Jaybird180
Final Approach
For the recent few years, I started entering all of my financial data using Quicken. I’m a novice user; I can find any of my transactions, track income, pay all expenses on time, track my net worth and have an idea of future projections. I kept with Windows mobile simply for the Pocket Quicken software that allowed me to keep my data with me and enter transactions as they were made. It proved to be a very useful and important tool to keep me from repeating the many errors of my past.
Unfortunately, Quicken has not been the panacea I’d hoped for. A few moths into ownership, the account download and reconciliation portion broke. I discovered that Quicken is aware of it, its user community is aware, yet their thrust has been to get a user to either upgrade or convert to their online version. I refuse to give a software vendor more money after their product breaks and they refuse to fix it. So I continued using the software manually downloading where needed.
When I got married, I took on managing her finances alongside our combined finances.
Since then, Intuit has ended the Pocket Quicken agreement with Landware. I recently received notification that in April they will no longer support any downloads with my version of software. Strike 3, Quicken has to go.
My routine has been to enter my transactions daily on my mobile, synch about 2-3 times per week, enter her transactions from her retained receipts after synching and then download from financial institutions to mark cleared transactions. I then take care of upcoming expenses, monitoring projected balance changes and any other tasks. This method has the cost of high administrative overhead and husband unavailability during periods of intense focus.
I plan to continue being the financial manager of our household but I’m looking for something that will give the additional capability of allowing both my wife and I to independently enter transactions throughout our day. We each carry WinMo devices but would be willing to change platforms if required (apple, android, etc). I’m reluctant to go with a web-based financial data custodian (i.e., Quicken Online) for several reasons to include potential loss of confidentiality, availability, non-repudiation or being stuck in a proprietary format if we decide to change in the future.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a better solution?
Unfortunately, Quicken has not been the panacea I’d hoped for. A few moths into ownership, the account download and reconciliation portion broke. I discovered that Quicken is aware of it, its user community is aware, yet their thrust has been to get a user to either upgrade or convert to their online version. I refuse to give a software vendor more money after their product breaks and they refuse to fix it. So I continued using the software manually downloading where needed.
When I got married, I took on managing her finances alongside our combined finances.
Since then, Intuit has ended the Pocket Quicken agreement with Landware. I recently received notification that in April they will no longer support any downloads with my version of software. Strike 3, Quicken has to go.
My routine has been to enter my transactions daily on my mobile, synch about 2-3 times per week, enter her transactions from her retained receipts after synching and then download from financial institutions to mark cleared transactions. I then take care of upcoming expenses, monitoring projected balance changes and any other tasks. This method has the cost of high administrative overhead and husband unavailability during periods of intense focus.
I plan to continue being the financial manager of our household but I’m looking for something that will give the additional capability of allowing both my wife and I to independently enter transactions throughout our day. We each carry WinMo devices but would be willing to change platforms if required (apple, android, etc). I’m reluctant to go with a web-based financial data custodian (i.e., Quicken Online) for several reasons to include potential loss of confidentiality, availability, non-repudiation or being stuck in a proprietary format if we decide to change in the future.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a better solution?
