Quicken Disaster!

Questions on how we spend our money and our time - consumer goods and services, home and vehicle, leisure and recreational activities
sambb
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by sambb »

is this quicken still popular? why?
michaeljc70
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because some people want to be on top of their money/finances and it is pretty comprehensive for that. I know people think that Mint tells them all kinds of stuff, but it is really just an aggregator if you don't put in extra effort. Knowing you spent xxx dollars at a place (payee) doesn't tell you what you spent it on.

Some people just don't care where they are spending their money and I get that. The most important thing is you are spending less than you take in....but it is hard to adjust if you aren't and if you don't know where you are spending it. I've been told dozens of times by friends/family that they "know where they are spending all their money" but they don't keep track of anything and it is a total guess. Its like people that buy a house for $400k, put $30k into it, spend $35k on closing costs/commissions and say they made money when they sell the house for $425k.
JBTX
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by JBTX »

sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because, warts and all, it is the only thing that I have seen or read about that does what it does.

What do you suggest as an alternative?
JBTX
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by JBTX »

michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:07 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because some people want to be on top of their money/finances and it is pretty comprehensive for that. I know people think that Mint tells them all kinds of stuff, but it is really just an aggregator if you don't put in extra effort. Knowing you spent xxx dollars at a place (payee) doesn't tell you what you spent it on.

Some people just don't care where they are spending their money and I get that. The most important thing is you are spending less than you take in....but it is hard to adjust if you aren't and if you don't know where you are spending it. I've been told dozens of times by friends/family that they "know where they are spending all their money" but they don't keep track of anything and it is a total guess. Its like people that buy a house for $400k, put $30k into it, spend $35k on closing costs/commissions and say they made money when they sell the house for $425k.
I tried setting up Mint for my daughter, but Mint did not have running totals in the accounts, which I routinely use as a way to facilitate reconciliation. That is a big enough deficit that makes it not worth using, IMHO.
michaeljc70
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

JBTX wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:14 pm
michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:07 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because some people want to be on top of their money/finances and it is pretty comprehensive for that. I know people think that Mint tells them all kinds of stuff, but it is really just an aggregator if you don't put in extra effort. Knowing you spent xxx dollars at a place (payee) doesn't tell you what you spent it on.

Some people just don't care where they are spending their money and I get that. The most important thing is you are spending less than you take in....but it is hard to adjust if you aren't and if you don't know where you are spending it. I've been told dozens of times by friends/family that they "know where they are spending all their money" but they don't keep track of anything and it is a total guess. Its like people that buy a house for $400k, put $30k into it, spend $35k on closing costs/commissions and say they made money when they sell the house for $425k.
I tried setting up Mint for my daughter, but Mint did not have running totals in the accounts, which I routinely use as a way to facilitate reconciliation. That is a big enough deficit that makes it not worth using, IMHO.
Yep. It is better than nothing...but there are also privacy issues associated with Mint. I found the information too basic (basically a summary of what I could get logging into all my online financial accounts) and deleted my account to avoid privacy issues.

Another thing I didn't mention above is some people are just numbers people....they like facts and figures at their fingertips. This can be for practical reasons (keep on top of finances) and it can also be a hobby. As an example, I remodeled my entire home and I like that I can find out what every single item cost, what each room cost, what the total was, etc. Not to mention this could be important for taxes depending on the appreciation and how long I am here.
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kevinf
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by kevinf »

michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:56 pm ...I disagree, even though in this rare case it might have helped, of the practice of backing up everything. In general, it is a waste of time, disk space and money. Windows alone is huge. Start adding in applications like Office, Quicken, etc. and you are talking a lot of storage space...
The last backup image of my Windows installation (programs and all) is 718MB and took about 1 minute to complete using Macrium Reflect. Once the initial image is created it is just incrementals and that creates a synthetic full backup with 30 days of rolling incremental backups that takes about 100GB of space in total. My Windows drive which is getting imaged daily is 58GB of used space but even triple that size is about two minutes to image.

