Mac Quicken Sucks

Converting old Quicken Files for use with Quicken Essentials for Mac

2010-04-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

If you've been a Quicken user making the transition to Quicken Essentials for Mac you're probably interested in migrating your old data file. Quicken Essentials for Mac comes with a separate application for translating data files, the Quicken File Exchange Utility. Let's see how well this utility works.

For my test, I set up a test Quicken 2006 data file. In this file I created four accounts:

A checking account
A savings account
A mortgage
A brokerage account with a few different stocks

That last account I put in on purpose, knowing that Quicken Essentials for Mac has no ability to manage brokerage accounts. I wanted to know what would happen when the Quicken File Exchange Utility ran into this.

I also set up a couple of memorized transactions and a couple of scheduled transactions, again to see how well the Quicken File Exchange Utility would manage these items.

The Quicken File Exchange Utility comes with an eight page user manual that describes how to migrate from both kinds of Quicken (Mac and Windows) as well as Microsoft Money. Let me take this opportunity to repeat the most important eight words in this manual:

Create a copy of your current data file

Backups are important, people.

The Quicken File Exchange Utility is the only way to open up an old data file in Quicken Essentials for Mac. There's an Import option in the File menu, but if you use it and point it over to your old data file, you'll be prompted to launch the Quicken File Exchange Utility and convert your data file:

When you launch the Quicken File Exchange Utility you're presented with a three-step process (and yet another admonishment to use a copy of your data file).

You're then prompted to identify the data file that you wish to import. I picked my test data file:

and we were off and running. Conversion was quick, and resulted in a new data file:

So, how did it do? The data file retained all four accounts. Both the checking and savings accounts got copied over correctly, as did the mortgage. The brokerage account was copied, but with no data in it. Other details:

I had several customized categories, each of which were moved successfully
The scheduled transactions were transferred correctly as well, including the scheduled mortgage payment (which was a transfer between the checking and mortgage accounts)

Overall, I'd call this a success. Yes, it's lame that QEM doesn't support brokerage accounts, but it worked as advertised.

One final note -- I've tried this conversion several times with the same data file, and in one iteration I had an issue in which the conversion got stuck, stalling out with a window that said "Copying your file (this could take a while)". I did a force quit, and things were very bad -- not only did I not have a converted file, I could no longer open up my original data file in Quicken 2006. Like I said (and like they warn), use a copy of your data file, not the original.

$20 rebate for Quicken Essentials for Mac Early Adopters; Improvements Promised

2010-04-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

Intuit has announced today that they are dropping the price for Quicken Essentials for Mac from $69 to $49, and is offering a $20 rebate to those of us who bought the software before April 19, 2010. Go to quicken.com/macrefund to find out the details of this rebate. Act fast -- the rebate period ends on May 31st.

In the same email that announced the rebate, the Quicken team has made promises of updates in the months to come. By the end of April, you'll be able to password-protect your data file and export transaction data to spreadsheets. By August, they're promising that we'll be able to:

Get a complete picture of current net worth by entering investment holdings from brokerages that do not connect to Quicken
Better understand spending by comparing between different time periods
Export tax-deductible expenses to tax filing programs like TurboTax
Track a budget across several months

We welcome these changes, and we'll check 'em out when we get them. (The second bullet point sounds like they're talking about the comparison report, which we noted was missing in action in our post about reports).

Update 4/24/10: Feel free to use this feedback form to tell Intuit what you think about Quicken Essentials for Mac.

Reports in Quicken Essentials for Mac

2010-04-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

This is the latest in our series deconstructing Quicken Essentials for Mac.

Quicken Essentials for Mac comes with a significantly reduced set of reports, as compared to previous versions of Quicken. There are essentially three different types of reports:

A monthly summary of transactions
A category summary report
A "spending cloud"

I've already given my opinion on the spending cloud. Let's focus on the other two reports.

Monthly Transaction Reports

There are two reports on the monthly summary of transactions: one for the current month (to date), and one for last month. These reports show every transaction for the state time period, organized first by account, and then into three areas:

Income
Scheduled expenses
Other expenses

This report is analogous to Quicken 2006's "Transaction Detail" report.

For each transation, the date, payee, tag/category, and amount is shown. You can sort by any of those column headers, and click on a transaction to show it in the appropriate register. Subtotals for income, scheduled expenses, and other expenses are shown as well.

These reports are of somewhat limited utility, and no customization is available. Improvements that could be made include:

Customizable time frames. If you want a report of year-to-date, or of just the last two weeks, or of the current quarter, you're out of luck.
Grand totals. The report shows the subtotal of income, and subtotals of expenses, but not an overall total. That's just dumb.
Including/excluding accounts. It would be handy to be able to ignore individual accounts.
Scheduled vs. other transactions. I'm not sure why they've decided to separate scheduled expenses vs. other expenses. Worse, a scheduled deposit that I set up (my paycheck) shows up under scheduled expenses.

Category Summary Report

The Category Summary report is more useful, but is still not great. There's at least some customization available. The report is analogous to Quicken 2006's "Category Detail" and "Category Summary" reports.

As its name implies, the Category Summary report shows income and expenses broken down by category. Each transaction shows the date, payee, and amount. Subtotals are shown by category and sub-category, although again no grand totals are shown.

The Category Summary report has some customization. The initial report shows all dates, all categories, all accounts, and all tags. Use the Settings button to change these defaults. You can save the resulting report under a different name.

The other customization that you can work with is the amount of detail to display. Three options are available:

Details for all categories. This shows every transaction.
Summary of all categories. This collapses the report into categories and sub-categories. For example, this would show a line for "Auto", but also lines for "Auto:Fuel" and "Auto:Service"
Top-level categories only.

You can also click on individual categories to collapse or expand that category. That's what I've done for this screenshot, where the Auto:Fuel subcategory is collapsed:

There is still room for improvement with this report:

Sticky detail preferences. Every time you open a category summary report, it defaults to "Details for all categories". There is no way to set one of the other two as a default.
Subtotals by category that show both income and expense. For example, let's say that you buy pants, get them home, realize they won't work and return them. You've now got an expense and a credit to the same account. While you can give them the same category, the two transactions are shown on different parts of the report, and you can't see that the two transactions cancel each other out. Getting this put together would be a big step towards being able to use QEM for envelope budgeting.
Smart date ranges. The date range customization requires you to type in a specific start and end date. It would be nice to be able to specify things like "this month", "last month", "year-to-date", where the reports would automatically update.
Report names. When you save a customized report, QEM oddly doesn't ask you for a name for the report. Yes, you can rename it, but why not ask first?

What's Missing

Quicken 2006 had several other reports that are missing from Quicken Essentials for Mac:

Possibly the most glaring omission is the comparison report, where you could compare income and expenses between two date ranges.
The Budget Month-by-Month and Budget Summary are inadequately replaced by QEM's budget page.
Completely missing are the Net Worth, Reconciliation, Tax Schedule, and Tax Summary reports

And, as I've mentioned, the other big thing that's missing is the customization. Reports in Quicken Essentials for Mac is pretty much a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

Budgets in Quicken Essentials for Mac

2010-03-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

I've written before about how budgeting as done by older versions of Quicken falls somewhere between less than useful and misleading. I knew that Quicken Essentials for Mac wouldn't implement envelope budgeting. So, while I'm dubious about its utility, we're aiming for completeness here, so I figured I should give QEM's budgeting a whirl.

When starting new with Quicken Essentials for Mac, you're given three tasks, and setting up a budget is the third task. Clicking on "Get Started" on the Overview page brings you to a window where QEM prompts you to review your spending goals:

A couple of things to notice:

By default, the budget only went with the following six categories: Auto, Clothing, Dining, Entertainment, Groceries, and Household. You can add other budget items by either Category or Tag.
The Goal amount calculated is 80% of the three month average.
Hovering over the "i" next to the 3 Month Average shows the specific amounts for that category in the last three months.

After making any changes that you want, your budget is created and the details for this month are shown:

(ooh, boy, not a good month for Tom!)

Each of the budget categories is shown with a bar graph -- green means I'm under budget, red means I'm over budget. Clicking on one of the bars or the "12 month" view brings up a detail window showing how far over or under budget I was for each of the last 12 months:

There's so much to be improved here, it's hard to know where to begin.

Budget items don't automatically include subcategories

The first thing that caught my eye about the budget that was set up was that it showed me not spending any money in the Auto category this month. "That's not right", I thought, "I've bought gas this month, and put it in my Auto:Fuel subcategory." If you've got categories set up with subcategories, you'll need to enter them in as separate budget items -- QEM will not automatically fold all of your subcategories into the main category.

