Quicken 2014. Horrible.

Dear Intuit,

I’ve been a long time Quicken user, my dad taught me to use Quicken for DOS to track money in my “Bank of Dad” account. My current Quicken file which I started in college after opening my bank account has data back since 2001. For the last 12-years I’ve loyally purchased a new version of Quicken every couple of years.  Unfortunately Quicken has started going downhill about the time you acquired Mint and it’s getting worse.  When I bought Quicken 2013 it was pretty buggy, so I decided to give you a year and upgrade to Quicken 2014 which I assumed would fix most of the issues.  Boy was I ever wrong.

quicken_projected_balances I’ve been so frustrated with Quicken that I have tried other solutions but they fall short. Mint, GnuCash, and MoneyDance don’t have nearly all the features I use. For example, Quicken’s Projected balances is unmatched by any competitor.  It knows I pay my credit cards in full every month, every recurring or future transaction is reflected in there so I can look out at the next 90 days and make sure none of the accounts are going to go into the red.  I don’t know of another tool that has cash flow management like this.

Another great feature is investment tracking, Quicken is pretty bad at managing asset allocation, but it does a great job at tracking performance and stock splits and cost basis.  I don’t know of another personal finance management software that can produce an IRR (Internal Rate of Return) report with a graph like this.

quicken_investment_performance

So, let’s get to the problems.  Overall there’s a lack of polish.  For example, QC didn’t catch this question.

quicken_upgrade

Anyway, I tried to upgrade but it takes me to this page with a broken image and an “Add to Cart” button that doesn’t do anything.  (Did anybody even check this before it was released?)  I finally figured out how to get the Rental Property edition by going to another page but it wasn’t obvious.

quicken_expense My budgets have been wrecked.  Budgeting was very easy in Quicken 2011, since 2013 it looks like some sort of hybrid Mint/Quicken budget and the interface is very slow–I’m assuming because it has to render the red and green bars that I don’t really care for.  If all I’m doing is entering a number it shouldn’t take longer than entering a number on a spreadsheet. What is this Budget item for “Expense”?!  I don’t have an “Expense” category, I don’t want an Expense category.  When I right-click the Expense category there’s no option to remove it.  When I view the transactions in “Expense” it’s showing me items that are actually in other budget categories like Life Insurance, Travel, transfer to 401k, and Utilities!  Is the budgeting tool double counting my expenses?  I don’t know!  It appears to be some catchall category for every outflow of cash but I don’t want it.  There’s another one like it called “Office Expenses” that has no reason to be in my budget that seems to capture random transactions that have nothing to do with Office Expenses, and I don’t even have an Office Expenses category and I’d like it gone as well.  I don’t want these in my budget.

quicken_budget_options The Budget Reports are broken.  One thing that’s important to me is I budget some transfers to make sure we maintain a positive cash-flow (or manageable deficit spending).  For example, if I regularly transfer money from checking to savings I actually budget the transfer because I need to know that the money isn’t available for spending.  When I run the “Current Budget” report I have ‘Non-Zero actual/budgeted’ selected but some (not all) of my budgeted transfers don’t show up on the budget report even though they are in the budget!  I can’t manage my budget with buggy reports like this!

quicken_sub_categories Fortunately, I happened to have a saved custom budget report from a previous version of Quicken that still works… sort of.  I can run the report and it shows Non-Zero actual/budgeted items for transfers like it should.  However, I often like to run a report that fits on a single page to give to Kris and to do that I hide the subcategories.  Whether I’m showing or hiding sub-categories my Budget Net Difference should be the same right?  Nope.  Showing sub-categories I have a Budgeted Net Difference of $200 per month.  If I hide sub-categories I have a Budgeted Net Difference of several thousand per month.  Hidden Sub-Categories should roll-up into their parent categories on the report (and they used to in Quicken 2011).  Now the report is just wrong in 2014.  So right now the only way I can get an accurate budget report is to use the saved custom budget report I made in a previous version of Quicken, and it only works if I show sub-categories!  That is bad Intuit.  Bad.

quicken_sync Also, the entire reason I upgraded from Quicken 2013 to Quicken 2014 is the latter version was supposed to fix a lot of bugs synchronizing to mobile devices that were in Quicken 2013.  However, things haven’t improved much for me.  Whenever I sync Quicken will do one of the following:  It will hang synchronizing to the cloud but never finishes (I even let it go for an hour).  Or it will say “Com Error” and crash or it will crash with error code 7237 while trying to send budgets.

crash_sending_budgets

I just want the software to work.  I’ve been in this mess for one year, and due to there not really being a good competitor I’ll try to tolerate some bugs for a little while longer.  My patience won’t last forever.  Intuit, get your software working!

Your customer since 2001,

Ben

111 thoughts on “Quicken 2014. Horrible.”

  1. I agree Ben, I have been using Quicken for a very long time.. 90s. I purchased ’14 a week ago and really starting trying to work with it 2 days ago. Last night it crashed 4 times and now I have an error when I startup. I have to check when I get home to see if I get after my reboot(over then night). If you can find an alternative let us know. This sinks.
    (I just found you by seaching Quicken 2014 buggy)

    Reply
    • Hey Tim! Glad to hear I’m not the only one with problems, I thought I was one of the longest Quicken users (other than my Dad) but looks like you have me beat!

      Reply
      • I may not be using all the fancy features that you and other posters here are finding problems with so I can’t speak to that. But I will offer one suggestion: I notice that you and others, like me, go way back (to DOS!) with Quicken, and I get the impression that all those years of data are still held in a single file. Whew! That’s a lot of data! And many files accumulate hidden “headers” that just grow and grow, too. Read the instructions about making a current-year file so that you can leave the old data resting in peace on disk. I have every year of my data stored separately (named QDATAyyyy) and Quicken 2014 has not crashed for me. It opens and runs pretty much as quickly as ever.

        Reply
        • I’m not sure what the difference is for you. Maybe OS or memory or something else. The very first thing that I did based on their support suggestion was to make a current year file. This may have helped a bit but was still very slow. I even tested with a new file. I added a couple of transactions. This in itself was slow. But then I tried reconcile and it still took 30-40 seconds just to open.

          On top of that, every time I edit a field anywhere it tries to redraw the whole page. So just simple data entry takes forever.

          Honestly, I didn’t let it wrong long enough to find out if it was crashing. It was too painful. I uninstalled and reinstalled my 2011. I’m looking for a replacement now.

          Reply
        • Just a caution on making a new file. I’ve used Quicken since 1986, and HAD all my investment history in the file. Then I decided to slim it all down and purged some closed accounts from my newer files.. Big mistake. I want all my investment history now for historical reporting, and have to re-enter lots of data, since Intuit has let us down on export/import of investment data. I’ve read of some workarounds, but Intuit should not do this to us. The excuse is that investment account type has no ‘register’. That I definitely BS, since they can make the investment register in the program. If nothing else, keep your investment accounts in a separate file, if you are willing to give up the transfer ability, but for best use, keep your investment account in your live file forever. That way you can do historical savings growth and performance, and also current net worth, etc.

