4 ms·

Quicken is good when it works with your bank, I have a bank that doesn't work with Quicken and only exports to an older Quicken file format that is no longer su

Quicken is good when it works with your bank, I have a bank that doesn't work with Quicken and only exports to an older Quicken file format that is no longer supported. I remember when Microsoft Money was Sun downed, I thought Quicken had beaten them. But it seems Inuit still has financial problems and sold Quicken.

yitchelle 11y ago
Amazingly Microsoft Money Sunset is still available as a download and free to use. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/search/result.aspx?q=Money+plus+sunset&form=dlc https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/search/result.aspx?q=Money+p...
- the_unknown 11y ago
  Thank You!! This is the best news I heard all day. I loved MS Money and only moved away because I thought it was inevitable. I didn't know about this option.
- Tempest1981 11y ago
  How does it compare to Quicken, and can it still download transactions?
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    The download transactions used to require access to a website that I think Microsoft took down that would connect to banks. Most banks had to provide an API for MS-Money to download data from them, and not all banks support that API anymore. You might find that some banks still provide MS-Money format files for download that you can import. Here is how you used to do it for an unsupported bank: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/836196 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/836196 Some banks still support MS-Money others do not. MS-Money will take QIF or QFX files and import them I think. Even if your bank does not support MS-Money file formats you can find a converter here: http://ms-money-file-converter.en.informer.com/ http://ms-money-file-converter.en.informer.com/ I think Quicken is more advanced than MS-Money. It has been updated to modern technologies while MS-Money is frozen in time and a legacy app.
thepangolino 11y ago
You touched on something I've always wondered about: what's up with all those different transaction data formats? What's wrong with simple CSv files?
- joshuaheard 11y ago
  Quicken switched to its own proprietary format for which it charged banks a license fee.
- sizzzzlerz 11y ago
  Consumer lock-in. If its proprietary, so much the better.
- paulryanrogers 11y ago
  CSV is strictly a single table, so it cannot normalize the data. You can end up with a lot of them or a lot of columns and empty cells.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    I'm drawing a blank on the normalization that would be relevant for transactions. Do you mean something like "the sub-sub-account determines the sub-account which determines the account"?
    - orionblastar 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization You find that database armatures usually store everything in one table. The professionals break things up into different tables using normalization. For example you usually have a table with names in it and an ID, and then you have a transaction table that has the ID in it plus the transaction with a foreign key going back to the table with names in it. Could be names of each account or checking or savings account with an ID assigned to them. Thing is you could be downloading more than one account and you don't want them mixed up into one CSV file. You want them separate in normalized tables. Now you could just have a CSV file with Account ID in it and then have a separate CSV file with the name of the account with the ID in it. But that just gets confusing. What if you are a business and have several accounts you want to download and process? You don't want them all mixed up together. Yeah there could be sub-accounts as well that have an ID as a foreign key and then another Foreign key to the main account or sub-sub account etc. When you get into accounting and you have sub accounts and sub-sub accounts to track spending you have to have a way to figure out how they work. Here is an example of tables with sub accounts: http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1855469.html http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1855...
jd3 11y ago
I believe our bank just stopped accepting stuff from the version of quicken that my father uses to do his financials. To this day he runs quicken on a 2005 (!) iMac G5, which is his daily driver.
- sizzzzlerz 11y ago
  I'm still running it on a Mac iBook from 2004. Its the only thing I use it for because I can't stand later versions of Quicken on either the Mac or a PC. Granted, I'm only using it as a checkbook register but it does it so well, why look for something else?

yitchelle 11y ago

Amazingly Microsoft Money Sunset is still available as a download and free to use. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/search/result.aspx?q=Money+plus+sunset&form=dlc https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/search/result.aspx?q=Money+p...

the_unknown 11y ago
Thank You!! This is the best news I heard all day. I loved MS Money and only moved away because I thought it was inevitable. I didn't know about this option.
Tempest1981 11y ago
How does it compare to Quicken, and can it still download transactions?
- orionblastar 11y ago
  The download transactions used to require access to a website that I think Microsoft took down that would connect to banks. Most banks had to provide an API for MS-Money to download data from them, and not all banks support that API anymore. You might find that some banks still provide MS-Money format files for download that you can import. Here is how you used to do it for an unsupported bank: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/836196 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/836196 Some banks still support MS-Money others do not. MS-Money will take QIF or QFX files and import them I think. Even if your bank does not support MS-Money file formats you can find a converter here: http://ms-money-file-converter.en.informer.com/ http://ms-money-file-converter.en.informer.com/ I think Quicken is more advanced than MS-Money. It has been updated to modern technologies while MS-Money is frozen in time and a legacy app.

thepangolino 11y ago

You touched on something I've always wondered about: what's up with all those different transaction data formats? What's wrong with simple CSv files?

joshuaheard 11y ago
Quicken switched to its own proprietary format for which it charged banks a license fee.
sizzzzlerz 11y ago
Consumer lock-in. If its proprietary, so much the better.
paulryanrogers 11y ago
CSV is strictly a single table, so it cannot normalize the data. You can end up with a lot of them or a lot of columns and empty cells.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  I'm drawing a blank on the normalization that would be relevant for transactions. Do you mean something like "the sub-sub-account determines the sub-account which determines the account"?
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization You find that database armatures usually store everything in one table. The professionals break things up into different tables using normalization. For example you usually have a table with names in it and an ID, and then you have a transaction table that has the ID in it plus the transaction with a foreign key going back to the table with names in it. Could be names of each account or checking or savings account with an ID assigned to them. Thing is you could be downloading more than one account and you don't want them mixed up into one CSV file. You want them separate in normalized tables. Now you could just have a CSV file with Account ID in it and then have a separate CSV file with the name of the account with the ID in it. But that just gets confusing. What if you are a business and have several accounts you want to download and process? You don't want them all mixed up together. Yeah there could be sub-accounts as well that have an ID as a foreign key and then another Foreign key to the main account or sub-sub account etc. When you get into accounting and you have sub accounts and sub-sub accounts to track spending you have to have a way to figure out how they work. Here is an example of tables with sub accounts: http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1855469.html http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1855...

jd3 11y ago

I believe our bank just stopped accepting stuff from the version of quicken that my father uses to do his financials. To this day he runs quicken on a 2005 (!) iMac G5, which is his daily driver.

sizzzzlerz 11y ago
I'm still running it on a Mac iBook from 2004. Its the only thing I use it for because I can't stand later versions of Quicken on either the Mac or a PC. Granted, I'm only using it as a checkbook register but it does it so well, why look for something else?