Has anyone found a Quicken alternative for BOA?

sfranc01

Has anyone found a good alternative for Quicken now that you can't download scheduled transactions with BOA? As I understand it, most banks will be going this way.

splasher

sfranc01 said:

Has anyone found a good alternative for Quicken now that you can't download scheduled transactions with BOA? As I understand it, most banks will be going this way.

If most are going this way, why bother to change financial institutions? 

Boatnmaniac

It's anyone's guess as to which banks will transition to EWC+ and which will not.  But I think it's fair to assume that at a minimum most, if not all, of the FDX Consortium members will eventually head down this same path as BofA and Chase did.  So, if you are planning on switching banks in order to keep the DC Bank Bill Pay feature it would be a good idea to avoid those member banks. The list of FDX Consortium members can be viewed at https://financialdataexchange.org/FDX/FDX/The-Consortium/Members.aspx?hkey=362ecd23-b752-48aa-b104-a99e916276c8.

I have free DC Bank Bill Pay set up with Wells Fargo and PNC Bank.  But they are FDX Consortium members so they will likely head down the same EWC+ path at some point.

I also have free DC Bank Bill Pay set up with Midland States Bank, a regional bank located in Illinois and in the St Louis area.  They are not currently a FDX Consortium member but that could at some time change and it does not mean that they won't also at some point decide to transition to EWC+.  Accounts can be set up online with them no matter where you live but unless you live in Illinois or St Louis you probably will not have a brick and mortar bank location to work with.

sfranc01

I am very happy with my bank, more than Quicken. And as said here, why change my accounts if banks are headed that way. Would rather know if there is [Removed-Solicitation]

Boatnmaniac

sfranc01

said:

I am very happy with my bank, more than Quicken. And as said here, why change my accounts if banks are headed that way. Would rather know if there is [Removed-Solicitation]

Sorry, but this is a Quicken Community forum and posting things about or promoting competitor products is not something that Quicken permits.  Such posts will be quickly edited or deleted by the Moderators.If you wish to find out about competitor products you will need to do the research yourself or find some other non-Quicken website where there are product comparisons and discussions.

Greg_the_Geek

Since this community is owned by Quicken, you won't find any alternatives to Quicken.

BK

sfranc01 said:

Has anyone found a good alternative for Quicken now that you can't download scheduled transactions with BOA? As I understand it, most banks will be going this way.

@sfranc01

I think you actually answered you own question.  RE: As I understand it, most banks will be going this way.

Since financial institutions are making changes, those changes would apply to almost every product where a competitor product would be impacted as well.  So our options are to either adapt or change banks, and hope for the best?  I recognize the frustration when a feature goes away.  But users who do not use those specific features of Quicken such as bill pay or scheduled transactions etc., are not impacted by the changes at all.  So to adapt or workaround this particular case, one could create and automate those scheduled transactions directly within the bank's online system (BofA does this exceptionally well) and the resulting transactions will still be downloaded into Quicken.

Chris_QPW

Personally my finances are now simple enough that I’m basically going to just consolidate with Chase and just use what they provide and I have already drop using Quicken.

As for any other program for doing what Quicken does.  Have you thought of this?
If all the financial institutions are going to FDX (What Quicken is calling Express Web Connect +) then after all the smoke clears what makes you think you will have a better experience with any of the other programs out there.

Here is a clue.  For Direct Connect to work the program needs the URL of where to contact the OFX servers at the financial institutions.  That is what the Intuit fidir.txt file is all about.  A good portion of the programs out there that provide OFX support in fact have simply copied Intuit list (in the past they would grab Microsoft’s).  And part of the OFX exchange is telling the financial institution’s OFX server the program/version, and what most of them do is put in Quicken and its version.

Note if your goal is to get schedule payments back the way they were, the OFX protocol is the only way, the other “aggregator” protocols do not support it.

And then you get the aggregators, which basically used to be able the same as Express Web Connect where the “protocol” wasn’t any kind of standard.  Now the financial institutions are now pushing a standard for that connection, FDX.

So, with Direct Connect/OFX going away that leaves aggregation.  And there just aren’t that many companies that provide that service.  With exception of Intuit/[Removed-3rd Party Software] all personal finance programs are going to be using one of the very limited companies to provide this.

From time to time I see people come on here and say “I can download from [Removed-3rd Party Software], why is it failing on Quicken?”.
But what they never talk about is that I can go to the [Removed-3rd Party Software] site and find just as many open threads on problem with downloading.  Aggregation is a very mess place right now because of the lack of standards.

Of course the hope is that FDX will bring that standard and hopefully better reliability.  Personally, I think it will go the same way OFX did and not all the financial institution’s will adopt it, and the mess will continue.