          Reply
          • Charlie and fellow Quicken users:

            I received a copy of Quicken 2014 last year from Intuit. I’m a Linux user and I detest Windows (it’s only good for games and even that is starting to change!) and I (and others!) have asked Intuit to create a version of Quicken for Linux. Intuit has refused. So, after receiving both that piece of news and the copy of Quicken 2014 (I’m currently using Quicken 2011 Home & Business), I decided to write the CEO of Intuit and tell them what I thought of that decision along with their copy of Quicken 2014. I never heard a thing from them. That ticked me off!!

            So, I started looking for something that would run natively on Linux and do what I do in Quicken. The killer feature of Quicken is the ability to attach receipts as a PDF file to each transaction. Well, after looking at many different programs, I can tell you that I’ve decided to move to Moneydance 2015. It works flawlessly on Linux and also has the ability to sync to mobile devices by encrypting your file and utilizing your Dropbox account. You can find a copy for your OS (it’s available for Linux, Mac, Windows, Android and IOS) here: http://infinitekind.com/download-moneydance-personal-finance-software.

            Screw you, Intuit!! I hope you go out of business. You SUCK!!

  2. Looking for other alternatives now too. Been using quicken for over 10 years but this new concept of signing into the Intuit website is insane and causes all sorts of performance issues. Wish I had stayed on 2013 in fact am trying now to figure out how to go back to pre 2014 upgrade.

    Will be searching for other options going forward. Quicken has really disappointed me.

    Reply
  3. Ditto. The 2013 rollout was horrible. Upgraded to 2014 but after two days it started crashing everywhere. Had to downgrade to 2013. Paid for 2014. Going to wait a while and try again later.

    Reply
    • Was using 2011 Cash Manager and it was ok. I “upgraded” to 2014 and it’s horrible. Everything is slow. Tech support told me to archive my older data. Tried that.. They told me to copy the file and validate it. Tried that. Had an online session with the tech support guy and all he did was try to clean out my temp files. He was connected for over an hour looking at files and finally wanted to uninstall/reinstall. The whole time telling me he has never had a complaint about Quicken being slow. Even when he can see how slow it is.

      I will probably revert to 2011 and get my money back.

      Reply
      • The problem with that is Quicken will NOT process your online bill payments after three years. They force you to use their crap! I wish I could find a better solution. 2011 Home and Business worked great now this new 2014 Home and Business is the crappiest software I have ever used. I have used Quicken since 1988 and this is crap!

        Reply
  4. The budgeting in Quicken 2014 is a nightmare !!!!!! The budget reports show zeros for actual expenses. Setting up the budget can only be done monthly, instead of monthly average. You can’t zoom in on historical data and can’t a number, its numbers or graphs. I lived and died by the old elegant budgeting and now I’m DEAD. Thanks quicken for ruining my life. BTW going into budget also ruins the display of the program.

    Reply
    • Jonathan,
      Click Planning.
      Click on the line you want to set up or correct a budget, then on a gear icon (Budget amount options).
      Click on another gear (Calculate average budget).
      Change Average (if you want), select Apply option.
      Click OK.
      Enjoy your life if you can. You are right. Budget feature of Quicken 2014 is a big disappointment to me, too. I am thinking about returning to 2011 version and, maybe, finding a better alternative to deteriorating Quicken.

      Reply
  5. I guess I’m more like your Dad. I have used quicken since it shipped on floppy disks and never seen problems like I’m experiencing after “Upgrading” from Quicken 2011. I have filed a “Containment Report” (curious name) along with the requested files. Spoke to a support person who could offer nothing but what sounded like heartfelt sympathy. I am going to try and go back to QW2011.

    Do you have experience with QW2012? Does it offer anything valuable over 2011, other than another year of TurboTax compatibility?

    Reply
    • Hi, DeWayne. Quicken 2012 is where they introduced the new budgeting tool that looks like Mint. Quicken 2011 is honestly the last version of Quicken where I liked the way budgets worked. I’m seriously pondering a switch to KMyMoney… but it would be a lot of work so I’m just thinking about it at this point. Good luck!

      Reply
      • I was contacted by Intuit to participate in an interactive debugging session but apparently they were overwhelmed by the number of people willing to help and I have not heard anything more from them.

        Has anyone had any of their issues resolved by Intuit. I had to revert to 2011 in order to do anything so I won’t receive any updates they send. In my case, simply clicking on my credit card register caused a fatal error.

        Reply
        • They are simply ignoring the problem and lying to everyone that says they have performance and crash problems. They tell you that you are the only one and that it is your hardware! Well, it is NOT the hardware it is the crappy programming..they must be using the same people that Obamacare used!!

          Reply
          • I had the tech support guy use a remote connection to my computer. This is after a dozen emails saying “hi my name is XXXX and I will be happy to help you today and then an “answer” to a question that I didn’t ask.

            He cleaned my temp folder and rebooted. After he realized that he would lose the connection after a reboot, he called me and had me establish the connection again. He launched Quicken remotely and told me that it looked ok. I had him click the reconcile button. 45 seconds later the reconcile form came up. He said it seemed to be working.

            I don’t know if the party line is to tell the customers that there’s no problem or that the tech support is that clueless but either way this is ridiculous. Admittedly, I am not happy with the support guy but the software is SO buggy that I don’t see how it made it out the door.

        • I was just told that the problem I’m having printing voucher checks ( using
          Quicken 13) can be resolved by upgrading to Q14 !,
          Since I too have been using Quicken for many years, but, upgrading to Q13 and absolutely hating it, I’m very reluctant to do that. Now I really think I should not do it. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. How I wish there was an alternative. My confidence in Intuit is in the crapper.

          Reply
  6. Similar story. Upgraded from 2011 to 2014 but 2014 crashes when it attempts to access the converted data file.At least I duidn’t load info and then it crashed. I was online for 90 minutes for the agent to say”We are working on the problem” Why so long to get to the answer that the program is not working?

    Reply
    • Someone at the top is making decisions to ship buggy product… there’s no way QA could be letting these issues slip by. You do have to feel bad for the guys working tech support but I agree that they could be a little more forthcoming.

      Reply
  7. I worked for Intuit as an engineer from ’91 to ’98. I’d be ashamed of the quality of Quicken 2013 and 2014 if I worked there today. Budgets are completely broken, 4 refreshes/register re-display, buggy investment tx entry. My guess would be that Intuit is betting the future on web apps and is just letting the entropy leak into the desktop products. Good way to lose loyal users while not attracting new ones (they all think Intuit is your father’s financial software anyhow).

