Ask Quicken about Quicken

I recently received this question from a reader:

I use Quicken 2007 and am pretty much a beginner. My question is how do I categorize equity line of credit loans (transferred to accounts to cover bills, etc.)? They show up as income on my reports. So, my reports show my income almost quadrupled what it actually is. Is there some other category I should be using? HELP!

Guess what? She's in luck. Because Quicken has contacted me and agreed to answer your questions about their product. So if you have something you want to know about Quicken (like the reader above), simply leave your question in the comments below. I'll collect all the questions for a week or so, send them to Quicken, then run the answers that they send back to me. I'm sure they won't be able to answer every question, but what's the harm in trying? Ask away!

Comments

[Jeremy]

Here are 2 that drive me crazy:

* How can I add further categories to cash and/or investment accounts? I'd love to be able to group my non-retirement assets such as college savings, regular investing, etc. Similarly, I'd like to group my cash accounts into "day-to-day" checking, regular savings, emergency fund, etc.

* How about allowing us to specify new categories for mutual funds? Currently, I have to add mid-caps into the "Other" category, which doesn't really help.

Thanks!

[Elysa B.]

Why has the release date for Quicken Financial Life for Mac product been pushed back so many times? If I bite the bullet now and buy Quicken for Mac 2007, will * all* the data be easy to import into QFLM when it finally does come out in the summer (hopefully)?

[Trent D.]

I converted from MS Money to Quicken, but one major component of Quicken is driving me batty.

Q: When is the budget feature going to be updated in Quicken? I had Quicken 2006, and updated to 2009, and there have been ZERO improvements to the budgeting function.

Issue 1: There's no good way to account for a raise without the budget function assuming that raise is retroactive. For example, if I receive a $1k raise in July, and update my paycheck accordingly, Quicken calculates the funds as if I had that raise during January through June, which makes it look like I have more available cash than I really do.

Issue 2: There's no way to account for month to month budget adjustments over the course of more than a calendar year. For example, if I adjust my personal spending budget each month, once it rolls over from December to January of the following year, I have to start overwriting my previous budget. This means I can't run a report for a greater than one year time period, because my spending in January 2007 was lower than in January 2008, and there's no way to account for that in Quicken.

[steve]

I'm still having problems printing checks and reports from quicken with my HP all in one printer. I've been on with tech support several times and gone through all the steps. Then I found out this is a common problem and they knew about it. When and how are they going to resolve it.

[rdub98]

Why did you get rid of the ability to download QIF files? I've been using Quicken for years and my credit union doesn't do QFX. I know of a workaround for this, but only for cash accounts. Why not open it back up to all account types? Please bring QIF imports back!!!!

[Allan]

Wow. Impresive
All about finance

[SAH]

I am looking for a good online money management tool. Obviously, I must choose between Quicken Online and Mint. My friends use Mint, but it will only store up to 3 months of financial information. Storing only three months of info makes it hard to budget for an entire year.

My question is, does Quicken Online store information for more than 3 months? If it does, then my decision is easy.

[Benjamin Bryan]

1. Is there a way to have multiple user access form different computers? One of the problems I have with Quicken is my wife doesn't get up-to-date information on how we're doing because it's on my computer and not on hers. Is there a way to store the Quicken data on a file share (or better yet a SQL server, then I could write my own reports and queries for her to run) and allow multiple people to access it (even if one session is read only)? I can't use Quicken online because it won't import all my eight years worth of data and it doesn't support a lot of the advanced features I use. What suggestions do you have?

2. A second for QIF import. My biggest complaint is the inability to import QIF files, I have to create a cash "suspense" account, import to there, then cut and paste all the transactions into the real account. ...this is the only way to import Paypal transactions and it's a big time waster.

3. I've noticed a movement towards tagging in newer versions, this won't compromise the double-entry accounting (I emulate it using categories and split transactions) will it?

4. I currently use Quicken 2008 Home & Business on my Mac under Parallels. What features would I lose if I upgraded to the Quicken Life version that's coming out soon?

5. I've noticed a /lot/ of people use a categories (like "car payment") instead of a split transaction between a loan account and the interest paid "category" , perhaps Intuit should do a tutorial on how to do loan and asset accounts properly.

Thanks.

[Scott]

Two questions:

Why doesn't Quicken provide some options for an "envelope" based budgeting approach?

When are they going to do something about the whacked out column widths on their reports and provide more of a WYSIWYG approach to report creation?

[Chelsea]

Hi everybody,

This is Chelsea from Quicken. First, thanks to FMF for giving us Quicken folks a chance to answer your questions.

We'll do our best to give you some helpful info.

- Chelsea

[AmandaD]

I'd love some info on their "sunset" policy where they do not support older versions of the software. https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3874 I've been using quicken for 10+ years now & am annoyed that I am forced to upgrade every few years to keep getting my transactions downloaded. There is nothing that is so revolutionary in account keeping that requires me to upgrade every 2-3 years and purchase their new software.

Also, what the heck is up with their quicken for Mac version? I'm a new MAC user & would love to transfer my files over to my new computer. However, I've read awful review about Quicken for Mac and they are not up-to-date with the PC versions. There's no equivalent accounting software for MAC & my husband is really tired of me using his PC laptop to do our finances after we bought me a new computer that I can't use Quicken on.

[chelsea]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for your questions about categories, investment accounts, and mutual funds above:

Which version and year of Quicken are you talking about here? It'll help me get you the best answers.

Thanks,
Chelsea, Quicken

[FMF]

Just a note that I'm cutting off questions here. Look for answers to the questions above coming soon on FMF.

[Jeremy]

Hello Chelsea,

I'm using Quicken 2009, but just upgraded from 2006.

-Jeremy

[Shawn Crisp]

Any idea of a release date for Quicken Financial 'whatever it is' for Mac? I know the site says summer, but that's pretty vague. Are we perhaps looking at an early summer release say April? or should we expect later?

[Marie]

Hi, I'm using Quicken 2009 for the first time. Can someone tell me the best way to set up an investment account (for example, Merrill Lynch CMA Account) that has an active checking account with it. Specifically, why type of account do I set it up as? Thanks for your answer.

[Nick]

I just bought Quicken 2009, but on the back of the box, it says it will only import data from quicken 2008? I had an older verion I dont remeber which one. Will it open my old data?

[Curious User]

Is this it? Where are the answers from Intuit? All I see is questions from Intuit.

[FMF]

Curious --

The answers were posted in a subsequent series of posts.