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Is it just me or is Quicken horribly buggy?

msoultan

I've been evaluating Quicken for the past month and I've run into multiple bugs (and reported most):

If the sorter order is descending with the "new line" transaction at the top, the bottom transaction can't be manipulated and acts weird.
I filled out an invoice with a bunch of line-items, and then at some later point it just wiped out the contents for unknown reasons.
The same invoice transaction described above would exit out of the invoice form view without confirmation (indicating something was up with that transaction).
Even though registers have a certain sort order, they just mysteriously change (i.e. "new line" transaction is at the top even though the sort order dictates it should be at the bottom).
Just now I ran into a bug where an invoice has an attachment, but the paperclip isn't indicating as such.

This is a pretty bad track record, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if I run into more issues. It's especially frustrating because I'm trying to learn the software and now I have to worry about whether I'm running into intentional design behavior or a bug. Further, I feel like I'm just doing QA for a piece of software that I've paid for instead of being able to use it to track my finances. You'd think that since Quicken has been around for a while that it would be a bit more stable, especially because it's financial data and you can't be screwing around with this kinda stuff, but that doesn't seem to be the case with Quicken. I'm really trying to figure it out and stick with Quicken, but this is far from confidence inspiring!! :(

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msoultan

This is getting ridiculous - I just found another bug - I tried to use the bug reporting tool to report the attachment bug above, and this is what I got:

When I hit close the entire window closes (instead of sending me back to the report window and everything I typed is gone. Seriously Quicken, you need to do better than this!!

RalphC

I am not experiencing any of those issues and never have. You should probably contact Quicken Support so they can check your installation. It sounds like it's corrupt.

bmbass

YES, Quicken has a LOT of bugs. I have been dealing with them for 31 years! It is also very aggravating when the bug reporting mechanism doesn't work. I would say it works about 1 out of every 5 times I try it. I wish there was an easier way to get these bugs fixed and focus on a STABLE platform instead of continuing to add "bells and whistles".

msoultan

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20451091#Comment_20451091

I've already contacted them on most of these issues and they've seen it first-hand. It's just frustrating because I'm a new user to this platform, and in the first 30 days of using this I'm spending more time working around their bugs and hours on the phone reporting them, than being able to use the software.

msoultan

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20451103#Comment_20451103

I'm going to keep pushing hard on this stuff. Amazingly, even with all it's bugs, Quicken still seems to offer more of the stuff you need (albeit very unpolished) at a better price than QB or the other finance tools. I'm fine with it not looking pretty, but it just needs to work flawlessly because it's my money that it's tracking!

q_lurker

Is it just me or is Quicken horribly buggy?

Both? But note these following are only my opinions.

I note that three of your five initial points are invoice related. Clearly you are using the business features of the program. I'll suggest those areas might be buggier because it is a much smaller portion of the user base using those features, testing those features, and reporting back on those features. I'll tack on to that - Quicken is a personal finance program with some business features. Broadly those features are focused on sole proprietorship businesses reporting income on an individual's 1040 Schedule C. Accountant-level accounting is not there. So I would never recommend the program for what I might term a real business - employees, accountants, separate tax filings, inventories, etc..

Second point - I've been using the program since DOS days, over 30 years. Some of those early processes are pretty well ingrained in my approaches. I rarely get into newer added-on features, bells, and whistles. As such, I see very few bugs. One example toward your context - virtually 100% of the time, my registers and transaction list are sorted with oldest dates first. (An exception to that are accounts where I sort by Clr status, but the secondary sort is then Date ascending, effectively the same.) By sticking with the basics, bugs are avoided.

Also along that line, by getting into a workflow that works for you, you become more likely to not be exposed to the types of bugs bugging you now.

I'm going to keep pushing hard on this stuff.

Do what you need to do, but recognize that a lot of bugs have been there for a long time for a variety of reasons. There is a lot of inertia in the code and the organization that no matter how hard you push, you cannot overcome. Keep your expectations in check or your frustrations will blow up.