    Reply
  8. I couldn’t agree more! I’ve been using Quicken since 1993, and upgraded AT LEAST every 2 years and sometimes yearly. And the last few years it’s been getting more and more buggy at every upgrade! I’ve been downloading transactions (free) by Express Web Connect from Wells Fargo (3 accounts) year years w/o problem. Since upgrading to 2014, I am unable to connect to WFB. Five contacts with Quicken Support has failed to solve the problem (despite connecting fine with 4 other banks with a a total of 6 other accounts). Finally, they’ve told me that, “due to technical reasons, you (I) are unable to connect to Wells Fargo with Express Web Connect.” Their only solution is to upgrade to Direct Conect, for which WFB charges $3.00/mo. Admittedly this isn’t a bank breaker, but I fail to see why, after 20 years of performing this simple service, Quicken is no no longer able to do it! Just one example of how bad it’s gotten! I could cite more. DON’T UPGRADE to QUICKEN 2014. You’ll wish you hadn’t!

    Reply
    • I requested a refund and reverted back to Cash Manager 2011. Hopefully the support guys got the refund straight as I got a confirmation but it hasn’t showed up at the bank yet.

      The last straw for me was when the support guy was telling me that he had never heard of a complaint of Quicken being slow. Then a simple google search finds lots of hits, including some from Intuit.

      At any rate, 2014 didn’t offer anything that I can’t live without. I will find another product.

      Reply
      • Just an update to say that they did process my refund. So I’m back to 2011 and things are as they were. I was able to revert to the old version with only a few days of lost entries to deal with.

        Reply
  9. I am still using Quicken 2011 but unfortunately just today I got a notice that they will not support the account downloading feature after 30 April. The big problem is that you can’t get help unless you pay extra for it. There is no way to actually contact them without paying a fee.

    I was using the software from the company they bought out eons ago and had continued it ever since

    Reply
    • Hopefully the product will be working by April 30. I won’t be trying again until the last possible minute. If it isn’t the posters on this forum can be the core plaintiffs in a class action.

      Reply
      • If they are stopping support for 2011 features I will look for alternatives. This 2014 fiasco was too time consuming. And the offshore support was not very helpful. Never heard of an issue with speed. Didn’t answer my actual questions but rather replied to some form or something seemingly based on key words in my email. When I called them the guy is clearing my temp files and stuff. Not the same company as they were 10 years ago and I don’t want to support this nonsense.

        Reply
  10. There’s no question that Quicken 2014 wasn’t ready for prime time when released! They’re already on Release 5 and it’s not even 2014 yet! My problems revolved mainly around updating. At first Update would crash the program. They fixed that, but then I couldn’t connect with Wells Fargo (see post above). Somehow, in getting that fixed, my data file got “damaged” in my 3 WFB accounts. So now a file verify shows 12 PAGES (!!!) of transfer errors where transfers from my checking account to my credit card got changed to (“unidentified account”) from the correct account name in Category. This resulted in downloading duplicating the transfers and it goes back several years!!. The result was, I was unable to reconcile. Once a correction was inserted (I can’t manually correct 12 pages of transaction errors!), the Reconcile function appears broken: in the accounts list, there is NO DATE under “last reconcile” and when I run Reconcile, it fails to change the “c” for cleared to the “R” for reconcile. Quicken Support denies that the reconcile engine could be at fault and cites my “damaged file.” So, I’m limping along with the correct balance showing but unable to reconcile. Pretty lame and pretty disgusting! If I didn’t have 20 years of transactions in by database, I’d switch to something else!

    Reply
  11. I have been totally disappointed in Quicken 2014. First upgraded from 2011 to 2014 Cash Manager then when it was crashing all the time the tech guy talked me into upgrading to Home and Business because I was also looking for the spending planner. It doesn’t even have it (Canadian version). I was using Mint for my budgeting but wanted something a bit better and I thought this would be it. But the budgets don’t make sense. The report doesn’t match the figures in the budget on screen and it doesn’t account for rollover amounts right. I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how it is coming up with the numbers. It also doesn’t show you if you are budgeting more than you are bringing in. VERY DISAPPOINTED! I have sent log files to support and they have not gotten back to me in over 2 weeks. It crashes EVERY time I am working in the budget screen! I could probably create a more accurate budget in Excel!

    Reply
  12. I think I beat all of you on when I started using Quicken. It was a DOS 1.1 product, when I started using it in 1987. I immediately started listing all the [mess ups — edited by ben] in a text file, thinking that the Quicken folks would appreciate my thoughts as a user….. I still do…. 2012 was “full of it”…. I am sorry to hear that 2013/2014 are worse!!!, since they force you to upgrade…, or lose certain features…… (….like doing your next year’s taxes….)

    Well….., I was TOTALLY wrong!!! I wrote them several times. No reply. I finally called them. They were very specific in their feelings. “We know exactly what the program needs, and do not care for any input from you!” I may have a few words wrong in the ‘quote’. But, it was back in 1988-89…. Bottom line then, and now: Quicken does not want to hear from you.

    Neither are they interested in how [terrible — edited by ben] their human interface is for TurboTax…. (So many years of [complaining — edited by Ben]…. So many “You are wrong…” replies….). I will give them credit for SLOWLY cleaning up TTax…. I guess they must have finally realized how awful it was…. If you have ever used it, you may recall how you got carpel-tunnel syndrome from moving that damn mouse EVERY TIME THE NEXT PAGE OPENED!!!!!…, just to click a ‘NO’, or ‘Next’ box…..

    I am stupidly hoping that some YOUNG code-bangers make up a NEW company that actually LISTENS TO THE CUSTOMER!!!!

    Intuit… what a poorly-named company…… Idiot would be more descriptive…..

    Capt36

    Reply
  13. Upgraded to Quicken 14 r5. Bugs! Big memory hog! Slow!

    Using Win XP. Some workarounds:

    When I need to do a qfx (webconnect) import of a downloaded file, if I click the file, Quicken does the import, crashed/closes.

    If I do a manual import within the program, File >File Import. It works without crashing.

    I noticed there are times I can’t get quicken to maximize when minimized. Workaround, right click on minimized icon, then select restore.

    Steve

    Reply
  14. I just wish Google with all their 100s of millions going to new start-ups would hire a group to program a competitor to quicken, it just seems too easy at this point for them. Nowadays, database technology & standards are so much easier to work with/build. Much cheaper than MS Money days…. millions would use it (even without a tax program) and believe they would do it right from the ground up and could merge it with their other offerings… I am sure others would poo poo that they have too much info already. But there are silo’d solutions for that too. I would even pay $100 a year subscription for a program I could trust.

    Reply
  15. I just upgraded from 2011 because I knew that I could not use online banking after 4/30. I am a long time user back to 1996. After upgrading and converting my file, everything seemed fine. However the next time I opened Quicken my data file was gone. Vanished! I spent an hour on the Support Chat, while the very nice but clueless techs walked me through the steps I had already taken to find my file. They could not find it either! It is truly missing from my PC!

