An update from our CEO, Eric Dunn
Quicken Kathryn
Quicken Windows Subscription admin
I am writing to give you an update on Quicken. Since my last letter in January, we have had a busy year making Quicken faster and more reliable as well as adding new capabilities to give you greater insights into your financial picture, along with more flexible access to your data.
Our focus this year has been on improving reliability across the product line; on filling in functionality for the Mac product; and on extending the capability of the web and mobile versions. We've also started work on significant extensions to Online Bills for both desktop versions of Quicken, which we will release early in the new year, in our Premier and Home & Business products. Here are some specifics:
- Mobile and web Quicken now support Assets and Liability accounts, so you have access to your full net worth. Mobile and web also can now show scheduled transactions and allow you to directly enter transfer transactions. And we've added Reconcile to the web app. (It's slick – even though I am primarily a Windows Quicken user, I use the web app for reconciling.)
- Quicken for Mac has significantly improved reports, new renaming rules, and, by the end of this year, a full-featured Memorized Transactions capability.
- It's easier to get started with Quicken for Windows, thanks to simplified budget setup, Q Cards and new in-product videos. We've also improved performance (launching Quicken is up to 30% faster), improved compatibility, and added enhancements to investment reporting. In addition, our testing shows that we have been able to achieve a 35% reduction in product exceptions since the beginning of the year.
- As well as being more reliable, all Quicken products benefit from the work we've done to improve the security and quality of bank downloads, such as the introduction of OFX SecurePlus with several of our FI partners.
And one more thing: we are working on a new product, Simplifi by Quicken, intended for people who are looking for an easy but complete personal financial solution on mobile and the web. Simplifi is in Beta now; there will be more to come when we are closer to release.
We are excited about these Quicken updates and are proud of these latest versions. If you have additional thoughts for improvement, please do not hesitate to let us know your ideas here in this thread. With millions of people using Quicken every day, it's no surprise that we get some of our best ideas from you.
Thank you for being a Quicken user!
Sincerely,
CEO
Quicken Inc.
Quicken Kathryn
Community Administrator
Community Administrator
Tagged:
15
Comments
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For all the updates and improvements, there is a long-standing problem that keeps getting overlooked: The calendar view continually starts to show the same scheduled transaction multiple times as you move forward in months. But these phantom entries than sometimes go away when you make a change in a scheduled transaction. There are also situations where scheduled transactions just disappear. The whole area of scheduled transactions -- which was working just fine in Quicken for the longest time, since the days of Quicken 4, could really use some love and attention.6
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PLEASE support the 'X' transactions on Mac (BoughtX, SoldX), and then ensure that these transactions on Windows will convert across properly to the Mac! I don't use Quicken as much as I would like because I am no longer a Windows user, yet I am stuck on Mac because I lose 15 years of data if I migrate to the Mac! The account balances are hopelessly incorrect and it's impossible to reconcile them. If you fix this one thing Windows users could move to the Mac Quicken rather easily, as it seems to me in my own testing that the conversion Windows-> Mac is otherwise rock solid.3
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I am a forever Quicken user, I love everything about the program except one thing that drives me nuts: On systems with high-resolution screens the pop-up boxes do not position themselves properly and sometimes the "done" or "OK" box are not displayed so you cannot keep the changes you have made. How about fixing the way the program displays before any more changes to the program.9
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I am still having issues with double transaction downloads. My Quicken balance in my accounts hasn't been right for years ever since I converted over to MAC from Windows. I am very unhappy with the MAC performance. Not only is there double downloads but it puts a posting date back to 2010 often. Some I have been able to correct because it matched to a transaction I had put in but others I can't correct since I am unable to edit the posting date. Now recently my doubles have had 2 different banking FITID numbers and I checked with my accounts through my bank details and there is not double amounts in my accounts. If I download the current accounts I am on my main checking and then go back and want to download a cc account it puts double all over in my checking and shows a box with many errors. I was a Quicken for Windows user since 1999 and loved it. But since my conversion to MAC it has not been a good situation. I won't be recommending Quicken to anyone. I hoped with paying for Quicken for 2 years and the recent updates that it would be better. I have tried to find a way to contact someone for help but no luck If you have any suggestions or help that you can give me to correct these issues please contact me at [email removed].4
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Thank you Eric for the update. Things are looking better for Quicken. I've been a user for 10 years now due to the discontinuation of Microsoft Money. I still miss it a lot. I'm sure other former MS Money users feel the same.
