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Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

computerworld.com

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Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#81

Post by ethbro »

WalterBright wrote: post #78
jrcii wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is when I see software designed this way and then start imagining how much money was spent developing it, and fellow software architects sitting back with their arms folded staring at the screen thinking what a good job they did.

Every year I call up one or two of their tech support numbers, and suggest they add a button labeled "download everything I need to give to my accountant for the last tax year." Every year they are astonished at this suggestion, say what a great idea it is, and next year nothing has improved. Am I really such a unique snowflake that nobody else even thinks of this? Maybe I should patent it. It's obviously not obvious…

There's no incentive, but you should probably really be pushing the Accountants of (Country) professional org (or whatever it's called) to support this.

They could register a branding for compatible download systems.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#82

Post by TheCondor »

WalterBright wrote: post #78
jrcii wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is when I see software designed this way and then start imagining how much money was spent developing it, and fellow software architects sitting back with their arms folded staring at the screen thinking what a good job they did.

Every year I call up one or two of their tech support numbers, and suggest they add a button labeled "download everything I need to give to my accountant for the last tax year." Every year they are astonished at this suggestion, say what a great idea it is, and next year nothing has improved. Am I really such a unique snowflake that nobody else even thinks of this? Maybe I should patent it. It's obviously not obvious…

If we built that software, how far would we be from not needing accountants?

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#83

Post by e40 »

cossatot wrote: post #56
ryandrake wrote: post #48

If there was one piece of desktop software that I think the world definitely needs an alternative for it's Quicken. I've got about 15 years of my financial life in my Quicken file, and I probably have used the software at least twice a week, religiously, during that time period. I've grown so dependent on it in a way I've never grown dependent on any other software. If it were to stop functioning tomorrow, I'd be scr…

I use Moneydance for my business, and I like it quite a bit. It's geared towards personal finance more than small business, and the double-entry accounting stays out of the way if you want it to, though it was a selling point for me. It has some functionality to auto-download bank/CC statements, but none of my banks are supported (except for US Bank which charges), so I download and import monthly, which isn't that b…

Me, too! Moneydance is stable (no UI churn) and effective. I was able to import all my Quicken transactions and I can do online banking (downloading transactions).

The day I got off Quicken was a very good day for me. I had developed real hatred of the software and the company.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#84

Post by jerf »

jrcii wrote: post #66
WalterBright wrote: post #57

Doing my taxes this year, I find it amazing how incompetent most financial software is (including Quicken). For example, take a simple task: download all your financial data for the last year. Log into your bank's site. There is no button for "last year". You have to laboriously enter 01/01/2015..12/31/2015. Then you're given a choice of formats. Download ALL of them, because sure as shootin', Quicken will only impor…

What gets me is when I see software designed this way and then start imagining how much money was spent developing it, and fellow software architects sitting back with their arms folded staring at the screen thinking what a good job they did.

"staring at the screen thinking what a good job they did."

Do you work in programming in anything other than greenfield projects?

I'm sure they weren't nodding in smug pride, but weeping and drinking themselves into a stupor many nights, and sometimes during the workday. They know. At least, the better of them know.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#85

Post by my5thaccount »

WalterBright wrote: post #57

Doing my taxes this year, I find it amazing how incompetent most financial software is (including Quicken). For example, take a simple task: download all your financial data for the last year. Log into your bank's site. There is no button for "last year". You have to laboriously enter 01/01/2015..12/31/2015. Then you're given a choice of formats. Download ALL of them, because sure as shootin', Quicken will only impor…

Just wait until the payee has a comma or a quote in the name and you download a CSV and the programmers can't even properly format a CSV and it's broken in Excel.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#86

Post by CydeWeys »

ryandrake wrote: post #48

If there was one piece of desktop software that I think the world definitely needs an alternative for it's Quicken. I've got about 15 years of my financial life in my Quicken file, and I probably have used the software at least twice a week, religiously, during that time period. I've grown so dependent on it in a way I've never grown dependent on any other software. If it were to stop functioning tomorrow, I'd be scr…

> I use it as a checkbook register and as a way to plan the month so I don't overdraw my checking account (which would probably happen monthly if I didn't have Quicken)

Why are you running your financial life so close to the edge? Keep two months' spending as buffer in your checking account. That's what I do. The mental load saved of not having to worry about overdrawing my account is completely worth it.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#87

Post by gherkin0 »

newjersey wrote: post #33
1024core wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata of size 1: I used Mint initially, and then gave up on it. I was too scared of keeping all my eggs in one basket!

This is why I refuse to do credit score tracking on Mint. They do not need that information.

Some of my credit card accounts have started to do that automatically and for free. Discover card even includes a nice little graph of my FICO score over the last year with each statement.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#88

Post by mathattack »

aceperry wrote: post #44
mathattack wrote: post #32

Interesting. I wonder if this is the start of a pattern of desktop companies who have converted to SaaS ditching their origins. It makes sense that there is residual value, and the current owners don't want to be distracted.

If the SaaS companies are dumping their desktop offerings, who is buying them? Like you, I'm wondering if this really is a pattern, but it sounds interesting.

Generally the companies that gut and harvest (like CA) differ from the builders.

Re: Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout

#90

Post by nikolak »

scentoni wrote: post #89

Does anyone here use http://www.gnucash.org ?

I use it primarily because quicken on mac is completely useless when you have multiple accounts with different currencies. They even list your totals wrong like "100 USD + 100 GBP = 200 EUR" last time I tried it. And there aren't that many alternatives for personal use since i don't need anything extremely complex.

GNUcash is probably the ugliest piece of software that I use regularly, but at least it works. Depending on one's needs YNAB or Quicken might be a better choice though - but neither work well with multiple currencies or even accounts.

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