    Reply
  16. I’m also a 10+ year Quicken user looking for a new company to support with my money. My 2011 Quicken can’t even reconcile and account because the starting balance I input changes on the reconcile screen to another number — so the math does not work at all. Wow, that is pathetic. And to get help I have to pay a fee for software I bought less than a year ago, the 2013 version? What do they think I paid for when I bought the software?

    I’d rather cope with my 2003 Excel.

    Reply
  17. I have been a quicken user since the DOS days also and I have never had problems that I have seen in 2014; I went back to 2013 and redid all accounts in a new file took days. I am looking for some other program that will include bill pay. I agree with everyone

    Reply
  18. I agree completely with you! The 2014 interface is sluggish and clunky … seriously thinking of reverting back to 2013 … no other viable options out there … Quicken simply hasn’t been the same since MS Money dropped out :(

    Reply
  19. i spent a couple days setting up my last couple years of download data. All my accounts, assets, etc. Still setting up my data but overall it seems to be doing exactly what I wanted. Budget seems to work well too

    Reply
  20. I cannot imagine that anyone would compliment Quicken on Quicken 2014 unless their bonus depended on it. It is just awful. The budgeting module is an absolute mess. My existing budgets have been corrupted and the budget reports are simply wrong. I am actively looking for a replacement and if all else fails I will forgo online downloads. It can’t require anymore of my time than the struggle to set up 2014.

    Reply
  21. I agree I can’t even get it to run without crashing,
    Sorry I didn’t read these posts before I bought it. Have used all versions from 1997 to 1010
    and thought it was time to update as support fo 2010 no longer available.
    What a disaster!

    Reply
    • Hard to believe that it’s still this bad. I guess that’s one of the “benefits” of outsourcing support. For me, the support guys acted like I was the first one to encounter issues. I guess there’s some disconnect between the developers and the customer now.

      Reply
  22. Is it fixed yet – using 2013 version and bugs with the write checks where it scrolls checks off the screen and resizes fields wrong if you resize the box. Also today changing the account on write checks, it kept asking if to save changes and ended up printing the same check 3 times two on the one account I didn’t want it on and 1 on the one I wanted it on (changed it to). I was also a DOS user.

    Reply
  23. I had similar problems. I uninstalled Quicken 2014 and reinstalled Quicken 2011. I saved the installation files and will try again on April 30th. If not happy, will demand refund…

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  24. I have been a Quicken user since 1988 under DOS. I used to upgrade every year, then eventually tapered off to once every 2 or 3 years. I upgraded from 2011 to 2014 about a month or so ago since my online downloading functionality was going to stop in April. I have never regretted upgrading in the past, but this time – whoa. It’s now on release 7, and the performance and responsiveness is still much slower than it should be. The only real bug I ran into was the reconciliation bug with using the online balance when you told the program to always reconcile to the online balance (the balance would always show zero). I use 2012 at work and it’s perfectly fine. If you have Quicken 2012, I would strongly recommend sticking with it, at least until you know that they’ve fixed the problems with 2014.

    Reply
    • This is a very well presented, personal viewpoint!!! I absolutely agree that the ‘best version’ choice is 2012…. Now, do not expect that version to be really cool… It sucks, compared to some earlier versions, in some ways…. I started a list, when I first got it… I should have continued, since there are a lot more ‘things’ that tick me off….. Here are a few:

      Does not go to ‘Amount’, after choosing Payee from list….

      Does not show my various ‘hidden’ accounts, without spending 20 clicks to find a ‘matching transaction’ to get to the account…

      Several screens do not ‘fit’ to type-able area……….

      Cannot choose ‘Show hidden accounts’ as a default operation….

      The ‘Investing’ date window is sized wrong to the font.. So, you cannot see the year…. (And, they NEVER fixed this!!!????)

      You are no longer allowed to ‘double-click’ a memorized transaction, for use…. (Major Sucky!!!, since I use it almost daily….)

      You are not allowed to ‘double-click’, to ‘clear’ a transaction, for use…. (Another Major Sucky!!!, since I use it daily….)

      What a cluster-f%#k, to simply ‘unhide’ an account!!!

      I sure do wish for an ‘Open Source’, financial program…. Quicken would die…….!!

      Capt36

      Reply
  25. Ben – you’re spot on. I just posted the following comment in the Quicken online community.

    Quicken, are you out there? The 2014 budget function doesn’t work, and this is why lots of us buy quicken (since 1996 . . ). Everybody seems to agree. There are four main problems:

    1) The totals at the bottom comparing my income to expenses aren’t right, so I can’t tell if I’m going to be cash positive or negative each month when I create the budget

    2) The budget always displays actual performance (and so do the reports) – it doesn’t help me to have actual performance until after I’ve worked out my budget for the year to see if in THEORY I’m going to be cash positive or negative each month. Seeing the actual just screws up the results — because I want to see just my budget on what I THINK I’m going to make versus spend.

    3) Quicken counts items that aren’t showing in the budget (or in the reports), and leaves out things that I have always had in the budget and the reports; I can’t tell whether it’s double counting things, and I can’t tell whether it’s leaving out things – I have no ability to project my cash flow.

    4) The budget and the reports don’t display the same with category groups, and even after trying to manipulate the views, I can’t tell what’s there and what’s not

    The function is so bad that last night I had to take out my calculator and then move to an excel sheet to create my budget – for the first time since 1996 (18 years). If Quicken can’t do a budget function (2011 version was EASY and clear) and I have to use excel, you’ve lost 75% of the functionality of Quicken.

    I’ve looked online at the forums, and I don’t see fixes – instead, everyone seems to agree that Quicken budgeting is NON-FUNCTIONAL.

    ARE YOU PLANNING TO FIX THIS, AND WHEN?

    Reply
    • I agree with everyone…..I don’t think Intuit even cares about their Quicken software anymore. Seems like they are concentrating on their online versions only. That would be too bad…because I would stop using it.

      Reply
    • >ARE YOU PLANNING TO FIX THIS, AND WHEN?

      I do enjoy funny lines in the morning… Have you not been paying attention to all the posts? Intuit will not fix it! (Perhaps I should say “shall not fix it!”, since the Supreme Court sees corporations as people….).

      Again, I say that the only way to solve this…, is to have open-source software! There are enough free Tax programs out there, to ‘SNUFF OUT” their other P.O.S. program, Turd-boTax…. We just need a functional, financial program for daily use….. Where are the smart, programmer nerds, when we need them…? Whaaaa!

      I would LOVE to leave Intuit in my archives only……

      Reply
  26. OMG!!! why why!?!?! Well I made the mistake of going from 2011 to 2014. And I am sorry but 2014 is just horrible. What are they thinking with the budgeting system?? I mean are you kidding me????? We need to get Dave Ramsey on this :-) But I dont know what to do…. I am seriously thinking about going back too 2011 and manually entering the transactions after April 30. I dont know what to do. This is really a bummer.