I like the sound of the new product Simplifi by Quicken. It would be cool to see a web-based application with the power of Quicken but better than Mint.
Some ideas, if you are interested.
1. What-If conditions - this is a feature that Money had and one that I still miss. Being able to put in a potential raise and see the result of my balance on a graph would be very useful. If Quicken has it, it certainly isn't obvious. Right now I have to make a copy of my file and then play around with scheduled transactions to see what might happen if I get a 2% raise.
2. Stability - your developers have been working hard on this. I know it's an annoyance of my own when Quicken crashes for no apparent reason and there is no obvious way of reproducing it (so what's the point of reporting it).
3. Performance - Quicken is still very sluggish. Have you tried just drag-n-dropping the window from one screen to another (I have dual screens at home and work)? Just dragging it out of the maximized state is sluggish. There is no reason for this. There are also more refreshes than should be necessary.
4. Start from scratch - it seems that Simplifi by Quicken is almost a do-over of Quicken. But I'm talking about the desktop version, too. Start all over. Scrap the existing code and re-architect it. Use an updated UI. You could probably figure out how to use a ribbon, too. Or look at what Money was using in the last version. That was almost a predecessor to the ribbon (or maybe a predecessor of the predecessor of the ribbon). Menus are so 20th century. It seems there is just so much legacy code involved it causes all kinds of problems. New file format. New file extension. "Maybe" provide a conversion from the old Quicken to the new but I don't see that as a necessity. Perhaps you could make this an open source project and get a community of developers to participate?
5. Automatic updates - I love the fact that you have updates nearly once a month or sometimes even more frequent. What I don't like is that I get prompted to install but am NOT shown what changes were made. Once the update is installed and the product opens there is no way to see the list of fixes for the just installed update. Very frustrating. The update installer should include the changes for that update so the user can at least see what they are.
That's it for now. I would love to see #4 happen. I think on this list #5 is most important.
Kris Culin
Quicken User
Former MS Money User7 -
I am a long time Quicken user, but because my data file contains about 7 years of data it is very large for both loading and for saving the ongoing file. It would be nice to be able to keep only the current an prior year transactions and have an archive file for the rest if needed later.9
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As I've noted before, the #1 priority is to clean up the bugs.
I've been unable to use the Android app and cloud for a few years now, because if I enable it Quicken (PC) quickly corrupts its own data file, typically taking long since defunct accounts and reactivating them multiple times over creating a massive, hard to clean up mess.
I don't know how many times over years I've had, on my biweekly pay, note 'net salary' category because Quicken doesn't memorize it. Or uses its imagination to randomly assign a nonsense category. I'm a long time customer and the longer I have it the worse this seems to get. A big side effect of this problem is that Quicken gets so many errors that I've got to spend many hours cleaning up mistakes before starting my taxes each year.
Turning on bills created massive new problems in using Quicken - only way to fix them was to carefully excise any billing info that you'd entered.
I have found the credit score lookup feature so buggy with no known ways to fix problems that I stopped using it - fortunately my bank offers the same ability - weekly, with far fewer problems.
I don't know just how many features of Quicken Premier that I don't use. I've had Quicken for well over 17 years, and am constantly in fear that some new bug or old bug will destroy my data file. BTW, I've been using computers since the early 1970's, and the bulk of my career has been in IT, much of that as a programmer, DBA and project manager. My confidence level in it is not very high, and my experience with the features you are so proud of leaves me no confidence in them at all. So again - please, not just fix the bugs, but figure out how to fix our data files from all the errors past bugs have created so it might finally be safe to try out some of those new features. And help us fix the category problems which have been around pretty much forever.6 -
While all the upgrades, assorted extras embedded in quicken are useful to some people it’s amounts to being a burden on some who really never use them, budgeting, stock trading, retirement, etc. and other assorted “fluff”. A rather “stripped down” unfluffed (non deluxe) version would be ALL that I need or will ever use. Also.... the upgrade from an earlier version to ‘17 was an exercise “from hell”, took all weekend. Ya gotta SIMPLIFY, offer a “defluffed” version, more is NOT always better, often more technical drivel that only 10% of users understand or comprehend and actually use.. You know how to make a “standard” and useful product. Over the top design, technical wizardry, and all the embedded “features” (?! 🙄) almost alienate a lot of users who will never use 70% of them. Hope you’re listening..8
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In the investments window, I would like to see individual securities (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc) in graphical format, to show performance over time, including notation when I've bought or sold the security. This feature existing in Quicken 2007 but has disappeared. Shouldn't require significant programming to develop this feature.1
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I'm a long time Quicken user. I'm also an active stock and option investor.
