I've been using Quicken for about a zillion years, but lately have had problem after problem that neither I nor they can resolve. My last ditch effort was to just completely erase, set up a new install and open new file. That worked great until trying to link to a Firstrade account, repeated failures with that. Support has been useless and keeps coming back to "call the other party or enter your credentials correctly." Neither are the solution. So, I'm just done after hours dealing with support.

What similar options are out there? I don't mind paying and have been for Quicken, but looking around they apparently have sucked up most of the market on their way to perfecting an imperfect product.

Functionality I'm looking for are to use as an electronic register, download transactions and be able to plan for and enter upcoming recurring electronic payments. Not really worried about budgeting functions but that seems to be part of most of these apps. Also want to be able to add investment/savings accounts from a few different firms and automatically download/update all that data along with the checking account data. You know, basically what Quicken does!

Any recommendations for options? TIA

Wow, Sorry that is happening to you. I've been a loyal Quicken user forever and never had the problems you are referring too. I once used Microsoft Money but that went away. I looked for alternatives a few years ago and never found a thing that worked. I don't use the budget feature but have set up sub-accounts for my main checking. That allows me to accrue for expenses as they come. I have about 10 sub accounts that populate with memorized transactions when we get our monthly checks. I download from about 7 accounts. All work fine except for Wells Fargo who wants and monthly fee to download. As a result I have my main checking elsewhere. I opened my Wells account in 1983 and now just keep a minimum balance for ATM withdrawals in locations that my bank does not serve.

I *think* MS Money is still available, free but with no support.

I *know* that Linux/KDE makes KMyMoney available for MS Windows, and it works very much like MS Money does.

I think this will be the gotcha:

quote:

automatically download/update all that data along with the checking account data.

Financial institutions are picky about that sort of thing (wonder why? )

So to save yourself a lot of angst, before chasing new programs you might want to ask your financial institutions' tech support what programs they support for automatically downloading transaction data.

My guess is that their list(s) will be one program long and it'll start with 'Q' ....but you don't know till you ask them.

I assume you've tried the Quicken forums, Google searching, etc. in addition to their tech support to get help on your issue?

why not use the your banks existing online services? If your bank does not offer the appropriate services then get a new bank.

I'm (slightly) calmer today and will continue to find ways to make Quicken work. The new file seems to have fixed issues not downloading transaction history from bank, and as of this morning the only remaining issue is inability to connect to Firstrade. I don't need that to happen daily and can manually download from their site once a month or whenever.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've been a quicken forever user as well.

I'm sure you've tried the File operation / Validate and repair option?

around April / May this year, I couldn't download from one institution. The error I got said to call Quicken.

It took about three calls over different days. They wanted me to wait if it will fix itself. Here's what fixed it:

1) Edited all inactive accounts to remove institution and account number
2) For the problem institution, edited all active accounts to deactivate online then removed institution and account numbers.
3) For the institution that I was having problems: added a new account to connect to the institution and during the set-up, connected discovered accounts to existing accounts.
4) after that, I deleted the dummy account.

If you try this, let me know hw it works for you. It worked for me.

quote:

If you try this, let me know hw it works for you. It worked for me.

Thanks Rey - that's pretty much what they walked me through the first two times, still no joy. The first instance after we activated the checking account it worked, subsequent days it didn't. As part of that exercise we setup a "test" file to try download and it's worked each day. That is what gave me the idea just to move my reminders over there, add the custom categories I have to that listing and move on.

I didn't expect the adding of the brokerage accounts to be the new hiccup, but it was. As mentioned I can work around that but have a functional check register/forecasting tool back in play. I don't use Quicken to actually pay any bills, every account in my world is on auto-pay other than a individual who gets an actual check. The rare non-recurring bill gets paid using my bank's electronic bill pay tools.

I am using Quicken 2014, for which support and the download function has ceased, so I enter all manually. I migrated from Win7 to Win10 earlier this year and found that my original copy of 2014 worked with Win10. So it's all manual for me, but that's okay.

I use a Mac. I was disgusted that Quicken totally let their Mac users twist in the wind with years-old versions.
Then they bought Mint, and put it out as Quicken for the Mac, but it was a joke.

About three years ago I went with Banktivity. Links to banks are direct, it does everything I need it to do for personal taxes.

You're right, Quicken for the Mac is not up the Windows version. I run Parallels to be able to run Quicken for Windows. Runs just fine that way.
Mike

I bailed on Quicken years ago when they built in obsolescence killing interfacing with financial institutions unless your version was current.

Found gnucash and haven't looked back.
https://gnucash.org/
GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

I used to use microsoft money. When it was discontinued I went to Quicken. When Intuit sold Quicken the product went downhill for me. I switched all my financial records to Quickbooks (which may not be workable for many/most people). But Quickbooks does everything I need.

I went to K My Money.

https://kmymoney.org/

You can import all of Quickens data.

For investments I made a morningstar portfolio. I believe you can external accounts but I prefer to manually enter everything and not have auto connect to your accounts. This way I can check how my investments are during regardless of what internet connection I'm using to connect on. I view it as another added layer security by not having things automatically connected to my brokerage accounts.

Been using it for over a decade but stopped renewing when they went to the subscription based service. i had nothing but trouble with downloads.

So today I use the 20127 version and manually update the accounts and three investment portfolios. Not a big deal.

[QUOTE] I'm sure you've tried the File operation / Validate and repair option?

/QUOTE]

More often than not that corrupts the files and makes it useless. Have a backup copy available before you do it.[

quote:

Originally posted by rscalzo:
Been using it for over a decade but stopped renewing when they went to the subscription based service. i had nothing but trouble with downloads.

So today I use the 20127 version and manually update the accounts and three investment portfolios. Not a big deal.

quote:

I'm sure you've tried the File operation / Validate and repair option?

More often than not that corrupts the files and makes it useless. Have a backup copy available before you do it.[

Yup, I said I've been a forever user. Besides the automatic backups, I back up after each session on Quicken and I keep copies of the current quarter and last quarter. And before any validate operation, I also peel off a copy.

On a previous update, my stocks info was so messed up, I had to do what the OP did. Create new accounts and do transactions to transfer the info and shares to the new accounts. I also had to truncate my earliest transactions from 1990 to now 2005. I have kept the old investment accounts as they still contain transactions. In 2025 is when I'll do the year-end operation and be able to delete those accounts.