Honestly, either the marketing data is glossing over the online product's shortcomings simply because the developers haven't yet gotten it up to snuff, or someone at Intuit is totally missing the boat on the the opportunities that could be had with this product! From reading the marketing material, the online product seems to be positioned as suiting the needs of some target audience, for which this limited feature set is tailored.
I sincerely hope not! I, for one, would very quickly jump onto the online product and even pay a reasonable monthly or annual subscription fee if the online product contained all of the functionality of the desktop product. I actually use most of what's in the Deluxe version, and I tend to work from several different computers, but it isn't really desirable to install a copy on all of those and I'm not sure that I'm even licensed to do that anyway. At present I'm having to resort to one of those whenever I need to do home finances. A web-based product would be a great solution, and whenever I upgrade my computer or reinstall the OS, this would be one less product to reinstall, and one less application data to back up and restore and reconfigure to my liking.
In summary, I do have good reason to vastly prefer a web product over a locally installed product but the online version isn't even close to doing what I need -- no split transactions, no cash accounts (I'm an accountant, and this drives me nuts), no subcategories, no ability to transfer my Quicken Deluxe data into the web version, and on and on and on..... Here's a call from an end user for a full implementation of at least the Deluxe version as a web product, even if I need to pay a subscription for it. Hear me please, Intuit!
Use Quicken online and Quicken simultaneously to categorize expenses Jan 26, 2009 06:34 am
This post is about: Quicken Online
I love Quicken online for the purpose it serves, to easily create and maintain a budget. Now that I have carefully categorized all expenses I would like to have my data in my regular Quicken Premier categorized in the same way without retyping all of the data. How can I do that.
Just signed on and very disappointed - no manual input, no subcategories, no way to divy up onto tax forms, no split transactions, not really useable for small home business, barely recognizable with what I have with boxed Quicken - though data presentation is nicer.
I would also be willing to pay a fee for an on-line version of Quicken Desktop. I've been using Quicken Desktop for 10+ years. When I got married, however, and my wife an I merged our financial tracking, it was impossible for us to "share" in the management as all the information was on my computer.
This was such an issue that when Quicken Online came along, we switched to the Online version so we can both access and update our financial tracking.
However, I sorely miss even some of the very simple features of Quicken like:
- transfers between accounts (having to add two transactions in Quicken Online where I only had to add one in Quicken Desktop)
- more robust "quick fill" transactions
- basic categorized reports for tax and budgeting purposes
- more sophisticated "recurring transaction" features
I appears that you are starting to add some of these - like the "split" transactions, which was another thing I missed. Glad to have it now. I'm also a bit nervous about having my financial data in a place were I could technically loose it. Only current solution is to download and backup periodically. I'd like to see an "archive" feature that would dump a complete backup of all financial information in the system.
The Quicken Online ability for "shared" access and management of finances for multiple people from multiple locations is definitely a killer feature and was enough for me to drop the desktop product. I'd be willing to pay to see more of the Desktop features in the Online product, or a seamless integration of the Desktop and Online products.
Thanks for putting this product out there and I look forward to the new features.
I have been a MS Money user since 1995. This year's news about Microsoft's decision to discontinue Money sent me into a panic.
Intuit sent an "Open Letter to MS Money Customers" on 6/11/09 stating:
"Quicken has been the leader in personal finance software for more than 25 years and we’re so pleased to welcome Money customers into the Quicken family. If you’ve never tried Quicken before, we know you’ll enjoy the ease, depth and functionality of our desktop products."
Since Quicken claims to be "the leader", why are BASIC personal finance features such as forecasting cashflow in terms of up to 12 months of future income/expenses and flexibility to support two wage earner housholds with differing pay schedules missing from Quicken Online? Perhaps this is offered in the boxed retail product similar to MS Money - but seriously folks, such functionality is bread and butter to any personal finance app worth anything, free or otherwise.
For now, its comforting MS intends to make available an unsupported version of Money (minus billpay) in the future.
A work-around:Install "Go To My PC" (no plug intended) or one of the free programs of the same type on each computer from which access to Quicken Desktop is desired. Quicken Desktop would be installed on only one of the computers.
I've been using QO, MINT and Yodlee. All three have features that are good but I find that MINT has the best features at the current time. Compared to QO they have a better budgeting, reporting and are able to split transaction over a month all things that are important for me. The nice thing with Yodlee is that they also track you reward programs and more. Yodlee and Mint both allow you to track you net worth by adding asset and liability accounts. Assets like you home and car. They can pull the value of your home in from Zillow or Cyberhomes as well.
The great news for all of us is that since the acquisition of Mint by Intuit, the decision was announced a week or two ago that Mint is more or less the surviving product but that certain features from Quicken Online that didn't exist in Mint will be implemented, such as the extensive list of financial institutions. We'll still be a long way from having a web-based equivalent of the desktop product but at least we'll be a few features closer and we'll soon have one web product that has most of the features that were previously split between two web products. Progress, alas. As I said above, this application is exactly what one would find more useful on the web than in a desktop product, particularly those of us who happen to use more than one computer.
So we'll keep reminding those who can make this happen, keep prodding them along as best we can, and be on the lookout for progress toward that end. The "cloud" is happening, and hopefully it'll be useful things such as this at the forefront of it rather than the things that matter less and need a web presence less.
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