Quicken Mobile General Feedback

Unknown · June 2017

After using, there is room for improvement. I have been a long time faithful Quicken user and was excited to hear about using the mobile app. After using it for a few months now, there is room for improvement to cut down on the frustration level:

Have the ability to enter a
new payee
Have it default to the last
category for an existing payee
Let me choose what the
default category is going to be on the search screen
The ability to work offline
I keep having to reset
Security, meaning I turn it on and then later have to turn it back on
Make it easier to enter
splits, it's very confusing
List the categories in
alphabetical order when searching
When you search for a payee

change the default to blank
or make it much easier to erase the Quicken default
Sometimes local businesses
show up, most of the time they don’t

When I look at the detail
transactions and scroll down, the program jumps way back in history (very
frustrating)

mshiggins · June 2017

I don't recall having any problem creating a new payee.

Unknown · June 2017

I can create one in the desktop version - no problem. When I try on my mobile device, it does not let me. I am using Andriod - are you?

mshiggins · June 2017

iPhone.

Unknown · June 2017

I gave up using Quicken Mobile completely.

My experience was:

1 Would work for a while. Then stopped downloading altogether...sometimes with an error message, sometimes not.

2 Would corrupt my budget, for some reason.

3 Would change transaction categories and names randomly on my desktop.

4 Corrupted my Quicken Cloud so badly that I had to create a completely new Intuit/Quicken ID and password

I didn't/couldn't deal with the aggravation any more...so I just "unattached" my accounts, created ONE dummy cash account with nothing in it, synced just that one account to the Quicken Cloud and deleted the app from my mobile phone.

This is just my experience. Others may not have these issues, but looking at the Quicken mobile app reviews, I'm certainly not the only one.

What I don't get is why Quicken has such difficulty syncing data to its mobile app. Others do it very quickly, very easy and very accurately. Why is Quicken programming making this so incredibly difficult for its users?

Unknown · June 2017

I agree - where are the quality testers on this. Its like they didnt test or didnt test very much. I hope Quicken addresses these issues. It is affecting my perception (and it appears others too) of their commitment. They do so many other things well, but they need to course correct the mobile version.

splasher · June 2017

Just tested this on an Android phone.

Got the following screenshots starting with the add a transaction screen:

Unknown · June 2017

#4 on you list is possible, and has been for a while.

Most of the other things you mention aren't "quality", they are either feature requests or opinions on how something should work, and other people may or may not agree with you.

On the "quality testers", well I do believe they are a "bit lite" on this feature for a number of reasons. But note it is a misconception to believe that just because there are bugs in the software, that people testing it didn't see and report them. There isn't enough people/time to fix all of the reported bugs in Quicken/Mobile.

It is also a misconception that the QA testers can test every combination, every time patch release Quicken/Mobile. The reason is because there are too many combinations, but even more so in this case there is a problem with "long term use".
As gmailis1 points out mobile tends to have problems over a long period time.
Setting up for testing "long term" is pretty much impossible. It is one area where actual use brings out the problems over time.

And since it can't be reproduced very easily it also means that it less likely to get fixed.

But the "lite" part I was referring to is the beta testing. Of than actual users using and reporting on problems this is about the only place where you would see "long term" testing. QA (internal testing) will be about testing that next patch, and running regression testing. It is highly unlikely to be "long term" testing.

Well most of the beta testers are long time users of Quicken. And as such have seen the reported long term problems with Quicken mobile, including corrupting of the Desktop data. The result I think is that other than beta testing or some light use on a test data file, these people would not really be using it day to day, and over long periods of time.

And then there is the testing procedures. Quicken mobile data is connected to the data file and the Intuit Id. In a beta test you don't want to affect your real data file.
So it is the recommended practice to copy the data file, and change the Intuit Id.
This very act means that you have just started with new Quicken mobile data.

One would really need to maintain both a real Quicken data file/Intuit Id, and a test data file/Intuit Id over long periods of time to really get the proper testing done.

