UK Quicken

Intuit has withdrawn from the UK market and stoppped selling Quicken in the UK at the 2004 level. The last support options for UK Quicken has closed down in January this year.

And you won't be able to convert your UK data file to the US version of Quicken either (or the Australian version...). So, like me, you're stuck with the 2004 version!

You may not be able to "convert" your UK data to a US version; but I think you can export your UK data to qif and import that into a US version. Qif file export/import does not handle all Quicken data and has its own little quirks, so one would have to do a bit of work ... still, I don't see why anyone otherwise willing to have their data "converted" to a US version - if it were possible - couldn't switch to using the US version via qif export/import.

I got a copy of Quicken 2006 Deluxe from the support folk at Intuit US and have started playing with the QIF import/export option, but it's VERY messy! Data is lost, there are problems with dates getting messed up, data isn't exported properly, etc., etc. But I've found some interesting tips on the net on different ways to do the conversion and will be playing with those over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I might even consider running the 2 versions concurrently until I get the conversion to a point where I'm happy to switch over to the US version completely... The other "problem" with the US version is that a lot of the functionality is very specific to US banking and investment practices. It's an American product made for the American market and a lot of the functionality is useless outside the USA (like online banking and share price downloads) so you end up paying for functionality that you can't use outside the USA. But, after a while you get used to being treated like a third rate customer... It's standard practice here at the bottom tip of Africa. I guess it comes down to the fact that it's not worth spending money building products for small markets. Unfortunately, at the moment there isn't any competition that's nearly as good as Quicken - but it's getting there (and I'll jump ship when it does).