create "Quicken for Investors" product
Greetings, I have been a Quicken customer since the 90s. Love the product, really nothing like it. I moved from windows to Mac years ago, and like many Mac users, I would love to see enhanced investment tools, such as dividend and interest historical income and annual forecasts, etc. A simple capital gains calculator would also be nice. Why not create a new product with all of the investment bells and whistles and charge an upgrade fee in order to gain a new revenue stream. I would gladly pay for an Investor version. I suspect a vast group of quicken uses value the investment tools very highly. Thank you.
Comments
-
Hello @Paul19,
I went ahead and changed your post to an Idea so other users who have the same or a similar request can vote on your idea by clicking the up arrow (see below).
Ideas are also reviewed by our Development and Product teams in order to improve Quicken and implement new features requested by customers.
Thank you!
-Quicken Anja
Make sure to sign up for the email digest to see a round up of your top posts.0 -
Happy to post a revenue idea for Quicken…. win/win. Thank you!
0 -
@Paul19 I don't see the need for a new product "for investors". We just need more features for investors in the existing Quicken Mac! Creating a separate program create a lot of overhead work for marketing, managing sales, managing updates, etc.
Instead, they can add the features many investors want and need to the current program. They can make some of those features only available to Quicken Premier subscribers, so that will generate more revenue once some Quicken Deluxe users are provided a reason to upgrade to Premier.
If you peruse the existing Product Ideas for Quicken Mac Investments — here — I bet you'll find most of the features you'd want have already been requested for Quicken Mac.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
Modeling from Quicken Windows, Quicken Mac Premier is exactly what you are talking about (when it is properly filled in with such features).
One of the things I saw for many years is people thought that the Starter, Deluxe, … editions were separate programs when in fact they have always been the same program with just the licensing controlling the features. This is the most efficient way to do this development.
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
@Paul19 - no need for this idea concept or even product -
Quicken already has the framework for including the "investment tools" into the existing QMac version -
They just have "not gotten around to it" -
so if they can't work and expand their own existing QMac product, adding a NEW product makes no sense…There is another posting about having Quicken work on making the QMac product at least on some parity level with the QWin product.
Again - the Quicken folks "not gotten around to it" -And overall - do the masses of Quicken users really want any kind of Investments features.
If you look at the new Quicken web based product - Simplifi - it is geared to the younger folks with mostly checking, etc -
Yeah, it has Investments - but basically a balance/positions display for your investment holdings.0 -
Chris, your analogy to Quicken editions with difference features, controlled by licensing levels is right on target. This avoids different products with separate maintenance requirements. The key point here is that the Quicken team has “not gotten around” to adding the multiple investment features we are requesting. The lack of parity with Quicken Windows has gone on for years! Why do you think that is? I believe it is because adding more investment features to an existing MAC product is a low ROI activity. If Quicken sees a high ROI in adding investment features they will definitely get around to it. Your point: this can be the same product, with different features unlocked. Like Quicken’s specialized home/business product, this would be Quicken’s specialized home/investment product. If Quicken can see a path to higher profits by adding investment features it may trigger action. Waiting patiently for them to do this for free in the current edition is not working.
0 -
The lack of parity with Quicken Windows has gone on for years! Why do you think that is? I believe it is because adding more investment features to an existing MAC product is a low ROI activity. If Quicken sees a high ROI in adding investment features they will definitely get around to it.
@Paul19 No, I don't think it's an ROI issue at all. Or not at the specific feature level; on a broad level, their ROI on adding features to Quicken Mac in general is to keep existing users subscribing and to attract new users.
