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Alternatives to Microsoft Money/Quicken?

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  • I took the plunge back in April 2016 and purchased Moneydance, hoping it would cope with my accounts since 2007. It did, and didn't. This all relates to Moneydance version 2015.7.

    The import had to be done in stages, which is all laid out in detail on the Moneydance web site. All of my data got transferred across, and my accounts all came over fine. But due to the formats and limitations of QIF files, my investments got quite a lot of entries duplicated, particularly anything that involved transfers between accounts.

    Several weeks of hard labour ensued, and I rued the decisions to transfer shares to my wife, or to a PEP or ISA. Each involved finding which of pairs of transactions was removable without deleting a reconciled transfer in another account. When we'd had scrip dividends and then later a share swap, Quicken had recorded every individual share certificate so in one case I had over a hundred entries duplicated on the same day, with many the same number of shares. I thought about just printing off the Quicken record and starting anew, but perversely continued.

    Some things are better in Moneydance, others lacking compared to Quicken.
    You CAN set up (and it did transfer) regular payments, which show in a diary. They can be set to be entered in advance, on the day, manually or automatically.
    If your stocks / shares are in Yahoo finance, it downloads prices and volumes. I had a little trouble getting the pence right, as it seemed to change and I had to delete a whole load of downloaded data and reenter it. But entry is possible manually as well, and for those that are covered it works automatically, very similarly to how Quicken used to.

    Downloading OFX files from the bank works fine, and is imported into the accounts. Those entries show with a blue dot and when clicked, offer to match with an existing entry, or create a new one similar to a previous entry, or just edit and enter as is.

    Balancing the statement is then fairly painless; either to a downloaded balance, or manually to a paper statement. Little niggle - it doesn't propose a manual payment to clear/ make a payment to a credit card.

    Search is QUICK. Filters work in any account, and have proved a boon. By fiddling around I can get something like the tax reports of the likes of interest earned, dividends and gift aid that Quicken used to do - but individually rather than as an updateable template.

    Moneydance doesn't do scrip dividends as easily - requiring two entries for the income then for the share purchase, whereas Quicken did it in one transaction. Intriguingly, Moneydance imported those entries perfectly but cannot create them anew.

    Categories are a bit more awkward - it doesn't seem to allocate the first matching category if you only type a part of the name, and the import from Quicken created dummy categories for things like opening balances. There is an easy list of categories, so I can see the special ones that have a big X at the end. I got confused early on and found I'd been allocating the first category on the list in error, by pressing tab as I was entering items. I've now made a new AAAA category to catch that by checking every so often that it is at zero.

    There isn't an inventory, so I need to get my old one into a spreadsheet or database somehow.

    Online support has been positive, with a helpful community and interested developers.

    It isn't Quicken, but it is a near as I found. I am amazed that Quicken gave up in the UK. I an also amazed that 12 years on from their quitting, there isn't anything that gives me what I had then.

    For the last 8 months I have kept Quicken updated as well as Moneydance, but Quicken will often now crash when I try to import an OFX file, or when I start up ask me if I want a new file or an existing one. Quicken XG is getting flakier than before. It got worse after I had to reinstall windows 10 a couple of months ago (previously an upgrade from 7).

    Moneydance has proven robust.

    I've just found by checking their web site that there is an updated version and I had not been notified, nor is there any way in the programme to check if you have the up to date version. I've suggested that not everyone will be signed up for their blog, twitter or facebook. Well, well. I may be adding some information later.
  • Sage perhaps

    Hi Aliana, Sage is great but very expensive in comparison to Quicken and too overkill for most home users I would have thought.
  • May I reopen this thread. I'm looking for home accounts software. I've used Microsoft Money until support for it stopped. Since then I've been using a simple spreadsheet. I'd prefer one which interfaces with my bank. I understand Quicken is a non-starter for UK use. Can anyone recommend an up to date alternative?
  • colsten
    colsten Posts: 17,597
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    You could have a look at Banktree if downloading statements is important. I haven't tried it myself and not seen anyone else on MSE saying they use it

    A list of the banks they support is here. It looks as if they charge £3.50 a month for the download functionality, so it's not exactly cheap.
  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 17,060
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    H4w35side wrote: »
    May I reopen this thread. I'm looking for home accounts software. I've used Microsoft Money until support for it stopped. Since then I've been using a simple spreadsheet. I'd prefer one which interfaces with my bank. I understand Quicken is a non-starter for UK use. Can anyone recommend an up to date alternative?

