The Difference Between Quicken Online and Quicken Desktop

I've been a Quicken user for years (almost 15 years as a matter of fact) and I love it. Simple, easy to use, and gives me the data I need. Plus, I now have a great history of financial information that I can use to create all sorts of charts and graphs and analyze my finances. I have to control myself or I get carried away, so I focus on three or four key charts and that's primarily it.

Quicken also now has Quicken Online, a free, web-based version of Quicken. Since I have Quicken set up like I like it AND I'm a bit leery about putting my personal finance info online, I'm not really interested in Quicken Online. And, in fact, I didn't even really understand what it was about. So when a Quicken rep contacted me, I asked her to explain the difference between the two.

She said that Quicken and Quicken Online are two personal finance options from Intuit, Inc. designed to meet a variety of wide personal finance needs and help people in different stages of their money lives. She noted that a good analogy is that Quicken desktop like a large nationwide home repair store that offers customers every possible tool for every possible job, whereas Quicken Online is like a specialty shop with employees ready to help you complete a specific task, like building a shed.

Quicken Online is a good match for customers seeking:

• a 100% free, all Web-based basic personal finance solution.
• a first start with managing money at a basic level (see balances, what's left between paychecks, manage cash flow).
• access to their balances across accounts plus get bill reminders, large expense transaction alerts, and more via email, text, iPhone or Blackberry.
• a similar experience to online banking, but including accounts from all of their financial institutions (right now customers can access more than 8,500 financial institutions).
• automatic refresh of account balances each night, allowing them to keep tabs on finances without tracking each expense manually.
• "what's left" between paychecks once bills are taken into account.

Quicken desktop is a good match for customers seeking:

• a desktop personal finance solution to meet a variety of specific money needs including bill pay, drill-down on investments, home and business financial management, and rental property management to name a few.
• in-depth investment tools.
• advanced reporting.
• detailed tax preparation and deduction maximizing tools.
• savings tracking against goals and optimized savings tools.
• an environment where you can really track finances on a daily basis.

Ok, so maybe I once would have been a potential user of Quicken Online. But now it looks a bit too simplistic for my needs. It appears to be more of a starter tool for financial management with the desktop version being for those who are a bit more sophisticated, want to do more analysis, and have a broader list of more complicated needs. Got it.

What's your take on these two products? Anyone out there use either Quicken Online or Quicken Desktop? What do you think of them?

Comments

[Travis W.]

Just started checking out Mint.com which would be comparable to Quicken online. So far so good. Quite impressed with information provided and ease of use. It is still lacking in some areas but perhaps that will change w/time...I've put in a few suggestions.

I may checkout Quicken Online as well. Essentially I'm a MS Money user (been using it for 8 years) and with their recent announcement of discontinuing it I'm checking out alternatives. I'd be interested in hearing from someone who's used Quicken online or switched from MS Money to Quicken.

[Wise Money Matters]

I find Quicken to be overly complicated while Quicken Online (and my preferred tool: Mint.com) to be much easier for budgeting and the simple stuff. I wouldn't use any of the in depth investment stuff or the rental property management or any of that. The online solutions are perfect for my needs.

[Derek]

I used to use Quicken desktop years ago, but the thing was a beast for data storage, so I went looking for online tools. I use Yodlee MoneyCenter for tracking my bank accounts, credit card balances and travel rewards accounts. (I've tried Mint, but didn't like it as much.) And I use MSN Portfolio Manager for tracking performance of my investments (well, and a massive spreadsheet). Both are free, and can be accessed from anywhere.

[TheAntiChick]

I used Quicken desktop years ago. Now I need something my husband and I can both access, and Intuit discourages network use of the product - in fact claims it will corrupt the file (no clue if this is true). So I started using Quicken online. I have come to love having access at work as well, as I frequently pay bills during lunch. I miss a lot of the more advanced features of the desktop version, and find their budgeting/analysis to be REALLY weak. But it does a quick and dirty job of it, and my husband will actually USE it WITH me, which makes it better than the desktop version which wouldn't get used and updated. If it were just me, I'd probably switch back to the desktop version.

[U. Tony]

I used quicken from 1998 to 2001 when I switched to MS Money because it came pre-loaded in a laptop I bought.

I liked Money much better than Quicken so I never looked back until a couple of weeks ago when Microsoft decided to discontinue MS Money.

I bought Quicken Premier 2009 and I've been using it for a few days. I still like Money better but I guess I'll have to keep using Quicken. I have so much data stored that it would be impossible for me to use Quicken online or any other online solution.

My main complaint with Quicken is how difficult it was to transfer the data from my Money file. It took me two days of painful manual corrections.

[Travis W.]

@ Tony

"It took me two days of painful manual corrections."

Exactly why I'm hoping I can find a good alternative solution.