There's no such thing as a "little" over budget

The next thing that caught my eye was the scale of the bar graphs -- they're shown with a range from 0% to 100%. For the category where I was under budget, the size of the bar was correct, but for those categories where I was over budget, the bar maxes out at 100%, no matter how far over budget you are.

Only two time frames, and no customization

The budget view only shows two possible time frames -- this month, and the 12 month view. There's no way to customize the budget time frame.

Going against UI conventions

The 12-month view hovers over the rest of the budget graph. You've got to squint to figure out how to get out of the 12-month view -- the button to close it is in the lower-right hand corner, the polar opposite of where pretty much every other close button has ever been in 26 years of Mac user interfaces.

Inadequacy at actually matching income and expenses

Finally, while I can perhaps understand concentrating one's budgeting efforts at more variable expenses (like groceries) rather than expenses that tend to be more fixed (like the phone bill), this version of budgeting still fails at the overall goal of matching income and expenses. I could set up great budget goals and be under every month for the categories I selected, but still fall behind if my total expenses across all categories outpace my total income.

Downloading and Matching Transactions

2010-03-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

In my first looks, Quicken Essentials for Mac does a good job of downloading transactions and matching those transactions to ones that I've entered myself. There are problems with manual matching and unmatching of transactions.

First, a couple of screenshots. Before downloading -- the two top transactions were previously downloaded, and the rest are ones that I entered manually:

After downloading -- blue dots next to the ones that were downloaded and matched. Notice that there's a Safeway transaction that wasn't downloaded; my bank is still listing it as a pending transaction.

The downloading and matching was all accomplished by choosing Update from the Accounts menu (or by using the Update toolbar button), and was fully automated -- no confirmation of matches involved.

Manual Matching and Unmatching

One of the annoyances with older versions of Quicken is that the matching of downloaded transactions would fail:

I found that it would sometimes mismatch transactions of the same amount -- if I took out $20 in cash, and went to the store and spent $20, it would sometimes swap the two transactions.
If I had two transactions to the same payee with the same amount, but at different points in time, and only one had cleared, it would match the later transaction instead of the earlier one.

So, I'm naturally distrustful of matching transactions. How do I know it's matched against the right transactions? What if QEM makes a mistake? Can you manually match or unmatch a transaction? Let's take each of these in turn.

I've found that turning on two additional columns from the View menu helps in knowing whether transactions have matched up correctly. Turning on the "Match Status" and "FL Payee" columns shows how matched entries have been made (manually or automatically) and shows the bank's version of the payee:

In the screenshot above, the first two transactions were just downloaded, and didn't match anything I had entered manually, while the last three matched ones that I had entered myself. Looking at the FL Payee column lets me know that the matches were valid (Richard's lines up with Richard's, Starbucks with Starbucks).

If I had found that one of the automatic matches was wrong, I would have used the "Reject Automatic Transaction Match" option from the Transactions menu. I would then have two transactions in the register -- the one I had originally entered manually, and the one that was downloaded. The manually entered one wouldn't have anything in the "Match Status" column, and the downloaded one would now show "Downloaded" in that column instead of "Matched".

But how do you manually match transactions? My first thought was to look under the Transactions menu -- surely there would be a "Match" option right next to "Reject match" -- but no. What you have to do is drag one of the transactions on top of the other one. There are several problems with the current implementation of this:

1. This is a really non-obvious metaphor for matching. Really opaque. When you're dragging the transaction you get one of two different symbols as you drag -- a circle with slash when you're hovering over something that you can't drop on, and the green circle with a plus when you're hovering over something that you can drop on. In other applications, the green circle with the plus is used to indicate that you're copying something (a track to a playlist in iTunes, a file to another disk in Finder). This isn't what we're doing here.

A much more obvious metaphor would be something like picking the two transactions that you'd like to match and either using a menu option under the Transactions menu, or maybe a toolbar button. I'd think that something along the lines of iPhoto's "Merge" button that you can use to merge events would be appropriate.

2. The bigger problem with the current implementation of manually matching transactions is that it allows you to match a downloaded transaction with any manually entered transaction. There's no reasonableness checking at all, which could lead to problems if you accidentally drop a transaction onto the wrong match.

An obvious solution would be for QEM to only allow matching if the amounts are the same. But, you could go for more nuance -- it is true that sometimes I make typos when manually entering a transaction, so taking the bank's version of a transaction would be better. Perhaps a warning message when attempting to match two transactions with different amounts would make sense.

Scheduled Transactions - Tips and Annoyances

2010-03-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Tips

You have many choices on repeatability:

Weekly (or every 2, 3, 4, etc. weeks, with a shortcut for 2 and 4 weeks)
Monthly (or every 2, 3, 4, etc. months, with a shortcut for quarterly)
Yearly (or every 2, 3, 4, etc. years)
Twice a month (e.g., the 1st and 15th)
A special repeatability for estimated taxes (the 15th of January, April, June, and September)

Scheduled transactions can end after a certain number of repetitions, on a certain date, or continue in perpetuity.

Annoyances

One thing that's missing from scheduled transactions that existed in previous versions of Quicken is the ability to indicate whether a scheduled transaction:

Doesn't vary, and should be automatically entered
Doesn't vary, but shouldn't be entered automatically
Varies, and needs reminding a certain number of days in advance.

This annoyance manifests itself in how scheduled transactions actually get entered. As I mentioned in my previous post, upcoming scheduled transactions appear in the appropriate register. When the day for a scheduled transaction comes, however, nothing really happens -- the scheduled transaction is still in the register, and you have to take action to have it get entered.

Specifically, you need to use the "Mark as Paid"/"Mark as Deposited" toolbar button (or action under the Transactions menu). When you do, the transaction is updated, but with the specific amount that you used when you first set up the scheduled transaction (acting like all scheduled transactions should be treated like #2 above). This is annoying, since many of my scheduled transactions do vary.

Getting Started - Scheduled Transactions

2010-03-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

When you start from scratch with Quicken Essentials for Mac, the application sets up three tasks for you:

See Where you Money Goes (setting up accounts)
Stay on Top of Monthly Bills (scheduled transactions)
Set Goals to Save Money (budgets)

I've covered account setup in a previous post. Let's look at scheduled transactions!

When you click the "Get Started" button for staying on top of monthly bills, QEM will scan your transaction history for what it thinks are regularly scheduled transactions. This was a feature in older versions of Quicken, and like the older versions, the ability to detect scheduled transactions is a little hit-and-miss. First, it'll show you bills:

Then it'll show you deposits:

In both of these windows you can add or delete items that you wish to add to the scheduled transactions. As you can see with these screenshots, it thought that my AT&T payment should be scheduled (yes), but it also flagged a Rite Aid transaction (we go often enough, but it's not scheduled). Like I said, hit-and-miss, but the old Quicken was the same way.

In my test QEM successfully figured out which bills were monthly and which were every two weeks, so that's good.

After finishing, you can use the Scheduled Transactions tool to view all of your scheduled transactions:

Upcoming scheduled transactions also appear in the appropriate register.

More soon on scheduled transaction tips and annoyances.

Useless Spending Cloud

2010-03-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

One of the gripes about Quicken Essentials for Mac is that there are fewer reporting options available. The QEM team did find time to put in a "spending cloud"

The deal with the cloud is that it shows you where you're spending your money, using font sizes to show relative amounts. The idea of a tag cloud isn't new, but this seems pretty useless to me. Yes, our mortgage dwarfs the rest of our spending. Not much insight there.

What's worse is that it seems like QEM is double-counting some of the categories. I've got my Utilities category subdivided into areas like Water, Gas and Electric, and Phone. Looking at the cloud, there's a slightly larger label for Utilities, but there's also labels for the subcategories as well.

Instead of spending time on the spending cloud, it would be nice if the QEM team would figure out something like the spending comparison report.

Customizing Categories; Creating Subcategories

2010-03-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

Quicken Essentials for Mac comes with a standard set of categories, but you'll want to customize them. Use the Window menu to pull up the Categories window, then click the Edit button in the lower-right corner to switch to editing mode:

The little plus and minus buttons do just what you'd expect - add and delete categories. Adding is simple enough:

Deleting is also easy, and there's a warning message if you try to delete a category that's in use by one or more of your transactions.

One thing I like to do is to create subcategories. While I don't go bonkers, I do like separating some categories into different parts. For example, I like putting gas for the car, car maintenance, and car registration fees all under "Auto". There's two ways to do this in QEM:

The first way is to use a colon when creating a new category:

Alternatively, in the list of categories you can drag an entry on top of another:

Once you've created subcategories the list of categories shows them under and indented, as you might expect:

Oddities

Three things are odd with Categories:

1. When creating a new category, there's this box on the left you can use to drop a picture for the category. I saw no real use for this picture -- it doesn't seem to show up anywhere else.

