Pulling the plug on Quicken
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Q for former Quicken users:
I've been using Quicken since MS Money went down. Lately, I've been looking for alternatives and Moneydance sounds promising. I've started using it in parallel w/ Quicken and so far so good. Now, as I'm thinking of pulling the plug on Quicken, what Quicken features am I going to miss once I completely switch to Moneydance?
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1 Posted by rasmith1959 on Jan 16, 2018 @ 02:57 PM
Hi! I din't have an answer to your question as I'm in the same boat you are. I too switched to Quicken after MS Money went away, and now that Quicken is changing to a subscription type service, I'm using MoneyDance in parallel with Quicken. I too am wondering the same thing you are, so I'll be watching this thread to see what's going on.
2 Posted by -Kevin N. on Jan 16, 2018 @ 06:47 PM
Hi
The trial version of Moneydance is fully functional aside from it's limit on manually entered transactions.
If you are missing something from the trial version, then that's what you'll miss in using Moneydance exclusively.
Something that you might not miss is being hounded to upgrade your license key every several years. Moneydance does not sunset the product. e.g. I still use MD 2011.
I also still use MS Money in parallel with Moneydance. There is a free program called Pocketsense that allows users to update stock quotes and use direct-connect to those financial institutions that provide it. Pocketsense essentially makes MS Money fully functional again.
-Kevin N. (not a member of MD support)
3 Posted by dwg on Jan 16, 2018 @ 08:19 PM
There is no way anyone else can tell you what features are in Quicken that you will miss using Moneydance, or indeed any features that are in Moneydance that you would have personally have used if they had of been in Quicken only you can answer these type of questions.
A feature for feature comparison list does not exist, that would take quite some compiling especially with the different versions of Quicken offered.
Personally I would say in the basic features they are very comparable, although they can be different to use, Quicken I feel is more capable in the Investment area. Moneydance is not aimed at the Small Business market so does not have those features.
4 Posted by Michael on Jan 16, 2018 @ 09:30 PM
I too have been running both MD and Quicken.. My Quicken is 2000, and in my view, despite its age, its still a lot better than Moneydance. Quickens investment stuff is much easier to use, and to tailor to your own requirements You can build reports to what you want not what some programmer thinks you want.. I have just upgraded to the latest version of MD- hoping to find some improvement in this area.. What a waste of money. Apart from a few cosmetic changes, it is just as it was. If you don't want the investment stuff its OK, though I still prefer Quicken for ease of use. And if you do track investments, I would definitely stick with Quicken.,
5 Posted by Boris P on Jan 21, 2018 @ 11:26 PM
To dwg: No, but people can share their experiences. That's what I was after.
At this point, MD looks nice. Really nice. However, I'm less impressed with it now compared to when I first started a few weeks ago. I'll give it until my free transactions run out.
6 Posted by Todd S on Jan 28, 2018 @ 04:17 PM
As a former Quicken 2013 user, I got fed up with the forced update/purchase every three years Quicken makes you go through an set out to find a replacement. I tried quite a few before settling on MoneyDance and find it to be pretty similar in the features I used. My trial transactions just finally ran out after using it for over a year and so I purchased it just today. I will say that I think Quicken did a better job of matching downloaded transactions to merge into the transactions register. With Moneydance, you'll want to pay more attention to that when confirming the downloaded transactions. The only thing I missed was the forecasting that quicken was so good at. Moneydance has a future balance extension you can add for free, but I had to purchase one called money foresight to get one that was more like Quickens. Bottom line, I am very happy with my switch.
7 Posted by dwanthem on Jan 28, 2018 @ 05:01 PM
I ran MD in parallel with Quicken for about a month before pulling the plug on Quicken, Had been a Quicken user for over 10 years. I got tired of the frequent crashes, slowness (I have many, many accounts and lots of transactions).
The biggest chore in converting over was the multiple errors in the Quicken database, it was riddled with problems that I didn't even know were there until I imported to MD. There were transactions that were not linked properly between source/destination account and sure enough when I went back in Quick the errors were right there.