A daily incremental copy is saved to a RAID-1 drive pair in the PC, and a copy uploaded to cloud storage. Simple, easy, low cost, low effort, low disk space. Restoration is a few clicks if the Windows install is functional (ransomware) or done by plugging in a USB recovery stick if not (drive failure).

Restoration takes about 30 minutes and is hands off, desktop to desktop once started. Any day in the past 30 days can be restored, and I have space to keep a much longer history if I desired. Bulk data is copied to the internal RAID-1 array nightly (as a differential via "FreeFileSync" [yes, its free!]) and vital data that can't be remade/replaced is uploaded to Google Backup & Sync cloud storage with versioning.

All of this is done automatically and was very easy to setup with multiple redundancies. It isn't the 1990's anymore, backups are easy now.

If I want to restore a file/folder, but not the whole image, I can mount the image to a drive letter and browse any daily incremental to restore a file or folder from the past 30 days.
Last edited by kevinf on Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.
palanzo
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by palanzo »

DetroitRick wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:24 pm There is something getting missed in these discussions about backup protocols. Yes, keep doing backups, as you have done. However, finding out later that an older backup won't work due to data file corruption is A CLASSIC QUICKEN ISSUE. And it's a very well-known Quicken issue - for years. Ton's of stuff in the Quicken Community has been posted on this, which you've probably seen. Exactly how odd your experience was depends on how old those backups were. But some data file corruption is progressive and it does happen. I've had it happen to me.

There are requests posted in that community to get Quicken to do a better file repair utility (seriously, validate, super-validate?, maybe a double-secret validate???). And many of us would like to get a warning when doing a backup of a corrupted Quicken file. Because there is often just no quick way to tell that there is corruption, unless you add a step, or unless it's so bad that Quicken isn't working right.

You should continue your Quicken backups. And do whatever system backup work meets your needs. But, I recommend simply adding one more step. Validate your file before data file backup, at some interval - you can judge how often. That step serves to check for file corruption immediately PRIOR to running your Quicken backups. Since Quicken recommends against just doing frequent file validations (because of the underlying file rebuilding process), I first make a copy and then validate that copy. If results are very bad, I then typically decide to fix the original file.

Here is what I do, at least monthly. Not my idea, got it from the Quicken Community, learned it the hard way:
1)Immediately before backup, in Quicken: File > Operations > Copy (for a seriously corrupted file, this step won't work either). This is NOT a Windows file copy routine, it must be done within Quicken
2)Next, open your Quicken data file copy (it will give you that menu choice when copy complete)
3)Run a data file validation on that copy and see if you are comfortable with the data integrity
4)Revert to your original Quicken data file
5)Then do a Quicken backup, at this point, you can have greater confidence in any future restoration of that backup.

Beyond that, just keep doing your regular backups. And dumping your registers to Excel (because it is so fast to do) is a great idea as a backstop too, as you are now doing. I do this once per year (and skip old and unchanging registers, because they never change). Did it yesterday, 25+ registers, took around 15 minutes (your issue reminded me it was time). Then I copy investment transactions from my broker (since Quicken doesn't offer Excel downloads of investment registers). Not every day, but once in a while. There are other good alternatives, but I've settled on this as the best and fastest, based on my own needs.

As I said, this is the one issue that still ticks me off about Quicken. It has, over the years, cost them customers. But since the workaround is just a few minutes, I'll live with it now that I know it. Fortunately, file corruption doesn't happen every day. But you already know the stakes when it does.
That's why I left Quicken and Intuit many years ago. Their software development skills are truly awful. I suffer through Turbo Tax every year. Another poorly designed product from Intuit. Fortunately I have not had a file corruption issue with TT.
palanzo
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by palanzo »

JBTX wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:12 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because, warts and all, it is the only thing that I have seen or read about that does what it does.

What do you suggest as an alternative?
Open Source!

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michaeljc70
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

kevinf wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:33 pm
michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:56 pm ...I disagree, even though in this rare case it might have helped, of the practice of backing up everything. In general, it is a waste of time, disk space and money. Windows alone is huge. Start adding in applications like Office, Quicken, etc. and you are talking a lot of storage space...
The last backup image of my Windows installation (programs and all) is 718MB and took about 1 minute to complete. Once the initial image is created it is just incrementals and that creates a synthetic full backup with 30 days of rolling incremental backups that takes about 100GB of space in total. My Windows drive which is getting imaged daily is 58GB of used space but even triple that size is about two minutes to image.