2. There's also an ability to create "Favorite" categories. Favorite categories will show up in their own separate section at the top of the category window. While you can assign categories to transactions by calling up the Categories window, and then clicking on a category as you select different transactions, it seems somewhat tedious (with one notable exception listed below).

3. QEM really seems to want to push you into using Tags (note the "Convert to Tags" button at the bottom of the Categories window). I'm not sure why QEM wants you to use Tags instead of Categories.

Neat Trick - Batch Categorization

One cool feature with categories and the Category window -- you can change the category of several transactions at once. Here's how:

When I downloaded my transactions, QEM used the "Auto" category for all of my gas purchases, plus some other transactions that weren't gas. I wanted to assign my new "Auto:Fuel" subcategory for these transactions, so I used the Search box to find Auto, used command-click and shift-click to highlight the transactions that I wanted to re-categorize, and then clicked on the appropriate entry in the Categories window:

Worked like a charm. Nicely done!

Working with Categories

2010-03-28T22:46:00.001-07:00

As you can see from the last couple of posts, I started my testing of Quicken Essentials for Mac by starting from scratch, rather than importing my Quicken 2006 file. I'll get to that later.

Starting from scratch, QEM downloaded about three months worth of transactions. One of the things that it did was to assign categories to most of the transactions:

As you can see, it did an okay job. It correctly categorized the two Dining transactions, and figured out that Trader Joe's is a grocery store. It didn't know what to do with the post office transactions, and said that the Amazon purchase was a gift when it wasn't.

QEM comes with a starter set of categories:

Assigning a category to those two USPS transactions is simple enough: double-click on the category column for that transaction and you go into edit mode:

You can then either click on one of the categories, or start typing to narrow down the list:

Hit return to finish:

Okay, two things to be careful about:

I like typing. When the shortened lists of categories came up, like you see two pictures up, I wanted to be able to use arrow keys to pick a different category. I first tried using the right arrow key, since the categories are laid out in a grid, but that didn't work. You need to use the up and down arrow keys to cycle through. While this is just like how Quicken 2006 works, it was unexpected -- hitting the down arrow key to move right is weird.

QEM will not warn you before creating a new category based on what you type:

Viewing Transactions in QEM

2010-03-28T22:19:00.001-07:00

The most obvious change in Quicken Essentials for Mac is in the interface you use for looking at transactions. Gone is the checkbook metaphor - transactions are now in a pretty standard-looking table view:

This table view works just like other table views on the Mac:

Click on a column header to sort by that header
Drag a border in a column header to resize that column

The view shown above has the default column settings. Use the View menu or the little gear icon just over the scroll bar to select the columns you wish to view:

There's also a very Mac-like search box you can use to narrow down your transactions:

On the left-hand side of the table view is a sidebar (QEM calls it a source list) that's also a familiar Mac-like metaphor - use it to select different views of your data:

Clicking on one of the three accounts I set up shows just the transactions in that account. Clicking on Transactions under Tools shows all transactions across all accounts.

Overall, I'm not too sure how I feel about this new interface. The checkbook visual metaphor is one that Quicken had from the beginning, and it was a classic solution to a design problem - make the interface match what people were doing on paper, so that people would feel comfortable with it (and excited that the computer would do the math for you). Breaking away from this metaphor is going to be hard to adapt to.

(On the other hand, from a programming standpoint using standard Cocoa table views is a huge advantage. Huge. You don't have to write any code to do sorting by columns, you write just a view lines of code to do the neat search box, getting the different types of columns is pretty much a snap)

As a user, one advantage of this new interface is that it does reduce window clutter. Using Quicken 2006 I would often find myself with 4-5 windows open (checking account, savings account, bills, the overview screen).

Setting Up an Account in Quicken Essentials for Mac

2010-03-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

The first thing you'll need to do after installing Quicken Essentials for Mac is set up a new account. QEM walks you through it, but the workflow is a little hurky.

QEM really wants you to use online banking features -- the first thing you'll be prompted to do is find your bank:

QEM's list of banks has the familiar Mac search box. Type in the first few letters to find your bank:

Then, oddly, rather than entering your login information for your bank, you're prompted to create an account at Intuit:

I already had an Intuit account from when I used to use TurboTax online, so I clicked on the (very tiny) link in the bottom right to indicate that I already had an Intuit login. I was then prompted to log in:

and verify my email and postal addresses:

After successfully logging into my Intuit account, I was prompted to log into my bank:

It then asked me which of my accounts I wanted to add. I could also give them names and identify the types of accounts (checking, savings, mortgage):

And that's it!

Overall, the process was fairly straightforward. The only suggesting I'd make to the QEM people is that the order is off -- rather than asking for Intuit account information between asking to identify my bank and asking for my bank login information, ask for that all at once (at the beginning), then get my bank info.

Quicken Essentials for Mac Installation

2010-03-11T22:27:00.000-08:00

Installation of Quicken Essentials for Mac was very straightforward. Upon inserting the CD, the following window appears:
As with many Mac applications, installation simply consists of dragging the application to your Applications folder (and the CD provides a handy shortcut).

The "Converting?" folder caught my attention. Inside is an application that those of you using previous versions of Quicken will need to use:

The conversion of your old Quicken data file isn't done in QEM itself, but by this separate Quicken File Exchange Utility. More on that later.

After installation I launched QEM, and was immediately encouraged to update the software from version 1.0f4238 to 1.1f4438 (gotta love those version numbers). Downloading and updating the software was again straightforward:
Once the application updated an re-launched, I was left with the QEM overview screen. Nothing much to see here, since I hadn't set up any accounts or imported any data:

And we're off and running! Score two for Intuit -- installation and the update were very Mac-like. Also, I'll note that at no time was I asked for a serial number.

Quicken Essentials for Mac Unboxing

2010-03-11T22:15:00.000-08:00

My copy of Quicken Essentials for Mac arrived in the mail the other day. In the spirit of all things Mac, here's an unboxing.

Front:

An inside flap, touting features of the software:

The back of the box, with handy check marks indicating that this software can do at least nine things:

But wait -- the back of the box has some important details!

Detail #1 -- Intuit's 60-day money-back guarantee:

Detail #2 -- a warning that this version of Quicken doesn't do all of the things that you might be used to in a Quicken product:

The inside of the box contains a CD:

And a credit card offer:

On to installation!

Quicken Essentials for Mac Released!

2010-02-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

Vaporware no longer -- Intuit has shipped Quicken Essentials for Mac! It's available for direct purchase and download from Intuit for $69.99 or you can save yourself $10 and get it from Amazon.

We'll be getting our hands on QEM soon, put it through its paces, and let you know what we think.

Interview with Aaron Patzer

2010-02-18T12:12:00.000-08:00

TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) has an interview with Aaron Patzer, formerly of Mint.com, who now heads Intuit's Personal Finance Group. It's a good read -- I'm maybe a little optimistic when I read things like this:

"When I first saw Quicken Financial Life, it had Cover Flow for no reason," he laughed. Cover Flow? No reason? Gone.

The Quicken Essentials for Mac site has been updated to indicate a Feb 25th release date. Will our long national nightmare finally come to an end?

More details from the Intuit - Mint.com purchase

2010-02-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

I'll admit, I've been slacking off on reading Intuit's Quicken Blog. Here's some interesting tidbits from the last few months.

As is typical in this type of acquisition, Intuit has decided to end-of-life their own product (Quicken Online), replacing it with what they just bought. Quicken Online is no longer open to new subscribers. Intuit is promising a seamless port from Quicken Online to Mint.com, and to bring some of the features that QO had.

In their December 21st post, there's some screen shots of what Quicken Essentials for Mac might wind up looking like. What's also interesting is that it seems that the Mint.com staff have become the group tasked with all of the Quicken products, regardless of platform. I'm maybe a little dismayed at the emphasis in this post on "glossy" features instead of, you know, useful features, or complete features.

Finally, in a post from earlier this week, Aaron Patzer (Mint.com's CEO, Intuit's new VP & GM of personal finance) says that the application is "just weeks away" from hitting the shelves. Says Aaron:

It’s a new era for the Mac product, with a new team at the helm, and gorgeous glossy design that will make you think it’s the missing iLife application. We can’t wait to show you.

Aaron -- we're looking forward to it. Remember -- cover flow is neat, but is no substitute for core functionality.

It's February 2010 -- will we finally see a new Quicken for the Mac?

2010-02-03T15:31:00.001-08:00

February -- a time of groundhogs, cold weather, and...financial applications? According to Intuit's site, this month should see the final release of Quicken Essentials for Mac, the long-delayed, long-awaited update. They've been taking pre-orders for a while now, and have promised a February 2010 release date. Today's February 3rd -- will we see it in the next 25 days? Tick-tock, tick-tock!