So in fact I believe that the only real way these kind of problems can be addressed is if Quicken Inc was to work work user that is both using it long term, and having these problems. But I don't see Quicken Inc's procedures working that way.

When a customer comes to Quicken support with such problems, support is almost never actually is working to find the cause of problems and feed that back to the developers(it isn't their job). They are working to get the customer to a "workable" state if possible. And that might mean "delete cloud data....", which of course just covers up problems.

At one time it was my belief that Quicken Inc wanted problems reported through Quicken support. But it was brought up to my attention that isn't the case. They want them reported here. And they said there is a feedback system in place to get them to the developers. Sounds good until you realize that not only is it pretty common for bugs not to be clearly defined in this context(customers are seldom good at detail problem reports), "long term" problems with mobile would clearly need hands on troubleshooting and most likely a copy of the problem data file.

Unknown · June 2017

IMHO: Quicken does not need to hire more testers, they need to use automated testing practices. Then they will get better testing coverage and be able to do it repeatedly.

Unknown · June 2017

They also should bring in a mobile usability expert to get better UI design.

Unknown · June 2017

I was touching "Done" instead of "Create kjh". There is one of my issues resolved! Thank you for the info!

splasher · June 2017

Who says they don't use automated testing practices? I've used that type of software when I worked and it is GREAT if all of your computers are alike such as in the corporate world where every one does not have all sorts of different software installed.

But that is not the case with the typical Windows user with there being hundreds of manufacturers varying assortments of software and users with Windows at different versions (Vista, 7, 8, & 10) and level of patching, there is NO way to simulate those situations in the automated testing process.

Unknown · June 2017

sorry, we will have to agree to disagree. I dont know if they use automated testing or not. Someone said they should hire more testers, that was my reply to that. It will be less expensive in the long run to use automated testing than hiring more people. As far as I am concerned - I look at the resulting product. They have a much higher quality product for the desktop than they do for mobile. As far as different versions of Windows, you have to draw the line somewhere. Mainstream support for Vista and Windows 7 is already past. Windows 8 mainstream support end of life is only 6 months away. There ARE ways to incorporate better testing practices - Google, Amazon, etc. have figured it out. Why can't Quicken?

Unknown · June 2017

I agree with Splasher. Like he said we have no knowledge of their internal testing. They may or may not be using automated testing.

A lot of people that propose automatic testing seldom understand its limits.

I worked along side of QA groups for large part of my career and even helped some groups use such tools. And tie them into my primary job of writing Software Configuration Software.

I have watched several QA groups try as hard as they can to use automatic GUI testing when in fact the GUI was changing too much for that kind of software. There are two basic modes for it, recording/replay, and programing/scripts. Recording is simple, but breaks on any changes. Programing actions takes a lot more skill, but is a bit more robust, but it certainly isn't 100%. The groups always wanted to automate the GUI in this way. It is certainly more interesting (and pays better) for people to "program it" instead of just having a person just doing in by hand. But most of the time it goes something like, run the tests, some fail not because there is anything wrong with the program, but because it was changed and the testing is lagging behind (seldom can this testing software be changed proactively). So they go into the testing software and make changes and then try running the tests again.
Note this kind of testing is only good for regression testing (making sure you have not broken existing functionality). It isn't good for discovering new problems.

Unit testing (limits/boundary) lack the testing of the "different paths" that are the main cause complex problems like I was talking about. And it is impossible to do 100% path testing. So you end up trying to guess the mostly used paths that a user might go down, but that in itself guides you away from those obscure problem paths that a user might go down.

We can even leave out the different Windows operating system versions and ignoring other software on the desktop/mobile device, and still have an extremely complex system.

Mobile GUI, Android or iOS, data resides on servers, is synced with financial institutions, is synced with Windows Desktop Quicken (not to mention this is also been done on Desktop Mac). And they all interact. Add to this that several of the problems only manifest themselves with longer term use.

So possible sources of introducing bad data/bugs.