A daily incremental copy is saved to a RAID-1 drive pair in the PC, and a copy uploaded to cloud storage. Simple, easy, low cost, low effort, low disk space. Restoration is a few clicks if the Windows install is functional (ransomware) or done by plugging in a USB recovery stick if not (drive failure).

Restoration takes about 30 minutes and is hands off, desktop to desktop once started. Any day in the past 30 days can be restored, and I have space to keep a much longer history if I desired. Bulk data is copied to the internal RAID-1 array nightly (as a differential via "FreeFileCopy" [yes, its free!]) and vital data that can't be remade is uploaded to cloud storage with versioning.

All this is done automatically and was very easy to setup. It isn't the 1990's anymore, backups are easy now.
My Windows (10 Pro) directory alone is 19.1 GB. My program file directories are another 7 GB. Obviously, almost all backup programs have the option to use compression but mine still wouldn't get anywhere close to 718MB.

I need a complete redo (reinstall Windows and all applications) so infrequently I find it useful to clear out a lot of deadwood (old apps installed that I never use anymore and things like that). Most applications I use/own are downloads that I bought a license for so keeping all the confirmation emails in a folder makes it easy to do a reinstall. As you said, it isn't the 1990's and I am not searching for CDs or DVDs to reinstall.
palanzo
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by palanzo »

michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:43 pm
kevinf wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:33 pm
michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:56 pm ...I disagree, even though in this rare case it might have helped, of the practice of backing up everything. In general, it is a waste of time, disk space and money. Windows alone is huge. Start adding in applications like Office, Quicken, etc. and you are talking a lot of storage space...
The last backup image of my Windows installation (programs and all) is 718MB and took about 1 minute to complete. Once the initial image is created it is just incrementals and that creates a synthetic full backup with 30 days of rolling incremental backups that takes about 100GB of space in total. My Windows drive which is getting imaged daily is 58GB of used space but even triple that size is about two minutes to image.

A daily incremental copy is saved to a RAID-1 drive pair in the PC, and a copy uploaded to cloud storage. Simple, easy, low cost, low effort, low disk space. Restoration is a few clicks if the Windows install is functional (ransomware) or done by plugging in a USB recovery stick if not (drive failure).

Restoration takes about 30 minutes and is hands off, desktop to desktop once started. Any day in the past 30 days can be restored, and I have space to keep a much longer history if I desired. Bulk data is copied to the internal RAID-1 array nightly (as a differential via "FreeFileCopy" [yes, its free!]) and vital data that can't be remade is uploaded to cloud storage with versioning.

All this is done automatically and was very easy to setup. It isn't the 1990's anymore, backups are easy now.
My Windows (10 Pro) directory alone is 19.1 GB. My program file directories are another 7 GB. Obviously, almost all backup programs have the option to use compression but mine still wouldn't get anywhere close to 718MB.

I need a complete redo (reinstall Windows and all applications) so infrequently I find it useful to clear out a lot of deadwood (old apps installed that I never use anymore and things like that). Most applications I use/own are downloads that I bought a license for so keeping all the confirmation emails in a folder makes it easy to do a reinstall. As you said, it isn't the 1990's and I am not searching for CDs or DVDs to reinstall.
That's why you should use incremental backups in 2020.
michaeljc70
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

palanzo wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:45 pm
michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:43 pm
kevinf wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:33 pm
michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:56 pm ...I disagree, even though in this rare case it might have helped, of the practice of backing up everything. In general, it is a waste of time, disk space and money. Windows alone is huge. Start adding in applications like Office, Quicken, etc. and you are talking a lot of storage space...
The last backup image of my Windows installation (programs and all) is 718MB and took about 1 minute to complete. Once the initial image is created it is just incrementals and that creates a synthetic full backup with 30 days of rolling incremental backups that takes about 100GB of space in total. My Windows drive which is getting imaged daily is 58GB of used space but even triple that size is about two minutes to image.