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  27. I hate everything Intuit anymore and juast today demanded my refund for quicken (time sucking POS) 2014. It sucks, it always did we were just too stupid to say ” ii can do this in half the time manually” what the hell am I doing paying for this crap !!! Good bye intuit everything I think I’kll buy something productive today like a furby for my grandchildren!!

    Reply
  28. PS..For the record I had problems EVERY TIME I tried to download cc-585..( not a choice when filling out their request for a telephone number!) Video flickering; import form quicken 2011 was a disaster; customer service forces you to fill out 2 forms in order to get a phone number and Incident number; cell phone would not activate their automated system so I tried calling 4 times before i borrowed a neighbors phone in order to make the call for a refund; I had talked with Iran , or some other non English speaking CS 3 times attempting to correct the download issues that never worked after 1 time..the list is endless as is my time. If that’s not enough for you to say “screw quicken 2014 and all intuit” then enjoy your nice comfy office chair –I’m outside playing with the grand kids while you have you nose stuck in your computer screen doing the work that quicken promised…..Enjoy Sheeple but I have a life that does NOT include fixing MS and quickens third world crap software..I also came up form RPGII and DOS so I KNOW what software SHOULD do and how it SHOULD behave. One other thought- i never had 1 account form my earlier versions that would update after I installed 2014 – I had to open new accounts with different names and account numbers etc in order to make quicken TRY to do it’s job- What a waste of time and effort–Stop playing with their crap and write it in your checkbook and go home while all the other fools are investigating issues with intuit-really–WHY ?????????????????????????????? QUICKEN WASTES YOUR TIME NOT MAKES IT !!

    Reply
  29. WORST PROGRAM EVER WRITTEN BY QUICKEN!! Whoever developed this program needs to be fired. I up for Filing a class action lawsuit against Quicken for forcing user to upgrade to continue using the online banking feature! That is the only reason I upgraded this year! Got behind in tax prep thanks to OBAMA care in our office! Now I have to fight with the garbage that keeps crashing my system! Locked up 4 times just trying to put the mileage in!

    Reply
  30. I am on a call with Quicken to resolve this issue. he had me download the latest update. I just tried to change the trip type on my mileage tracker, a window pops up and says The trip you are viewing has been changed. Save it now. I just made changes to my trip Froze up again!NOW I am going into File and repair and clicking file operations, then click on file and repair. Now the file is examining the file repair. DID NOT WORK! I am shutting my computer down now!

    Reply
  31. I am a long time user of Quicken (over a decade). The version 2014 is indeed horrible. Specifically, Trying to paper reconcile Quicken Deluxe 2014 with the latest version R7 (23.1.7.6) – Speaking with tech support simply states to use a file validate which has failed to correct the problem after multiple times. The problem is that the data after the reconcile date is being used in the reconcile calculation but not displaying in the reconcile page. Then, using an adjustment, I am left with a starting balance that is wrong and “R” marked items after the reconcile date! I can’t believe that Quicken can’t fix this problem ASAP! It never occurred in previous editions and now my data file is all messed up.So much for being a loyal customer for over 10 years.

    Reply
  32. I have been a Quicken user since 1997. I just upgraded 2011 to 2014 last week. This is the worst piece of garbage that I have ever seen. I have used MSN Money and done my own work with Excel spreadsheets. I am going back to 2011 for now until I can find a suitable alternative. I would recommend that everyone refuse to accept this junk from Quicken. If enough of us refuse to use this garbage they will get the message.

    Reply
  33. Most of the comments here ring true with me. I have been using Quicken since 1988 without problems except for the annoying forced upgrades in order to continue downloading bank info. Intuit says they do this for security reasons. I don’t believe Intuit – you can’t really buy the program – you can only rent it. The upgrade from 2011 to 2014 has been a disaster. The 2014 program is slowwwwww, leaving me watching a spinning circle for lengthy periods. Reconciliations produce quirky behaviour requiring me to close and re-open the program. Hot keys work only sporadically. I can’t control how long in the future unentered billing entries appear in registers, so my registers are cluttered with future unpaid bills. Intuit overcharged me for the 2014 purchase, promising Turbo Tax for free without delivering it. When I phoned Canadian Intuit support, they transferred me to an American who knew nothing about the Canadian product. The phone call dragged on interminably, wasting my time while the support guy floundered around aimlessly and helplessly. When I emailed support, I received a series of promised to make me happy, offering refunds, urging me to revert to 2012, and guaranteeing that 2015 will be the best program ever. When I asked about the hassle of migrating my (newly entered) data backward to 2012, the emails ceased – another broken promise. I’m fed up with Intuit’s incompetence and false promises. Now I need to find out which software I can buy to replace Quicken, and whether my historical data can be migrated to a new program. If they don’t make this right, I’m going to simply sue in small claims court. If every dissatisfied customer does the same, we can have Intuit travelling all over the country to appear in court.

    Reply
  34. I, too, have installed Q2014 as an upgrade to Q2011 and immediately saw the budget problems. Main categories appear in multiple places each with some subcategories under them. I get different results in my converted report from what 2011 showed. I looked at the budget setup and it was a mess considering how easy 2011 was.
    I once tried to upgrade from 2009 to 2012 but the messed up register fonts led me to buy/use 2011 which has worked fine for me for three years.

    I’ve used Quicken since 1994 and have never seen as many problems as this version has. It’s already on R7 and still so many obvious problems (they seem to fix minor things in the updates w/o tackling to major issues). Luckily, I did the 2014 install on my laptop for testing purposes and continued to use 2011 as my base so no data to re-enter. I don’t know if any download/import options will remain after 4/30 but if I cannot get online data then I will enter it into 2011 manually rather than worry about what 2014 is doing to my transactions.

    Reply
  35. If Intuit is really interested in moving us all off of desktop Quicken to Mint, then the least they could do is to stop further development, which only seems to make a bad situation worse. Fix the bugs in the program and create a stable, useable version. Then just charge a fee each year for continued access to online downloads.

    They could then dismantle most of their desktop development team (who appear to be incompetent and have no QA process) and just keep a small support staff. They save big $$ and those of us who would rather work locally than in the Cloud continue with a legacy program.

    Reply
  36. Wow! I never had such a horrible time with Quicken. Like so many others here, I am a long-time user (1998), bought a new version every 2-3 years. Was using 2011 and thought it was time to buy a new version, but it was $120!!! It was only $40 in 2011. I only track purchases and do some reports (track business income/expenses). So I don’t nee all the bells and whistles. When they told me that 2011 would not be able to do online downloads anymore, I decided ok, and Intuit sends out a 50% off deal.

    Now things are completely effed up. Like others, the program is so slow, with that little circle spinning each time I enter a transaction. Then I went to a investment site of mine to download transaction data, and it did a couple quarters fine, but 1st quarter download was completed messed up. It had added dozens of transactions on 1/13/14, which there were no transactions online; mislabeled a bunch of fund IDs. I all of the sudden had more than twice the value in the account! Whee! Lucky me! Well, after I deleted the 1/13 transactions, my balance did not match the online balance. Great.

