, but a New Zealand product family called MoneyWorks is worth
a look. There are various versions, with differing levels of
sophistication. Cashbook at the lowest end specifically mentions QIF
imports.

http://cognito.co.nz/product.cashbook.php

I've been happily using Moneyworks for 9 years now to run my
business. These days it does both Mac and Windows (after being Mac
only).

The company now sells beyond New Zealand and now reaches out to the
US as well. They are a friendly and helpful bunch and you could do
worse than download a demo.

Cheers,

Miraz
--
Miraz Jordan | mirazmactips.info | http://mactips.info

> I based my extremely limited parameters so far on whether a program
> could import a QIF export from a Key Bank checking account totaling
> about 40 transactions. My results (and I use the word advisedly) on
> OSX 10.3.7 to date are:

A few years ago, I had a bank that only supported QIF files for Windows
customers. At that time, I also had Quicken for Windows (QFW) and so
what I would do is simply download/import the QIF file into QFW and
export it in the Mac format. Then one day I decided to look at the
before and after QIF files to see what the difference was between the
two. As it turned out, the ONLY difference was the way in which the
date was formated.

I eventually spent a whopping 15 minutes one day and made a FileMaker
database that would convert the QIF from Windows to Mac, on my Mac,
thus negating the need to perform said conversion in QFW. It may need
a tweak or two to get it to function with the newer Quicken products,
but I would be happy to provide it to anyone who might be interested.

Just let me know!

-James

On 1/4/2005 14:36, "Ben Stanfield -- MacSlash" <benmacslash.org> wrote:

> Not only that, but if you ask for tech support once you've upgraded your mac
> version to windows (which I did this weekend, painstakingly changing all of
> those 1903 and 1904s it changed back to 2003 and 2004, ...

Hmmm...it's too late for your conversion but...did you have your short date
format showing the century?

Early in 2000, I had to separate my Claris Emailer messages as copied into
Filemaker into the real January 1900 ones and the January 2000 ones (not
hard ;-)) and run a Replace which fixed all the latter. I had run the
January message move (uses AppleScript) with 2-digit years in Short Date...I
had not trouble in later months which I ran the script with 4-digit years in
Short Date set in the Mac preferences.

Setting Short Date to 4-digit years before running most conversions which
involve writing out a file is probably a good precaution, unless instructed
otherwise.

  ---John

On Jan 4, 2005, at 5:36 PM, Ben Stanfield -- MacSlash wrote:

> This is quite maddening after spent about 50 hours in one weekend
> doing all
> of the migration yourself, and they now won't support the format you
> migrated to.

Quicken had been driving me mad for a few years now with a bug that
would basically unreconcile random statements in random accounts. The
problem didn't happen too often (maybe once or twice a year), but when
it did, dealing with it usually took hours. Well, this weekend, the
dreaded un-reconcile problem struck again. Added with the fact that
download/reconcile from AmEx mysteriously stopped working properly
about a year ago (Intuit support was no help), I took it as a sign to
switch.

Based on this thread, and reviews at VersionTracker, I went with
MoneyDance. I migrated about 4 years worth of data, and because I
pretty much use every account type in Quicken---assets, banking,
credit, loans, 401(k), investment---and based on prior attempts at
migrating to PC quicken (I gave up after about 6 hours), I was prepared
for the long haul. To make an already long story short, the QIF
migration worked quite well. There were surprisingly few errors, and
what errors I did encounter was the result of limitations in QIF and
were easy to track down because MoneyDance basically flagged them. (I
think this was an unintentional consequence of the way MoneyDance
handles things like transfers.) I was done with the migration, error
correction and verification in a span of about 4 hours. (Had it not
been for the fact that in the process I converted a foreign currency
account recorded in Quicken as an investment account to a proper
foreign currency account, and had it not been for an QIF export bug in
Quicken which created a weird problem in one of my investment accounts
and took a while for me to figure out, I would have been done sooner.
Quicken can't even write its own export format without messing up!)

Some may find the proper double-entry bookkeeping style of MoneyDance
odd, and the Java nature of the program means that some things don't
quite work the way they should on a Mac. But the former can sometimes
be a plus even for the home user. And given the reported robustness,
cross-platform nature of the program, online banking that works, and
real support for multiple currencies, the UI quirks are an acceptable
trade-off.

The irony of this whole story is that migration from Quicken to
MoneyDance via QIF worked better---it actually works, is faster, and
produces drammatically fewer errors---than taking the same data and
trying to move it across platform to a Windows version of Quicken.
(And given my past abortive attempt at moving from Mac Quicken to
Windows Quicken, I don't think Ben's quote of 50 hours is at all an
exaggeration.)

