Why can't I rollover balances for budget categories? (Q Mac)

Flachmom

This is such an important part of budgeting. I cannot believe I paid over $60 for this program and it doesn't have this feature.

Please add this to the Mac version of Quicken! It's so unwieldy without it.

jacobs

If you look at this Idea thread for rollover functionality, you'll see that is is marked by the developers as a "Planned" feature.

Implementing major changes in budgeting apparently required re-writing large chunks of the code for the budgeting portion of the program, and there are several major changes users have asked them to make (including allowing the budgeting of cash-flow fund transfers, such as loan principal payments or reitrmenet savings). There's no way for any of us to know where they are in that process, nor when they'll have something to release. But at least we know it's something definitively on the developers' roadmap.

Flachmom

Okay. I didn't see the information you were talking about, but I found the lack of this feature to be a pretty big miss on the part of Quicken. I mean, the free version (Mint) even has this feature. Quicken is a little more robust in some areas, but the rollover feature seems pretty basic for budgeting software.

I think this question deserves to be addressed by Quicken with a planned date for adding the feature. It's really a pretty basic budgeting tool and I can't really understand why it wouldn't have been included in the paid version of this program.

Flachmom

I do appreciate your comment above, but the fact that 'there's no way to know' where they are at in the process speaks volumes to Quicken's lack of customer service/focus.

jacobs

@Flachmom  I would disagree that a missing feature, even one you consider of primal importance, is due to a lack of customer service or focus.

There are literally hundreds of users requests for functionality that the developers have on their list. you may consider this the top need, but someone else considers being able to budget for transfers the top need, and someone else considers tracking stocks on average cost basis to be a top need, and someone else considers a balance sheet/net worth report as of any past date a top need and someone else considers priniting a reconciliation statement a top need and… well, you get the idea. For each of those, and many others, I've seen people post in this forum that it's cinconceivable to them that a particular feature is missing and that it should be the Top Priority. 

As much as we might wish it, they can't tackle all these at once. And they also can't always accurately predict how long it will take to add a feature. Last year, for instance, they added a widely-requested feature for creating renaming rules for downloaded payee names, and the product manager said when it was released that it took a lot longer to bring to completion than they had anticipated. Sometimes they encounter unexpected complications, or a change one place breaks something else which then has to be fixed; in some cases -- and budget is one -- they discover that adding significant new functionality requires them to re-write a major chunk of code. Sometimes, a project which requires the skills of one particular developer on the team gets delayed because that programmer gets pulled onto another, more pressing project. 

For all these reasons, they don't announce when certain new features are scheduled to arrive. The development team certainly knows what the plans are for the next several releases as well as some of their longer-term plans, but they don't share those plans because they invariably will miss on some of their time estimates -- and that gets customers even more upset.

Flachmom

Okay, well your disagreement is noted.

When I pay $67 (approx) for a program, I expect it to have, as a baseline, the same features as the free version. Mint, which is owned by Quicken, has this rollover feature. So, when I purchased the program, I erroneously didn't check to make sure that was the case. My bad.

Your point about them being unable to satisfy user needs doesn't make a ton of sense to me because I believe this rollover feature was included in other versions of Quicken I used many years ago when we were installing it via CD-ROM, so, at one point, they knew this feature was necessary and had function for their customers.

I'm not sure what your stake is in this, but clearly you feel Quicken is doing the best they can and trying to keep up with customer demands. My point is, customers shouldn't even have to ask for this feature. I simply don't understand why this rollover feature wasn't released with the beta version because it is pretty basic with other budgeting programs. I went with Quicken because of their length of time in the market, but that clearly doesn't mean much since this basic feature isn't included.

jacobs

Flachmom said:

When I pay $67 (approx) for a program, I expect it to have, as a baseline, the same features as the free version. Mint, which is owned by Quicken, has this rollover feature.

Mint is now owned by Quicken. It's owned by Intuit. Intuit used to own Quicken, but hasn't for years now. Quicken and Mint are competitors for personal finance management software.