Intuit buys Mint.com

2009-09-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Intuit has announced that they intend to buy Mint.com.

This announcement makes me sad. While I'm not a Mint.com user, they were innovating in a space where Intuit was coasting. Mint.com was forcing Intuit to look at innovation (do you think they would have created a free online product otherwise?); this acquisition takes some of the pressure off.

Other reaction from 37signals, fastcompany.

Review of Quicken Online

2009-08-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

We've been waiting (and waiting...) for the new version of Quicken for the Mac. In the meantime, the folks at Intuit have been plugging Quicken Online as "a great way to get started", and as an alternative solution for those who can't wait for the next desktop version of Quicken for the Mac. And hey, it's free! I've taken a look at Quicken Online for a while now, and while there are certainly some neat features in Quicken Online, there are also some glaring omissions.

Quicken Online is designed to automatically download transaction information from your bank's online access. Setting up your accounts is straightforward -- you provide your financial institution and your login details, and Quicken Online finds the available accounts (checking, savings) and downloads the last 90 days worth of transactions.

What's Good

Automatic Categorization of Transactions

One of the neat features that Quicken Online does is it automatically tries to assign a category to each of your transactions. When I set it up with my checking account, it correctly guessed that Safeway transactions should be assigned to the Groceries category, that the AT&T bill should go into Utilities, and that Starbucks should be dining. There were transactions that it couldn't categorize, and it was fairly straightforward to assign a category. As you continue to use Quicken Online, it learns about the categories that you assign to transactions, so it can use the same category in the future.

Quicken Online comes with a starter set of categories:

You can add categories and rename the ones from the starter set. For example, the starter set has a category called "Childcare/Daycare", which I renamed "Daycare". I also added a category called "Cell Phone". User-defined categories are in blue.

Automatic Detection of Recurring Transactions

Another neat feature of Quicken Online is that, when it loads up the last 90 days worth of transactions, it examines them for recurring transactions, putting them in a section called "Upcoming Transactions". I found that it made mostly sensible entries into this list, including things like utility bills and my mortgage, but excluding transactions that repeat irregularly, like groceries and dining out. There were a couple of things it got wrong (for example, I have some bills that come once every 2 or 3 months, but it guessed that they were monthly).

Basic Tracking of Expenses

In addition to downloading transactions from your financial institution, Quicken Online allows you to enter transactions on your own. This is, of course, important, since you need to deduct that amount from the available balance in your account if you're going to avoid overdrafts. Quicken Online also has reminders for your upcoming transactions.

Quicken Online comes with a "Trends" section, allowing you to see how well your income and your expenses match up across different time periods (one month, three months, etc.). It also has a "Goals" section, where you can establish budgetary goals for different categories and track how closely your actual expenditures for the month.

What's Missing

Customization of Categories Lacking

While you can rename any of the starter set of categories and create categories of your own, there are some issues.

The most glaring omission is the lack of sub-categories. For example, while one of the starter categories is Utilities, there is no way to subdivide that further into types of utilities, like electric, phone, or water. Desktop versions of Quicken have had this ability for many many years. Sub-categories are very useful in grouping like types of categories together. In addition to utilities, typical categories that can get subdivided are Auto (fuel, service, registration) and Taxes (local, state, federal, property).

Also, one odd thing is that you cannot delete any of the starter set of categories. You can rename them, but you cannot delete them, even if you have no intention of ever using them. While most people could use most of the categories, I'm sure that anyone using Quicken Online would be able to find categories that they would just as soon delete.

No Split Transactions

This is possibly the most glaring omission in Quicken Online. I've been using desktop versions of Quicken since the mid-90's, and one of the features they've had for all this time is the ability to split the amount of a transaction into two or more categories. An obvious example in today's world would be going to the grocery store, buying some groceries, using a debit card, and getting $20 cash back. If the total bill came to $120, you'd want to split that into two categories -- $100 for groceries, and $20 for cash. Quicken Online doesn't let you do that. Each transaction is only allowed to have one category.

And, of course, the obvious

It probably goes without saying, but Quicken Online doesn't allow you to do our favorite kind of budgeting, envelope budgeting. (See here about why it's our favorite kind).

Final thoughts

Overall, Quicken Online has some features that are probably a little better than just looking at your account at your financial institution's web site. Being able to enter transactions and predict future expenses is a fundamental part of preventing overdraft. If Quicken Online supported split transactions and sub-categories, it would probably do about 90% of what I would want to be able to do with my desktop Quicken.

A final thought on security

As I mentioned at the top of the post, Quicken Online asks you to enter the login information you use to access your accounts at your financial institution. While Intuit is a corporation that has been around for a while, and they obviously have some security-minded people working for them, when I was handing over this information there was a little voice in the back of my head going "are you sure you want to hand this over?"

Mac Quicken 2010 will support migration of data from Windows Quicken

2009-08-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

There's a new blog posting on the Quicken site about our favorite vaporware, the new version of Quicken for the Mac. The big news on this posting is that the new version of Quicken will support importing data from Quicken for Windows. This seems to be a much requested feature out there - there are a lot of PC-to-Mac switchers out there who are keeping an old PC around or running VMware so that they can keep running Quicken under Windows.

I think the bigger reason many people are still running Quicken under Windows is that Quicken for the Mac is a big ball of hurt. It remains to be seen whether the new Quicken for the Mac has the bugs worked out and key features of our Windows counterpart, or if the development team is still focusing on fully integrating cover flow into the Quicken interface.

Update 4/12/2010:
Stumble here from Google? Be sure to check out our ongoing blow-by-blow review of Quicken Essentials for Mac.

Update 4/25/2010:
I've taken a look at the Quicken File Exchange Utility, the separate application that's used to convert data files for use in Quicken Essentials for Mac. Read all about it!

Why not just use Quicken's budgeting, part 2

2009-08-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I wrote about how envelope budgeting does a good job of preparing for large, periodic expenses, like property tax or car repairs. Today I'm going to argue that using Quicken can fool you into thinking that you're taking charge of your money, when you really are just tracking your money after it's already spent.

I first started using Quicken back when I was young, dumb, and single. I was making good money, I didn't have much in the way of expenses, and I frankly didn't balance my checkbook terribly often. Quicken was a huge leap forward for me. It was super easy to enter in transactions, it felt really good to assign categories to expenses, and that happy alert box you got congratulating you for balancing your checkbook was very validating. I geeked out for a while, creating an elaborate taxonomy of expense cateogories, and there was even a brief period where I was keeping track of my cash expenses down to the penny. (I had a lot of time on my hands).

Fast forward a few years, and things are more complicated - I'm married, I have kids, a mortgage, and some much more significant expenses. I still dutifully entered all of my transactions into Quicken, categorizing away, balancing monthly, but it was just arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We were falling into debt, and quickly.

How could this happen? Wasn't balancing my checkbook keeping us in control? Well, no. Sure, I could run a report and tell you how much we were overspending, and it what areas. In fact, I would do that from time to time. My wife loved it, as I'd run this sort of report, reality would come crashing down, and I'd be just a delight to be around for the next couple of days. "We can't go on like this! How could we spending all of this money?"

Using Quicken to enter and categorize transactions was giving me the illusion of control, but there was no control. Sure, I could do some forensic accounting, and I could tell you to the penny how far in the red we were, but on a day to day basis it was not helping us manage our expenses.

In order to have control of your money you need to know what you're doing with it before you spend it. At the time that you're spending some of your money, you need to know that it's not going to mess up the rest of your month. Envelope budgeting does this for you. Relying on Quicken's built-in reports is like getting in your car and driving for a while, and then using your GPS to figure out just how lost you are.

What Quicken Gets Right - Keyboard Shortcuts

2009-08-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I mentioned that there are some things that Quicken does get right. Looking at the things that Quicken does right is helpful, in that it can be the basis for evaluating Quicken alternatives.

Keeping your finances in order isn't something that many of us enjoy doing. One of the things that makes Quicken successful is that there are some features built-in that make data entry quicker. QuickFill transactions, mentioned last week, are helpful in that they automate redundant data entry, like the grocery store or the gas station -- something you wouldn't necessarily make a scheduled transaction, but which come up frequently enough.

I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts, and Quicken has a few I use all of the time:

Check numbers. Use the plus key (actually, you can use the equals -- no need to use shift) to get the next check number in sequence. You can also use the minus key to go back one number in sequence. This gets a little out of whack if you've wound up entering any checks out of order, but is generally very useful. In fact, what it's sometimes most useful for is finding those times when you've written a check but forgotten to enter it -- the sequence number doesn't match, alerting you to a missed entry.