I believe the folks at Quicken, and specifically the Mac development team, very much want to add functionality and make the program as good as it can be. But they have hundreds of feature requests, and there are only a handful of programmers on the Mac team. So new features are being added continually, and every release roughly every other month crosses off one or two requests from the big list of feature requests. But because they can only add a few things at a time, there's still a long road to get all the features we users want. Why, specifically, have they worked on adding other features such as dashboards, a business edition, expanded report parameters, etc. instead of investment features? Only the developers can answer that. But I don't think there's "ROI" on adding the memo field as a report criterion; it's simply a feature many people have requested over a long time, and it restores a capability missing since the legacy Quicken Mac 2007, and it matches a feature available in Quicken windows. The development team and management review the big list of feature requests and try to evaluate which ones think think will have the greatest impact on the greatest number of users. They also have to factor in how much development time each feature is estimated to take, and which members of their small team are needed for each of the different projects.
For instance, how many users are clamoring for a feature like being able to organize reports in custom folders versus those who want Quicken to accurately handle security mergers and spin-offs? The latter has no good work-around, while the former is a convenience/ease-of-use feature, so I would say say mergers/spin offs should probably be a higher priority — but they might decide many more users save a lot of reports and would benefit from a report organization feature. How they decide which of those to do first has nothing to do with ROI.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
When as an individual we want a particular feature, we can lose sight of the fact that there are many different people with different requests that someone/a company is trying to provide. I think it is telling that Quicken Inc recently put out the starting of Quicken Mac Business. There has never been a Business Mac version before. So, one has to ask why they would put out these features before filling in more of the investment features? And I think the answer is that they are trying to give as many people as possible at least some of what they want. Instead of, just working straight through a list of "what was there before".
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
Chris & Jacobs, great comments. We definitely share a passion for Quicken, and would also like to see greater investment tools in QMac. Many, many users in the community post feature wishlists, and the team priortizes and slowly adds them to the existing product. It's is great to see Quicken continually upgrade the Deluxe and Premier products.
Quicken earns an additional $3.00 per month for the business product. Hopefully, this product has been successful enough to earn a return for the development and marketing efforts involved (the ROI). The business product definitely is not just adding features, it's a separate product with its own, higher level, revenue stream. My suggestion is to launch a separate "Mac for Investors" product to earn a premium subscription from a portion of existing QMac customers, as well as attract new customers who particularly value a "prosumer" investment platform. The higher subscription, just like with Quicken business, is the rational for Quicken to fund the additional software development and marketing in the Mac product. If successful, Quicken will 1) create a tighter relationship with existing Mac users that value sophisticated investment tools; and 2) attract new Mac users that value these tools. There is less need for a separate product on the Windows side, but the QMac is very underpowered as an investment platform. My pitch is that Quicken would realize an expanded market for its MAC software ecosystem with a best in class personal investment platform.
Finally, just think about the immense expense Quicken incurs to maintain QMac connectivity with all of the online investor sites. Another product would help to financially to support that on-going time and investment.
0 -
@Paul19 I think you'll find that as Quicken does, over time, add additional investment features, some of them will be for Quicken Premier users. There are currently only a couple very minor features in Quicken Mac which work for Premier but not Deluxe; I fully expect they will add more Premier-only features — which will make the Deluxe/Premier distinction more like Quicken Windows, and will also generate some additional revenue as some longtime Deluxe users may choose to upgrade to Premier. Other than that, I just don't see them creating a separate product, for the reasons Chris and I have discussed above.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
One of the things that has always been sort of flaky is the marketing of "Premier". And it sort of goes for Starter too (where almost no one can tell you what features it has, and it has tags in the register, but not in the reports).
The editions have had some interest quirks to them over time and by "region". In a way one might say that someone messed up with Quicken Windows Deluxe US.
Quicken Windows Deluxe has a lot of investment features in it. Enough so that most people can get away with using it instead of Premier, but if you have ever tracked what they were advertising for a very long time it was clear that Premier was supposed to be your "investment edition". And I think that carries on to today. In Quicken Windows that was undermined by the features they had already put in Deluxe. It was one of the contentions people reading the ads, stating "Premier for investment" and then have the SuperUsers tell them in the forum that in fact they could get away with Deluxe.