A daily incremental copy is saved to a RAID-1 drive pair in the PC, and a copy uploaded to cloud storage. Simple, easy, low cost, low effort, low disk space. Restoration is a few clicks if the Windows install is functional (ransomware) or done by plugging in a USB recovery stick if not (drive failure).

Restoration takes about 30 minutes and is hands off, desktop to desktop once started. Any day in the past 30 days can be restored, and I have space to keep a much longer history if I desired. Bulk data is copied to the internal RAID-1 array nightly (as a differential via "FreeFileCopy" [yes, its free!]) and vital data that can't be remade is uploaded to cloud storage with versioning.

All this is done automatically and was very easy to setup. It isn't the 1990's anymore, backups are easy now.
My Windows (10 Pro) directory alone is 19.1 GB. My program file directories are another 7 GB. Obviously, almost all backup programs have the option to use compression but mine still wouldn't get anywhere close to 718MB.

I need a complete redo (reinstall Windows and all applications) so infrequently I find it useful to clear out a lot of deadwood (old apps installed that I never use anymore and things like that). Most applications I use/own are downloads that I bought a license for so keeping all the confirmation emails in a folder makes it easy to do a reinstall. As you said, it isn't the 1990's and I am not searching for CDs or DVDs to reinstall.
That's why you should use incremental backups in 2020.
I think I've done a complete reinstall once in 4 years and that was due to upgrading Windows. It isn't worth it to me. My data is backed up left and right. I won't lose anything if my computer blows up. Do you test your backups? A lot of people don't and when they need them they don't work. Everyone has to do what they feel comfortable with. As I alluded to above, I worked in IT for decades and nowhere I worked backed up whole hard drives on employees workstations on a regular basis. These were Fortune 500 companies mostly and if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me.

People backing up their entire home systems on a regular basis like daily are in the minority. I'd bet most people don't even backup their data regularly.
Last edited by michaeljc70 on Mon Sep 21, 2020 10:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Dottie57
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by Dottie57 »

I used to do a lot of work with databases in my last job. If we were doing database changes I would export the data to an excel CSV file with quotes around each field. This was a quick and easy way to hav a backup of a table or subset of data so it could be rolled back if necessary.

I would suggest a csv file of each year of data. For the current year have a file for each month.
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kevinf
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by kevinf »

michaeljc70 wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:56 pm I worked in IT for decades and nowhere I worked backed up whole hard drives on employees workstations on a regular basis. These were Fortune 500 companies mostly and if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me.

People backing up their entire home systems on a regular basis like daily are in the minority. I'd bet most people don't even backup their data regularly.
I also worked as a IT administrator. Everyone had a network drive mounted to a folder on their desktop. All work was saved into that folder, which was stored on the server, which WAS backed up for bare metal restores or virtualized. The workstations were standard images that could be deployed over the network to "re-install" Windows, and then their logon script would run to customize the desktop and mount their network storage and everything would be as it was even after slamming completely new hardware onto their desk.

Different worlds completely.
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bertilak
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by bertilak »

JBTX wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:12 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because, warts and all, it is the only thing that I have seen or read about that does what it does.

What do you suggest as an alternative?
That's the problem -- there is no alternative.
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JBTX
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by JBTX »

palanzo wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:43 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:12 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because, warts and all, it is the only thing that I have seen or read about that does what it does.

What do you suggest as an alternative?
Open Source!

https://opensource.com/life/17/10/perso ... ools-linux
From various threads I have read, I've seen no concensus that any of these are better.

If I were to do something different I'd probably just use excel in combination with the new 365 account download capability, but at this point I see no point in reinventing the wheel.

My guess is sooner or later quicken will fold as I doubt it is long term viable model.
acegolfer
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by acegolfer »

JBTX wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:12 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because, warts and all, it is the only thing that I have seen or read about that does what it does.

What do you suggest as an alternative?
A spreadsheet does everything my quicken did for me + more. Of course, I never used all the Quicken features so YMMV.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by acegolfer »

JBTX wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:34 am
From various threads I have read, I've seen no concensus that any of these are better.

