Financial software

Greg Bockelman

Greg Bockelman

Touchdown! Greaser!
PoA Supporter
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
11,346
Location
Lone Jack, MO
Display Name
Greg Bockelman
Home Airfield
KLXT KLRY 87MO
What do you guys use for financial software? My computer crashed and I am in the process of rebuilding. I have used Quicken but I am not that impressed. It was a little too complicated for my tastes.

What say the collective brain trust?
 
Quicken for home stuff and Quickbooks for the LLC for the plane. I looked at some other stuff I found at Sourceforge but didn't really like it.
 
If Quicken was too complex, you might want to consider a career change.:P

Axually, they make a number of different versions of the basic software, some with more bells and whistles than others. You might check their list to see if any of it matches up with the level of complexity that you want, especially if you have all the data from a prior version.

Greg Bockelman said:
What do you guys use for financial software? My computer crashed and I am in the process of rebuilding. I have used Quicken but I am not that impressed. It was a little too complicated for my tastes.

What say the collective brain trust?
Click to expand...
 
I use Quickbooks Online for my small business. Advantage is my accountant gets a free login and employees can enter timesheets and stuff all via the interwebs without requiring central editing of a timekeeping system.
 
Quicken Business version will perform many of the quickbooks tasks without all the complexity QB.

EppyGA said:
Quicken for home stuff and Quickbooks for the LLC for the plane. I looked at some other stuff I found at Sourceforge but didn't really like it.
Click to expand...
 
wabower said:
Quicken Business version will perform many of the quickbooks tasks without all the complexity QB.
Click to expand...

I have Quicken Home & Business, but kind of like the double entry style of Quickbooks to make sure I'm getting everything right.
 
Whatever account you're using will be the other side of the entry.

EppyGA said:
I have Quicken Home & Business, but kind of like the double entry style of Quickbooks to make sure I'm getting everything right.
Click to expand...
 
For the (very basic) task of tracking balances, inflow and outflow...and mapping that to budgets, I just use mint.com
 
Microsoft Money. But all I do is balance the checkbook with it.

Microsoft doesn't support it anymore. But they offer it free on their website.
 
After the novelty of tracking every penny with Quicken wore off, I quit using it. Now I find that my banks online tools take care of most all that I need. For macro planning and forecasting, I use the most widely used business application...excel.
 
Used to be a big Quicken fan until they stopped supporting their software on Mac in 2006 and re-wrote it, removing tons of features.

Today it's a mix of spreadsheets, credit union's online tools, mint.com (kinda nerve wracking since they have to have login info to access things, but so far, so good), and have toyed around with MoneyDance but haven't gotten serious with it yet.

On the PeeCee platform, Quicken probably still rules the roost, and if I had to have something it did, I'd fire it up in a VM.

The last two years was mainly an exercise in seeng if I could live without it, and I learned that it is possible to live an Intuit-free life...

Which makes me far happier than having to flip between tools and websites bothers me. Intuit sucks as a company. I voted with my dollars.

Taxes have been relatively simple since I no longer have a mix of ISO shares of an employer along with traditional stock options etc...

(Former employer acquired a company that handled options completely differently than they did, so I had grants of three different varieties at one point. Sold 'em all, which got rid of that problem and their stock dropped out right after I sold -- yay! -- and hasn't recovered, so for once I got something right. Haha.)

... so I've used H&R Block's online system for a couple of years. Really hasn't been at all, and allowed me to eradicate Intuit from my life there, too. No more TurboTax.

Mint has problems with one retirement account, but it doesn't matter much, I just read the statements online and plug stuff into the spreadsheet(s).
 
Sam D said:
After the novelty of tracking every penny with Quicken wore off, I quit using it. Now I find that my banks online tools take care of most all that I need. For macro planning and forecasting, I use the most widely used business application...excel.
Click to expand...
To be honest, I primarily use quickbooks online to make sure that my payroll and other taxes get paid in a timely manner (and so I don't have to pay an accountant to file quarterlies).
 
Anyone remember "Managing Your Money". That was our first business, back in the late '80s... *sigh*

Since our second business (1997) it's been all Quickbooks. This is powerful, easy to use accounting software at it's best. My only complaint is that every couple of years they come out with "new" software, stop supporting the "old" software, and force you to buy new.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Since our second business (1997) it's been all Quickbooks. This is powerful, easy to use accounting software at it's best. My only complaint is that every couple of years they come out with "new" software, stop supporting the "old" software, and force you to buy new.
Click to expand...

I also use Quickbooks Pro for the business. And I agree with Jay on the annoyance of their upgrading process. The upgrades they come out are sorta like the recent iOS update, interesting, but not super useful.

My use is primarily tracking for Accts Payable and the major ledger. I don't use Quickbooks for invoicing, Accts. Receivable, or inventory tracking, so I cannot comment directly on how well it does that job. But I know of others who do use that end and they are satisfied.

QB is like many systems, where it's worth the time invested to set it up right and maintain that.
 
Used to use Quicken for my consulting business but since I have almost totally retired I just use Mint.com for personal finance.

Cheers
 
Greg Bockelman said:
That is what I started with. I miss it.
Click to expand...
Oh my, you remind me of a friend of mine. We both started with MYM back in the 80s. I moved on to Quicken but he even kept a dinosaur of a computer for many years so he could still run it!
 
I wrote my own, web based budgeting software that I use for our personal finances. I might be able to package it up and give it to you if you're interested.
 
My bank is USAA, and they have some great tools.

For those that know what Mint.com is all about, USAA offers the same kind of thing, and I trust them more.
 
Mafoo said:
My bank is USAA, and they have some great tools.

For those that know what Mint.com is all about, USAA offers the same kind of thing, and I trust them more.
Click to expand...