Flachmom said:

I believe this rollover feature was included in other versions of Quicken I used many years ago when we were installing it via CD-ROM, so, at one point, they knew this feature was necessary and had function for their customers.

On the Mac, Quicken 2007 was a dead end. There were too many key technologies in that program that Apple said would not be supported in the future, and they had to start over at developing a new verison of Quicken Mac utilizing modern tehcnologies. Under former parent Intuit, that effort started and stopped several times, and years of time were lost. Eventually, in fall 2014, Quicken 2015 emerged as the first instance of a new Quicken Mac program. It was sorely lacking in many areas, and they said they knew it, and would keep working to add functionality customers told them was needed. And over the past five year, they've done exactly that -- although at a slower pace than anyone would have wished.

As I noted above, there are many things the old Quicken 2007 had which don't exist, at least yet, in today's Quicken Mac. Some are because the developers thought they might not be needed features, and wanted to hear from customers if they mis-judged. And some are features the developers knew wer eneeded, but just haven't made it to the top of the long to-do list yet.

Flachmom said:

I'm not sure what your stake is in this, but clearly you feel Quicken is doing the best they can and trying to keep up with customer demands. 

I have no stake beyond being a Quicken customer for nearly 3 decades who hopes the Quicken Mac will continue to evolve into the next-generation Quicken I can use for the next 3 decades. I do not feel Quicken's development performance has been as good as it should be; we're 5 years into the modern Quicken Mac era, and still waiting for some key capabilities. I only disagreed with your characterization of this as a lack of customer service. I think it's  a lack of resources to do it better and faster, but I think the developers are actually listening to customers and responding to customer feedback.

Flachmom said:

My point is, customers shouldn't even have to ask for this feature. I simply don't understand why this rollover feature wasn't released with the beta version because it is pretty basic with other budgeting programs. I went with Quicken because of their length of time in the market, but that clearly doesn't mean much since this basic feature isn't included.

You've repeated that you don't understand why this wasn't done already. As I tried to answer above, it's because they have so many different things that lots of different people think are just as, or more, important. I understand that this may be The Number One issue for you, and seems like a "basic feature." But if you ask a million Quicken users, they'd identify a lot of things as their Top Issue. Do you know how many users complain about the lack of the "basic feature" of printing a reconciliation report? Or the "basic feature" of budgeting for a loan payment? Or any of the other issues I mentioned in my post above, or dozens of others?

The reality is, everyone has their own top issue, and many think that issue should be completely obvious as deserving attention immediately (and actually should have been done in the past).

So the developers have to continually prioritize, and balance their resources, to keep moving forward as best they can. There's progress, but it's certainly not perfect.

The good news is that this issue of budget rollover is one of a relatively small number where they have signified that it is planned for implementation -- meaning they have heard the requests from customers, they understand the issue, they agree, and it's on their development plan. 

Flachmom

Okay, well, don't take it personally. It's a basic feature in my opinion. You can have a different opinion. I don't need further explanation from you as to why it isn't included in a baseline. You're not a representative of Quicken and that's who I actually need to hear from.

I'm exploring other options for budgeting software as I thought when I came back to quicken it would have the BASIC functionality it had when I used it 15 years ago. It's not a great product. I wish it were.

I simply disagree with where this should be in the priority of development.

Have a nice day.

jacobs

@Flachmom  I don't take it personally. I was just trying to help explain the reality of some of Quicken's shortcomings, and how we got here. You said you wanted to hear from Quicken, and you won't hear from Quicken reps here about future features, so I was trying to provide some context.

It's reasonable for you to have this as your top priority or wish for Quicken -- and you're not the only one. I was only saying that 50 other Quicken users might have 50 other top priorities. I didn't express any opinion on what I think should be a higher or lower priority, and of course I wish that dozens of missing features were already completed and part of the product.

I would normally have recommended that you vote for the Idea thread for this new feature, but voting is turned off becuase the developers have already said this is planned for the future -- which to me is a pretty positive development. If you choose to hang in long enough, you'll get your wish; if you find something that better suits your needs before then, best wishes.