Quicken data file (and any process that puts data into it). This includes transactions, entries in the budget, ...
Syncing Quicken data with the server, this is sort of a special case of #1.
Syncing server data with what comes from the Quicken data file.
Syncing server data with financial institution.
Mobile user input.

These all interact. And because no user has the same setup as far as data, financial institutions, and user input, the possible combinations are close to infinite.

In my opinion Quicken Mobile represents what happens when you violate you original design criteria.

It doesn't take much searching to find people that would like to have multiple users, and "synced" data across several machines.

And what has been the standard response to that request?
"No Quicken has been designed for single user, non network environments."

Contrast that with say Quickbooks. The database is a network, multiple user setup.
It was geared to do this from the get go.

The interesting thing about making sure data is in sync, or multiple users is that other than maybe performance issues, it is just about as complex for two users/data sets, as it is for 3, or 4 or ...

One has to ask themselves, if the Quicken developers didn't feel they could sync two Quicken data files given the existing framework. Why did they believe they could sync the data file and the server data file, without having the same problems they were fearful of?

One might think well it is different (easier), because the server data doesn't have all of the same information that is in the Quicken data file. But just the fact that is different adds the complexity of translating back and forth between the two format.

Unknown · June 2017

This has gone down a path I didnt intend to go

I apologize I went down the rabbit hole. As a customer, I really do not care how Quicken determines they should test - automated or not, scripts or software - to me is does not matter. What matters to me is that they produce a viable mobile product - as they have already done so on the desktop. We can debate the merits of HOW they should go about it all day long. At the end of the day Quicken is putting their name on its product, and to date the mobile product still has room for improvement.

Unknown · June 2017

Agree wholeheartedly. For as great as the desktop product works, Quicken did believe it had a quality product for mobile or they would not have released it. They have damaged their brand.

Unknown · June 2017

In truth I have long ago stopped wonder why they can't do such things.
(I actually shouldn't have responded to the "how testing" is done, but I always get tempted by the fact that people tend to over simplify what is needed to fix problems like this.)

If I ask a person to do something many times, and I keep getting say 80% of the results I expect, then I change what I expect from the person.

Like Darin said it really doesn't matter how they test, and or develop for that matter.
Unless you believe that our comments here are going to change how they do things, then I see no reason to believe we will see different results.

And they have been "listening" to the same kind of comments for years, I see no reason to believe much will change. Whatever the constraints are, they are clearly not going to change that much.

One might have believed that the selling of Quicken would be "a big change", but I always had doubts, and I think those doubts have come true.

There might in fact be some hope for the changes Darin wants at least on the Mobile GUI, because from what I understand besides adding Mac programmers and support staff, they said they did add to the Quicken Mobile development group.

They did add the offline use, and the seeing of investment balances, after years of doing nothing.

On the "reset" and such from what I understand this "might" be "temporary", and delete was removed during the change over phase from Intuit servers to Quicken Inc servers because they believed it would do more damage than good.

Unknown · July 2017

I am trying to use the 2017 mobile application on my iPad. That is the ONLY reason I purchased 2017. I noticed that at best it had a two star rating, and I now wonder how it got that many! I can't find how to turn off that horrid Location function, and the entering and tracking and correcting and deleting functions seem to be invisible as if they are intentionally hidden, and logic for what is done easily in my several early iterations of Quicken are very difficult at best to do with 2017 Mobile. It still should be in the can somewhere and not sold as a good application of what was a great product.

smayer97 · August 2018

BTW, it is much easier if all these IDEA requests were posted separately so people can and their vote for a feature request and help guide the priorities for the developers. Consider creating new entries for each entries listed (if they do not already exist).

Of course, item 1 and 4 are done and item 6 may have been addressed in the new version of Quicken Mobile, v5.0.44, released July 17, 2018.

That said, for item 2. you can add your VOTE for Ability to set defaults in Mobile App.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS for Quicken Mobile by following the simple steps found here on the List of Requests for Quicken Mobile Features.

Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Quicken Mobile General Feedback

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