On Jan 3, 2005, at 1:23 PM, Edward Reid wrote:
>
> Quicken clearly isn't being developed for end users any more. It's
> being
> developed for banks and sold to banks. Note the hefty fees that Intuit
> charges banks to use its proprietary QFX file format -- fees large
> enough
> that small credit unions are opting out.

The QFX licensing and certification fees may be deterring not-so-small
financial institutions as well. I do part of my banking with American
Express Bank. American Express (the charge card) offers both Quicken
Online and downloads via QFX. But American Express Bank does not.
Their export to Quicken feature just creates an QIF file. (AmEx the
Bank arrived well after 1998 when Quicken started supporting OFX/QFX
based services, so it's not a matter of the Bank sticking with legacy
technology that they had in place before QFX based services were
available. They made a conscious choice to do only QIF.) And this at
an online only bank.

The interesting twist in all this is that perhaps in order to force the
Financial Institutions into adopting QFX, Intuit has pulled the QIF
import function for banking, 401(k) and brokerage accounts starting in
Quicken 2005 for Windows. Moreover, they have declared they will pull
the QIF import function for credit card accounts starting in Quicken
2006 for Windows. (They don't say about the Mac version.)

This begs the question, since Quicken won't export QFX, what happens to
users who want to transfer data across files, recover data after
corruption, send their financial info to their accountant, or otherwise
may need to use QIF? Clearly, Intuit doesn't care about such needs of
users.

In one of their FAQ entries, they respond to the question: what if my
bank doesn't support QFX but only QIF. They basically respond with the
answer: switch banks.

Add to this, Intuit is being shamelessly disingenuous. Go to their
website look under the reason for their disabling QIF imports. They
state: "Intuit is committed to helping the industry transition to Open
Financial Exchange (OFX)." (Never mind that "help" is an interesting
choice of words.) They attempt to hide the fact that what they are
pushing is not OFX (an open standard) but QFX (their proprietary
standard). True the QFX format is based on the OFX standard, but I am
told that QFX requires additional information and a connection to the
financial institution in order for Quicken to process those files. So,
even if your financial institution gives you a properly formatted OFX
file, there is no guarantee that Quicken will be able to open it. (In
fact, there have been reports of Quicken not importing OFX files.) In
order to guarantee compatability with Quicken, the Financial
Institutions have to pay to use QFX.

I understand that Intuit is perhaps just trying to leverage their
dominance in the personal finance software market, but even so their
arrogance is stunning.

To expand the discussion (thread drift) away from purely English language
based personal finance software...

While creating an image for the new iMac G5 I have discovered that it comes
with the French finance software Tous Compte Faits.

Judging from the website [1], my personal French translator tells me:

"Yes, it's a kind of Quicken:
- personal account/finance management/analysis software
- has been around for 13 years
- a new version 4.0 for Mac OS has just been released
- is accepted by French banks, so that people can import their financial
statements directly in it.

The literal translation means 'All Accounts Done', or 'all accounts dealt
with'."

[1] <http://www.macplus.net/magplus/depeche-7698-tous-comptes-faits-perso-4>

Both the translator and I find it interesting that Apple has included a
French account management application. The interesting points are:
1. The initial setup of the new machine is language neutral and requires the
operator to designate a language, and inclusion of this non-English
application further confirms that the machine and the company are thinking
outside the English speaking world*, and
2. The inclusion of a French personal accounting software seems to indicate
some recognition of the presence of the platform in that target market.

Miraz Jordan wrote:

I'm not familiar with Quicken and have forgotten the original question, but a New Zealand product family called MoneyWorks is worth a look. There are various versions, with differing levels of sophistication. Cashbook at the lowest end specifically mentions QIF imports.

I've been happily using Moneyworks for 9 years now to run my business.

I'll second the above recommendation. We've been using MoneyWorks for over 10 years. It's well designed, very user friendly, and has an excellent interface. It comes with an excellent Report Generator and a Forms Designer. There's also a FileMaker Plug-in for interacting with that software.

The NZ developers have not sought business in the US 'cos of the multiplicity of state/county/city sales tax regimes and their various reporting requirements. But that may change if they decide to show at the next FileMaker Developer Conference where they should be able to tap into developers who could provide the type of support structure they would like to have in North America.

In terms of the requirements that have been mentioned earlier in this thread, MoneyWorks may not be all that suitable for monitoring your investments but, as I don't have any that are worth monitoring in this way,:-( I cannot comment any further on this aspect.

MoneyWorks was mainly designed to provide a good way of keeping on-side with our Inland Revenue Dept -- ie. making sure that you could furnish an auditable GST return (a type of Sales Tax) every one, two of six months as required. In this respect it has been brilliant for our business -- it's also been very thorough for keeping track of 5,000+ debtors in our mail-order business.

I'm happy to provide further info back channel if anyone needs it.

