Don't Buy Quicken Software From Intuit

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve used Quicken 2000 to track my finances for, oh, about four years now. It is reasonably good software and allows me to download my bank, credit card and investment statements.

So a couple of weeks ago I fire up Quicken to do my monthly bookkeeping and am greeted with the following message:

As of April 20, 2004 for Quicken 98 and 99 users, and May 18, 2004 for Quicken 2000 users, online services will no longer be available. Online services include bill pay; downloading financial data from your bank, credit union, credit card, brokerage, or mutual fund accounts; downloading stock quotes, news headlines, and other financial information into Quicken; and uploading portfolio information from Quicken to Quicken.com. Attempting to use online features and services after these dates will result in the Quicken program returning various error messages.

Q: What do I need to do to maintain my online services?
A: You will need to upgrade to Quicken 2004.

Q: Why will online services no longer be available for older versions of Quicken?
A: Intuit is committed to delivering the best possible products, services and security to our customers. Retiring older versions of the product allows us to focus our resources on more effectively supporting our newer products, which are used by the vast majority of Quicken customers.

This is the biggest fucking steaming load I’ve ever heard. You don’t want to support my software any more, fine. Why does that mean you have to stop my software from working? My bank knows how to send me data in Quicken 2000 format, I have the software to read it, what gives you assholes the right to fuck it up? Oh, wait, you’re giving me a $20 discount if I upgrade? Ooh, I’m so grateful. You fucking dicks.

Oh, by the way, all those cars I designed that you people at Intuit drive? I don’t feel like supporting them any more. It just doesn’t pay to keep printing all those service manuals and making spare parts for your '96 Accord. It’s taking my attention away from my newer customers; I’m sure you’ll have no trouble making a small sacrifice to keep them happy. So on Monday morning, your car will no longer start. You have the option to upgrade to a new car. I’ll even knock $200 off the sticker price.

Goddamn polesmoking cockrockets. I am seriously considering calling my state’s Attorney General.

2

I suggest you not annoy the AG over this. Intuit has no obligation to continue a service that they no longer want to provide.

Your bank is still free to supply you with QIF files to your heart’s delight. You’ll just have to download them yourself.

3

Read the message. It says explicitly that I will no longer be able to download financial data from my bank.

4

I quit using Quicken 99 when they made me call them to get a new registration number everytime windows crashed and I had to reload it. Their advice, upgrade. My response, bite me. I found a new program, Moneydance. Moneydance Home Page

This program imports Quicken and MS Money files, runs on windows, Linux, OS X, and even OS/2. It has a free trial download to check it out.

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with this software, just a very happy user.

Cheers,
Vega

5

You will no longer be able to download the data through Quicken. All major banks have their own websites that provide Quicken files for you to download manually.

6

I do think there’s a distinction to be drawn between ceasing to provide a service and wilfully disabling a product to force users to upgrade. In some cases it might not be an easy distinction to make, but I personally think this example tends towards the latter in the case of direct data downloads. Put it this way - they might be on a sound legal footing, but it’s an episode which greatly discourages me from buying their software, since they seem willing to coerce people into buying upgrades. Their new software should be worth buying on its own merits, not because it’s the only way to keep working.

Hyperelastic, if you particularly want to do something, I’d suggest writing to a couple of places like slashdot, theregister.co.uk, cnet.com, wired.com and so forth. I don’t think complaints to an AG will get anywhere, while adverse customer reactions quite often make a company think twice.

7

I think friedo is on to something here. How would Quicken disable your program if all you do is take files directly from your bank? I have no doubt that such an act would be completely illegal. I suspect they’re talking about some online service that you get through Quicken.com.

It does look like they’re sunsetting their old QIF import function, but it will still work if that’s the type of file you’re provided by your bank.

8

My bank uses QIF file format, and Quicken isn’t the only program that uses that file format. So does Microsoft Money.

Howthehell is Quicken going to interfere with the bank’s ability to send you downloads on your accounts?

