Comments on: Review: Moneydance 2008 (a Quicken alternative)

By: Nicole Duncan

Nicole Duncan — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:44:04 +0000

Thanks all for the comments. I have an unusual problem with Quicken that I have been looking for an alternative to get around. Intuit stopped all non-US bank support in 2005 and will not allow me to import information from our UK bank accounts in any form or fashion. I started using Money for the UK accounts and Quicken for the US accounts but it makes it hard to get an overall picture of finances, spending etc. The lovely graphs and reports were only giving me half a picture. Now Money is going away. I’ve tried iBank but it is simply awful. Solves the multiple country issue but interface is awful, reporting almost non-existent, and creates duplicates when down-loading. Based on comments above, I think I will try moneydance with limited expectations and see how it goes. Any other suggestions would be much appreciated. Otherwise I may be oining the crowd in going back to Excel.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:56:43 +0000

Buyer beware….I recently tried to skirt using Quicken and thought I’d give MoneyDance a try. While the program is not fancy, it seemed to have the basic tools I needed. BUT, here’s the catch…I cannot download directly from my bank (Amegy Bank of Texas) via OFX….I get nothing but communication errors. MoneyDance claims it’s the bank, and the bank claims it’s the Moneydance software (actually, the bank says “if it’s not Quicken, we can’t help you….sure hope you didn’t spend much on Moneydance”. Seems Quicken has exerted its influence over my bank….to the point that I’m considering closing all my accounts and moving my money to a bank that will support its customers.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:05:48 +0000

I do not like Intuit at all although I use TurboTax as that is the only option. I was going to go with Quicken for the same reason, but then endless numbers of people told me good reasons to avoid it. (I knew I did not want MS Money either). I ran across the Moneydance program on it’s website and I found that the support was just like Intuit = non-existant. I tried 3 times to post in the public forum and it got rejected every time. I’m looking for a phone number for them because no phone number of any type makes me suspect Rip-off!
I’m looking for a program that will also do savings goals and planning, debt reduction (even though I have figured that out myself) and also want to have it calculate credit card debt where it can show what the exact total finance charge would be for each payment. (I wrote my own program in Excel which is alright, but it relies solely on the statements so that makes it kind of unreliable). I’m not into portfolios and investments and such or paying bills on-line. I prefer simple living in that area. (I lost all my “SAFE insured” investments including my IRA with the last crash. I will never invest in any market again)! I don’t even like my bank which is also the reason I am looking for a program that will straighten out the poorly written software my bank uses for it’s on-line statements.
Is there any support for this program or is it a rip-off as I suspect.

By: Fox

Fox — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:42:14 +0000

@Herb I’ve tried Quicken a few times since going with Moneydance. I’m just frustrated with Quicken’s forced upgrades. I do miss Quicken’s graphing though.

Aloha! How I wish I were fast enough to qualify for Worlds at Kona. I’ve competed at Ironman Canada twice now and I’m just an average age grouper battling to finish. It’s been a secret dream of mine to race in Hawaii – maybe I need to train harder. I’ve had MANY friends qualify though – and they all say that racing Ironman in Hawaii is amazing.

By: Herb

Herb — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:31:37 +0000

I have used Quicken and Quick Books versions for years. I have not found any programs in the price range that have all the features. From the previous comments, it appears that Moneydance is not there yet, so I’ll stay with ebaying the Quicken version needed to keep support at way below the latest version price. The last few years, most of the new “improvements” were not, and some actually added extra keysrokes to unwanted things. (Like adding Tags to the Check Register that blocked the view of the preceding transaction and added keystrokes).

But, download problems for Quicken 2008 have been serious since around August 2008. The initial help thread got so long and unfixed that the tech lady simply closed it, thus no evidence of Programmer incompetence.

Portfolio data downloads, at least from TdAmeritrade, have improved, but their Moneymarket (MMDA) price is still wrong each time and it other stock transactions have to be manually price-paid adjusted.

Kerry, glad you competed in the Ironman and hope you enjoyed the trips. The Big Island has been my home since 1971.

Aloha,

Herb

By: albertomichieli

albertomichieli — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:49:42 +0000

for Maggie

I m trying the budget envelop

But can t figure out how to setup the credit card

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks for help

By: DAN CRAWFORD

DAN CRAWFORD — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:12:49 +0000

I commented on Moneydance in June ‘08 – since that time, I have found even more to be less enthusiastic about. Unlike Quicken, it will not print check transactions unless you manipulate your printer. The reports and graphs are so-so. I still get irritated when I print checks, though I have discovered on my own that I could actually change the fonts and the set-up of the checks. Not in the documentation. I’m still looking for an adequate money management program for MAC OSX. I may decide to set up an EXCEL check register on my NEOOffice.

By: JB

JB — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:57:49 +0000

I had been a Quicken user from way back in the MS DOS days and was fed up with their “new business model” of retiring your software every few years and extorting new fees to use their “upgraded” versions. I downloaded the trial version of Moneydance and tried it side by side with Quicken. After 2 weeks I decided to purchase Moneydance. I continued running both programs jointly trying to avoid any unpleasant surprises. After a few months, the choice was clear. Moneydance was superior to Quicken in what really counted to me:
* stability
* reliability
* solid core functionality
* customer service
* peace of mind!

The article by Fox is on point about both the pros and cons of using Moneydance. Don’t let the cons scare you. The pros are well worth the small price of the package and the company does make steady and useful improvements to the software. As a Windows XP user, it is difficult for me to remember ever using a software package that does not crash or affect your computers performance! Moneydance definitely falls in this very small category.

I am very happy with my decision to switch to Moneydance and look forward to many years of rock steady performance from a simple and useful tool. I recommend Moneydance if reliable performance matters more than bells and whistles. Based on my experience with Mondaydance over the past 2 years, I’m confident this package will mature at a steady pace without compromising its foundation. Go Moneydance!

By: Maggie

Maggie — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:20:08 +0000

Moneydance is excellent and I’ve been very impressed. Any Quicken user will pick up how to use it straight away (I’m a Quicken refugee myself). OK, it could look prettier, but it’s reliable, does everything that I need it to, including handling investments, and there’s none of that sunset policy crap you get with Quicken. Can even be tweaked so that you can do proactive envelope-style budgetting with it, using subaccounts, although it has conventional style budget capability as well. Worth every penny of the price.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:44:02 +0000

We switched to a Mac a few months ago. We purchased Quicken for Mac and wish we hadn’t wasted our money. We are long-time, proficient Quicken users, but the Mac version is terrible. After spending hours the other day trying to get Quicken to print a simple budget report the way we wanted, and enduring several Quicken crashes,we gave up and downloaded the free trial of Moneydance. We imported the Quicken file, easily cleaned up a few duplicate transactions, recreated and printed the budget we had been trying to print in Quicken, and downloaded from a couple of our finanical institutions, all in an hour. We’ll be buying Moneydance. I really don’t care how my financial software looks, as long as it works.