Cheers,

John Wolff Hamilton, New Zealand Email: dtopcompwave.co.nz

At 11:32 AM 01/05/2005 -0800, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:
>I am told that QFX requires additional information and a connection to the
>financial institution in order for Quicken to process those files.

A friend of mine traced the IP traffic while he was running Quicken and
concluded that the only reason Quicken connects to the financial
institution is to download their logos for display purposes. He wrote:

>FYI, I did a network monitor of the Quicken online conversation with my
>bank when I did an import. It is an HTTP request/response.
>
>Request: http://www.bankofamerica.com/onlinebanking/quicken/intuit/banc_03.ini
>
>[...] It looks like Quicken uses this to get the bank logos to display at
>the bottom of the check register screen.

And yet Quicken refuses to import the QFX file without the logo ...

Edward Reid

On Jan 7, 2005, at 2:40 PM, Edward Reid wrote:

>> [...] It looks like Quicken uses this to get the bank logos to
>> display at
>> the bottom of the check register screen.
>
> And yet Quicken refuses to import the QFX file without the logo ...
>

In case people have missed it, there's been some discussion of the
whole QFX/Web Connect issue in MacIntouch over the last couple of days.

It appears that Intuit charges financial institutions separately for
Windows and Mac QFX certification. (Hence the lack of Mac support at
some institutions.) This despite the fact that QFX/OFX is an XML
formatted text file, and is no different between the two platforms. It
appears that the Quicken app maintains a database of FIs that offer Mac
support (i.e. have paid Intuit), checks the Bank ID information in the
QFX file against this database, and refuses to read the file if is not
listed, even though the information in the file is perfectly valid.

One suggested workaround is to use QIFMaster to covert the QFX file to
QIF. Then you can import that data into Quicken, though you will lose
the transaction matching and auto reconcilation features. (Of course,
this will only work so long as the QIF import feature remains in the
Mac version, which may not be for very long given that it is largely
gone from the Windows version.)

Tn

>The QFX licensing and certification fees may be deterring not-so-small
>financial institutions as well.
>...
>So, even if your financial institution gives you a properly formatted OFX
>file, there is no guarantee that Quicken will be able to open it. (In
>fact, there have been reports of Quicken not importing OFX files.) In
>order to guarantee compatability with Quicken, the Financial
>Institutions have to pay to use QFX.
>
>I understand that Intuit is perhaps just trying to leverage their
>dominance in the personal finance software market, but even so their
>arrogance is stunning.

I'm the IS Director for a 60,000 member credit union and we have made
that conscious choice also. So far we've had only a handful of
members really ask for the QFX option. Intuit wants many thousand
dollars from us to supply us with an Intuit ID number. We're choosing
to not pay that money. Instead, we redirect folks to Microsoft Money
(talk about being caught between a rock and a hard spot :) ) or one
of the other available packages.

Also, I can confirm that the newest Quicken will not import ordinary
OFX. You have to include the one extra line that identifies your
financial institution. It is technically trivial to create a QFX file
if you have an OFX one. It just requires a very expensive license to
legally do so.

At 11:40 AM -0800 1/7/05, Edward Reid wrote:
>concluded that the only reason Quicken connects to the financial
>institution is to download their logos for display purposes. He wrote:

That's not the right thing to look at. Quicken maintains a list of
supported financial institutions and that list is updated from an
Intuit web site. I assume that a QFX file can only be imported if
the institution is on that list.

This makes sense because at the technical level there's no reason for
a bank to lock out Mac users, since the files are cross-platform.
But if Intuit charges a separate fee for the bank to provide Mac
support, then Intuit _would_ have a reason to want to enforce that
restriction.

--
Larry Rosenstein
lsralum.mit.edu

There is also a financial software by Parcus Group from Australia. I find it user friendly and not as high maintenance as the other products available in the market. I don't have much problem with it. Have a look at it at www.parcusgroup.com/index.html

On May 1, 2007, at 11:13 AM, pesli wrote:

> There is also a financial software by Parcus Group from Australia.
> I find it user friendly and not as high maintenance as the other
> products available in the market. I don't have much problem with
> it. Have a look at it at www.parcusgroup.com/index.html

It looks interesting. It is apparently a series of Excel templates.

The site doesn't mention the Macintosh and all of the screenshots
show Windows screens. Are their products 100% Macintosh compatible?

Is their accounting product specific for Austraila or does it make
allowances for other currencies and other tax structures of other
countries?

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

At 08:58 05/02/07 -0700, Randy B. Singer wrote:
>The site doesn't mention the Macintosh and all of the screenshots
>show Windows screens. Are their products 100% Macintosh compatible?

At best, an Excel-based application certainly makes extensive use of VBA --
which relates to another thread here.

Edward
--
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org