    Then one of my credit cards I have to go online as well, and now it is asking me if I want to close my file so it can import that data into another file??? Which of course doesn’t work.

    Reply
  37. Agree with everything everyone says – I’m a user from at least 1991 (maybe earlier from Manage My Money) – currently on version 2011 – bought 2014 and tried 4 times to make it work and failed – have been back to 2011 for a few months now and enjoying it – I would stay here if I could still get downloads – so I will go manual until I develop another option.
    First problem with 2014 was missing attachments – I used workaround by converting necessary attachments to Evernote yet kept 2011 database and now using combination. Next problem was slowness – horrible – and unworkable so back a second time to 2011 – third time was to see if they had fixed some of the problems – no – so uninstall and reinstall 2011. I’m staying here until this forum starts to give rave reviews ( dreamer?) – To their credit I did get a full refund!

    Reply
  38. This is an email that I just wrote to Quicken Canada

    To whom it may concern (and hopefully it makes it to the president because he should be concerned)

    I have been a loyal and consistent user of Quicken since 1990 but I fear that unless you make some immediate improvements to you program that you will lose my business, and if you lose my business then certainly you will lose many others who are experiencing the same frustrations. and ultimately, your company may fail entirely.

    I have probably encountered hundreds of small and irritating problems with the program recently and I would be happy to help you find and correct these problems but for now I will give you one example to illustrate the types of things that a Quicken user is experiencing.

    It is important to note the then very nature of date entry requires that you are able to do the same thing over and over and over again, and not have to change your process because something in the program does not work.

    Example: I need to enter a receipt into a register between two previous entries.

    Step 1: Go to the transaction above the location where I want to insert the new entry
    Step 2: Press control I. (problem sometime this works and a new space is created sometimes it doesn’t work – which is not acceptable it need to work every time)
    Step 3: Begin entering the transaction. For this example I will pretend that it is an Esso gas bill)
    Step 4: Once I start entering the transaction a drop down menu of similar transacation is shown
    Step 5: I chose one of the memorized transactions and a drop down screen appears where I can enter the total amount $114.95 for example

    Step 6 A: I press control S to check the spit details of the transaction and everything is OK so I press control enter. It goes back to the register so I press control enter again to enter the transaction which should sve the transaction and move on to the next transaction but instead NOTHING HAPPENS – it is stalled. The only way I can enter and save the transaction is to leave the keyboard and use the mouse to press the “save” button.

    Step 6B. I press control S and rather than accepting what is included in the split I make a small change (splut the gas in gas and oil for example) . When I press Control Enter the program immediately enters and saves the entire transaction and moves to the next transaction in the register. This is completely different and inconsistent with what happed above in 6A above. It actually more like what should happen but you shouldn’t have to make a change for this correct process to be initiated.

    So there you have it, just one example (and there are many many more) of an inconsistency which slows and sometimes stops the workflow and process of data entry, while you are trying to get a transaction to be completed properly.

    This has got to be fixed – and fast!!

    My advice

    1. Create a business only version (like there used to be before Business and Personal versions were amalgamated for some reason – which, by the way, has created a whole other list of problems and inconsistencies)
    2. Take a page form Google and Apple by simplifying and streamlining the Business version of the program (ad ideally the personal version as well)
    3. Make sure that it is seamless and works perfectly and consistently in all circumstances.
    4. Remove features that are not absolutely essential
    5. Hopefully by simplifying the program you will enable it to handle more data (multi years) so that you don’t have to split up date in order for the program to work efficiently. For small a business owner it is better to have all of your date on one file so that you easily make comparisons between the current year and previous years transactions.

    My Last piece of Advice: Make the changes quickly otherwise you will lose Millions of customers , such as myself, who are frustrated and disillusioned by the constant and rapid deterioration of a program that used to so excellent.

    I am happy to help in any way I can so please call me.

    My regards,

    Peter

    Reply
  39. Hello Peter,

    I sent several emails to Intuit Canada, reporting that they have a glitch and that transfer transaction are at risk of being duplicated when they are changed. I’ve been reporting this problem since 2010 and still nothing have changed.

    Reply
  40. Worst decision I ever made to upgrade to Quicken 2014. It crashes all the time. Right now I can’t even generate invoices for my home transcription businesses because it has crashes repeatedly with a COM error. It is virtually worthless to me and I hate the non-existent tech support.

    Reply
  41. Been using Quicken Premier for years. “Upgraded” this morning and now nothing works right. 45 minutes on hold for support. “F” this. I’ll find something else. If anyone out there has a suggestion, I am open to it.

    Reply
  42. I’ve also been a long-time Quicken user and I have to say that 2014 is the worst version I’ve used. I upgraded from 2011 and wished I had been able to just stay on that version as it just seemed to work fine for my needs.

    Reply
  43. Like many here I’ve been using Quicken from the DOS days as a young husband and father as my father did until his passing. I’m also an IT professional that started as a programmer and, although I can now join AARP, I am always updating and upgrading my knowledge, personal devices, pc’s, etc. Again, as many here, I was forced to upgrade to 2014 because 2011 would no longer download transactions. I did so expecting small improvements as has been my experience with Quicken over the years. For months I’ve been hoping for an update that would improve the ponderous “speed” and also fix the bug that the register looses focus if you alt-tab to another program and back. I do this frequently to lookup and copy a number from a spreadsheet or website. I’ve stopped holding my breath. I guess I will wait for 2015 and hope that things improve. I’ll check the reviews before wasting my money.

    Reply
          • After trying 2014 several times and reverting back to 2011 each time, I find that the latest update 7.23.1.7.6 is working well enough to use. Like some others I don’t exercise all the functionality but downloading transactions is critical for me and I have been forced to upgrade for only that reason. I will continue to look for a quicken replacement and would love to move to an open source product like GnuCash. Installing, converting and testing is however a pain.

            What I won’t do is monitor this blog for much longer. While I thank you Ben for starting this topic and respect your right to say whatever you please, I think you should save your political commentary for other topics on your blog.

            What I would subscribe to would be a blog, forum or legal action dedicated to forcing Intuit to drop their requirement to update simply to keep downloading transactions. I’m one of those people that edit an OFX file from one of my banks that has chosen not to pay intuit’s fee the to allow its customers that are Quicken users to download transactions. In April I realized that Intuit validates the banks code number against not just a periodically updated local file but rather EACH time a file is imported and uses that mechanism to block all downloads after product expiration.

            Forcing a full upgrade rather than offering a simple license renewal, feels like extortion to me. Read just the first couple of paragraphs and see if you agree.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion

            I would accept loosing support for older versions of Quicken even if it eventually stopped working due to a Windows upgrade. That at least would let me choose to stick with an older version of Windows too.