9

I suppose it’s possible that the only thing that will be disabled is the download feature within Quicken. But the message I put in the OP is pasted verbatim from the FAQ on their website. Again, and I quote, the features to be discontinued include “downloading financial data from your bank.” They don’t go into the details of how this will be prevented (whether it is the download feature, the import QIF feature, or both, that will be disabled). Either way, the clear message is that my software is going to break and I’ll have to upgrade.

Cheesesteak’s link provides some insight into what is going on here. Intuit decided it doesn’t like QIF, so they’re no longer supporting it in future Quicken releases. And apparently they hate it so much, they want to stop existing users from using it, too, even if it means breaking my (perfectly functional and satisfactory) software. This is obviously bad business and I don’t see how it could possibly be legal.

What I find really interesting is Intuit’s advice for people whose banks still use QIFs and have not moved to the new format (OFX): "You can also consider moving to a Financial Institution that supports direct download via OFX. " Right, I’m going to change banks because you assholes want to stop me from using QIFs. That is real customer service.

As far as how, technically, Intuit might be able to disable the downloading of data from a bank - I can think of at least two ways. First, the software might have been originally designed to disable itself in any way Intuit desires after a certain date. Second, and more likely, Quicken downloads “software updates” from Intuit whenever you go online from within the software - “updates” that could easily contain a patch that disables the ability to read QIF files in old formats, and which probably got on my computer before Intuit made its little announcement.

10

I’m not going to jump into the debate on whether Quicken/Money can or should retire old versions of software but I wanted to add a little bit of info to the thread to help clarify what the two different things are people have mentioned.

When it comes to downloading information from your Financial Institution(FI) there are generally two ways to do this with a Personal Finance Manager(PFM) software package.

QIF Download - This file, typically available through your FI’s online banking site, is simply a static text file of your transaction history. As you are aware, you manually download this file using your browser and logging directly onto your FI’s online banking site. Once downloaded, you use the Import function to load it into your PFM register. This functionality, although limited, should remain available through your FI’s online banking site unless they too decide against supporting the format. It is independent of Quicken and the situation in the OP, being generated by the FI’s online banking software solution, not Quicken.

OFX - Open Financial eXchange (OFX) is the standard used for interactive online banking with a PFM and is what the Quicken notification is referring too. In a nutshell, when you log on for online banking via Quicken, Quicken talks to an Intuit “branding server” which communicates to your FI’s OFX capable online banking product. For a FI to offer this kind of service, they must have an OFX certified product and they must meet certain requirements by Intuit in order to become certified and thereby by connected to the Intuit “branding server”. The data is packaged by your FI into OFX and transmitted to Intuit who then provides it, along with any FI branding (logos, marketing, etc.) back to your PFM. Thus, all Intuit OFX users, regardless of their FI, talk directly to Intuit’s servers which dish over to the individual FI.

Since OFX is an industry standard, it continues to evolve and add more and more functionality. Moving from basic DDA transaction information to now supporting trading information, credit card, etc. As a result, PFM’s which support old specifications of OFX do not have the latests/greatest capabilities. This opens the floor to debate on the merits of backwards compatability. I believe, but am not certain, the specs of OFX 1.0 should be supported in OFX 2.0 but I could be wrong as I’ve been out of the online banking business for 2 years now and OFX was always the ignored step-child of online banking.

Hope that helps clarify a little bit what you are talking about. If you have any other Q’s feel free to ask and I’ll try to shed more light onto the matter.

MeanJoe

11

What? This is the first time in your life you’ve ever been informed that support is being discontinued for an older software program? Technology and software evolves and the tech landscape shifts all the time to keep pace with these changes. You’d better get used to it. If you expect old standards to be supported ad infinitum it’s just not going to happen.

Quicken 2004 Basic and Deluxe are 29 and 52 respectively on Amazon. With the $ 20 rebate you’d pay more for a run of the mill business lunch than the software upgrade. Even without the coupon they’re cheap.

