CC Transfers and Budgeting (Q Mac)

usmc93

I have searched this and have read numerous posts stating "Quicken Product manager said they are working on this" since at least early 2018. I have also read other users go into 3 paragraph explanations of why this is so complicated and tough to program. My question is how can numerous other budgeting software packages tackle this feature and Quicken cant after years of promising? I SO regret my recent purchase of Quick Subscription without knowing this shortfall first. I am currently seeking an alternative and just adding my voice to the wish list, I have submitted this formally through Quicken as well but am cancelling until I hear this has been addressed.

usmc93

I am speaking to being able to budget ahead for CC and loan payments (which are transfers) in the budgeting section btw.

jacobs

We can't answer exactly why, because none of us are privy to the details of development. We can makes some guesses. Starting with: other software may have had this functionality included by design from the start, where Quicken did not. The current Quicken Mac was build on the core code from the 2010-era Quicken Essentials, software which did not include annual budgeting. When the developers added budgeting functionality about 3 years ago, they either (a) didn't grasp how important this would be to users, or (b) they knew it would take some major re-working of Quicken to implement and decided to release the budgeting functionality without it until they could go back to add this.

Some people post on this forum, in frustration, that "a 12-year old could program this in a weekend." Well, no. The Quicken database is complex. If adding this feature was easy, they would have done it as soon as hundreds of people were asking for it. They apparently need to do some deep architectural changes to the database and code in order to allow this functionality (and perhaps other related features).

This is the number one requested currently-missing feature users on this forum have voted for, I believe. The developers have marked it as "planned" and the product manager has said they are working on it. So there is no disagreement between users and Quicken about the need for this feature. It's just a matter of how much longer it will be until this functionality is added, and that we don't know.

Personally, I can always see how much I owe on my credit cards in the left sidebar, and any loan or savings payments for the month are known qualities, so I can manually add them to what the Quicken budget shows to understand my cash flow. It's not optimal, but for me, it's manageable. If it's not workable for you, then I understand you wanting to look for an alternative product which you feel better meets your needs.