Finally, I am not trying to make excuses for the program or the programmers. I am trying to keep users expectations within the real world. Features they put into the program should work. They don't always work. Sometimes they work and then get broken. That's life with Quicken.

msoultan

@q_lurker (Un?)fortunately, my expectations are pretty low at this point. I'm fine working around quirks, and unlike most people, I'm willing to take the time to report them to help them improve the software, but when I write an invoice and it just mysteriously deletes the contents except for the total amount, that's not a good thing. Even moreso if I'm paying for the service. I get that the business portion may be an afterthought, and I'm a very small operation so I don't need a whole lot, but again, they're claiming to offer a product that you'd expect to reliably perform certain things, I'm paying for it, so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that it works as advertised.

So, the funny part about the register sorting - yes, I leave it sorted in ascending order like you - yet mysteriously every so often it decides to put the "new transaction" line at the top and mess up the sort order, which then means you can't perform normal operations (like delete) on the bottom transaction. The only way to get it working again is to resort the register. And I'm not the only one running into this - I've noticed other people mention the same thing.

msoultan

Forgot to add #6 to the list:

If the sorter order is descending with the "new line" transaction at the top, the bottom transaction can't be manipulated and acts weird.
I filled out an invoice with a bunch of line-items, and then at some later point it just wiped out the contents for unknown reasons.
The same invoice transaction described above would exit out of the invoice form view without confirmation (indicating something was up with that transaction).
Even though registers have a certain sort order, they just mysteriously change (i.e. "new line" transaction is at the top even though the sort order dictates it should be at the bottom).
Just now I ran into a bug where an invoice has an attachment, but the paperclip isn't indicating as such.
After you add a new customer to your address book the entire list of customers just disappears. If you change the group it will bring them all back.

AlexisoftheShire

It sounds like Quicken isn't for you. You may have use cases which don't fit the design of the software. I've been using it for over 25 years.

You are correct it does manage financial information. Like all highly complex financial software due to the nature of finance/investments/banking/taxes/regulations etc. there will be bugs from time-to-time. Over the years I've learned sooner or later they get fixed and move on. My financial data is highly accurate and reflects exactly what my financial institutions (banking, loans, investments) state.

I think if you stick with Quicken and continue to submit bug reports sooner or later they will get resolved. The trade-off for you will the fixes be fast enough for your business. You may want to look for other business focused software such as Quickbooks.

Westley

Hi msoultan,

Yes, Quicken is quirky or buggy, whatever you want to call it, but there just isn't anything else out there. Quicken is the third personal finance software that I've used. I started decades ago with Managing Your Money, moved to Microsoft Money (a far superior product but didn't get the market share it deserved), and now I'm using Quicken.

As you've noticed there are a lot of quirks, at times it can be slow as molasses when trying to enter a transaction, and, I've been too lazy to keep screenshots, I swear it will change my opening balances on some accounts from time to time. The most frustrating part for me is downloading transactions. When it goes off the rails, all you get is finger pointing with the banks pointing to Quicken and Quicken pointing to the banks with Intuit just laughing in the middle.

I'm sure there are others who will disagree me with but be prepared to create a brand-new data file every five or so. Quicken just can't handle a lot of old data and I found it easier to create a blank data file then to try the Quicken method of purging data.

As you stated, maybe one day Quicken will focus on fixing/improving the current features rather than add new features or worry about what the latest logo looks like.

I do use Quicken for business transactions, actually run two different businesses out of it, but I stopped doing invoices for my main business years ago. It was easier to move that to another service that also tracks my time and let's me use a VA to create the invoices. I do do invoices for my secondary business, but they are usually just one line item.

All of that to say, I feel your pain and, in time, you will find a workflow that works for you.

msoultan

It sounds like Quicken isn't for you. You may have use cases which don't fit the design of the software. I've been using it for over 25 years.

@AlexisoftheShire which design are you referring to - the current design or the design from 25 years ago? All of those are documented features of the software, so I don't think it's unrealistic to expect that they work, as documented. And yes, there will be bugs from time-to-time, but this feels somewhat excessive. I guess what's interesting, as evident from people's responses, is that many just live with the bugs. I'll keep reporting them and I'd appreciate if people chime in to let the Quicken staff know that fixing those bugs is important to them.