12

I agree. It’s a real pain in the butt for software developers to have backwards compatibility and it is limiting the functionality of new versions.

Or maybe they just found a big honking security hole in the old software that couldn’t simply be patched.

13

Intuit can choose to support, or not support, any software or feature they wish, consistent with what they agreed to at the time they sold the software.

At this point, it’s not clear whether Quicken will simply prevent me from downloading QIF files from within Quicken (as the warning message states) or whether Quicken will lose its ability to import QIF files (as the FAQ suggests). Either way, this goes far beyond discontinuance of support - they are actively disabling a vital feature of the software that my bank and I are currently happy with. A feature, I might add, that does not directly involve Intuit in the least.

If software vendors have the right to change code that resides on the user’s hard drive, then what exactly am I getting when I buy software? A program that does one thing today, but may do something different tomorrow, if the vendor so decrees? That is the absolute stupidest conceivable business practice and only a fool would buy software under such conditions. Frankly, I can’t believe people are defending this, even mildly. If this really is the way the software industry operates, open source is going to eat your lunch.

BTW, the $20 discount only applies for Quicken Deluxe, which is $60, so I still have to pay $30. That is, I would have to pay it, except that I’ll never buy anything from Intuit again.

14

Umm, have you tried calling tech or customer support? or are you too busy frothing at the mouth and ranting here to actually find out the real deal? One call or one E-mail, politely and rationally delivered would take care of this.

Yes they have a right to send you updates. A majority of vendors have a way to turn off the option-Quickbooks most certainly has a menu that allows you to regulate how you want Intuit’s servers to treat your software. I’m also pretty sure there was a EULA that you agreed to that explains it, but I can’t be sure of that.

I’m not sure I see what the fucking hubbub is. Call them and find out which interpretation of the “warning” that you’ve made is correct. If you feel they’re giving you a ripe old fucking, then move on to another product you feel more comfortable with.

Y’know sometimes you have to move on to a newer version of software, that’s just the way things are. Sometimes features are upgraded, disabled, installed, removed completely by software updates, that’s what they exist for and you give them that right when using automatic updates.

Sam

15

This needs to be addressed.

Let me assume a couple of things here. You fired up quicken, and either through your own action or through some automation you set up, the program tried to link you up to Quicken online services, at which time you received the message in your OP.

I see nothing in your description of the message that suggests to me, as a degreed computer programmer and instructor, that Intuit has changed a thing in the code for Quicken 2000 on your hard drive. They have merely altered the response from their own server to your request for online services.

The feature of downloading QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) does certainly involve Intuit, since the QIF format is a creation of Intuit, the company made agreements with your bank to support and provide.

I would check with your bank. If they find it to be their interests, they will continue to provide a QIF format of your transactions, but you will have to download it and import in into Quicken 2000. I assure you Intuit has no desire to remotely disable Quicken 2000’s ability to read the QIF format. Such a change would involve such a radical change in the software that it would essentially be a new version, which they would just a s soon charge you for.

However, the key concept here is the BANK’s desires. If all the other major money management software uses OFX as described by MeanJoe, then Intuit becomes a pain in the ass to deal with. Intuit doesn’t want to lose agreements with financial institutions, so they change over, and their decision to support their older format is based on their assessment of how many people need them to do it vs. how much it costs them to provide that support.

If the bank itself is refusing to provide QIF -format records, then you won’t be able to continue using Quicken 2000 in this fashion anyway, so it’s worth your checking directly with your bank. If they continue to provide QIF, and you wish to continue with Quicken 2000, you’ll just have a less convenient time getting your records.

16

Well, the board ate my last post but we’ll skip that since this has taken a turn in another direction. Regarding QIF files:

Intuit has nothing to do with you bank providing you with QIF downloads directly from the bank’s internet banking web-site. The bank itself, or more specifically the bank’s internet banking software (not Intuit provided) generates QIF files that you download. Intuit’s only involvement is providing the internet banking providers (SONE, Corillian, Digital Insight, Financial Fusion, etc.) with the specifications of a QIF file so that the internet banking providers can program their own applications to generate a compatible file for you to download and use with Intuit products.

