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No Bank of America account updates -- Maybe time for new Quicken ownership?

Since_TheBeginning1

I see that the issue with Bank of America as first reported by Quicken on May 15. Here we are May 21 and I was just told 'yes this is a known issue. We have no known resolution and no idea of time for a fix. Check back IN A FEW DAYS and we MAY have made some progress." Why do a I want a product that has insufficient resources to fix serious problems in a reasonable timeframe? This is another example of venture capital management milking the cow through the fence. An ownership team focused on squeezing out every last cent of cash flow from unending increases in subscription rates instead of reinvesting in the product is killing this brand. After being on Quicken since the 90's now actively looking for a viable replacement since this ship appears to be taking on water fast.

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Comments

Jon

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but connection problems are all too often not something Quicken can fix themselves. Either the problem is on the bank's side, or the problem is on the aggregator's side (in the case of Quicken that would be Intuit), and Quicken may not even know for sure which one is the source of the problem. All they can do is report the problem & wait for it to get fixed, the same as us.

Other financial programs you might switch to have exactly the same issue with connection problems - there are a small number of aggregators out there (Plaid & Yodlee are the ones I see mentioned most) and everybody is getting their transaction data through them. So you're not going to get speedier fixes to connection issues by switching programs when it's the same small set of companies behind the scenes no matter where you go.

If you don't believe me, spend some time in the support forums or discussion groups for other competing programs and observe how similar their connection complaints are to the ones you see here.

gtgerbo

I agree with Jon. There are too many variables involved in the connection to a particular bank to pin this on Quicken.

It might be better if you describe the issue you are encountering. It would be good to know if this is a new issue.

jacobs

I think @Jon nails the issue. I'd just add that the connectivity problems users experience today is not the result of "venture capital management milking the cow through the fence". It has always been this way, back to when Quicken was a part of Intuit. I do believe the connectivity problems occur more frequently now, but that's the result of financial institutions making more frequent changes to their websites and security protocols to try to thwart scammers. Some users have one or a few financial institutions, and if those are not ones affected by a connectivity problem often or at all, they don't have a negative experience with Quicken; on the other hand, users who are hit by a financial institution with a connectivity problem sometimes feel Quicken overall is failing because their one key financial institution is down.

Many connectivity problems take weeks or even months, not a few days, to be fully resolved. And that's not because Quicken doesn't care, or even that they don't have sufficient resources; it's because they're at the mercy of other parties — their aggregator (Intuit), the financial institution's IT team, the financial institution's connectivity provider if they outsource this service, or some combination of those. A large financial institution like Bank of America may not feel it's an urgent priority to address a connectivity issue with Quicken; it may fall far down their priority list. In one case I got some insight into last year, a major financial institution (not BoA) coded a small thing wrong in an update to their connectivity; once it was diagnosed, they told Quicken it was on their schedule for a fix in three months! (The Quicken Mac team was able, in that case, to program around the problem and get the issue resolved for users in much less time, but that's often not possible.)

I don't know what the current BoA issue is, but it doesn't surprise me that it hasn't been resolved within 6 days. I understand the user frustration, of course; but saying that Quicken is going down the tubes because poor management doesn't have the resources at hand to fix things sooner misunderstands the nature of these problems.

And as a Quicken Mac user, particularly, the charge that management is "killing the brand" by failing to reinvest in the product seems off-the-mark. The "new" (now 12 years old 😂) generation Quicken Mac has been a slow slog of improvements and feature additions, but there can be no denying that the Quicken Mac team has pretty continually improved the product year after year. Of course, we would all like it if Quicken had a Mac development team which was much larger and which could execute on creating more features/enhancements much more quickly. But the actual management team is all Quicken folks rather than venture capital meddlers, and the small Mac development team hasn't been slashed due to venture capital ownership.

vnolin11

Since_TheBeginning1

I am currently using Windows Quicken Classic Deluxe. I recently opened a Quicken Simplifi account so that I could compare the two. Over the past couple of years I have tried Quicken Simplifi and it was not even close to Quicken Deluxe for my needs. This time around I believe Simplifi may be a valid alternative to Deluxe. I have 2 bank checking accounts, 1 online bank savings account, 8 credit cards, 1 investment company with 2 brokerage accounts and 3 IRA accounts. So far, so good with Simplifi. The downside is that you are unable to import anything from Quicken Deluxe. So, you have to start from scratch, similar to those of us who have experienced corrupted data files with Deluxe. After I connected all of my accounts, which was quick and easy, I had a couple of years worth of transactions downloaded for each account. It took many hours to customize the category's to make Simplifi to look the same as Deluxe. I decided to make the history of all my accounts transactions to only go back to January 1st, 2026. All of my reports, income and spending, for Simplifi were in balance with Deluxe. I am retired, so my brokerage and IRA holdings are fairly basic, containing money markets and CD's. Simplifi dashboard is similar to Deluxe, showings all accounts and balances with the option of customizing with additional screens (income report, spending report, investments, recent transactions, etc.). The learning curve was fairly easy compared for someone using Deluxe for the first time. I find Simplifi is very easy to navigate. Unlike Deluxe, I've had no connectivity or account updating issues. Simplifi appears to be more stable than Deluxe. I think Simplifi is a modified version of the old Intuit Mint. I've been using Quicken for over 30 years. I renewed Deluxe a few months ago, so I have nearly a year to decide which Quicken product to keep.