The side note to this is the old Quicken Windows Canadian. Until recently they needed to buy "Home & Business" to get investment accounts. And the old Starter edition had loans whereas the US version didn't. Currently there is Canadian Starter, Deluxe, and Home & Business. No Premier. Starter now lines up pretty much with the US version, same for the Deluxe, and Home & Business has the "Premier" investment/tax extras like in the US version (but missing a lot of the US only online Premier features), and has business, but not rental.
So, in my opinion the Quicken Mac Premier edition is being targeted as exactly what you are proposing. Note that expanding investment features goes hand and hand with expanded tax features, so this makes perfect sense. But by keeping the name Premier instead of Investment is to speak to a broader customer base where they can add other features that don't fall directly into "investment".
And I think I should point out a misconception a lot of people have. More products doesn't necessarily lead to more profits. There is a cost even for maintaining an "edition" let alone a separate product (which is much more expensive). As an example, remember there used to be Quicken Windows US, Cash Manager (I think that was what it was called), Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, and Rental Properties. Each of these building on the features of the lower versions (Cash Manager was Starter without online services). You will notice that Cash Manager and Home & Business are no longer around. You might think I got that wrong because the current ones are Starter, Deluxe, Premier, and Business & Personal. But Business and & Personal has all the features that the old rental properties had. So, Quicken Inc decided that the extra revenue difference between Home & Business and Rental Properties wasn't enough to justify the cost of maintaining that extra edition, and
combined themRenamed the Rental Properties edition.Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
feature parity across platforms is a must… frankly do not care how, just get it done!!! years of adding "feel good" features vs. proper investment reporting to reach W version(s) parity. Zero Excuses!
0 -
Zero Excuses!
I got a chuckle out of this one.
It reminded me of when a company I worked for stated their policy was "zero defects" (semi-conductor manufacture, which of course will never have zero defects), not "work towards zero defects", just "zero defects".
It was a meaningless statement just as Zero Excuses is.
We can certainly stop telling you why you aren't getting all your dreams, but that isn't going to change what actually happens one bit.
The bottom line is that Quicken Inc already has a plan for this, and they are executing on that plan. It might not be at the rate you like or in the order that you like, but guess what? It is their business not yours, and they get to decide what they are going to do in what order. There is tons of work to be done and a limited group to do it.
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
@rx00 True feature-for-feature parity is at best a long way off, and more likely is a mirage. Features will continue being added to Quicken Mac, as they have been over the years, but with there being hundreds of feature requests and even more differences between Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows, there is no way to wave a magic wand to achieve "parity".
It's fine to say "no excuses" and "just get it done", but every single feature needs to get planned, designed, programmed, and tested to make sure it works and didn't break anything else. It's a long and slow process, hampered by the fact that the Mac development team is quite small. So progress gets made, but not at the speed anyone would like. You can say you "do not care how, just get it [parity] done", but that is just impossible. I mean, if Quicken suddenly tripled its user base and revenues, I imagine they could hire more programmers to get things done faster. But the reality is that Quicken is a small company — about 200 employees — and Quicken Mac is a small part of their product offerings, and that's why I say it's impossible to "just get it done."
That all said, it's important for users to focus on voting for and commenting on the features they find most urgently needed, because it does influence what the developers work on. In this case, I agree 110% that the lack of features for investing is a significant shortcoming with Quicken Mac. Many of the requested features have clumsy workarounds; some don't. If you haven't ever done this, take a few minutes to visit the Product Ideas for Investments page on this site to skim down the list of feature requests, and add your votes and comments for the ones you think are most important for them to do.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
@jacobs You know it just occurred to me that the people asking for "feature parity" might not like that if it was to magically happen.
I'm a stinker for reminding people that the feature they are asking for from Quicken Windows, doesn't in fact work properly in Quicken Windows. And of course, you remind me that everyone hopes of course the Quicken Mac developers will implement it in the "right way".
But if you had "true feature parity" you would have the bugs/problems too. 🤣
And I might add that would be easy to do since a lot of times the reason that the feature doesn't work right is out of the control of Quicken Inc. Like when they pay for transaction aggregation or bill payment systems that are based on non-standardized systems.
