For years, I've been using Quicken to manage my personal finances, balance the checkbook, and track expenses against my budget goals. I'd also like to manage my investments, but that requires Quicken Premier, which goes for $89. Are there any free Quicken software alternatives that can do it all?

I looked into this recently when I had to reformat a hard disk and didn't want to buy new Quicken nor reinstall the old out-dated version. But I wanted to keep the history. In reading user reviews of all of these (I think) they all seemed to say that while they work well, they don't handle imported Quicken history, specifically split transactions. Does anyone know of any freeware that can import historical split transactions without turning the whole thing to gobbledygook?

Bob, are there any solid free Quicken alternatives that are small business-oriented? This article seemed to focus on personal finance options, though it appeared Gnucash might fill the needs of small business. Others worth considering?

I've been using Moneydance now for some time, after leaving Quicken. Meets my needs well.

I use Microsoft Money. No longer supported, so the online facilities don't work, but excellent stand-alone money manager.

The Microsoft Money Plus Sunset versions are replacements for expired versions of Microsoft Money Essentials, Deluxe, Premium and Home and Business.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2118008

Friend told me that if you read the fine print with Mint.com you are giving Power of Attorney to the organization. Is this true?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sort of, but it's nothing evil. It's a limited power of attorney granting them permission to log in to your financial web sites and download your account information.

I use AceMoney and definitely recommend it. I do not use the Lite version. The premium version is only $30 on sale right now and I think the full price is $35. And it doesn't use so much of your computer's resources like QuickBooks does. The only feature of QuickBooks that I miss is the classes.

Hi Bob These look worthwhile, but I need a program that does payroll (currently using Quickbooks). Are there any free or reasonably priced alternatives that you could recommend?

PS I got on the Internet Tourbus sometime in the mid-90's, but never thought of posting a question until now...must be the new format.

I've been using http://waveaccounting.com/ and like it. It can login to many banks (not mine) and import and has business features, invoicing, etc.

Good recommendations... BUT, to migrate from Quicken to 'something else' would require the ability to import my most recent data from Quicken to The New Guy On The Block... so what do you recommend that He be? Otherwise, it is a question of the dreaded, 'starting over' and 'learning a new program'.. which, like AOHELL captures the mind and activity of the user.

I have been a user of Mint for about two years now and it is a terrible program. It has lots of whistles and bells but a good number of them do not work. And if you write to their tech support you get boilerplate responses by people who do not read your requests. the most common response that I have received, regardless the question, is 'sorry for the inconvenience, but our engineers are working on it.' I've received that answer for nearly every question for two years with no end in sight. Once I receivEd a popup saying there was a problem and I should write [blank] email for more information. I did so and spent the next three months corresponding with someone whose name was 'jeffrey' who kept telling me the 'my' issue had been resolve, but absolutely refused to admit that he had no idea what the problem was. It was Twilight-Zone-ish. One famous problem with the program (frequently complained about in the forums) is the 'Auto-categorization' feature. That is, when a transaction comes in from the bank and the merchant's name is left off or is unusual, Mint will pull something of similar price at random from one of the legitimate transactions of the last three or four months and apply it to the unknown transaction. It is a nightmare. I have to watch each day's debit card purchases to make sure that it does not rename gas for groceries or books for wine. And Mint, even though it invented the feature, incredibly tells us that it has no idea about how to turn it off. But with each complaint (and the forums are full of them), the response always is that the engineers are working on it.
Right now I'm kind of stuck with Mint because I have been with it for so long and my transaction history is with them. However, slowly I am putting down all of my transactions for the last couple of years and putting them in an excel spreadsheet. And eventually I'll move on, but I waited too long to get fed up and move, so it isn't easy.

My hunch is that the reason they care so little about their users is that we are not the real customers. Their customers are the banks that advertise with them. Unless a high percentage of their users finally throw in the towel and have an impact on their advertising revenue, they will never change.

I'm using https://www.inexfinance.com/ and it's a fair alternative to Quicken. It's a web based personal finance program that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Apart from the basic expense tracking and budgeting tools, it allows to create personal events and set reminders that can be synced with my Google calendar as well.

Chirodoc.

A good alternative at a very reasonable price is Medlin at Medlin.com I think it's like shareware. I use it in my CPA Practice.

Hi, I have used for several years in my small business Easy Cash Manager from Moor Computer Productions, fast simple and free.

http://www.moor-software.com/0.php?page=easy-cash-manager

I'm still using Quicken 98 and have seen no reason to update it. It works fine for checking, savings and my investments including 401ks. If I can get that many years out of a program, I'm sure a person could justify spending $90 for the latest version.

I partially agree with Kit Times. I am also using quicken for windows for several years and it ideally suits my personal accounting, which by the way includes several bank accounts, credit card and investments (stocks & mutual funds). My only wish is to get that working in Linux, to which I plan to move. Some of the the later versions of quicken work in Linux on wine, but it is frankly too costly in India and also too tedious to convert all the old data. Any ideas on this are welcome with thanks.

I cannot say that I have used any other program except quicken in the past however, would like to throw a thought out. As we are coming to the end of the year, couldn't you simply balance out your accounts in the current program effective and then switch beginning the new year with just a carried balance. Most of the programs do give you a way to save data, put a copy of it on a flash drive and label with the years. I am exploring these new methods and as a personal finance major, this is how I plan to switch when I find a program I choose to use.

I believe Quicken is getting to big for its britches. They have made too many mistakes just in my association with them. I cancelled my Quicken Bill Pay. Let me know of another 'good' one I can check out.

I found a simple Excel spreadsheet on-line at visualbankbook.com Supports QIF download directly into an Excel spreadsheet including automatic categorization and renaming. Even imports all your existing Quicken data. So far its free, looks like QFX/OFX support is coming in the future. Nice if you're just looking to maintain an Electronic register of transactions although it also has some basic Income and Expense analysis in pivot charts too.

I use KmyMoney in both Linux and Windows. You can import Quicken files and your bank info. It has a much nicer user interface (UI) and is more a lot more customizable. The bonus, it's FREE.

New email client for Windows:
http://inky.com/

I haven't tried it yet, but if it works as advertised, it's an excellent choice.