Okay. I’ve finally had it with Quicken. I’ve been a Quicken customer for 15 years, but I am tired of the lack of adapting the software and its continuing bugginess. I don’t mind paying for software, but the following features are a must:
Cloud based–from any computer/tablet in the world.
Notwithstanding #2, I can still manually enter transactions.
A calendar feature like Quicken where I can enter recurring expenses and see my balances months out based on projected spending.
Those are the mandatory ones for me, but things like check printing and budgeting tools would be nice. This is solely for personal and not business use. Not that I am shrilling for them but Wave is an outstanding accounting app for my small (attorney) business. I just need something for my personal finances.
Mint.com (owned by the same company that makes Quicken) has #1 and #2 covered extremely well. Once you set up your accounts, it will automatically download all your banking, investment, load etc. accounts automatically and they support most financial institutions of any size. It is free and it extremely good at what it does (giving you a real time financial picture of all of your accounts in one place from almost any device) but it is rather light on features to let you add manual entries. You can and should categorize every entry so it knows what they are for in the future but its whole model depends on getting information from your accounts rather than you manually. It will let you export your information to another tool including Quicken for more customizable and deep analysis if you want but I have never needed to do that personally. It is exactly as automated and customizable as someone like me needs. It has budgeting tools as well although I have never used them but not check printing as far as I know.
What is it about Quicken that you don’t like? They may help other people give you the best answer.
Mainly that it is not cloud based. I have moved almost entirely to the cloud. I can go anywhere in the world, pick up my phone or tablet, or even borrow a laptop and access all of the things I need to access…except Quicken.
I’ve never used Quicken or Mint so I can’t really say how it compares but YNAB just updated their system to be cloud based and does have the ability to download information from your accounts.
It is based around budgeting and does a very good job of it. You assign each dollar a task as you earn it and then spend from your available buckets. It is easy to move money around if needed and the mobile app is really well done.
They are offering a 34 day free trial so you can take a look to see if it is for you.