Most of them are using one of two back-end companies to collect the data from the various websites, and display it. Check the fine print.

Mint doesn't run their own collection system (although since they were bought by Intuit -- and I forgot to mention that on my earlier comment, really bummed me out when they were bought by them -- Intuit is trying hard not to use those companies and instead use the engine behind their own Quicken Online to get the data, since that's a sunk cost for them, and otherwise they have to pay the 3rd party company), and I suspect neither does USAA.

Just like my Credit Union doesn't run their own quote site for Mortgages, and bank transfers, and various other things. Theirs is obvious because their URL doesn't hide various things. Mint and others are proxies and cover up who's gathering their data for them, unless you dig into their FAQ and their forums where they leak it whenever one of their vendors has an outage.
 
I started using Quicken many years ago, and never really upgraded until this year. I got a new computer that won't run the old software (or anything else I own!) so I got a new copy. The version for Macs sucks out loud. If it were my first it would be my last.
 
Install parallels on the mac and run the windows version and well as the other stuff that runs better on a PC. BTDT.
steingar said:
I started using Quicken many years ago, and never really upgraded until this year. I got a new computer that won't run the old software (or anything else I own!) so I got a new copy. The version for Macs sucks out loud. If it were my first it would be my last.
Click to expand...
 
The best financial software I have used is MS Excell and Open Office Calc. The Open Office Calc is free and there are no significant yearly changes that affect how I use it. A little financial knowledge and a little effort can get you the results desired. The best thing about it is you would know how it calculates your stuff because you entered the formulas, and if you need to change something, you can...
 
Jay Honeck said:
Since our second business (1997) it's been all Quickbooks. This is powerful, easy to use accounting software at it's best. My only complaint is that every couple of years they come out with "new" software, stop supporting the "old" software, and force you to buy new.
Click to expand...

They do the same stupid game with Quicken, too.
 
But you only need to upgrade ~5 year intervals and by then they have usually added something you'd like to have.

Ghery said:
They do the same stupid game with Quicken, too.
Click to expand...
 
My SWMBO has been doing the data entry on quicken for at least 30 years. ANFW it would have happened with Excel. The reason you buy the software is because somebody else has already written the code.

skidoo said:
The best financial software I have used is MS Excell and Open Office Calc. The Open Office Calc is free and there are no significant yearly changes that affect how I use it. A little financial knowledge and a little effort can get you the results desired. The best thing about it is you would know how it calculates your stuff because you entered the formulas, and if you need to change something, you can...
Click to expand...
 
skidoo said:
The best financial software I have used is MS Excell and Open Office Calc. The Open Office Calc is free and there are no significant yearly changes that affect how I use it. A little financial knowledge and a little effort can get you the results desired. The best thing about it is you would know how it calculates your stuff because you entered the formulas, and if you need to change something, you can...
Click to expand...
My credit union has financeworks built in to their web interface. I've used it here and there for several months, but I still prefer my spreadsheet. Financeworks has lots of pretty colors, but it just doesnt display what I want it to. For example, I made a sizeable transfer (relative to my normal expenses) to an investment account a few weeks ago, and the financeworks summary shows a "living beyond my means" message. It's a good tool for showing your net worth, but its still a bit awkward, IME, for tracking spending.
 
One organization I'm involved with, the membership/treasurer guy still uses the PFS:Write, PFS:Calc, etc series.

The Board voted to buy him two more DOS laptops for spares and asked him to back up the floppies and test the "new" machines.

Easier than making him change his system. ;)
 
jasc15 said:
My credit union has financeworks built in to their web interface. I've used it here and there for several months, but I still prefer my spreadsheet. Financeworks has lots of pretty colors, but it just doesnt display what I want it to. For example, I made a sizeable transfer (relative to my normal expenses) to an investment account a few weeks ago, and the financeworks summary shows a "living beyond my means" message. It's a good tool for showing your net worth, but its still a bit awkward, IME, for tracking spending.
Click to expand...

Heh. Stuff I do freaks out Mint's warning system all the time.

Airplane expenses are categorized under Travel. Mint is constantly trying to sell me Travel points credit cards. Heh heh.
 
jasc15 said:
My credit union has financeworks built in to their web interface. I've used it here and there for several months, but I still prefer my spreadsheet. Financeworks has lots of pretty colors, but it just doesnt display what I want it to. For example, I made a sizeable transfer (relative to my normal expenses) to an investment account a few weeks ago, and the financeworks summary shows a "living beyond my means" message. It's a good tool for showing your net worth, but its still a bit awkward, IME, for tracking spending.
Click to expand...

My CU has Financeworks (Inutit) also. I only use it to be able to look at my credit card accounts instead of having to go to the card site.
 
Open office spread sheet.

Download the stuff from the credit union as .csv and paste it in as required.
 
I was a Quicken user until they started deprecating features. Now I use Mint and haven't really found something to give me the forecast cash flow that I used to get from Quicken. On principle, I have refused to spend money with Intuit again, but it seems their kung-fu is very strong.
 
denverpilot said:
The Board voted to buy him two more DOS laptops for spares and asked him to back up the floppies and test the "new" machines.
Click to expand...

I just tossed 200-odd 3" floppies this week. Only used once... (remember when you got a new laptop and you had to make a backup copy of the OOS & software distribution? That's what these were... Fujitsu).

denverpilot said:
Mint is constantly trying to sell me Travel points credit cards. Heh heh.
Click to expand...

ANd that is precisely why I am not using it. Any program that is using data like that to try and sell you something is also collecting and retaining the data (or has the capability). I won't do that - and my feelings are particularly strong with Intuit. They simply don't need to know how much I make, or what I spend it upon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top