  44. Well it’s July 2014 and nothing has changed with Quicken 2014. I won’t repeat what everyone else has written, but my problems are the same. Has anyone found anything else that works? I just converted to QuickBooks for my work and it is great (although I haven’t tried downloading yet). Although I think it is awfully complex for just personal use. But I am at my wits end with QUICKEN!

    Reply
    • Unfortunately nothing that I am aware of that you can use off of your desktop … that’s the most frustrating part … closest you’ll probably get to an alternative in my opinion is web based Mint.

      Reply
  45. Despite my dissatisfaction with some minor aspects of the program, which I have mentioned earlier, I still find Quicken to be an amazing program for the money. I agree with your comment that QuickBooks is overkill for personal use. It also is way more expensive, and lacks features that many home users would consider important (investment tracking for one) and has other features that home users would probably never use (journal entries, accounts receivable, etc.). If you’re running a small business, though, it’s more suitable for that than Quicken is. Quicken might be sufficient for a small service business, but that’s about it.

    Reply
    • And you are using Quicken 2014? This was not usable for me. I reverted and got a refund.

      One thing is that I noticed others reporting better behaviour with different updates. There were no updates for my purchase. Maybe because I’m in Canada.

      Anyway this experience was too much. I’ll keep 2011 until I find a replacement.

      Reply
  46. Yes, Duane, I’m using Quicken Deluxe 2014. I note that Ben’s concerns had mainly to do with budgeting and program use on mobile devices – I use neither function. Aside from the relative slowness when first opening a file and the inability to tell the program to always use the online balance by default when reconciling, I really have no other substantive complaints. Well, except for that annoying dinging when I press CTRL-F to do a find.

    Reply
    • Yep, I’m still using Quicken as well and despite it’s shortcomings it is my favorite finance program… and there are no good alternatives to Quicken that I know of.. KMyMoney is about the closest I’ve found but still misses the mark. I still have trouble with Quicken’s mobile, budgets, and reporting but if Intuit could fix those three things it would be the best personal finance program in existence!

      Reply
  47. Hi everyone,

    I read all your frustration and it brings me back to August 2012 where I was in that same situation after using Quicken since 1991. Beyond the changes and bugs I felt that I was entering Budget and Transactions, without really making progress or clearly seing where I was at. My wife and I kept on busting our budgets all the time.

    Then in my quest for an other solution, I stumbled on a product that I was about to discard in 15 Seconds because it looked to basic and simple. Still I took the time to check around the web site and read the methods behind it. I’ve intalled the trial version and never stopped using it since then. It was one of my best planning decision since 1991. We are now alway on track with our budget, free of mind and accumulating cash flow. Ugly expenses like buying new tires are now planned and almost pleasant, because the money is there, waiting for the expense. The software is YNAB and the web site is : http://www.youneedabudget.com/

    Now I’m still using Quicken 2012 for the Investment module only and looking for improvement or alternatives, Your comments are streering me away from upgrading to Quicken 2014. Thank you.

    Cheers

    Reply
  48. Just loaded quicken 14 I want my money back
    this is horrible
    I don’t want you making entries in my accounts automatically
    Your new development is as always crappy
    I want to go back to 12

    Reply
  49. I haven’t bought Quicken 2014. I still use Quicken 2011 Home and Business which I run on Windows 7 Home Edition in VirtualBox on Kubuntu Linux.

    Intuit ticked me off when I kept seeing others asking for a version for Linux. Yeah, I’m one of those people that truly HATES Windows! If you’ve ever tried Linux (I recommend Kubuntu…http://www.kubuntu.org), you’d understand why.

    So, when they sent me a disc in the mail, I decided to write their CEO and send back that disc. I told them that I had been a loyal user since Quicken ’95 and that I was extremely disappointed that Windows was the only platform for their Quicken product. With that, I sent them back, certified mail, their stupid 2014 disc. I never heard a single thing from them! Talk about not caring!

    What I’m looking for is a Linux Quicken alternative that will allow me to scan and store the resulting PDFs with each transaction. Proper reporting and split transactions are also a requirement. MoneyDance comes close and I’m monitoring how well their transaction attachment mechanism works. I close out each year’s file, so I’m hoping to start a brand-new file for 2015 in something other than Quicken.

    Losing both Quicken and Windows is a dream that I will one day achieve!

    Reply
    • Hi, Keith. I actually dual boot Windows 8 and Netrunner (which is based on Kubuntu). Since you’re a KDE user have you tried KMyMoney? I’ve played with GnuCash, MoneyDance, and KMyMoney and if I ever moved away from Quicken I’d likely switch to KMyMoney for personal finance.

      Reply
      • I have tried KMyMoney for KDE and it’s very much like Quicken, but it lacks the ability to attach a PDF file to each transaction which for me is a critical ability. I’m moving to Moneydance so I can lose Windows!!

        Reply
        • I tried MoneyDance 2015 trial on Fedora 21 with Gnome 3. It doesn’t render as well as I’d hoped and the transaction input form is a bit small on my laptop. Googling for help changing the configuration didn’t yield much (other than change your default Gnome default fonts).

          Reply
  50. turbo tax basic $14 won’t work because I sold one ….. stock. TurboTax want me to spend an additional $57 dollars so I can enter this $206 gain.
    TaxAct free … $10 to file does it all.

    Quicken 2015 won’t let you create an account without signing in online. I want my financial data on my disk, I don’t want to be forced to log in to use the program.

    Been with Quicken from their start ….. now I am done.

    Reply
    • I agree–I’m on 2015 now, which fixed a lot of my issues, but I’m kind of concerned that my banking credentials might be stored on Intuit’s servers now… which is not what I want. I may try MoneyDance. The problem is I have several institutions that don’t support to OFX so I’d be stuck manually entering a lot of transactions that are automatic with Quicken. I also heavily rely on the Projected Balances feature and bill reminders.

      Just curious, if people who have switched from Quicken to something else have been able to stick with it?

      Reply
      • Hi Ben,

        You may have seen this in previous post. I was with Quicken since 1991 for my personnal budget and switched to YNAB in August 2012. The simplicity of YNAB allows you to focus on how your money should work and the quick result is much better cash flow. They support transaction download and have transaction reminder. The phone and tablet apps are also easy to use. They have a trial version but if you want to buy it ($60) feel free to use this 10% YNAB coupon link : http://ynab.refr.cc/KBTZHT4

        I was still using Quicken 2012 Canadian for investing but since the online quote download is ending in April 2015 I went ahead and bought the ($109) 2015 version…thinking that at least I would see some new features. Was I disappointed to see that only the “2” had been replaced by a “5” at the end of the top window. (Again, only evaluating the investment portion of it)

        Good Luck.

        Reply
  51. Boys, agree with you all. Quicken user since the early ninety 1 and was using a Mac SE back then. Am sure it I tried to boot it up I would get my old files. This budget in the new version sucks. I guess ill just do it in exel.