In Quicken, there is no way to create an accurate view of gains/losses within a family of trades, e.g., you can't combine an option spread of the macro view of the trade, i.e., the short and the long positions. Similar, as it gets more complicated if you roll the options to other months or strikes.
I realize this would likely involve major changes, but without these structural changes, there is very little analytic value from Quicken in these, simpler or more complicated transactions.
I would volunteer to be part of a user panel to discuss these issues.1 -
Quicken needs a true cloud version, not a desktop app with a web extension. I am not planning to upgrade Quicken until it has this capability.-5
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Please PLEASE stop adding "features" until you get the basic program working properly. I would pay you DOUBLE for a primitive but bug-free version of Quicken on my laptop. Why should every month present a new catastrophe at your hands? I've been with you since the early 1990's and would SO leave if there were a better program out there.14
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Quicken : Can you support UTF8 ?
Can you simply support the Euro sign : € , Not talking about French accents ...0 -
You need to create a proper Cash-Flow Report. Cash in and Cash Out.4
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The most important thing you could do is BETA TEST with real users. Because the product that is released to us is FULL OF BUGS!! Believe me, and I am a long-time user since 2004, if there was any software option, I would abandon your product in a heartbeat!!!4
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I am a 20+ year Quicken for Mac user. Some of the other comments mention simplifying the product for basic bank account tracking. I would go a step further to ask that the simplified version continue to be a desktop-based application vs. a web based application. The interwebs can be fickle and a basic account tracking program would be useful to those who aren't interested in tracking stocks, etc. (like me!!) Would like to continue to download bank transactions, update accounts, budgeting and reporting but not all the other "fluff" as others mentioned.4
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It may seem trivial, but adding a "Layout Template" feature to Quicken Mac, whereby the column arrangement (columns visible, width, and position) for Account windows could be Saved/Applied to other Account windows would be tremendously appreciated. It drives me insane that my Account windows are all slightly different layouts.3
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Can you consider adding the calendar and addresses to the Quicken mobile app? A lot of times I find myself the need to check my calendar and check addresses that I may need. Thanks for listening.1
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I agree with the ones who are asking for a simple program, and preferably a desktop version. I don't need to throw my financial info out on the web, and I don't use any of the fancy stuff. I record my income and expenses and track transfers. I use the scheduled transactions which is really nice. I use the reconciliation for checking. That's really all I need. No stocks/check printing/cash-flow tracking/ etc. Just a checkbook with a few nice features (autofill, etc).7
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Please, please, please - make the Mac version of Quicken a mirror of the Windows version. I have used a Mac for a number of years now, but I am forced to still use Windows (through a third-party app partition) to preserve the functionality of Quicken for Windows.6
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Why can't the program print the posted dates from the print of checking? It's on the screen, but when printing what's on the monitor, the posted date doesn't print0
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Would it be possible to demonstrate some control over how Quicken is displayed? I have followed every suggestion I can find to adjust animation, full/part screen, etc. with no lasting success. Further, the linkage between pop-up windows and background processes has lost it's mind. Example - I have a managed investment account with a significant number of securities (~300) in it at any given time. Any sale that is less than the full position results in a popup stating I will need to provide additional input to accept the downloaded transaction. This is fine. What is not fine is the popup window, which comes up in the middle of the physical screen, not the middle of the window I have allocated to Quicken, disappearing and reappearing multiple times before I am able to click OK and start accepting. i7 with 16 GB memory, a SSD, and a nVidia GPU (drivers kept current). This is unlikely to be a hardware problem. A little patience on my part will help - I get it. My concern is what else is out of control if the windows and processing are not being kept coordinated.2
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We have a small home network. I would like to keep my Quicken data file on the network but have been told many times that Quicken does not support a network. I would prefer not having the data file on my PC as I take it many places and do not want it lost/stolen with the Quicken data on it. Can you please add support for a small home network? I have tried using the network in the past but often found that the data file would get corrupted. Thanks.3
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Thank you for the update Eric. Quicken is really the only option for this type of work, the market is cornered! But Quicken is still behind the times and outdated. It seems like they could/should be the best, but it's still almost the same as 10 yrs ago, even 20 yrs ago!