Dates. Hit the letter 't' to change the date to today's date. As with check numbers, you can use the plus (really, equals) and minus key to go up and down dates. If you're entering a date manually you can usually leave off the year. The only time this doesn't work well is if it's early January and you're entering a transaction from late December -- it'll assume December of the new year, not the one that just ended (boy, that'd be a nice little fix). There are other shortcuts for beginning or end of week, month, or year, but I don't use those nearly as often as jumping to today.

QuickFill. As I mentioned last week, if QuickFill has matched an entry that's close but not quite there, you can use the up and down arrow keys to cycle through other entries that match the letters you've typed in so far.

Categories. The up and down arrow key trick that works for QuickFill also works when entering categories. If you've got sub-categories, once you've got the main category matched, enter a colon to bring up the first subcategory. You can either start typing to match the sub-category or again use up and down arrows to cycle through.

Forgetting changes. If you're in the middle of entering a transaction and you realize it's all a big mistake, before hitting return to record the transaction, hit escape and all is forgotten.

Math. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Quicken's ability to do math when entering a dollar amount. For example, if you've got a few numbers to add up for an amount field, type in the first one, then hit plus -- a little adding-machine-like tape pops up and you can do math. When you've got the figure you need, hit return and it will be entered. This feature came out with Quicken quite a number of years ago, and I used it all the time when it first came out, but I must admit I don't use it very much anymore.

Those are my favorites -- any more out there?

What Quicken Gets Right - QuickFill Transactions

2009-07-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

Quicken for the Mac sucks, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that there are some things that it does get right. Looking at the things that Quicken does right is helpful, in that it can be the basis for evaluating Quicken alternatives.

The first thing Quicken gets right that comes to my mind is QuickFill transactions. Next to doing the math for you, QuickFill transactions was one of the first features of Quicken, and it can significantly reduce the drudgery of entering transactions. Reducing this drudgery was key to my early adoption of Quicken in the 90's -- entering transactions was easy enough to do that I wanted to do it. It's very nice being able to type in "saf", and having it fill in "Safeway", with the category of "Groceries" already filled in. Just tab over, enter the amount, and I'm done. Very handy.

There are a couple of improvements that Quicken could do to QuickFill transactions. When I first started using Quicken, it asked me if I wanted to automatically add transactions to my QuickFill list, and I said yes. While that's great for starting out, what it does is it winds up adding every single transaction to your QuickFill list. If you're not careful, you could soon wind up with a QuickFill list that has hundreds of transactions. Worse, since QuickFill searches alphabetically, it's very easy to wind up with some random transaction that winds up coming up first instead of your desired transaction. (I had that problem with "Safeway" when Quicken had memorized "Safest Way Driving School"). Perhaps changing the threshold for adding items to the QuickFill list -- maybe three entries in a month -- would be better.

The other improvement that Quicken could do to QuickFill transactions is document what it means for a QuickFill transaction to be locked. When editing a QuickFill transaction, there's a "Locked" checkbox, but it's not at all apparent what it means. Locked QuickFill transactions can still be edited and deleted, and when using a locked QuickFill transaction you can still change the amount and the category. Locking seems fairly useless.

Here's some tips for working with QuickFill transactions:

1. If Quicken has filled in something from your QuickFill list that's very close, but not quite what you want, you can use the up and down arrow keys to cycle through the items on your QuickFill list that match the letters you've typed in so far.

2. If your QuickFill list has gotten cluttered, use Lists > QuickFill Transactions to bring up the list. Use shift-click to select multiple items to delete.

3. To keep Quicken from automatically adding items to your QuickFill list, go to Preferences > Customization > Registers, and unclick the box labelled "Add new transactions to the QuickFill list". You can also turn off QuickFill altogether:

4. If you have "Add new transactions to the QuickFill list" checked, you can keep a new item from getting added to the QuickFill list by holding down the option key when recording the transaction.

Why not just use Quicken's budgeting, part 1

2009-07-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

If you're new to envelope budgeting, but used to traditional budgeting, you may wonder what all the fuss is. Quicken's got a budgeting tool -- why not just use it? Let me answer this question in two parts.

For me, the most important reason is because not everything is a monthly expense. Yes, much of our money is spent on things every month -- mortgage, rent, bills, groceries -- but there are occasional expenses as well. It's these occasonal expenses -- property tax, car repairs -- that can get you reaching for that credit card if you're not prepared.

Rather than letting these big expenses surprise you, the best defense is to save up a little bit of money every paycheck. If you know you're going to spent maybe $2000/year on car repairs, and you get paid twice a month, then you should be setting aside a little more than $83 per paycheck into your car repair envelope.

Setting this up in a traditional Quicken budget just doesn't make sense. Most months you're on well on the positive side, and then when you actually go out and spend the money, it shows significantly negative. As an extreme example, check out this budget graph for my property taxes:

There's no way that I can tell how well I did from such a graph, nor would I be able to know, mid-year, that I'm on track.

To be sure, I'm isolating just one category of expense in the graph above, and you could argue that what I should be looking at is my overall expenses across all categories. Even then, traditional budgeting tools fail -- the highs and lows might be trimmed down a little, but it's still going to show big up and down swings when you have major expenses. Worse yet, you can fool yourself into thinking that you're staying on budget if you see numbers that are matched up on a monthly basis across categories, but if you're not saving up for those big expenses (actually showing a surplus in many months), you'll be caught flat-footed when those big bills come.

That's it for part 1 of why Quicken's budgeting tools don't lead you on the road to financial freedom. In part 2 I'll talk about planning vs. forensic budgeting, and how Quicken makes you feel like you're in control when you may not be.

Quick Review of NeoBudget

2009-07-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I ran across NeoBudget.com, a very low-cost online system for envelope budgeting. I've given it a quick tour, and there are a number of promising elements, but I don't think it's at a point yet where I could use it for day-to-day budgeting. Your mileage may vary -- read on!

Overview

NeoBudget.com has many of the basic elements of envelope budgeting figured out. It was very simple to set up a checking and a savings account, enter in current balances, set up envelopes, and assign amounts to envelopes. Entering transactions was fairly straightforward as well. When entering a transaction into an account you are presented with your list of envelopes and their current holdings, and you can enter which envelope (or envelopes) the money for that transaction should come from. Splitting a transaction between envelopes is simple as well -- there's a handy "remainder" section that tells you how much is left between the total amount of the transaction and the amount(s) identified in the envelopes so far.

NeoBudget also has something that's fairly standard in envelope budgeting - the ability to save allocation amounts for your paychecks. You can identify an income source, a frequency (every two weeks, twice a month, monthly, etc.), an income amount, and an allocation of that income into your different envelopes. When payday comes around you can pick your saved allocations and NeoBudget does the allocation for you.

The Good

Security. Unlike many other online services, NeoBudget does not require you to provide it with your personal banking details. It is possible for you to upload online banking information, but NeoBudget requires you to download the information yourself, which you then upload into NeoBudget. This made me feel more secure -- I'm nervous about providing this sort of personal information.

Low Cost. NeoBudget costs a mere $2.50 per month (less if you do six- or twelve-month subscriptions). Even better, you can try it out without providing *any* payment information, so you don't have to worry about missing the end of your trial period and being on the hook.

Easy Setup. I've been at this envelope budgeting for a while now. I've got a big spreadsheet tracking how much I've got in each envelope. You would think that the one thing envelope budgeting systems would have down is an ability to start up, enter in information about all of your envelopes, with an initial balance for each. You'd be wrong. Fortunately for NeoBudget, this setup is very simple.

Active Developer. The latest update to NeoBudget came just a few days ago, with the launch of a mobile version. From what I can tell, NeoBudget is a one-man show, but he's an active developer.

The Less than Good

No Resolution. While the ability to be able to upload transactions is nice, I take the time to enter transactions manually, so that I don't have to worry about the lag time between buying something and having it show up online, so that I can enter payee information that makes sense, and so that my wife and I are on the same page. What I use online transactions for is to verify that I've entered transactions correctly, and to verify that I didn't miss anything.

I tried this with NeoBudget -- entering a couple of transactions, and then uploading information about those and a couple of others -- but there's no facility for matching the uploaded transactions with the ones that I entered manually. I wound up with duplicate transactions. Bummer.

No Recurring Transactions. Again, I like to plan ahead, so having my bills in a schedule is nice. I didn't see that feature in NeoBudget.

No "Frequently Added" Transactions. While NeoBudget does automate the allocation of income into envelopes, when entering transactions you've got just some text boxes. Again, I like to be able to enter transactions manually, so it would be nice if I could just type in "Unocal" (even better, just "uno" and it would figure out "cal"), and perhaps even remember that the amount should come out of the "Gas" envelope.