If I were to do something different I'd probably just use excel in combination with the new 365 account download capability, but at this point I see no point in reinventing the wheel.

My guess is sooner or later quicken will fold as I doubt it is long term viable model.
To be fair, there's no consensus that Quicken is better, either. It all comes down to individual preference.

If you are looking for an alternative, you need to have an open mind and test each out yourself.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by bertilak »

JBTX wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:34 am
If I were to do something different I'd probably just use excel in combination with the new 365 account download capability, but at this point I see no point in reinventing the wheel.
I hold that out as a hope but have not given it a try because I don't think it will preserve the decades of data I already have. For someone not already tied to Quicken that may be a perfect alternative.
My guess is sooner or later quicken will fold as I doubt it is long term viable model.
Well, it's already been a long term viable model, so it deserves some credit for that.

I think the REAL long term viability issue is the non-standard format it uses to hold the data. This includes the fact that it is encrypted (by quicken and not by the user). There is no easy way to interoperate with it. Unfortunately I think that is a major contributer to its "long term" nature.

It's not only that there is no alternative, but that there is no escape!
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by LadyGeek »

I can't emphasize enough that making backups is only half of the problem. Nothing counts until you know how to restore from a backup.

====================

I had a similar disaster, but I can blame Capital One for part of it. After a recent update, my opening balances were broken. Long story short, Capital One had finally gotten around to removing my late husband's savings account from their records. (He passed in January.) The paperwork to change ownership from joint to single was complete, no financial or legal issues remained. The only thing to do was delete his old account which now had a zero balance.

So, Capital One removed the account. Apparently, delete really means delete and the account was no longer part of the Quicken download. Quicken then removed the account from the file which broke every impacted transaction - transfers across accounts. A file repair then reassigned the missing account to [Unrecognized account], but I still had to manually fix the transactions.

Quicken allows you to open a backup file directly - you don't need to restore it. I exported the account registers in Excel and compared it the current file. It took an hour or so, but I figured out what broke and simply went through each account and made the correction.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by bertilak »

LadyGeek wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 7:24 am I can't emphasize enough that making backups is only half of the problem. Nothing counts until you know how to restore from a backup.
In my case, I will emphasize that ALL the backups and ALL the restores went perfectly, as far as I can tell. The problem was in Quicken's inability to open those (apparently undamaged) files. I do know how to do backups! I have, in the past, occasionally restored a Quicken file to back out experimental changes. I was bold in making changes because I knew -- from experience -- it was easy to back them out by restoring a backup.

Note that, with my current difficulties, once Quicken decided to behave it had no trouble opening older files. The misbehavior is still a mystery but I'm beginning to think it was some misdated transaction or reminder that caused the problem and then stopped being a problem once the actual date went past the problem date in the file..

I note that:
  1. The validate process I ran immediately after a successful open of an old file showed several errors having to do with bad dates. See one of my posts above.
  2. An earlier post in this thread mentioned that someone else had a similar Quicken problem (hang) due to incorrect dates.
This remains speculation. Note that my tendency to make changes to the Quicken data and undo them using Quicken's backup/restore process means I can't rule out that as the source of the data's date anomaly.

(It is sometime confusing to distinguish between a backup file created and restored by Quicken and an externally backed up and restored file that has never been through a Quicken backup/restore sequence -- if that truly makes a difference.)
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by JBTX »

acegolfer wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:27 am
JBTX wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:34 am
From various threads I have read, I've seen no concensus that any of these are better.

If I were to do something different I'd probably just use excel in combination with the new 365 account download capability, but at this point I see no point in reinventing the wheel.

My guess is sooner or later quicken will fold as I doubt it is long term viable model.
To be fair, there's no consensus that Quicken is better, either. It all comes down to individual preference.

If you are looking for an alternative, you need to have an open mind and test each out yourself.
I've used quicken 20+ years and am mostly content with it. Most threads here seem to indicate the alternatives all have their own issues. Thus there is no need for me to go on a project trying alternatives.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

JBTX wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:20 am
acegolfer wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:27 am
JBTX wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:34 am
From various threads I have read, I've seen no concensus that any of these are better.