    I and many other people are still using MS Money. It continues to work without any serious problems - my bank's OFX files are fine and the software provided by Gaiersoft picks up share and fund prices. As far as I know there isnt anything better.
  • Deneb
    Deneb Posts: 420
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    H4w35side wrote: »
    I understand Quicken is a non-starter for UK use.

    Have you actually read this thread :huh:
  • colsten
    colsten Posts: 17,597
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    Linton wrote: »
    I and many other people are still using MS Money. It continues to work without any serious problems - my bank's OFX files are fine and the software provided by Gaiersoft picks up share and fund prices. As far as I know there isnt anything better.
    I would give AceMoney the slight edge over MS Money. It's essentially a clone of MS Money's main features but it is fully supported and they are promising an iPhone/Android version, too. AceMoney supports importing data from QIF/OFX/QFX/CSV files.

    It does cost $39.99 though, and the migration, as easy as it is, costs your time.
  • H4w35side wrote: »
    May I reopen this thread. I'm looking for home accounts software. I've used Microsoft Money until support for it stopped. Since then I've been using a simple spreadsheet. I'd prefer one which interfaces with my bank. I understand Quicken is a non-starter for UK use. Can anyone recommend an up to date alternative?
    Its never been closed.
    See my post yesterday - Moneydance might well do what you want.
    I download OFX files from my bank and open them in Moneydance.
  • dunroving
    dunroving Posts: 1,881
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    Currently using Quicken 2002 (US version), which surprisingly installed fine and seems to run fine on my new W10 laptop. However, I am paranoiid about it giving up the ghost at some point following a W10 update - and that I may end up with Quicken data that are so outdated no current finance software can deal with/import it.

    I only really require the ability to keep track of my personal finances - bank accounts, cash ISAs, etc. I track my investments online (SIPP, S&S ISA), and essentially just treat them as if they are a bank account and simply do a manual adjustment each month to reflect increases, decreases, etc.

    From reading this, and the many other personal finance threads on here, plus the many online threads about personal finance software, it looks like I have the following options:

    Upgrade to Quicken Deluxe 2017, either via Amazon/disk (it seems to be perfectly fine with shipping to my UK address), or by downloading (cheaper from Amazon than direct from Quicken, oddly). The main downside with this is that it will never deal with the fact I am in the UK (though maybe that doesn't matter, as Quicken 2002 US version has worked fine for me since 2002, and the whole US terminology doesn't bother me as I lived there for 20 years))

    Switch to MoneyDance, and deal with having to export a few QIF files from Quicken 2002 and then into MoneyDance. The upside seems to be that I can finally have a software package that will recognise my UK status (? yes?) and so therefore may be able to do some stuff that Quicken can't (like link to UK tax implications, etc.?)

    Switch to either MS Money Sunset or Money Manager EX, both free.

    My gut says stick with Quicken, as this is what I've been using for 15 years and even though I'm sure it will look very different from my 2002 version, I presume the underlying processes will look familiar.

    Anyone see any advantages to the above options?
    (Nearly) dunroving
  • Check the moneydance web site for its forums.

    I imported 15 years of quicken last year. Investment account transactions got doubled, because you import accounts and investments separately. it took a month or two on and off to remove duplicates.

    It is good once sorted and after 6 months I stopped using quicken side by side..

    Reporting is quite different. Searching is way quicker. UK huge benefits from downloading stock prices automatically (using an addin).
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