Dream List

NeoBudget allows you to have multiple accounts (e.g., checking, savings), and a different set of envelopes for each. For occasional expenses, like property tax or car repairs, I like being able to save the money in savings, and then move the money over to checking when I need to use it. This way I can make at least a couple of bucks on the money. It would be awesome if NeoBudget simplified the accounting of envelopes across accounts.

Overall

NeoBudget is easy to set up and is super low cost. If you're new to budgeting and you already rely on online banking to keep your checkbook for you, then it might be just the thing you need to get started taking control of your finances. The addition of a few key features would make NeoBudget truly great.

What's Envelope Budgeting?

2009-07-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

Someone was asking me recently what I thought of mint.com, and I said that I wished it supported envelope budgeting. "What's envelope budgeting?", she asked. I've mentioned it here on a few occasions -- here's what I wrote to her:

In a nutshell, envelope budgeting means that you have cash on hand before spending money. In the old days you would cash your paycheck into actual cash, and then divvy up the cash into envelopes marked "rent" or "gas" or "clothes" or what have you. When it came time to buy something or pay a bill, you could only spend the money that you had in that envelope. There's nothing keeping you from moving money from one envelope to another, but the assumption is that you're wise and you're not going to take all of the money out of "rent" to go buy stuff.

Obviously we don't use cash and envelopes anymore, but the theory is still there. A financial management system that supports envelope budgeting wouldn't show you what your checking account balance is as much as how much money you've got in your set of virtual envelopes.

This is different than what Quicken or mint.com or a bunch of other financial management tools do. Sure, Quicken lets you categorize your expenses, but it's more forensic accounting ("where did my money go?") than a planning/saving tool. The power of envelope budgeting is that you're giving each dollar a name and a purpose, putting you in control of your money. Envelope budgeting is also much better than traditional budgets for more occasional expenses (property taxes, car repairs). I know I've got to pay property taxes in October, and I'm putting a little money in that envelope now with each paycheck, so that when that big bill comes along, I'm all set. It also works very well for those with irregular incomes -- you can prioritize your expenses, funding the most important envelopes first.

There are a variety of online services and dedicated programs that support the envelope method. I tried out mvelopes.com a while back, but it's expensive and they want to know your banking login information, which I'm a little creeped out about.

I'm taking a look at neobudget.com now -- look for a post in the next week or so.

Quicken slips again!

2009-07-15T22:17:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've checked in... Decided I'd stop by Intuit's site and see if there's any news about our favorite vaporware, and there's this note on their site (posted 7/13/09):

We anticipate releasing our next version of Quicken for Mac (formerly Quicken Financial Life for Mac) in February 2010.

This same page says that pre-orders will start in October 2009.

Let's review the history here:

The latest version of Quicken for the Mac is Quicken 2007. Like car model years and Madden football, the '2007' in the title means that it was released in late 2006.
January 2008: at MacWorld Expo, Intuit announces the next version of Quicken, titled "Quicken Financial Life for Mac".
The public beta started in September 2008, and at the time they anticipated a ship date of "this winter" (meaning, presumably, sometime between December 2008 and March 2009).
We got our hands on the beta around December 2008 (after Intuit had initially said that public response to the beta was "overwhelming"). In December 2008 they announced that QFLM would be released in Summer 2009.
Now here we are in the dog days of summer '09, and the word from Intuit is that the product (no longer called QFLM) will ship in March 2010.

Assuming that the March 2010 deadline sticks (and there's really no reason to believe this, but let's pretend), this will mean that almost four years will have passed between versions of Quicken for the Mac.

The folks at Intuit have a blog posting discussing this latest slip/ship date; the comments on it are fairly scathing.

Truth be told, I'm not surprised that the date has slipped once again. I didn't post anything about the QFLM beta we got our hands on because there was so little to talk about -- huge gigantic features were just not there (but, boy, was there cover flow!). Calling it beta was generous at best.

Game Over - the Ultimate Suckage

2009-06-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

I've been getting OL-249 messages from my bank in Quicken 2006 for about the last week. I called the bank's technical support, and they say that Quicken had end-of-lifed Quicken 2006 for Mac.

Normally, that might be OK (where "OK" includes having a gun jabbed in your ribs like in a Bogart movie), but the current situation is double-extra screwed. Quicken Financial Life for Mac is still in beta, and the last I looked it was lacking several features that are show-stoppers for me (e.g., reporting and budgeting). Quicken for Mac 2007 is a dead man walking - it will be EOLed as soon as QFLM comes out.

So, I can't use my existing Quicken. The new Quicken is still not ready for prime-time. Therefore, my bank is effectively inaccessible from Quicken.

Update: as pointed out by a reader, there is a fix from Quicken - https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=7368. It's a little weird, but it works.

Moneywell impressions, part 2 - square pegs and round holes

2009-01-25T22:51:00.000-08:00

Continuing with my posts on Moneywell...

One of the complications I have with my envelope system is based on the fact that I get bi-weekly paychecks. (There was an effort a few years ago to move to paychecks on the 1st and 15th of every month, but the union membership shot it down. It seems obvious to me that nobody in the union budgeted their money -- twice-monthly paychecks work sooooo much better).

This bi-weekly paycheck thing complicates my budgeting. Moneywell has a very nifty little spending plan setup to help automate the allocation of salary into buckets, but it doesn't work well for us bi-weekly check folks working in a monthly billing universe. A small example will demonstrate this:

Let's say you've got a bill that runs $100/month. Over a year, you're spending $1200. Us bi-weekly payday folks get 26 paychecks a year. In theory, I should be setting aside $1200/26 = $46.15 per paycheck to pay this bill. (That is, in fact, what Moneywell will say).

But here's where theory comes crashing into reality. Let's say I get paid on January 6th and 20th, and the bill's due on January 27th. If I put away my $46.15 after Jan 6 and 20, I only have $92.30 set aside for my $100 bill -- I'm $7.70 short when the bill comes due. Sure, it'll all work out eventually, but here in the short term I'm hosed.

Moneywell impressions, part 1 - buckets are not categories

2009-01-25T22:27:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I gave Moneywell a whirl. Overall, I don't think Moneywell is going to work well for me, but your mileage may vary.

Moneywell supports the envelope theory of budget management. In Moneywell, every time you get some cash in, it turns into an inflow, which you can then allocate to different areas. Traditional envelope theory has you cashing your paycheck and getting paper envelopes; Moneywell uses the idea of buckets.

I guess my big problem with Moneywell's bucket implementation is the difference between buckets and categories. Take, for example, my insurance bill. I've got life, auto, and home insurance with the same company. The bill is monthly and fairly regular (maybe adjusting once every six months as a new auto premium is calculated), and there's just one bill that combines all three. From a bucket-budget planning standpoint, I just want to have one bucket -- "insurance" -- that money moves into and comes out from.

But, every once in a while, I want to be able to look back and get more granularity. If I was shopping around for a different auto insurer, I might want to look back and see how much I had been spending on auto insurance.

There's the rub with Moneywell -- if you want granularity, you need more buckets -- one per grain, so to speak. But...the more buckets you've got, the more complicated every payday gets, and most of the time, you don't need that much detail.

iBudget?

2009-01-12T21:15:00.000-08:00

Any real alternative to Quicken has to support individual budgets for individual months. For example, my power bill ebbs and flows with the season. Likewise the water bill - no need to water during winter in the Pacific Northwest. Property taxes are due once a year - sure, I save up all year long, but I only pay it out in November. In the words of Dave Ramsey, we're not working with "the perfect budget from heaven," but rather where is this month's money really going?

So far, the programs that I've looked at both start with 'i' - iBank (downloaded) and iCash (just looked at manual). And, both of them assume monthly budget amounts - i.e., the same for all months of the year. That makes them both non-starters. Boo!

And I found a blog post that says the iBank has very limited online data downloading. Again, boo.

iBank has a cool domain name

2009-01-02T11:49:00.001-08:00

Google just served up an ad for iBank using this domain name - www.thequickenkiller.com. Cool.

I too am looking to evaluate an alternative to Quicken. Totally unrelated to this domain name, however, I think while Tom's checking out MoneyWell, I'll check out iBank. More news when it happens...

New Year's Resolution

2008-12-31T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'm making the leap.

I'm tired of Quicken. I'm also tired of using Quicken plus two spreadsheets to keep track of money. It's time to put my money where my mouth is and start using a different money management system.

I've spent a couple of hours messing around with MoneyWell. Why MoneyWell? Couple of reasons:

It does the envelope method. (MoneyWell calls them buckets instead of envelopes)
It has a free trial, and the license costs $40 if I decide it's worth it (vs $60 for Quicken)
It looks like they've got nice support (including video tutorials)

Even with the video tutorials, MoneyWell has taken some work getting started. I've got a savings account where I keep money I'm accumulating for future expenses (everything from the cell phone bill to property tax), and it took some figuring to get that all set up with the proper amounts in each bucket. I'll post more thoughts as I go along.