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
I find I can laboriously input equity data into Morningstar and derive asset allocation and income information. A more intelligent link between the two platforms would help for those of us who subscribe to the service. But the feature that I really miss from QWin is the ability to report YTD actual and annual expected income from investments. I see that feature receives relatively few votes.
0 -
But the feature that I really miss from QWin is the ability to report YTD actual and annual expected income from investments.
Actual is easy. Expected, not so much. 😉
You might want to add your vote for this feature request; it just needs a few more votes to get forwarded to the developers for consideration:
And this feature request for being able to show projected investment balances in the sidebar is now marked as "Planned", even though it didn't garner a lot of votes.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
I seem to remember the ability to run an investment report in Quicken for Windows, listing both equities and fixed income…. Either by account, or by type, and show individual security yields, and income YTD and total estimated annual income by security. Am I correct? Is this idea up for vote?
0 -
@Paul19 You can do most investment reporting in the Portfolio; you just can't save the settings as a saved report.
In the left sidebar, select Investing (for all accounts), or a subgroup like Brokerage or Retirement, or a single account*.
Your reporting is controlled by the three "filter" dropdown menus above the chart.
Select Portfolio value in the first filter to see current values (shares, market value, cost basis, and gain/loss over a variety of time periods (all time, YTD, 12 months, 3 months, 1 month, or day). You decide which of those values to see (as dollars, percent, or both) by clicking the Columns icon in the upper right. With the second filter, you can set it to show these holdings by Account, by Security, by Asset Class, Type or by Holding Period (long- or short-term). The latter is only visible if you have both long-and short-term holdings in the selected account(s).
Select Performance in the first filter to see how your holdings have performed over time. Again, the second filter is used to set whether to view the holdings by Account, by Security, by Asset Class, or Type. Explore the available Column settings for ROI and IRR over 1, 3, or 5 years, or YTD.
*If you want to see more than one account, it's unintuitive: first select in the left sidebar a group with contains all the accounts you want to combine for reporting. So if you want to see your IRA's, but not your 401k's you could click on Investing or Retirement. In the third filter, pull down the menu to select the first account you want. Then pul down the filter menu and select the second account you want, and so on. Each time you pull down and select an account, it's added to the selection, and the menu will update to show the number of accounts selected.
Once you have the screen showing what you want to see, you have the option to print it as a report or export it as a CSV file to further manipulate in your spreadsheet of choice. Those options are hidden behind the ••• icon in the upper right.
Post back if any of that isn't clear. I'm sure it's not as robust as the reporting you had in Quicken Windows, but for most investors, there's a pretty good range of reporting available in the Portfolio.
Of course, any Quicken Mac-using investor would like to see robust investment reports which can be customized and saved to suit by each user's needs. There are several Idea threads (feature requests) which are somewhat overlapping but focused on investment reports. Please visit each of these links to add your vote and comments (but especially votes) to try to move these higher up the developers' priority list:
The last one is marked as "Planned" (yay!), so you can't vote for it. But you can add comments to any of them to explain what functionality you want to see and use cases to help the developers understand the why behind the requests.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
OK guys. I've been on sort of a mission this morning to do something I've neglected for too long - voting for features. I voted for this one, but the truth is, I agree with everyone here. The real solution is parity, or at least strive for it… I don't need every feature Windows has, but here's my driving point:
The whole reason I subscribe to Quicken is to gain instant insights on my financial situation that I can't get from any one institution. This is literally my main motivator. I have multiple brokers, multiple investing account types (example: Rollover IRA, Roth IRA, Managed Roth IRA, Managed Inherited IRA, Self Managed IRA (2), etc… and that's just IRA's. There's also Individual Accounts, my Wife's Accounts, etc.
So how do I gan insights unless I can look at consolidated views, split them out individually, custom group them, etc.? And Quicken Mac gives you a rudimentary version of that, but you can only look to see where you've been, and there's very few ways to add information unless you export them to CSV's and manually add in more data.