Jon

I think Simplifi is a modified version of the old Intuit Mint.

That seems unlikely - when Intuit sold Quicken a decade ago they kept ownership of Mint and continued to run it until last year when they moved users over to CreditKarma. So I doubt they would have let the Quicken folks use the Mint codebase to create a competing product.

Simplifi does seem to have matured decently over the years - at this point I think it comes down to where you want your data to live. If you want to keep it on your PC/Mac you go with Quicken, if you want it in the cloud you go with Simplifi.

Since_TheBeginning1

In response to this and the other previous comments I feel that when an issue is reported by Quicken on May 15 and that on May 21 they relate they don't know what the source of the problem is and have no idea of how and when it will be resolved Is a fair indication of weak product support staffing. This isn't an issue with some regional bank — it's one of the largest institutions in the country. My career was in tech and I know that while there are no instant fixes having over a week to identify where there is a problem with systems interfaces is more than enough time in over 95% of the cases. Being told 'call us back in a week' indicates a certain lack of confidence on their part for making progress.

Chris_QPW

I agree with @Jon it seems pretty clear to me that Simplifi grew out of Quicken Mobile/Web not Mint.

Of course, Quicken Inc doesn't give the details, but this is what I think the two systems look like.

Quicken Desktop.

Desktop data file ←> QCS (Quicken Cloud services) ←> Intuit ←> Financial institutions

Quicken Simplifi.

QCS (Quicken Cloud services) ←> Intuit ←> Financial institutions

Note that Quicken Mobile/Web is an interface to Quicken Cloud Services. Simplifi would be another such interface, maybe even the same codebase or some branch of it.

Quicken Simplifi would clearly have a few of advantages over Quicken Classic. Modern code maintained on a server and no need to sync with the Quicken Desktop.

Being on the server means it doesn't have to deal with any kind of "user machine/network" problems like Quicken Classic does. The "syncing" has been a major flaw in the idea that you can use Quicken Mobile/Web. So, if we are talking about problems like data sync losses and performance problems then clearly Simplifi has a leg up on that kind of problem. With Simplifi with the exception of some caching of data on their mobile/web apps clearly there is "the database" that is on the Quicken servers (part of the QCS system). In the case of Quicken Desktop supposedly the "main database" is the Quicken Desktop data file, but that would then mean that the QCS has a "secondary database" where the two have to be kept in sync. But note that one is supposed to be able to use Quicken Classic Mobile/Web for extended periods of time, which means that there is no real "100% master database".

I do believe like the others that most of the transaction connection kind of problems are on the Intuit to financial institution side, but no system is going to be without some problems that might manifest themselves in this same area.

It should be noted that these days it is the "sync" system that gets the downloaded transactions from QCS even if "Sync to Mobile/Web" is off. It syncs less data (no budget for instance) but it is a "sync".

And to directly address this statement:

An ownership team focused on squeezing out every last cent of cash flow from unending increases in subscription rates instead of reinvesting in the product is killing this brand.

I think it is pretty clear that all Quicken Inc can do for Quicken Desktop at this point is hobble along with what it has on the Desktop and try to make what improvements it can. Quicken Mac is better off with it being rewritten but it seems to clear to me that Quicken Inc believes the future is in Simplifi/server products, not the Desktop.

But fundamentally the biggest problem is the financial institutions, and the lack of any standard that they all use for this process. That goes for online bills and other such systems. Standardize system make things repeatable. Lack of them causes such headaches.

And "ownership" is sort of meaningless. As I understand it Quicken Inc has changed ownership at least twice since Intuit sold it. But I take it the intent is replacing everyone. That implies two things. Some company would want it, which I doubt (the last owners venture capitalists) and that somehow the new owners would have the experience and resources to make it better. This is just like believing that you can rewrite Quicken Classic in a short period of time. Which history has proven isn't the case. BTW I doubt any "cutting edge/highly experienced developers" would want to work on a product like Quicken.

vnolin11

Jon

Maybe I should have phrased it differently. It reminds of Mint. I used and liked Mint until Intuit moved it to CreditKarma. To me, Simplifi appears more advanced than when I used Mint. For now, I am satisfied with both products (Deluxe and Simplifi). I was not satisfied last July, with the Fidelity disaster. Quicken Deluxe can be your best friend when it works or your worst nightmare when it doesn't. Like I said in my post, I have nearly a year to decide on one or the other.

Chris_QPW

On this statement:

Being told 'call us back in a week' indicates a certain lack of confidence on their part for making progress.

I think everyone in this thread would totally agree with that statement, and for the very reason that people have pointed out. Quicken Inc doesn't have control of this. You can't have a lot of confidence in something that you have no control over and has proven to take a really long time in the past.

Intuit was never very responsive to the Quicken group even when it owned it. I remember that one of the Quicken employees was happy that Quicken was going to be sold because they believed that "as the customer they would get more leverage". I think it is pretty clear that they didn't. What's more I have point out that this is major "labor problem" so it isn't all even Intuit's fault. When you are dealing with 15,000+ different financial institutions that won't standardize on a given API and at any time they can make changes to their website and break things, you are always going to be chasing the failures.

And the belief that the "new standard" will fix things, well Direct Connect/OFX was the new standard that was going to fix everything back then. It reached about 4,500 financial institutions and then started going down. I don't expect any difference from Express Web Connect +/FDS.