Slashdot Mirror
Financial Services Software for Linux?
Shakrai asks: "I find myself in the process of building a new computer system and at a crossroads for what OS to put on it. I have used Linux for years as a server for my home network and as a workstation dual booting with Windows. I have find myself unable to get away from Windows entirely because of the large amount of older games that I retain and still like to play. Nevertheless I am less then eager to pony up $80-$200 for a Windows license for my new box and I figure that I can learn to live without most of the Windows games that I enjoy. There still seems to be one stumbling block before I could totally abandon Windows though: Financial Services Software. For the last six years I have been quite the avid user of Quicken. Every single investment and transaction that I have ever made resides in Quicken. Is there a package for Linux out there that even remotely provides the same functionality?"
"I don't really use Quicken's online services (why pay for something my credit union gives me for free) but I pretty much use every other function of the product (tax estimation, investment tracking, reports, etc). Is this going to keep me stuck in Windows land? Short of writing my own replacement for Quicken (not very likely) what are my options?"
Not what you were looking for, but consider it. You can run open source software on it, you can even run Linux on it. Most of the big games get ported eventually. Best of all, it has Quicken (which I use myself) and other big name software (including an excellent version of Office). You won't have to re-enter all your data (as another poster talked about), you can just import it.
Seriously, give it a try for a while. It's too bad Apple removed that 30 day free trial of a Mac Mini.
Not willing to go Mac? Can you run Quicken (maybe an older version) well in Wine? What about running VMWare or Bochs and running it inside Windows in there? You don't need the performance so it should be quite useable.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If you actually don't like the alternative, and decide to go back to Quicken, then you get to re-enter all the data.
I'd have to run them in parallel for awhile until I was happy with the Linux replacement or decided to keep Quicken. I did this when I test-drove Microsoft Money for a few weeks -- kept updating my Quicken file alongside the Money one. I eventually gave up on Money though -- nicer interface but it wasn't as powerful.
I had thought Wine was pretty far along on supporting Quicken. If you already paid for the Quicken License, are pretty much happy with it, and WINE supports it, why bother switching?
That's an idea. Though that might be hit or miss. I suppose I'd have to try it to see how well it works. I'm not totally tied to Quicken though -- I guess I posed the question because I wanted to see if there was decent financial software out there for Linux and what people thought of it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Given enough time I'm sure I could duplicate pretty much all of the Quicken functionality that I need (although stuff that updates often like tax tables or stock quotes would be a PITA).
Tax tables don't update all that often. I'm assuming you just want an estimate, you're not going to get something very accurate unless you know a lot about the tax code in the first place. Quicken's tax estimation features work well if you've got everything coded up perfectly, but if not then it's garbage in-garbage out. Just taking your salary, capital gains/losses, and withholding is probably enough to get a good estimate. If you have a lot of itemized deductions it might be slightly more complicated, but not much. And if you run a business, well, you said Quicken, not Quickbooks, so you probably don't. If you do, then you (or whoever) should be doing the books for the business in a separate program and importing the results once a month or whatever.
There's a ton of software out there for doing stock quotes. This is something I personally don't think should be integrated too tightly with your accounting software. Personally I use a homemade script to keep track of my investment accounts on a day-to-day basis, and then I make a mark-to-market entry at the end of each month. I get the data from Yahoo, see http://www.gummy-stuff.org/Yahoo-data.htm, but there are software packages available which can use real-time data that you pay for. In my opinion you need specialized software to deal with stocks (bonds, futures, et cetera).
But why go to all that trouble when software already (or should) exist for this problem?
Mainly because the software out there really sucks. Someone who doesn't have a basic understanding of accounting principles is almost surely going to do nothing but make a mess out of things, and someone who does have an understanding of accounting isn't going to need the vast majority of the functionality. Ask just about any accountant what they think of Quicken. Most likely they'll tell you it's a Mickey Mouse program that flaunts basic accounting principles.
If you really want to spend the time to manage your finances on your own - if you benefit from having home access to the things that Quicken provides you with - learn about accounting first. Find out what a debit and a credit are, learn about a ledger and a chart of accounts. You'll learn to hate Quicken just like us accountants.