If I were to do something different I'd probably just use excel in combination with the new 365 account download capability, but at this point I see no point in reinventing the wheel.

My guess is sooner or later quicken will fold as I doubt it is long term viable model.
To be fair, there's no consensus that Quicken is better, either. It all comes down to individual preference.

If you are looking for an alternative, you need to have an open mind and test each out yourself.
I've used quicken 20+ years and am mostly content with it. Most threads here seem to indicate the alternatives all have their own issues. Thus there is no need for me to go on a project trying alternatives.
Same here. I have plenty of complaints with Quicken, but from time to time I have either installed a trial of an alternative or read through the documentation of alternatives and was not impressed (especially with the data imports from Quicken).

It is great that Excel works for keeping track of some aspects of their finances for some people. But calling Excel an alternative to Quicken is like saying a notebook is an alternative to Word or a bike is an alternative to a car.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by acegolfer »

michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:40 am It is great that Excel works for keeping track of some aspects of their finances for some people. But calling Excel an alternative to Quicken is like saying a notebook is an alternative to Word or a bike is an alternative to a car.
LOL. Using your analogy, I might even say (Google Sheet + Apps script) is like an SUV.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

acegolfer wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:43 am
michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:40 am It is great that Excel works for keeping track of some aspects of their finances for some people. But calling Excel an alternative to Quicken is like saying a notebook is an alternative to Word or a bike is an alternative to a car.
LOL. Using your analogy, I might even say (Google Sheet + Apps script) is like an SUV.
Yes! LOL.

As someone who worked in software development half my life, I've thought many times about rolling my own "Quicken" using Excel or from scratch. It is just too much work for everything I track. When I think of stock splits, tracking cost basis of investments (don't forget reinvested dividends), assets like my house that I've done a lot of improvements on, my HSA, etc. it would be a huge endeavor to cover all that. And....since we are talking about financial data... if there were to be a bug that was discovered later all your output could be bad.

If you just want to track a couple of accounts like a register or what investments you own, that is not too bad to do in Excel.
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TomatoTomahto
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by TomatoTomahto »

michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:52 am
acegolfer wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:43 am
michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:40 am It is great that Excel works for keeping track of some aspects of their finances for some people. But calling Excel an alternative to Quicken is like saying a notebook is an alternative to Word or a bike is an alternative to a car.
LOL. Using your analogy, I might even say (Google Sheet + Apps script) is like an SUV.
Yes! LOL.

As someone who worked in software development half my life, I've thought many times about rolling my own "Quicken" using Excel or from scratch. It is just too much work for everything I track. When I think of stock splits, tracking cost basis of investments (don't forget reinvested dividends), assets like my house that I've done a lot of improvements on, my HSA, etc. it would be a huge endeavor to cover all that. And....since we are talking about financial data... if there were to be a bug that was discovered later all your output could be bad.

If you just want to track a couple of accounts like a register or what investments you own, that is not too bad to do in Excel.
Back when I got paid to develop software, a few times I created surprisingly capable apps using Excel with Visual Basic (that should give you an idea of how long ago I worked for a paycheck). No way no how would I tackle something that does even half of what Quicken does.

A check register? Trivial.
Investment inventory? Almost trivial.
Investment returns with cost basis, splits, reinvested dividends, conversions, etc? Uh, let me buy Quicken please, subscription model is fine.
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by acegolfer »

michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:52 am And....since we are talking about financial data... if there were to be a bug that was discovered later all your output could be bad.
Isn't this exactly what OP experienced with Quicken? He lost all his data because of Quicken's incompetency.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by michaeljc70 »

acegolfer wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:09 am
michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:52 am And....since we are talking about financial data... if there were to be a bug that was discovered later all your output could be bad.
Isn't this exactly what OP experienced with Quicken? He lost all his data because of Quicken's incompetency.
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion, though it is a possibility. We don't really know what caused it...or fixed it. There was an update to Quicken a couple days ago and I heard no mention if OP got the update before their issue was fixed or not.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by kevinf »

There seems like a disconnect here. If the entire system was restored bit for bit to a known good state (Quicken worked on that day), then there is no way that it wouldn't work after the restore.

