I've got no accounting savvy to speak of; I was just keeping track of all my finances through spreadsheets, which was going alright, but I thought it was time to try and unify and organize my efforts. As the incumbent standard, I chose Quicken 2011. Thank you Quicken and Amazon! I'm a salary man and occasional freelancer, renting an apartment with a long-term partner.
Check Free was offered by the electronic check clearing corporation, which I began using in 1990. It's all about time management, how you manage your finances, and if you can reduce your time spent on the task, in a word 'Quality', or 'Lean', whichever you prefer.
I don't see anything new from the previous version. If I know that I have to pay $2700 this month for car repair (an unusual expense), and I enter it into the Planning section, the program does not recognize it and say "Hey, you don't have enough." I purchased Quicken 2011 H&B because I received an email from quicken saying they would no longer support my old version (Q 2008), and I wasn't all that satisfied with it either. So I upgraded.
Software is still horrible but at least quicken will refund your money....no so much for Amazon. I am no bookkeeper. I used to be able to upgrade with a reasonable discount after providing proof of purchase of a previous version. Now, they may give 10 % if you make the effort to push it. I did this for a couple of reasons not important here. So far I have not had any issues with the software. The error message actually directed me to Intuit's website (via an embedded link) to insure that my financial institution was supported. It had a search box and link driven letters to hop right to your institution. Things may have changed, but I gave up on them years ago because the experience was so painful. It was bad enough they just read the help file to me, but their having a poor command of English made it difficult to follow them as well. So I decided to start "fresh" with a new Quicken file and import all my accounts from my financial institutions. I then added the loans and assets fresh.
I really would like to hope that, over time and with consistent noodling around, I'll manage to make Quicken Home & Business 2011 into more than a glorified digital checkbook, but for right now, I'm no better off than I was with my spreadsheets. After starting a new business venture in rental real estate Quicken Home & Business has been a tool I use quite often. Great, I thought, now let me find the applet that shows my income for the period, and that will serve me almost as well as the 2010 solution. Gee, doesn't seem to exist. No, they are a different class of payee. So I have to create a new payee for everyone I want to send payments to, that's right, there's no way to say "this payee is an online payee now," you actually have to create a new payee entry.
Intuit seems to intent on new whiz-bang features, including mobile payments and other mobile apps, that they are neglecting the very benefit that put them on the map in the first place - easy usability! I've been skeptical about going to Quicken after using QuickBooks for years as personal finance software.
Check Free was offered by the electronic check clearing corporation, which I began using in 1990. It's all about time management, how you manage your finances, and if you can reduce your time spent on the task, in a word 'Quality', or 'Lean', whichever you prefer.
I don't see anything new from the previous version. If I know that I have to pay $2700 this month for car repair (an unusual expense), and I enter it into the Planning section, the program does not recognize it and say "Hey, you don't have enough." I purchased Quicken 2011 H&B because I received an email from quicken saying they would no longer support my old version (Q 2008), and I wasn't all that satisfied with it either. So I upgraded.
Software is still horrible but at least quicken will refund your money....no so much for Amazon. I am no bookkeeper. I used to be able to upgrade with a reasonable discount after providing proof of purchase of a previous version. Now, they may give 10 % if you make the effort to push it. I did this for a couple of reasons not important here. So far I have not had any issues with the software. The error message actually directed me to Intuit's website (via an embedded link) to insure that my financial institution was supported. It had a search box and link driven letters to hop right to your institution. Things may have changed, but I gave up on them years ago because the experience was so painful. It was bad enough they just read the help file to me, but their having a poor command of English made it difficult to follow them as well. So I decided to start "fresh" with a new Quicken file and import all my accounts from my financial institutions. I then added the loans and assets fresh.
I really would like to hope that, over time and with consistent noodling around, I'll manage to make Quicken Home & Business 2011 into more than a glorified digital checkbook, but for right now, I'm no better off than I was with my spreadsheets. After starting a new business venture in rental real estate Quicken Home & Business has been a tool I use quite often. Great, I thought, now let me find the applet that shows my income for the period, and that will serve me almost as well as the 2010 solution. Gee, doesn't seem to exist. No, they are a different class of payee. So I have to create a new payee for everyone I want to send payments to, that's right, there's no way to say "this payee is an online payee now," you actually have to create a new payee entry.
Intuit seems to intent on new whiz-bang features, including mobile payments and other mobile apps, that they are neglecting the very benefit that put them on the map in the first place - easy usability! I've been skeptical about going to Quicken after using QuickBooks for years as personal finance software.
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