    Reply
  52. I was looking into the Quicken Mileage Tracker and found MJ’s earlier post about the bug he found. So I tried it myself with Quicken 2013 (MJ’s crash was with Quicken 2014), and changing the trip category causes the most spectacular crash and burn I’ve ever seen with this program. Damaged my data file but it’s still intact.

    But this mileage tracker is a mystery. It takes in a lot of detailed information about trips, but then does nothing with it. I’ve entered tolls and parking, and then doesn’t display those expenses except by individual trip, no totals anywhere.

    Mileage tracker can’t export, so the data goes nowhere. Printing to a PDF truncates most fields, so can’t get it that way, either. Since the trip location and purpose fields are truncated, this can’t even be used for a document to support an IRS audit.

    Could someone tell me what the real purpose of this program really is???

    Reply
  53. Amazing that this two year old blog is still applicable. I, too, have been a Quicken user since the 90s. I had to upgrade every three years, and that led me to 2014 to keep my account downloads current. 2011 was a good program. 2014 has been terrible. It is BOGGY and BUGGY. I pay my bills sometimes two months in advance. I have a lot of scheduled transactions and when I try to pay them manually for the month it takes, most of the time, 15 seconds per transaction. (The accepted fix has something to do with turning of the tracer on the pointer – which did not work for me.) For a while, my account balances would be random numbers that had no correlation to the actual balance or cleared transactions. I would close the program and reopen it and most of the time that would straighten out the problem. One of the patches appears to have fixed that. The program still has a fair amount of crashes and will not automatically sync with the cloud. Customer service is a mess – chatting was slow as apparently there was one representative for several simultaneous calls. It took a long time for the CSR with a name I couldn’t pronounce to get back to me. He ran out of things to tell me and started searching the web blogs for answers from users. I was hoping that my next upgrade in 2017 would be much better, but it seems that 2016 is still a mess and there is no future for 2017 as Quicken is on the blocks for sale. It’s a shame as I can’t find a program that will do comparable tasks. I budget with regular transfer to savings goals accounts from my paycheck so the money is always ready when I need it. None of the other programs out there really addresses this need. (If you’re under budget, you just have a chunk of money in the account with no goal or tag. When you’re over budget, you have to find the money – unallotted – from somewhere. Sloppy accounting. Maybe some company will purchase this pig and make a good program again.

    Reply
    • Hi, Marty. I am still in the same boat as you. I just upgraded from 2015 to 2016 and it still isn’t any better–the only new feature in 2016 I noticed is “Online Bills” which supposedly has the ability for it to automatically get bill amounts by logging into online accounts–however, I setup one of my utility bill reminders to use this feature and a transaction hit my checking account that the Quicken Online Bill feature completely missed so even that’s unreliable.

      I’m also hopeful that Quicken will sell to a company that can take it back to a reliable product. What I’d really like to see is the software released as open source–Quicken was actually a great product until shortly after Intuit purchased Mint so if we could get the source for the 2010 or 2011 version we’d have a great starting point. In fact, for most people take Quicken 2011 and unlock the download feature that expires after 3 years and they’d be pretty happy.

      Reply
      • Absolutely! If they had not taken away my download feature I’d still be with 2011. That was actually a pretty good program. Here’s to hoping…

        Reply
        • When I got my money back for the 2014 mess I reverted to 2011 and I’m still using it.

          I still haven’t found something to replace it but I’m looking. Even if the latest versions worked, I’m in Canada and it doesn’t look like there are any phone or pad apps that work with the Canadian version. Personally I don’t think I’m giving any monetary support to Intuit. I’d love it if they sold it to another company that would understand customer service.

          Reply
          • Not much choice. 2014 was unusable for me. Clicking the reconcile button took 30 seconds to bring up the form. Just adding a register entry would hang. And that’s after purging all but the last 6 months. Tech finally logged into my computer and tried to fix it after multiple useless suggestions but finally told me that he didn’t see a problem. That’s after hours trying to fix it.

          • I agree that 2011 was a good program – as stated before, the only reason I upgraded was for transaction download convenience. Again, I pay bills on my register a month in advance. With 2011 I would whip through the scheduled transactions manually in 20 or so seconds for ALL transactions I wanted to pay. With 2014 each transaction takes about 15 secons PER. Seems to run better if I close out and reopen 2014 before paying bills. Auto entry is an option, but I prefer to manually enter to double check mentally that I’m not missing any bills. Online chat advised to change the home page view and to remove the tracer from the pointer (WTH?) which I did to no help. I’m picturing the 2014 program as a yard irrigation system that developed leaks: instead of replacing the long section that leaks with a new pipe there are just multiple line patches – put in with bad glue requiring more line patches… the system works, but there’s not much pressure at the end point and it looks like some solution Mr. Haney would have sold to Mr. Douglas – see if anyone gets that reference…!

  54. I’ve also been a long-time Quicken user and regularly (not just with 2014 – which I’ll keep until the every 3 years FORCED upgrade) run into things that have never been fixed or improved. Gave up a LONG time ago trying to get any support from the most CLOSED-UP-TIGHT software house in existence IMHO. I feel LOCKED into their non-standard, horribly thought-out software because everything is stuck in one proprietary file with limited import/export options. They have functionality I need/use that others don’t have and don’t have functionality that I need and WOULD use but I’ll never see. I’m an American living overseas and they just ignore the heck out of the realities that we ex-pats face. I’ve looked before, but I’m so frustrated, I’ll start looking again to figure out a way to get out of Intuit’s grasp. I’m SO GLAD I got out of TurboTax. The first year was a bit difficult, but I’m a happy TaxAct user now and I need to find a way to get out of Quicken now too (and try not to lose nearly 2 decades of valuable financial history). I will NEVER recommend that anyone EVER use Quicken.

    Thanks for letting me vent – God knows Intuit won’t.

    Reply
    • Mr. Leigh,

      Consider Money Dance: http://moneydance.com. I switched last year and haven’t looked back! It also works on Linux & Mac and has a nifty Android app that accompanies it. Definitely worth looking into.

      Reply
        • I looked briefly at MoneyDance. I was interested in the mobile app to go with it and importing from my existing Quicken. It apparently imports a qic file though I didn’t try it. What turned me off was that the mobile apps require drop box and there didn’t seem to be a demo that would allow me to import data. That was some time ago.

          Reply
        • I don’t think so. I bought it last year and the way that The Infinite Kind, the people who produce MoneyDance, says it works is this: You buy one license per household UNLESS you are using it for business and then it’s one per computer. You can use it on as many computers as you wish in your household and when the next version becomes available, it’s usually 1/2 price to current users. I think it cost me $49.95 last year, so the next version should be around $25 when it becomes available.

          Updates to Money Dance are free. I think the last release date was September 2015.

          They do offer a free trial…unregistered version that allows 100 transactions for free before you have to buy it. It’s worth downloading and trying.

          Oh, and they also take suggestions from users for new features/improvements for future versions. They are attentive to their user base, unlike Intuit.

          Reply

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