Yes, Quicken is quirky or buggy, whatever you want to call it, but there just isn't anything else out there.

@Westley yeah, I noticed that. I've been looking at the other systems out there and it's amazing what they're charging for something that looks pretty (and still lacks features unless you spend a ridiculous amount). Fortunately I'm not looking for anything super fancy and my operation is still really small, but at some point in time I will probably shift over, or maybe I'll have helped Quicken get all the bugs fixed by then 😜

I think the key with a lot of this stuff is helping the devs recreate the problem - if they never encounter the problem and don't know how to recreate it, it makes it really difficult for them to fix it. I think one of the main reasons I'm encountering so many bugs is because I'm starting from fresh and doing a bunch of different things just to figure out how the software works, and many times current users (or the devs) already have a set of test data loaded so they might not encounter the issues I'm seeing.

I mean, overall it's not that bad, but compared to other software out there (of any type), I'm still somewhat surprised how many issues have cropped up.

CTMathews

I too have used Quicken for many years (25+). Recently, I had two weeks that I was getting no where. I restarted with a saved data file at the beginning of this year and had "improved" performance. I agree that there are many bugs, but I did not know that this wasn't my own creation. I appreciate the discussion above as I have more faith that I might not be as crazy as I thought. Also, if there was something better at the price, I would get it!!

msoultan

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20451505#Comment_20451505

Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't seem like there's something better at a better price - there is definitely something better at a higher price!

That being said, I'm hoping that reporting these issue and posting videos of them will help get them fixed… fingers crossed!

Bob_L

I didn't see it mentioned, but my experience here is that using the web app or mobile app can sometimes lead to screwy things happening. Putting your data file on a cloud service such as OneDrive can also lead to strange problems. Shouldn't be the case ,but it is what it is.

I also agree that the business use case may be better served elsewhere, e.g. QuickBooks.

q_lurker

”a clod service”

A Freudian slip?

msoultan

I also agree that the business use case may be better served elsewhere, e.g. QuickBooks.

@Bob_L why is that? Quicken offers a basic set of business features fits my use case - I'm not asking for anything beyond the features that the software already provides. I don't know why you'd equate bug reports as not fitting my use-case, as I'm just expecting that the software do what it's advertised to do, especially because I'm paying for. If I were getting it for free, I think that would be a different story.

Bob_L

Yeah should have been cloud service, and now fixed. Thx @q_lurker

Bob_L

I don't know why you'd equate bug reports as not fitting my use-case, as I'm just expecting that the software do what it's advertised to do.

Sure, then hang in there and keep on reporting issues as necessary.

msoultan

I would like to add - while my initial post was pretty grumpy (mostly because my learning curve was steep due to bugs), I am pretty content with Quicken and the features that it offers. It's definitely going to help make my life easier, especially if I'm not trying to manage my finances with a custom excel spreadsheet. Because Quicken will play a central role in my finance/invoice management, I will keep reporting issues and hopefully they get fixed, not just for me, but for the benefit of everyone using the software.

Thanks,
Mike

Dinesh

I have been using Quicken for nearly 20 years (since they shut down MS Money). Of late it seems like they are releasing frequent updates [Removed - Speculation/Inaccurate]. Every time it is a different bug. Functions that worked very well in the past gets broken. Does not download correct quotes and prices. Randomly replaces portfolio values to zero (It gets corrected the next day). I report the issues every time. But not sure what happens to my reports. There is no acknowledgement from quicken.

And the issue with TD Bank was the most frustrating. Took them over 4 mos. to resolve.

Mac_Bird

i’ve been using for about 25 years. And it does have a lot of bugs mainly stove pipes. They fix some issues and then other issues pop up.
Sometimes I’ve had to spend hours fixing data records , repairing things that quick and damaged. Rather than restore my old backup.
The thing is there’s really not an alternative software out there. If there was I probably would’ve switched over before. But it does a good job with personal finance overall. Still using it.