Quicken shifts to software subscription model?

What a colossal pain in the ass to us Canadians. Unfortunately the Canadian market is so small, the new owners of Quicken probably don't give a shit.

Scary. I don't mean the price. I mean But if customers do not renew their subscription, they will lose more than just access to downloads from their bank. "While you can continue to access your data and run reports, you'll no longer be able to download transactions, OR ADD MANUAL TRANSACTIONS [emphasis added]," a FAQ said in reply to a question about what happens when access to Connected Service ends.

Link to that FAQ:

I don't like software that suddenly stops working all by itself.

Even though I just upgraded to Q2017 Premiere, I've starting looking for a Quicken replacement. I want to have the new software in place before the Quicken extortion^H^H^H^H^H^H subscription fee starts.

Good luck, there isn't a replacement that I've found so far...

Due to all of the software bugs in the last few versions of Quicken that I've purchased (say, last 7 to 12 years), I've lowered my expectations and usage requirements for a home finance program.

Indeed, the UI of Quicken has become more of an annoyance lately (especially the low contrast text in the 2017 version)*, so I've been seeking and finding other ways to accomplish the same tasks.

I've been playing with Moneydance, and so far it has been looking pretty good.

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• - I understand that low contrast text has become a mainstay of Web 3.0 style, even so I cannot understand why. Why do content providers intentionally make things more difficult to read?

Probably worth pointing out that the current 2017 version of Quicken will continue to be functional for a number of years. The only known limitation is that Quicken won't do security price downloads after 2020.

The unknown is when a Windows update will keep Quicken from running. Or when your financial institution decides to stop paying Quicken to allow One Step Updates.

Have you looked at GnuCash? It is different, the GUI is a bit dated, but it has good reviews, is free, there are versions for Windows, OS X, Linux, and seems to be well supported.

What sets Quicken apart from GnuCash, MoneyDance, AceMoney, etc. is relationships with financial institutions. With Quicken, you can directly download transactions from a large collection of banks, brokerages, and so forth. The collection is sufficiently large that if your financial institution is not included, it is feasible to replace it with a financial institution that is.

GnuCash has a facility to communicate with banks over the internet, but you have to hack it yourself. I tried it and I did not like it at all.

With Quicken, you can update any number of financial institutions in one go. Because this is so convenient, you can do it every day. There is no better way to deal with the problems of identity theft and other financial fraud. Just last month, I was subject to an ACH fraud, a first for me. I caught it 24 hours after the fraudulent transaction occurred. The next morning, I called my bank and got the gears turning. The problem resolved last Friday.

To put it crudely, Quicken has me by the balls. Until they do something really awful (like copying my personal data to their servers) I will just take it. The slang definition is BOHICA.

Won't it also stop doing bill payment after 2020? And won't it also stop doing One Step Updates of bank accounts, credit card accounts, etc. after 2020. I don't know for sure, but I thought so, and these are two of Quicken's most valuable features for me.

Yes! For example, if my bank stopped doing that, I would switch to a different bank.

But if my brokerage house stopped, I couldn't switch to a different one unless I switched financial advisors, which I don't want to do.

And to me, the big advantage is that monthly reconciliation, which was a fair amount of trouble and took a while back in the days when I had to do it on paper, now takes just a few seconds.

Yes, it fails to import data from Quicken correctly. I have transactions from multiple banks, brokers, credid cards, etc. going back many years, GnuCash, MoneyDance and all the others I've tried are unable to import correctly, I'd have to manually begin over again and, at my age (81) I may not have enough time left!

What he said!

I look upon Quicken as I do MSFT Windows, it's necessary. It doesn't matter if I like it or not, I need it and nothing else can replace it!

BTW, David Arnstein, I'll need Quicken even more when that nice Nigerian Price, Colonel Mogambu sends me the 25 million he's going to send...

So the 2017 version will continue to work just as it does now into

I hope the major banks will see the wisdom of not turning off theri customers. The only reason we stay with our current bank is the Quicken access and bill pay.

MoneyDance seems to support a lot of banks though perhaps not as many as Quicken

But it fails miserably importing Quicken data making it impossible for me to use.

I think that changing over to a new money a manager is likely to require starting over with the new software. I'd love to just be able to import the Quicken data but I don't think that's going to happen.

It shouldn't be that difficult to find someone who can write a program able to import Quicken data into new software. Not exactly the same as building the Great Wall, you know.

That's assuming one can export Quicken data. Aren't there some types of Quicken accounts that are not 'exportable' and last time I checked, Q didn't divulge the internal formats anyway.

Well, anything is possible...key is how practical it would be, vis a vis expense.