The Suckage is Official!

2008-12-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

I just got this email from Quicken:

We expect to release Quicken Financial Life for Mac in summer 2009. If you have an immediate need for a Quicken product for the Mac, we would encourage you to check out our current Mac offering, Quicken for Mac 2007.

Given that it was supposed to ship in Fall 2008, and it didn't, should anyone hold their breath for Summer 2009? I for one, won't - I've gotta find something more usable before then.

And just to pile-on the complaints, their email contained this bit:

Due to overwhelming interest in the beta, at this time we cannot accommodate your request to participate. We’re sorry that we are not able to accommodate everyone who was interested in joining.

That's a fine sentiment, but why did they send this four months after I signed up? Why couldn't they send that out sooner, even if the didn't know their release date? IMHO they seem to have some serious problems with time and schedules, which is all the more reason why I doubt Summer 2009.

Update: AppleInsider posted release notes from the current beta software. Not much to see there - just one screen shot.

iCash

2008-12-26T13:43:00.000-08:00

Here's another Quicken alternative: iCash. As usual, I have no experience with it - yet, but one thing that's interesting is that it's cross-platform: it supports Mac and Windows. And it looks like that cross-platform support is real in the sense that it's the same program running on both platforms rather than distant bastard cousins.

No Extended Validation Certificate Support

2008-12-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a story that's been buzzing on the Interweb, especially after it was linked to from Slashdot: Quicken for Mac Lacks Extended Validation Certificate Support. The short story is that many banks are adding extra security to their web sites (extended validation certificates) and Quicken for Mac doesn't support it, nor is it planned until Quicken Financial Life for Mac.

One interesting tidbit from the article: "This new package [QFLM] is due in mid-2009; it's in beta testing now." First of all, I didn't know the date had been slipped to mid-2009. Secondly, if it's in beta, why hasn't anyone I know who registered for the beta gotten it yet? Alternatives to Quicken are sounding better and better.

MoneyWell

2008-12-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled across MoneyWell in a story on Ars Technica reminding us that Quicken Financial Life for Mac still hasn't shipped. I watched their introduction video, and from what I can tell, the program is centered around a modern, electronic version of the envelope system from tracking expenses - i.e., budgeting made easy. There is a free trial, it might be worth checking out soon - I'd like to switch off Quicken Mac 2006 at the end of the year.

Another Free Program

2008-11-16T21:08:00.000-08:00

I just ran across Mjrz.net on Fresh Meat. From the web page, it "is a free, open source Personal finance software application. It is designed for home and small business users with simple interface and fast user interaction. It is safe and secure with password based encryption for storing all financial data." Beyond that, in the words of Sgt. Shultz, "I know nothing."

QuickBooks Pro 2009 for Mac almost here

2008-09-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

Amazon is now taking pre-orders for Quickbooks Pro 2009 for Mac. While I don't have any personal experience with QuickBooks, the three-star rating on QuickBooks 2007 for Mac indicates that Intuit has been equally bad in both the personal and business sides of the financial software arena.

Quicken Financial Life for Mac Slipping...

2008-09-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

Ars Technica has a posting titled "Wither Mac Quicken?" The title is a bit more dismal sounding than the apparent reality. Checking out Quicken's FAQ page for QFLM, the schedule does seem to be slipping:

We will be releasing the product this Winter.
The public Beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac will begin this Fall.

They also say that they won't have online bill pay, but that's not important to me personally.

My biggest complaint is they say the beta will "begin the Fall", but I haven't heard anything directly from them after having registered. Pedantically speaking, Fall doesn't begin until the equinox, but then again, it doesn't end until the solstice, either. I hope "Fall" doesn't turn out to mean December 20th.

What I'd like to see in a Quicken iPhone application

2008-08-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm a true-blue Apple-head -- I use a Mac at home and work, and I'm an iPhone user as well. Now that we've got the App Store, it's interesting to think about what I'd like to see in a Quicken iPhone application.

1. As I've mentioned before, I use my bank's ability to download transactions for synchronization into Quicken, but my wife and I do all of the data entry into Quicken manually. The bank downloads serve more as a backup for me, for when a receipt gets lost or shoved in the bottom of a bag. That brings me to desired feature #1: On-the-go data entry. It would be handy to be able to make a purchase, start up iPhone Quicken, enter the transaction, and then throw the receipt away. Entries would then get loaded onto the main computer at next sync, or perhaps using 'push' (when that becomes available later this year).

(This was one feature I liked about pre-OS X Quicken, circa 1998 -- they had a desk accessory that allowed for one-off item entry. Lowered barrier to data entry = more frequent data entry = more accurate records).

2. I love my iPhone and keep a close eye on it, but it's small, portable, and easily sold on eBay. If my iPhone is lost or stolen, I shouldn't have to worry that bad people would have access to my bank info. So, desired feature #2: No state secrets on the iPhone. No bank account numbers. You can use the alias for accounts I've got set up (for example, "Our Checking"). A current balance would be okay, but think carefully about transaction history.

3. I'm going to manage my checking account and (maybe) my savings account on the go. Not my mortgage, not my IRA. (I'd include credit cards on this list, but we're a Dave Ramsey household, and so we don't use credit cards). Desired feature #3 is simple but important: Having the ability to select which accounts get synched.

4. In our manifesto we've expressed our desire for envelope-based financial management in Quicken. Here's where an iPhone app could really shine -- support for virtual envelopes. The trouble with doing real envelopes with real cash is that it's a pain (especially when the kids are in the car and you just want to buy gas at the pump). If the current state of envelopes were available on the iPhone, one could make better decisions on the fly.

5. Also in the manifesto I cited one of things that made Quicken a killer app -- Quickfill transactions. I shop at Safeway for groceries, I'm doing data entry, I type in "s-a-f", and boom! it fills in Safeway, fills in the Groceries category. I just type the amount and I'm good to go. Quicken for iPhone should sync up with my Quickfill transactions.

6. This last item should go without saying, but we are talking about the folks who brought us Quicken 2006 for the Mac. A clean, simple interface is a must.

That's my wish list -- what's yours?

On The Front Page!

2008-08-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

Quicken Financial Life for Mac has made Intuit's front page, but it's still just an invitation to join the beta program. Being on the front page is encouraging, but the fact that the beta program doesn't seem to have advanced (i.e., actually begun) is disappointing. Who knows?

Update: Bad link before -- now fixed!

Cannot Delete a Split Line in Download

2008-08-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

If you're in the download window processing downloaded transactions, and you open up the split transactions, you cannot delete a split transaction. However, if you're adding a transaction from the regular register, you can. If the functionality is available in one place, it should be available in both.

No Exit

2008-08-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

After displaying and changing a report, I often (but not always) get this dialog box when I close the report:

While the basic intent of this is good - "maybe you'd like to save this," the execution is horrible. Suppose I don't want to save it? In this particular case, this was my regular monthy budget report, which I customized to look at the previous month. I don't want to save it. How do I indicate that in this dialog box?

I can't! All I can do is click OK, get the Memorize dialog box, and click Cancel on it. Why the hell isn't there an option not to save this report? Clicking OK is totally counter-intuitive because it says I want to save it, which I don't.

And while we're at it, how about a Cancel button because I may have closed the report by accident.

This kind of user interface mistake is just unforgivable. It is such a fundamental operation that (in my experience) there's always a build-in method to do this automatically. Most/many/all modern user interface toolkits include a simple method to create a two-button (yes/no) or three-button (yes/no/cancel) dialog box. I would even be surprised if a student in one of my classes did something as lame as to only offer an OK button. That's how weak this bug is.

Dowloading Online Transactions

2008-08-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

Why is it that "One Step" (to download transactions) and "Download" (to display them) are two separate windows? If they have to be separate, why is it that "One Step" doesn't bring up "Download" when it's done? And while we're at it, I think that "Download" is a misleading name - it seems like it's where you'd go to download transactions not view downloaded transactions.

Reconciling Online Transactions

2008-08-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I download electronic transactions, they won't reconcile with what I've already entered in my register. The amount is correct. The date is correct. The payee might be slightly different, but that shouldn't matter. On the PC version of Quicken, there is an option to manually match transactions. You can even match multiple transactions as one entry. But, there's no way to do that in Mac Quicken. So, I have to delete the downloaded transaction and manually clear the transaction in my register. Lame.

Alternatives

2008-08-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

We really don't want to switch from Quicken on the Mac, but at some point you have to start eying the exits, even if you don't actually bolt from the room.

Before the rumors of a new version came out at MacWorld, I was seriously considering running the Windows version of Quicken under VMware Fusion, which I already own and love. My biggest reason for not pulling the trigger on that was I didn't want to deal with another data conversion - I abandoned Quicken 2004 for the PC shortly before it was de-supported for online transactions.