It sounds like a partial restore (file level) was being done instead of a full system rollback.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by acegolfer »

kevinf wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:29 am There seems like a disconnect here. If the entire system was restored bit for bit to a known good state (Quicken worked on that day), then there is no way that it wouldn't work after the restore.

It sounds like a partial restore (file level) was being done instead of a full system rollback.
OP acknowledged that he didn't fully restore to a known good state. He said he won't.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by bertilak »

kevinf wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:29 am There seems like a disconnect here. If the entire system was restored bit for bit to a known good state (Quicken worked on that day), then there is no way that it wouldn't work after the restore.

It sounds like a partial restore (file level) was being done instead of a full system rollback.
Unless the problem was related to dates, which is what I am suspecting. Actually I should say "speculating." I don't really know.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by bertilak »

michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:16 am
acegolfer wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:09 am
michaeljc70 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:52 am And....since we are talking about financial data... if there were to be a bug that was discovered later all your output could be bad.
Isn't this exactly what OP experienced with Quicken? He lost all his data because of Quicken's incompetency.
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion, though it is a possibility. We don't really know what caused it...or fixed it. There was an update to Quicken a couple days ago and I heard no mention if OP got the update before their issue was fixed or not.
I got that update afterwards so it can't be what fixed things, if indeed anything actually was fixed. See above posts by me speculating on what fixed things.
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hornet96
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by hornet96 »

sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
"Popular" may be an overstatement. "A highly useful financial tool in a non-competitive environment" would be how I would describe it.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Quicken is the only program that includes forward-looking cash flow forecasting capabilities, alongside a fairly useful and detailed tax planner. Neither are perfect, but they are highly useful tools and the only game in town, in this regard.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by bertilak »

hornet96 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 2:03 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
"Popular" may be an overstatement. "A highly useful financial tool in a non-competitive environment" would be how I would describe it.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Quicken is the only program that includes forward-looking cash flow forecasting capabilities, alongside a fairly useful and detailed tax planner. Neither are perfect, but they are highly useful tools and the only game in town, in this regard.
"Forward-looking cash flow forecasting" is one thing I really depend on. I set up reminders to be automatically entered into checking and credit card registers 35 days in advance. That means I can see projected cash flow a month+ in advance and determine if I can make a big purchase this month or next, or if I need to transfer something from investments to make a really important large purchase.

My summary is similar: Quicken is annoying but indispensable.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by Wrench »

JBTX wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 9:12 pm
sambb wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:58 pm is this quicken still popular? why?
Because, warts and all, it is the only thing that I have seen or read about that does what it does.

What do you suggest as an alternative?
Moneydance. Does the job. Great support. One time cost, NOT a subscription. And yes, there is a time required to convert your data from Quicken. But my data is worth the time to so I don't have to use a buggy, every changing (for the worse usually), subscription program like Quicken.
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AstroJohn
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by AstroJohn »

Gave up on quicken and went to moneydance years ago. In my view much better than quicken. Transaction reminders are fantastic and I think may be able to generate automatic entries that would help with cash flow. Tech support is superb.

I'm also used gnucash for years, but it is not for the faint of heart.
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Re: Quicken Disaster!

Post by TimeRunner »

I migrated from Quicken 2017 to Moneydance, ran that a couple of years, and went back to Quicken's subscription model. I cheered Moneydance on to succeed, and even worked with their main (sole?) developer to user test bug fixes and feature enhancements, but those came slowly and the software had problems matching manually entered transactions (big issues) and many small nits (quicken-type shortcuts in entering split transactions, for example). I didn't like that it was built on Java, which was not regularly patched/versioned, and required those libraries to run on Windows. I don't rely on Quicken for details about investment lots, etc - I simply use the phone app or website of Fido, Schwab, etc - the authoritative sources. I'm not emotional about using Quicken, it's just a handy tool for some stuff and an imperfect tool for other stuff. Subscription cost is not a huge issue here.
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