Alternative to Quicken

[bigb]

I have used Quicken for years but lately they have figured out a way to get more of your money by requiring a yearly update at full charge and now it's all in the cloud. Plus their support is now fee based, I called with an issue and the foreign sounding representative wanted to access all my files back more than 10 years and start fixing them saying there was a problem that could have been caused by something way back in time and he would be able to fix it once I subscribed and paid for the support plan. After I hung up on his azz I Googled the problem which was merely certain dates were not showing up in reconcile and learned it was a bug and the fix took several seconds of keystrokes on my part. Almost a year later they announced they had a fix for the issue in the next update So basically I want my own program, on my own PC to keep track of income and expenses and account balances so I can dump Quicken. I do my own books throughout the year but have a tax and planning guy. I don't need an invoice program

What are you using?

[Louie1961]

I use a program/cloud based tool called YNAB: https://www.youneedabudget.com/

It is $88 per year and I think it is COMPLETELY worth it. It is not quite as complete as quicken, but it does everything I need. I use it to manage my bank accounts, my 401K and a couple of other investment accounts. It doesn't do invoicing or check printing and it doesn't do any forward cash projections. But for all the basic Quicken functions like a check/transaction register, linking and/or importing transactions from your bank(s) and creating/managing budgets, it is superb. It also has a really great mobile app. I use Ally as my bank, and between the two, I have everything I need. Ally pays a halfway decent interest rate on my savings, and a modest interest rate on my checking, with ATM fee reimbursement, and no monthly fees. The essentially pay me to use their bank, its great.

[Louie1961]

They have a pretty comprehensive youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/YouneedabudgetPlus

[SweetMK]

When Quicken headed towards annual fees, my wife said "NO",,,
She is still producing the data our tax people need, year, after year, with Quicken,, but, it is an old version.

We do not have the "latest and greatest",, but, what we have works, and is ZERO cost.
Actually, the computer that she uses has never been connected to the internet. AND,, surprise, surprise,, THAT computer has never shown any sign of slowing down,,
HMMMMMmmmm,,

[Louie1961]

There's a few things I use that I will pay an annual fee for because I appreciate the functionality and I really feel like they are worth the money: Dropbox, Evernote and YNAB. I love that I can use these apps from any computer anywhere, without having to install anything. Dropbox and Evernote have apps that I can and do install on my home PC, but I can access them from any computer with a web browser. They all also have great mobile phone apps. I used Turbo Tax last year and swore I would never use it again, their support is so piss poor.

[smithdoor]

I used paper but only did around 24 invoices a year.
I would look at how you do a year.

Dave

I have used Quicken for years but lately they have figured out a way to get more of your money by requiring a yearly update at full charge and now it's all in the cloud. Plus their support is now fee based, I called with an issue and the foreign sounding representative wanted to access all my files back more than 10 years and start fixing them saying there was a problem that could have been caused by something way back in time and he would be able to fix it once I subscribed and paid for the support plan. After I hung up on his azz I Googled the problem which was merely certain dates were not showing up in reconcile and learned it was a bug and the fix took several seconds of keystrokes on my part. Almost a year later they announced they had a fix for the issue in the next update So basically I want my own program, on my own PC to keep track of income and expenses and account balances so I can dump Quicken. I do my own books throughout the year but have a tax and planning guy. I don't need an invoice program

What are you using?

[jrporter]

When Quicken headed towards annual fees, my wife said "NO",,,
She is still producing the data our tax people need, year, after year, with Quicken,, but, it is an old version.

We do not have the "latest and greatest",, but, what we have works, and is ZERO cost.
Actually, the computer that she uses has never been connected to the internet. AND,, surprise, surprise,, THAT computer has never shown any sign of slowing down,,
HMMMMMmmmm,,

Us too - Quicken 2010

[bigb]

Some good ideas I will check out. Unfortunately I had no discs with Quicken except from 1998 and it was too old to put on the newer Windows systems

[Louie1961]

You could always export and print a snapshot from quicken for your records then make a clean start on a new tool. You really only need 7 years of records for legal reasons if you are running a business. Peruse the videos at the youtube channel I posted. I really think you will find the annual fee for YNAB to be worth it. YNAB has an easy export function that sends you all your data in a zipped up folder of excel files. I download everything to my cloud storage once a quarter. Pretty simple really. And with the mobile app, I have really gotten my wife's spending under control. I can't say enough good things about that product.

[smithdoor]

My point was if doing very few invoices paper is simpler
If you doing thousands of invoices a year then a computer basic invoicing is way to go.
My wife used Quicken for checking.

Dave

I have used Quicken for years but lately they have figured out a way to get more of your money by requiring a yearly update at full charge and now it's all in the cloud. Plus their support is now fee based, I called with an issue and the foreign sounding representative wanted to access all my files back more than 10 years and start fixing them saying there was a problem that could have been caused by something way back in time and he would be able to fix it once I subscribed and paid for the support plan. After I hung up on his azz I Googled the problem which was merely certain dates were not showing up in reconcile and learned it was a bug and the fix took several seconds of keystrokes on my part. Almost a year later they announced they had a fix for the issue in the next update So basically I want my own program, on my own PC to keep track of income and expenses and account balances so I can dump Quicken. I do my own books throughout the year but have a tax and planning guy. I don't need an invoice program

What are you using?

[bigb]

My point was if doing very few invoices paper is simpler
If you doing thousands of invoices a year then a computer basic invoicing is way to go.
My wife used Quicken for checking.

Dave

As I said I don't need an invoice program, I need something to track income and expenses on rental properties and account balances so when tax time arrives everything is already totaled up.

[TomA]

I am disgusted with quicken.
I have been using Quicken since 1989. Most recently Quicken 2006.

I had to buy a new computer to run the latest version so it would download from the bank. They have so many categories and subs, my bank has useless categories too. A lot of work to straighten out.

I still cannot pull a useful report. As a consequence my 21 extended taxes have still not been filled.

[CAVEMANN]

We had PEACH TREE at the tow yard, but hell they started forcing uppgrades every 2 years a way back in 98 or 99, planned obsolescence, I can understand updates for the tax tables, but forced upgrades is baloney, especially for a small business trying to get on their feet. Ther'es other software out there but I don't recall what they are. I think a good MICROSOFT EXCEL person could probably write the bookkeeping into spreadsheets. You can check LIBRE OFFICE and OPEN OFFICE, I don't remeber if they have that kind of functionality or not, they're free and everybit as good as MICROSOFT OFFICE and have the same functions etc, I've been using Libre office for several years now, it has better file handling capabilities and options than MS OFFICE and can also open, create and save files in WORD and EXCEL formats and file names/extensions, you just have to make sure what the extension or format is. I also will mention that I HATED PEACHTREE ACCOUNTING, it gave new meaning to the words PIECE OF CRAP, it was hard to manuever around and find stuff if you didn't know where to look or start.

[ArcTan]

GnuCash. It's free and relatively simple. Been using it for my one man business for about 10 years. Never tried quicken or quick books so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. But it works fine for me

[BrooklynBravest]

I use freshbooks. It's all I have ever known so I keep using it. No real issues but based on your client base it can be up to $50 a month.

Freshbooks is rated #1 I believe for service based businesses.

I sell pre-defined products as well as provide specific services so it works out well for me.