Online banking services through Intuit directly, from within your PFM and in cooperation with your bank, are not QIF files. They are OFX files and it is another situation entirely. This service, online banking through your PFM is what Intuit is choosing to discontinue for versions of Quicken 98, 99, and 2000. It has nothing to do with QIF file downloads as QIF files do not come from Intuit or Intuit servers but from your bank directly when you log on to your bank through your internet browser, not your PFM.

Finally, although I understand the frustration you really should just take a pill and relax a little bit. Software vendors discontinue support for software - four years is a pretty average run for most software companies. I’ve read your post, I’ve read Intuit’s support and faq on this topic and I’ve not seen a single thing that implies they are changing your source code. They are disabiling online connectivity to their servers. That is all. You have a choice to make, compromise your useage or upgrade to a new version. It’s not like they’re doing it every year. You’ve had 4 years now, most people discard automobiles in the same period of time.

MeanJoe

17

Actually, OFX was developed by CheckFree, Intuit, and Microsoft. The two major providers of PFM software, Intuit (Quicken) and Microsoft (Money) both use OFX as their file specification for online banking within their PFMs. They use divergent file specifications for manual file downloads (QIF - Quicken, mumble - Microsoft).

OFX, since become an independent standard, has evolved and is now used in much more applications than just PFMs. For developers here, OFX is pre-XML but it is very similar and at this point the argument can be made that it is nothing more than a standardized XML schema for FIs.

MeanJoe

18

This same thing happened to me with Quicken 2001 in Canada last year. However, and as other people have mentioned, my bank is still providing manual QIF file downloads from their site. So, I could download the QIF to my hard drive (taking about 3 seconds), and then use Quicken’s import function to squirt the data into the relevant account. (Also as others have said, Quicken cannot prevent you acquiring this data, provided your bank has decided to continue to offer data in this way).

Except.

For some reason the date format that the QIF files use caused my quicken version to choke, and I would have to manually fix every date on every line item or get an error when reconciling. Needless to say, this got old really fast. At first I tried to write a little vbasic macro to autofix the dates before I imported the data to Quicken, but then I realized the view wasn’t worth the climb, so I switched software.

I never tried Moneydance (mentioned close to the top of the thread) but I found
Acemoney. It’s simple to use, isn’t cluttered with a lot of bells and whistles, and flawlessly does everything I need it to do. I endorse this product (with which I am in no way personally associated) wholeheartedly. Lifetime license USD$20, which is a lot less money than I’ve given Intuit over the years.

My version of Acemoney uses QIF files to get the data, I don’t know if they are working on OFX functionality or not. (My bank does not currently offer OFX in any case).

Now, to return to the spirit of the original rant:  **Fuck Intuit**.  I've been jacked over by them 5 or 6 times since '99:
[list][li]Y2K bug rendering Q99 unusable[/li][li]ending support for Q2001[/li][li]a corruption of my bank account data which was easily fixed, the repair for which could have easily been explained in a FAQ, but rather for which I had to pay US$14.99 for a customer service call, and this after searching for a contact number on their site for 20 minutes[/li][li]botching cash-back offer payments twice (come to think of it, offering cash back incentives in the first place, slippery bastids)[/li][li]making  a buggy build of the downloadable quicktax available 3 weeks before taxes are due[/li]
Screw 'em.  I use Acemoney and Grifftax now, and will never give Intuit another nickel of my $$ if I can help it.
19

…aaaaaa-aaand an excellent demonstration of how NOT to use the list function. I don’t usually ask, but perhaps a kindly mod can fix that up for stupid ol’ me?

20

Actually, if the software is $60 and there’s a $20 rebate, you’re going to have to pay $40, not $30.

Good thing you’re using the software, bub. :smiley:

[sub]disclaimer: I’m an accountant who can’t even do the math right without a calculator most times.[/sub]