When I tell people I use Quicken for my record keeping they usually laugh. They think it's outdated and not cool. But Quicken does things no one else does. Microsoft Money was a close competitor back in the day, but they're gone so Quicken really is the only option.
I use Quicken, Home, Business and Rental Property and for the most part I really like it. It's funny, but the big differentiator is the "Memo" section in the register. I use that all of the time, and I add notes to the transaction if there isn't room in the Memo section. That one little feature is a huge differentiator for your product (I'm not a bookkeeper or accountant, so I rely a lot on notes to myself so I can look back on them).
Reconciling could be a lot better. For instance I have about 20 accounts set up in Quicken at about 6 different banks. When I do the '1 Step Update' only 2-3 accounts actually get updated. All usernames and passwords are correct, accounts have been reset in Quicken many times. So I have to manually download history for almost every account every time I reconcile (2x/mo). Often times I have to delete duplicate transactions. As much as of a pain in the butt it is, it's worth it because the end result is worth it.
I use Xero for my business time tracking, invoicing, and bill tracking and payments. Xero offers bank balance tracking, reconciling, etc., but it's horrible. No Memo section for one, well they do, but not visible without clicking on each individual transaction. Anyway, if Quicken offered better small business services such as time tracking, invoicing, accepting payments, bill tracking, check printing that would be huge (a killer app!) and all of us small business owners for which Quickbooks is overkill. Quicken already offers all/most of these things, but the UI is very outdated and not user friendly. Basically, a viable competitor to Quickbooks, Xero, and others.
I would be great if Quicken was better on the cloud, basically the same on the cloud as the desktop version. I have only been to the cloud version once because it totally didn't do what I needed it to do (be like the desktop version).
Of course I know how hard all of this must be. Having reconcile work for every bank every time will probably never happen. Internet security issues, firewalls, captchas, etc. Having a simple UI for homeowners and small business owners may not be realistic. But there really is a whole lot of room for improvement with Quicken. More money to be made!
If millions of small business owners paid Quicken $30/month (like I do with Xero) it would be huge for them. I would love to get rid of Xero and do everything in Quicken.0 -
> @Lester Anderson said:
> I am a long time Quicken user, but because my data file contains about 7 years of data it is very large for both loading and for saving the ongoing file. It would be nice to be able to keep only the current an prior year transactions and have an archive file for the rest if needed later.
I think that the greatest strength of Quicken, if used properly, is the history, which lets you see when you bought X, did y, etc. But my 17 plus years of data is a lot to handle at times.2 -
I have long given up trying to have Quicken download my local bank transactions and enter them manually. Since I don't have many, it's not a problem. However, WILL YOU PLEASE allow an option to STOP suggesting categories!! The ones you suggest are ALL WRONG, and it's a pain in the [removed] to keep correcting them.0
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Why do you call it "QUICKEN CLOUD" when all it does is transfer your info to the app !!
I know I'm not the only one....but my computer crashed, could not be repaired.
I thought...CLOUD....I CAN RETRIVE MY QUICKEN DATA THERE.....nope :-(
Crazy, been a Quicken user for YEARS AND YEARS....NEVER KNEW YOU COULD NOT RETRIVE FROM THE CLOUD....
I run a back-up to a thumb drive...every time I close Quicken now....all these years I always thought I could get it from the cloud....never had a crash before...lucky I guess.
Now, I have lost ALL My Scanned receipts !! That's the worst part...I referred back to those receipts a lot and my account loved them.....now the are gone...
I would pay for a cloud...I wish I had known !! You should call it TRANSFER … NOT A CLOUD !1 -
I have been a long time Quicken user, over 15 years. About 7 years ago I switched to Mac, and this platform lacs some of the features the PC version has, the main one I would say, and one that has already been said is end of year archiving. My current file starts in 1/1/2010, and I do see when I will be able to shrink it. It takes an inordinate time to load and save.0
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I'm still using Quicken2007 because of the classes function. I tried the "new" Quicken years ago, but it was way too much hassle to use - requiring multiple files and lacked that ability to easily account for the transfer of funds between personal and business; and between businesses. Classes made it so easy. Let me know when you make that functionality available again!0
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When is the Chrome OS version coming? I am getting further and further away from PC and Mac OS every day.-2
This discussion has been closed.