Thoughts about Quicken Membership and Connected Services

jdidizian

I am looking to crowdsource an opinion about whether Quicken membership for connected services is worthwhile.

My membership is up this week and I have started receiving the "reminders". However, after experiencing diminishing returns for this service I am not sure I will renew my membership:

1. About half of my accounts (529 account, HSA account, etc.) do not download automatically and will always need to be entered manually;
2. Those that do download need work to make them correct (banking account always downloads transactions as splits, correct payee name never downloads, etc.)

There was even an instance recently where the transactions download from my new bank totally messed up an account and cost me several hours of personal time to rectify. The only thing that seems worthwhile to me are the stock price updates.

What are your thoughts? How many people pay for this service, versus entering transactions and stock prices manually? Are there any other membership perks I am forgetting?

Also, if I wait to renew my membership will they cut the price? :)

Thanks!

sidneybinks

I have used quicken for 25 and am thinking of leaving because Direct Connect is still not working after my Suntrust Bank merged and became Truist. Q blames Truist...and i understand that the lion's share of responsibility is Truist's...BUT, to get things working again, Truist and Q have to work together....and Q is not silent on the matter...sad to see.

jdidizian

Yeah I get that....for direct connect to work for all members it must work successfully with thousands of different institutions, and irl that's just not feasible.

[Deleted User]

For me, Quicken is the most important software I have.  It is, and has been, and invaluable tool in organizing my finances.  It is the only software I know of that can gather, organize all of your accounts and keep them updated, and present them "at a glace". 

Yes there have been issues, and it is frustrating at times.  Connections get broken or work poorly and support seems lacking at.  But what I have seen is that issues do get resolved.  Also from my own experience and from what I read, most issues are outside of Quicken's control.  There were times I had to go to my banks website to download transactions into Quicken.  But again, these connection issues ultimately were fixed.  There are still some issues that I am aware of, but I have developed some "best practices" to keep them from affecting my data file.  Right now, for me, Quicken has never worked better.

My Quicken data file has 30 years of transactions, over 100 accounts, open and closed.  I started using Quicken in 2009 (migrated from Microsoft Money).  I have a second file that I created in 2014 for my parents who went into assisted living.  Their finances were a nightmare.  It took me months to gather information on their accounts and set them up in Quicken.  They got to a point where they didn't remember what their accounts were, or where they were.  I am indebted to Quicken for allowing me to have a tool to keep up with their finances and pay their bills.  

Bottom line, I have seen Quicken evolve into a program that is nothing like the original I first worked with in 2009.  For me, it is well worth the cost of it.

jdidizian

Hi Damian, thanks for your response! Yes, I agree Quicken is worth it overall. However, I am wondering specifically about purchasing a membership for the direct connect resources. I can use Quicken without a membership, just enter everything manually. Sometimes I think entering everything manually (instead of downloading) would save time compared to automatic download, given the issues I have experienced. Do you enter transactions and stock prices manually, or use the automatic download feature?

[Deleted User]

Altogether, I have 10 investment accounts, and 25 non-investment accounts.  Between the two files, I have 10 financial institutions with 23 accounts, 40 investments that update automatically.  It would be impossible for me to update quotes and transactions manually, on a daily basis.  I also have some brokered CDs and annuities that I can only get prices for from the update file from the financial institution.  Once in a while I need to go onto the bank's website to download transactional updates, but that is a rare thing, these days.  I update and reconcile all these accounts on a daily basis.  The only way I can do this is with Quicken.

bpdonovan86

I'm wondering the same thing: Is the annual costs really worthwhile?. Further more, am I dealing with a trust worthy company?

1. Tech support is lacking and they rely on user community to solve user issues.
2. Advertise free filing on taxes and then bill you when paying. (I understand there has be a court case filed)
3. They sent me annual subscription price of 77.95. Billed me 85.39.
er
Is this a trend? Signed -- I feel Trapped.

BK

I have every type of financial institution in Quicken with a mix of DC & EWC connection methods totaling about 30 connected accounts, and a handful of manual accounts with infrequent entries.  Everything is 100% accurate, no issues or errors.  I spend about 15 mins per week in Quicken, downloading and reviewing my finances and seeing the overall picture on a single screen is very valuable to me.  Which frees me up from logging into my financial institutions one at a time.  That time savings alone is well worth it to me, not to mention the additional benefits of the search, analysis and reports features, etc.

The reports enable me to do better year-end tax planning and obtain accurate tax related info (e.g. medical expenses) very efficiently compared to without Quicken.  Hence I do our very complex taxes in a few hours instead of weeks or paying someone.  All because of the data I can extract from Quicken.

I attribute the error-free and accuracy of my data file by following a few basic good practices such as disabling the error prone Sync and bill/pay features, backing up after each use, and not updating the program version frequently hence reducing exposure to potential problematic releases - when I find a good release I may stay on it the entire year.

Having said that, If I had so many accounts that didn't provide a download/connection to Quicken (like the OP said the 529 accounts are all manual), I too would analyze the cost, time and benefits.