Get rid of Quicken

Thank you for pointing out Moneydance! They have a Mac version. I'll be looking at it seriously soon.

I was waiting for the Mac Version of Quicken2010 next month. It sure looks like I now have a much better option!

Intuit has all but destroyed the Quicken product line, so many of us will be forced to follow your path. Please post your experience with Moneydance, I would like to know what you think.

Did you evaluate Ace Money too?

I just downloaded and printed an 83 page manual. (I like to study printed vs. online manuals). But I did google and read a lot of positive testimonials. A lot of its users have abandoned Quicken and are ecstatic about it!

Another one I hadn't heard of, but I just googled and it is native Windoze only. I won't run it. No matter it is one of the probably two applications that purport to run with wine. I simply won't do emulators. Native Mac or bust. Moneydance seems the ticket so far.

Let me add my name to those asking for any update from you. I'm still on 2003. I just bought a Mac Book Plus which has to use an emulator to run the 2003.

I've been away on vacation. Having just come back, the is the first I've heard about Moneydance. May I ask you (and anyone else here with an opinion) to tell me exactly what about Moneydance is preferable to Quicken? I'd also like to hear about any disadvantages of Moneydance, if there are any. I'm willing to abandon Quicken in favor of Moneydance if it makes sense for me to do so, but I'd like to know more about why I should (or shouldn't).

Also my bank is Bank of America. Can you tell me if Moneydance supports it with respect to transaction downloading as well as having them make payments?

Thanks in advance.

My decision to drop Quicken (for the second time; I came back when I couldn't find a decent competitor on Mac; and figured out workarounds for two dogging problems) came when I read

which was posted recently in the thread here: Intuit Abandoning Quicken. They want to phase out the desktop software by five years, so you can guess what support they will be putting into it vs. an online program that they have acquired, not even their own online program. Kinda speaks to the quality of their stuff to me. And I'm less than impressed with the current quality.

A quick study of Moneydance, which has a native version for Windoze, Mac, and linux (as any good software company should), and very good testimonials, is enough for me to buy it and try it out. And not spend any more money with Quicken whose future on the desktop is announced to be coming to an end. Why not move on to something that wants to compete in the future?

And I meant to say that the functionality on the three platforms is the same for Moneydance, unlike Quicken where the Mac version lags behind by 3 years (more?) and generally has bugs or missing features.

Thanks. That's helpful, but doesn't me anything about the differences in features between Quicken and Moneydance, and whether Moneydance supports my bank, which are what I'm most interested in.

Well, Moneydance is an entirely new name to me. Their wanting to compete is fine, but I know nothing about what their ability to compete may be.

I understand where you are coming from. But, I find that Google searches are a great way to find out about products to test drive. All I can say is I'm so far impressed by what I've seen on line about Moneydance, but, indeed, I haven't yet test driven it yet. But I've read comments from a dozen or more people who have, and like it. But for the competing side, try Google searches of: "moneydance sucks" and "quicken sucks". Always fun to read! But judge carefully what you read. (even in this group ;-) ).

Ken: I do most of my banking with Alliant Credit Union. Alliant doesn't support Moneydance, so that's a deal breaker for me. Bob

I'd also like to hear about any disadvantages of Moneydance, if there are any.

I looked at Moneydance (and several other personal finance packages available on Linux). Here are the notes I took. I have somewhat peculiar requirements - I'm highly dependent on having "classes," and ability to report by class (column). I currently am running Q2007HB under Wine, which works, but I'd rather a native Linux package. Of the ones I looked at, I thought Moneydance most viable.

Moneydance - $40

QIF import - appears to have imported correctly, put "classes" in separate "tags" field (not part of category name) Dual categorization - supported via separate "tags" field Reporting - Can filter transaction report by "tag" and then assemble "by concert" reports manually, no ability to use "tag" values as column headings

2010-01-01 Update QIF import - worked correctly, putting "class" values in separate "tag" field Dual categorization - supported by separate "tag" field Reporting - Limited number of predefined reports, no ability to create an entirely new predefined report. Can filter most reports by "tag" and then assemble "by event" reports (spreadsheets) from them. Still no ability to use "tag" as the column heading.

Thanks. The problem with posts entitled "XXXXX Sucks" is that they usually express opinions, and say little if anything in the way of specific facts. So I was hoping to get some specific info here.

Thanks. That would be a deal breaker for me too. That's why I asked specifically about Moneydance and Bank of America--to find out whether that combo is supported.

On

I just read "One useful feature which Moneydance appears to lack is integration with larger financial institutions for automated downloads. Ameritrade, Bank of America, American Express, etc., all offer services to integrate Quicken with these and other institutions, making updating your accounts online very simple. Unfortunately, with Moneydance, this requires visiting the financial institution?s website and downloading files, or manually updating investment account balances. Given that I have to visit my local credit union?s site to download my statements anyway, this is not a huge inconvenience. However, updating my stock portfolios is proving to be a little more work than I had hoped."

If that's the case, I can't consider using Moneydance.

Personally I will stick with Quicken 2008 until I can't DL from my banks. My Beef with the newer releases is they require Microsoft Dot Net to be installed. This is a resource hogging virtual machine. I have locked into WinXP as my operating system and until something new comes along that I can't do with my machine I am staying with it. If I upgrade it will bbe to a flavor of Linux / Unix / whatever. Moneydance runs on Java which is fine with me. It is only memory resident when you run an application that requires it.

Specific info: MoneyDance failed miserable to import my Quicken data. If you have a simple checking account, maybe it would work but many have multiple accounts going back for years, you can enter each line by hand faster than the years it would take to straighten out the mess MoneyDance or Gnucash makes out of your data.

I've been looking for several years for an alternative to Quicken and have not found anything that even begins to come close, sorry.

Thanks very much. That's sufficient to talk me out of it.

Download the free trial version of Moneydance and see for yourself how well it fits your needs.

That of course has always been an option. However because it represents a sizable investment of time and trouble, I was interested in hearing about other people's experiences before I did that (or instead of doing it). And based on the information I've gotten in response to my question, I will refrain from doing so, since it clearly will not meet my needs.