[Rebecca]

I've used both, and I almost never go back to my desktop version anymore. My favorite thing about Quicken Online is the "look ahead" feature. I can enter in upcoming bills and credits and see exactly where my bank balance will be over the next month. That's what I really needed from Quicken, and what I had been doing on my own using Excel for some time. Plus, I like the automatic charts in the Trending tab. I find desktop Quicken to require too many steps for me to really see what I want to see.

[Mark C]

I've used Quicken Online, Mint, and Yodlee Money Center. They are all powered by Yodlee, which means they often can't update balances or even link new accounts because the login information is out of date. Sometimes, the same account will link in Mint, but not on Money Center, or with Quicken Online but not with Mint. Yodlee can't ever seem to log into ING Direct or RBC Bank because of technical glitches. I've just given up on trying to have all my account aggregated on a single page.

As far as Quicken or MS Money goes, if I have to pay over $65 to get my finances organized, then I'm just being too anal-retentive and need to get a life. Same goes for budgeting (your earlier article).

[Benjamin Bryan]

As a long time Quicken Desktop user I tried Quicken online but it didn't work for me.

1. It wouldn't let me import more than 3 months of data from Quicken Desktop (I have 7, maybe 8 years worth of data).
2. It didn't support a lot of the account types I have (I remember specifically a 401K account).
3. It didn't support synchronizing with some of my banks that work fine with Quicken Desktop.
4. I like the simplicity but it's advanced features were far too limited for me to track my finances properly, it would be a mess during tax time.
5. I don't like the feeling of my data only being in the cloud. What if I needed to migrate to a different piece of software down the road, what if Intuit went out of business, etc.

With that said, there are some features I long for... I would love a way to use both Quicken online and Desktop and have them sync. Mainly because we need a better way for my wife to see how we're doing financially. right now I have to print a report for her from time to time, but this really needs to be real-time. It would be perfect if she could look up our grocery budget while she's at the store. ...hopefully in the future....

[AnEngineeredLife]

I've been using Quicken Desktop for about 7 years now. I've tried Mint.com, Quicken.com and other online money management solutions, but nothing has all the features I need. I want all my financial info in one place. I'd love to be able to have it online, but right now no one offers the right solution.

Specifically I use these features of Quicken desktop unavailable online...
1) Cash expense tracking
2) 401k, IRA and investment tracking in one spot
3) Net worth calculation
4) both Euro and Dollar transactions
5) the My Savings Plan feature that is actually a very useful Zero-based budgeting tool

[Matt Bell]

I recently compared Mint, Geezeo, Wesabe, Yodlee, and Quicken Online. The main thing I don't like about Quicken Online is that you can't split transactions. But I'm told that'll be available soon. Regarding the comment about cash, actually Quicken Online is the only tool I tested that DOES allow easy tracking of cash. ATM withdrawals are automatically transferred into a cash account called "My Wallet." From there, as you spend the money you can categorize it. With all the other services you have to keep going back to ATM transactions and splitting them. The other thing I like about Quicken Online is the fact that they update accounts every night -- no waiting when you log on.

[Chelsea]

Hi everyone, thanks for the great comments about Quicken and Quicken Online. Many of you noted that you're Quicken desktop users than tried Quicken Online and didn't find it would work for you. This isn't surprising: Quicken Online is really made to help people living paycheck to paycheck grasp concepts like cash flow, avoid overdrawing accounts, and keep on top of their bills and upcoming financial obligations (through text message alerts, iPhone app, etc.).

It sounds like a lot of you commenters are interested in desktop finance software functionality in an online service too.

Rebecca, thanks for your compliment on the forward-looking feature of Quicken Online. We worked hard on making sure customers could see what was coming up and (ideally) not overdraw accounts. Did that work for you in that way?

Thanks again for listening,

Chelsea, Quicken

[Jason]

Chelsea from Quicken, what people really want is desktop finance software, but the ability to sync that with an online service so that data can be accessed in real time while at the store. I find this true and is sounds like others do as well... one person in the home is the primary user of the desktop software, however, budget information is something that needs to be shared and available online.

thanks for listening

[CarlSandburg]

I agree with Jason.

[David]

I agree with Jason too. I converted from PC to Mac a year ago and figured I'd continue to use MS Money in the Parallels Window environment on my new Mac. THEN - Microsoft decided to exit the financial management software business and gave me a year to transition to something else.

I've tried Mint, Yodlee, Quicken Online and they all have the same drawbacks for me:
1 - can't enter a bill payment via my bank (first republic) within any of them
2 - I need to look back over 2 years for tax-related transactions

I've also explored conversion from Money to Mac Quicken and OMG what a hassle. One would think the Intuit would see the value of putting in simple conversion capability into desktop Quicken to capture the Money installed base. Without offering this, Intuit is causing us all to re-evaluate all the options. I'm frustrated.

A desktop Quicken that synched with Onnline Quicken is exactly the capability we need. Alternatively, if you'd put more function into the online version and give us the capability to keep or download the online data to our computers, that might resolve some of the concerns.