Transactions import better and I *love* that downloaded transactions do not flow through Quicken such that you have to have an internet connection when importing them and periodically get. demand to log back into Quicken.
Also much loved, the ability to run the same software on Mac, Windows and Linux. With Quicken I had to run in a Windows VM on my Mac because I wasn't going to pay for two copies (Mac and Windows) and they were only sort of compatible.
What I miss:
1) Quicken web scrapes banks that don't support direct download, but that frequently broke and took FAR too long to download, and often hung Quicken (did I mention I have a LOT of accounts?). I ended up manually logging into accounts once every week or two anyway just to verify Quicken had gotten everything so only a minor gripe.
2) Reports, got used to some of the Quicken reports, MD would do well to replicate them
What I don't miss:
1) Crashes
2) Corruption
3) Painful running on multiple machines (I would use a backup to Dropbox, restore on other machine method)
4) Bad job matching manually downloaded transactions with account they are meant for, MD does a far better job
5) Having to log into Quicken server periodically
6) Slowness, transactions took seconds to post sometimes, no my machine is not the reason
7) Slowness, scrolling through transactions was turtle speed, MD like lightning
8) Extendible, though I wish IK would open it up more. Quicken hides everything in their proprietary database (that is ancient and rickety).
9) Spending $79 every year convinced that THIS was the year Quicken would fix their buggy, unreliable, slow software only to realize I bought the same pig with different colored lipstick
8 Posted by dwanthem on Jan 28, 2018 @ 05:05 PM
One more big thing I like about MD, the mobile app
For just looking at accounts and transactions it works flawlessly, the Quicken mobile app was useless IMO.
9 Posted by Boris Pulatov on Jan 28, 2018 @ 11:36 PM
Thanks Todd! This is exactly the kind of information I was after. This
helps.
10 Posted by Boris P on Feb 11, 2018 @ 02:44 PM
Thanks to all who replied. After exhausting my 100 transactions, I've decided to stick w/ Quicken a little longer. MD looks promising and I'll keep an eye on it.
11 Posted by Boris P on Feb 11, 2018 @ 02:47 PM
I forgot to thank dana for the detailed response. Thank you! That's the kind of feedback I was hoping for.
12 Posted by whitedavidp on Feb 12, 2018 @ 07:14 PM
Hello. I too am considering the move from Quicken to MD for the reasons we all know... So far, after alot of work converting stuff, MD is looking pretty decent. But until just now I didn't know about PocketSense. I wonder if it can be used to keep a sunset'ed Quicken working? Anyone have any knowledge/experience? Thanks
13 Posted by CABellucci on Feb 21, 2018 @ 03:22 PM
I am a recent convert to MoneyDance. Still running Quicken 2015, but I'm about to lose my capability to download bank transactions.
There is a bit of a difference between the two programs. My biggest "what I'm going to miss about Quicken" is the loan presentation pages. That is, I like the summary pages that display when the loan was opened, interest rate, how much is paid off, and the graph that shows the payments of the loan. But, really, that's the biggest thing I miss.
However, please note that while I do import my 401(k) investments into both Quicken and MoneyDance, I do not use either program to really do full time tracking. I've heard that MoneyDance does not do a good job with that (although I was never impressed with Quicken's tracking, either). So, for investments, your mileage may vary.
So happy to be off the Quicken upgrade trail, especially now since they're going to a subscription plan.
14 Posted by Boris Pulatov on Feb 22, 2018 @ 03:44 PM
Thank you
15 Posted by shiner03 on Mar 23, 2018 @ 05:12 PM
I recently aborted Quicken 2007 for Mac for all the reasons above, but another great reason is the Moneydance Knowledge base. This is a huge support for all the smart Moneydance users who chime in with answers on a question or prob that you may have. Quicken 2007 had non of this. Users were isolated and alone to fix probs. You could sign up to be in a Yahoo users group where you may only get 1 answer within a week; completely inadequate.
System closed this discussion on Jun 22, 2018 @ 05:20 PM.