So for me, a lot of the features in Windows really helped me a lot. Such as - multiple pre-fab views in the Portfolio Investing View - such as Equities, Mutual Funds, etc. with prospective dividend dates and projected dividends, etc., Morningstar ratings, and so on. There must be 15 - 20 canned views, and then 4-5 customizable views at least - just create your own views, each with different sets of columns, add or subtract accounts ,focus on income, focus on growth - skin it however you want. Or, if I just want to look at one equity - click on it in Mac and it brings me to a very rudimentary web site that is of almost no value, where as Windows singles out that equity providing transaction and price history across all accounts, shows closed lots, graphs your choice of price performance or value performance, etc. and sometimes it's rather eye opening. Sometimes it just helps you forensically track down the source of an odd lot or error that is the root of a problem. Or reporting. We all know that one. Reporting capabilities isn't even close.
Now - why aren't I still using Q Windows, then? Because the Mac version is so much cleaner. It's faster, the workflow is so much better in its areas of functionality, the screens are not as laggy or kludgey. It doesn't look like Windows XP, etc. It's "Good Enough - temporarily. But for how long? Man, I was probably naive in expecting the Mac improvements to come, and by subscribing, I was hoping to vote with my $$$. Quicken Windows got me actively engaged with my investments, but now that I have been playing Mac, I can see so much less.
I use Quicken to pay my bills, but it seems like every time there's an update we get 5 new checking or budgeting features and no real tangible investing improvements. I don't feel like Quicken Premier Mac is aimed at serous investors like Windows is. But I'll be devoting time to voting, out of exasperation if nothing else. And to be fair, I'm still discovering hidden features, like selecting accounts by going back to the drop down since it closes every time you select an account even if you CMD-click
Sorry for the rant, but that's my journey, and I might have to start including Quicken in my prayers to get anything done if this voting thing doesn't work. Somebody used the word passionate on here. Yeah. Guilty. And an optimist, too, which is a bad combination
Quicken Premier Mac Classic (since 2022), Quicken Premiere Windows (1995 - current, but not actively using since Mac conversion)
0 -
I was probably naive in expecting the Mac improvements to come
I was also naive back when the modern Quicken Mac debuted a decade ago; I expected they would keep adding tons of features quickly. (Heck, in 2016 when Quicken became independent of Intuit, the CEO said their goal was to achieve general parity with the Windows version within 2-3 years!) I remember a fellow longtime Quicken Mac user telling me back then that the progress would be much slower than I was expecting, and a decade later I can say he was absolutely right. 🤣
The reality is that Quicken is a complex piece of software, and the small Mac development team can only churn out a few new features every other month or so. But they are marking progress, although it's slow enough that it sometimes doesn't feel that way. Only when I look back over years of Release Notes, or fire up my old copy of Quicken Mac 2017, do I get the perspective that the developers have actually accomplished a lot over time.
And you're right that Investing is an area of the program which hasn't received a lot of attention. Although they did just add Watchlists. And they did add and iteratively improve Dashboards. And they do say features such as a Lifetime/Retirement Planner, investment reports, custom asset classes, tax planner, debt reduction planner, and several budget improvements are on the development schedule as "Planned" new features; I'm hoping that if 2024 is the year for planning features 2025 might be the year for a number of new/improved investment features.
Bottom line: if you're looking for/expecting lots of new functionality in any area of the program in short order, you're likely going to be disappointed; if it works well enough for you now and you can wait for improvements over the long term, you're likely going to be pleased.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
No, I’m with you. I’ve been using the Mac version since 2022, so at least I have a nominal sense of pace. I guess the frustration is doubled down on the idea that priority seems to be more on budgeting than investing, and considering how well the checking budgeting works, their priorities should be the other way around (investing»budgting/spending)
Quicken Premier Mac Classic (since 2022), Quicken Premiere Windows (1995 - current, but not actively using since Mac conversion)
0
