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Show Me The Money - Microsoft Money Vs. Quicken
prostoalex writes "The weblog entry 'Show me the money' is an interesting tale of Microsoft Money from a developer who now manages software development in the Tablet PC group at Microsoft. Having worked before with Money, which was assigned a task of beating Quicken, Philip describes the disasters that happen when marketing and advertising people rule the software development: 'Money's success or failure was judged using the same metrics as MSN's websites. Metrics like minutes viewed per month. Like ad revenue. Like click-through. Stickiness. I am not making this up.'"
I keep all my financial details in a spreadsheet (OpenOffice.Org calc of course :) and with a few simple formulas to calculate totals, I can keep track of all my cash with no issues whatsoever.
The learning curve was fairly high, not being an accountant and not knowing anything about this Double Entry Bookkeeping thing.
I had used Quicken before, and found it OK, but I don't normally run windows...
Once I made it through the Included tutorials and documentation, I have used GNUcash regularly for the last year or so and am a very happy user.
It is unfortunate that GNUcash is not on enough radar screens to show up in a weblog like this one. A REAL comparison would be nice.
Here's what Microsoft Money tells me:
What bills are due soon, and how much I will probably owe. It helps remind me about twice-a-year bills (auto insurance) and once-every-few-years bills (magazine subscriptions).
An estimate of my cash flow as impacted by bills, salary, and other expenses, projected with some accuracy for one month, six months, years, etc.
Categorization of my expenses. I can calculate my "lazy belly" ratio (money spent on eating out over money spent on groceries), look for trends, and look where I can cut back on expenses
Set a budget, and track how I'm doing. This makes the cash flow estimates more reliable
Track my 401K and retirement accounts, my Roth IRAs, and after-tax account. This includes tracking the performance of individual stocks and funds, and calculating personal rates of return. I also get a reminder to deposit money in the Roths every month.
Quickly determine when I can safely move money from checking to savings, and when I need to move from savings to checking.
Plan for buying a new car, a new house, or bringing home a baby.
Plan for retirement, by estimating my long-term needs (college, health costs, desired retirement date), and creating a plan to meet those needs.
In short, Microsoft Money lets me feel in control of my finances. It has saved me money, in avoiding overdraft charges due to unexpected bills. It has made me money, in being able to keep more in an interest bearing savings account, keeping checking as low as possible. Finally, I am saving more than ever, and I have a retirement plan which I believe will work.
The fact that you think only 1% need this, then maybe you need to think about your retirement needs, and see if you are keeping a good eye on your cash.
I hate to admit it (as a Linux user) that I use Microsoft Money. I've used MS Money since 2001, and the reason? Because I could try it before I bought it. As far as I can tell there's no way to try the latest version of Quicken without first plunking down some cash. And then if I don't like it, I'm stuck with something that I don't like.
I've tried gnucash and Moneydance. Frankly, they suck. I would love to see a usable personal finance software package from the F/OSS crowd that will run on my linux boxes. But I haven't found one yet. The only two options (IMHO) are Quicken and MS Money. And I'm not going to pay for Quicken until I'm sure that it will meet my needs. And personal financial management software is absolutely critical in my ability to maintain what I espouse in my signature. I use MS Money every day. I skip a day every week or so. But if I ever skipped a week, I'd feel very uncomfortable about my personal finances.
So, I'd much prefer to use a F/OSS package that accomplishes what I can do in MS Money. And, in lieu of that, I'd prefer one that was platform independant. But nothing that I've tried yet has come even close.
FYI: I run MS Money under linux using Win4Lin
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
erm.
quicken and money can now log on to the bank *for you* and download the transactions, differentiating between what it already knows and new transactions.
I use Money for account management, and I've never had the problem with duplicates that you describe.
I currently keep my records in spreadsheets and on paper. I would use Gnucash, but its support for check printing leaves a bit to be desired (can only print one check at a time on a sheet of three).
Yep, the fancy features don't get in the way of the ones you want first. GNU cash has very sophisticated accounting, but I'm easily able to use it to just balance my check book. Other stuff, like being able to deal with Yen, stocks, taxes and the very powerful reports are all there but not obtrusive. When I use GNUcash, I'm not bowled over by feeling of gee wiz bang, and doubts about trusting my money to the program.
Kmoney, I'm sure is another excellent program. Everything else KDE rocks and everytime I do a review of a KDE thingy, I end up hooked. GNUcash is good enough that I have not made the effort, yet.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Quicken has this feature in the Calendar. It shows a chart at the bottom that will tell you, based on your scheduled bills or payments, how much money you'll have for each day of the month.
Clearly last time you checked was in 1979.
Many banks support direct connect download and many more support indirect downloads from their website (also automated within PFMs) Among the direct support ones are Wells Fargo, BofA and Citybank, as well as credit cards like AmEx, Discover, and MBNA (they are behind a LOT of branded cards). There is a full list somewhere and it is pretty long.
I've never had any duplication issues either. Quicken (which I use) detects duplication and matches transactions when it detects duplicates, which works great 99% of the time - sometimes you do have duplicate transactions and occasionaly it trips up on them - But it also never does anything you did not approve, thus if you are paying attention it is not an issue.
The reason not many people use it is because people are affraid of the unknown. I tried to convince several people to use them, and most did not understand what it is or how it would work. On the other hand the few that listened are now avid users. Most of the people I know who use these programs were near broke in college and smart enough to know that something like Quicken is the only way to survive without spending tons of time on managing finances. (I love that forecasting graph in early quicken, the goal was always to find a way to have it cross the 0 line more than a week from now.)
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
I have been a Quicken user for longer than most people around here have been out of diapers. I started back with Quicken 3.0 for DOS.
Ever since I discovered Linux, I have wanted a replacement that I could live with. I tried lots of stuff running Quicken with Crossover, GNUCash, etc..
But Moneydance wins. It looks a little primiative but it really really is nicely done. It runs on any platform Linux, Windows, MacOSX, Solaris, HPUX etc.. It has a great development company. Email them and they will email you back in a day or less with detailed technical information. Try that with Quicken and Microsoft.
There is also a very active and helpful online community for support.
It supports most all online banks systems because it totally emulates quicken to the banks. It even has integrated online bill pay that works great with my BancOne account.
Try it... for $29.99 its one the best peices of software out there. If your not against paying for anything its great.
There is also a free 30 trial that will import all your data from your old program.
http://www.moneydance.com