Quicken file in the cloud

thomasmartick

I would really wish to see Quicken be available for installation/use in the cloud. Quicken is part of Intuit, and QuickBooks works VERY well in the cloud (which I use all the time). This provides the use of Quicken on my laptop (when I travel) without the need to copying the file to the laptop. Also, it provides safety and ease of installation when a new computer is installed.

Jon

If you want a cloud-based personal finance program, look at Quicken Simplifi. I think it would take a large amount of work to allow Quicken to store its data file in the cloud.

(FYI, Quicken is NOT part of Intuit anymore; it hasn't been for many years.)

gingcla4

That doesn't help when you are a business using Quicken, with 4 computers. The bookkeeper has the app version on her desktop and sync's with the web everyday so the rest of us can view it. This is ridiculous! We were using it with the data file in Dropbox, which has worked for almost 15 years and all of a sudden it no longer works after the last upgrade. We need it to be cloud based, so we can all use the program with the app version. This syncing and going online is ludicrous! After using Quicken for the past 30 years, do I now have to take my business elsewhere to use a program that fits my needs???

Jon

@gingcla4 The situation you describe (a business with multiple employees all trying to work with the same file) is not something Quicken has ever tried to address. It's interesting you were able to make it work anyway for so long but I don't expect them to ever change the program in a way that will make you happy - it would mean they were directly competing with Quickbooks and I don't expect Quicken to ever do that.

jacobs

@gingcla4 I agree with @Jon: Quicken is and has always been a program for personal finance. It has enough features for an individual with a personal business to use, but it was never designed to function in a multi-user environment for a larger business. And frankly, most larger businesses would not want to use a personal finance program because it lacks the controls and protections for posting transactions and maintaining an audit trail that any true business accounting program would have.

So if you've been able to make Quicken work for your business needs for all these years and haven't had any problems with it, consider yourself very fortunate. If you skim this forum, you will find countless warnings against, and problems users have encountered trying to store their live data file Dropbox or on a cloud storage service; if you've just recently encountered a problem doing that, it's not surprising and you've had good luck that you haven't had a problem previously. It's not something specific to a recent upgrade.

"Do I now have to take my business elsewhere to use a program that fits my needs?"

From what you describe, I would say yes. Unless…

You say the bookkeeper had the app on her desktop and keeps the data file on Dropbox, while others use the mobile app or web interface to look at the data. If that's the case, all you need to do is move the data file to her desktop computer. Nothing would change in what anyone does. You could set the bookkeeper's desktop version to create the backups into a folder on Dropbox (that's safe to do). So even though I wouldn't recommend Quicken for a larger business, if it's been working for you well enough in the past, there's nothing which has changed that should prevent you from continuing to use it as you have been; just move the live data file off Dropbox and onto the bookkeeper's local computer. (If you don't already have backup for that computer, with Time Machine or with a cloud-based backup service like iDrive, I'd encourage adding that as an added layer of protection/security.)