Here are some applications I've stumbled across on the web. I haven't used any of them, but would love to hear from you if you have used them or know of any others.

Tom: For a while I tried out Mvelopes, an online money management system. At the time that I checked it out (a year and a half ago), it seemed very promising. It supports the "envelope" method of budgeting, so you're planning on where your money will go, instead of after the fact seeing where it went. It links into your bank's online system, so you don't have to do any data entry.

The downside for me at the time was that it's an Ajax application (like Google Docs), and the computer I had at the time (an original 'desklamp' iMac) just didn't quite have the horsepower to run all of the Javascript cleanly. Mvelopes needs you to drag different transactions into different envelopes, and the dragging just didn't work smoothly.

The other problem with Mvelopes is that, by relying on your bank's online system, there's going to be some unknown amount of lag time between when you buy something and when it gets taken out of the respective envelope. This might work okay if you're the only one spending your money, but like Charles, I'm married, and my wife is the one who spends most of our day-to-day expenses (groceries, gas, etc.). She needs to be able to look at a bottom line and get an accurate picture of what's left in the tank.

Bad UI: Entering Scheduled Transactions

2008-08-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

Let's take a minute to consider the process of setting up a scheduled transaction. Imagine I'm setting up my monthly AT&T bill for the new iPhone. You could imagine going through this setup process when you got your first bill; you now know your billing cycle and have an idea of what the monthly amount might be.

I start by going to Bills and Scheduled Transactions, click on the New button, and start entering information. One of the items that I enter is the date of my first bill (8/20/08, as shown in this first image):

Next, I want this to be a monthly transaction (like most bills), so I pick the drop-down list and choose monthly:

My choices in buttons at the bottom are Record and Restore (more on that later). If I click on Record, I get this message:

First transaction is on 9/1/08? I entered 8/20/08! What happened?

This is what happened -- when I selected Monthly for recurrence, Quicken defaulted to day 1 of every 1 month. A better UI design choice would have been to look at the date that I had initially set up when entering my transaction information, and defaulted to that date (the 20th of every 1 month) instead.

Also, what's with the buttons being labeled Record and Restore? The Record button doesn't actually record a transaction in the register, it just adds the transaction to my list of scheduled transactions. It should be labeled "Add", or maybe "Save". Similarly, the button labeled Restore should be "Don't Save", or even "Cancel". Yes, Quicken uses the exact same dialog when editing the settings of a scheduled transaction, and while "Restore" would make sense in that situation, there's no reason why Quicken can't re-label the buttons depending on the situation, or pick something like "Save" and "Don't Save".

Manifesto

2008-08-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

From a friend of mine: "So you hate Quicken so much that you created a blog for it...and yet you continue to use it?!" This certainly deserves an answer.

Tom: I was an early adopter of Quicken software, starting with my Apple Powerbook 160 in 1994. Charles: I was using Quicken back on an original Mac II; I'm not sure when I started, but I have transactions in my current Quicken file that go back to 1988. Quicken at the time was simple and easy to use, and showed off many of the features that would make it synonymous with money management:

Intuitive user interface. The main window looks just like a checkbook register. It's Example A of "how to make it easy for people to use your software". By making the main window look just like what we were used to using in paper and pencil, it empowered users. You've seen this before. You can do this.

Autocompletion. You might think of autocompletion of text fields with previously entered information a neat Ajax trick. Quicken had it in the mid-90's, and it further lowered the barrier to entry. It's the complement of the good checkbook register UI design. You want to use Quicken because it looks just like your checkbook, and since it autocompletes (and does the math!), it's easier to use than your checkbook.

Nice touches. Pre-Quicken, I was not very disciplined at balancing my checkbook. I was single, making decent money, so balancing my checkbook wasn't high on my priority list. The first time I reconciled my checkbook in Quicken and it gave me that "Congratulations" screen, I was hooked. I still get a little thrill every time I get that screen.

So what happened? I think the folks at Intuit were faced with a problem -- once you get people using your product, how do you keep your revenue stream? If my money management program works just fine, why should I buy the next version? It's a problem faced my many software companies, and the standard solution is to release new versions with an ever-increasing "feature" set. And while some of the new features were well done and made the program more powerful (online stock quotes!), Mac Quicken seemed to lose its way:

Stability. There was a period of time when Quicken Mac 2006 would crash on startup on my Mac 3-4 times in a row before it would actually stay open. While that has been resolved, Quicken 2006 will still crash. If there's one piece of software that I'd like to know is going to be stable and bug-free, it's my money application.

Bugs. There are features (e.g. budgeting) where there are arithmetic errors. There are reports that never include the right data no matter how many options I choose in Customize.

A mutant user interface. I've dealt with a number applications that were created on one platform and ported hastily to another platform, and I've dealt with applications that were developed with a cross-platform user interface tookit. Such applications are always a bit odd but usually tolerable. Quicken Mac 2006 is neither a Mac application nor a Windows application.

Ill-conceived features. The birth of online banking was an oppportunity for Intuit. Having an ability to download transactions further reduced the barrier to usage. The promise of not needing to even enter your purchases was very attractive, but ultimately it was poorly implemented. In early releases Intuit seemly hard-coded bank information into the application, so that if your bank changed the specifics of how to access your account (which happened frequently as banks merged), you wouldn't be able to access your information.

Lagging releases. Intuit issued a press release in August 2007 saying that Quicken 2008 for the Mac was coming, and they were at the Macworld Expo in January 2008 touting a new version. It's now August 2008, and there's no Quicken in sight. The only page on the Intuit web site that refers to Quicken 2008 for the Mac is the page that lets you sign up for the beta version and "product updates" (no thanks). The Mac version of Quicken is commonly seen as the stepchild of the Windows version, an afterthought at best.

How can Intuit get right? We'd like to see a few things in the next Quicken:

Be a Mac application. For all of their faults, one thing that Microsoft does well is making Mac versions of their software that work like Mac applications, and not just ports of the Windows version. Embrace the Mac UI conventions. On the other hand, don't get carried away with the flashy eye candy of Leopard at the expense of nuts-and-bolts functionality.

Test, test, test! This should include not just bugs that crash the application, but usability testing as well.

Better budgeting tools. The problem with all of the reports and graphs that Quicken does is that it's a forensic tool -- it can tell you what happened to your money, but by then it's already gone. Quicken should fully embrace the "envelope method" of budgeting championed by everyone from Dave Ramsey to The Motley Fool, and make it easy to have virtual envelopes in one account. If Intuit could make virtual envelopes work easily and well, then the marketing materials write themselves. "Quicken virtual envelopes. Have money plans, not money arguments."

As soon as we see a decent version of Quicken for the Mac, we will gladly take down this blog. We would be more than happy to help in any way we possibly can to improve a new version of Quicken. Although neither one of us is a full-time software QA/QC person, we have both developed software, and we understand how difficult it is to develop it. So, we're willing to help, but in the meantime, we're just gonna complain.

Intuit, the ball is in your court.

Quicken and New Math

2008-08-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

Below is a screen shot from a budget of mine:

(Yes, I stitched together two columns of screen shots to hide some of the other months, but trust me, this is what it really showed for July.)

My fixed expenses are -271, which is crazy - I assure you I spend money! The flexible expenses seem right. But the total (-271+2415=-424) is just insane. If I drill down into categories and sub-categories, I see similar nonsense.
As I recall, this happened last year about this time of the year, so it must be some goober in that column (July).

Here's another (non-edited) example:

In the last column, the total expenses for auto are $9, while clearly I'm spending more like $300. In the second column, you can see $0, when $975 is budget.

My only work-around is to view the budget under construction using the reports, but that requires changing screens, which is a) annoying, and b) takes a couple of seconds, even with a Core2 Duo.

Obvious arithmetic errors are unforgivable in a financial application. Fortunately, so far as I know, such errors are (thankfully) confined to the budget planning.

Quicken Financial Life for Mac

2008-08-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that there will be a non-sucking version of Quicken sometime soon(?). Supposedly, it will be called "Quicken Financial Life for Mac" - rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Around the time of MacWorld 2008, there were reports of a brand new version of Quicken in MacRumors, ArsTechnica, and AppleInsider, just to name a few. That was January, but we've heard nothing since. Granted, all the reports said it wouldn't come out until Fall, but I would expect to hear some buzz.

There is a sign-up page for a mythical beta test. We've registered, but still nothing.

We will do what we can to cover this topic, but in the meantime, the silence is deafening.

First Post!

2008-08-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

Crashes. Bad user interface. Missing features. Quicken on Windows is the standard by which all other money management applications are measured, but Quicken on the Mac...sucks.