Free Quicken Online

Posted by Madison on October 17, 2008

I’ve always used Microsoft Money. Why? Because it came installed on my computer back in 1997, when I started tracking my money really closely. Even since then, I’ve just continued with it. Good reason, right?

MS Money Stops Yearly Updates

I felt pretty confident with my setup until one of my fellow About.com guides, Shelley, burst my bubble: Money Rumor is Now Official: No Microsoft Money 2009. This news really makes me wonder if MS Money is the best place to run your financial hub from…

Free Quicken Online

Quicken Online to the rescue! I’ve always wanted to try out Quicken, since so many people use it. But I couldn’t justify buying two products. That was until this week, when Quicken took away the fees and made Quicken Online free!

Features from the Overview:

  • Automatically downloads and categorizes your transactions, so you know where you’re spending.
  • See all your bank and credit card accounts in one place, with one password.
  • You can even access your personal finance information from your cell phone.
  • Quicken Online connects with over 5,000 financial institutions (and counting).

Action Plan

I’m going to give Quicken Online a try. We’ll see how it compares to MS Money. Of course, since I need the Home and Business version, I’ll have to purchase that one once my MS Money expires, but this should be a good test to see if I like the Quicken product.

Check out more free offers in the Free Money Friday series.





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Comments to Free Quicken Online

  1. Thank you! I was going to email you today about this very issue. I have been using a trial version of Quicken Online for the last few months, and I’m happy it’s now free forever.

    My biggest problem with it is that my local bank is not listed, and they haven’t added it yet despite numerous requests on my part. (My 401(k) provider is also not listed, but that’s less of an issue.) This is driving me batty!

    My question: Would my issue be resolved with the software version of Quicken? Like you, I would eventually need the Home and Business version. I was considering MM, but now it seems Quicken might be the best way to go.

    McKenna


  2. Don’t let Quicken Online influence your opinion about the full versions of their software. The two are totally different. Also, as McKenna posted, Quicken Online does not let you add any banks/accounts unless you have online access to them. I was forced to switch to Quicken back in February, when all support for MS Money for Windows Mobile PDAs dried up. I like to enter all my transactions into MS Money on my PDA as I make them, and then sync them when I get back home. Quicken still has software that lets you sync your PDA to your PC, which works even with Quicken 2009. At first I was a bit reserved about the whole thing, since, like you, I am a huge MS Money fan, but I eventually came around. Quicken does have some issues, such as bugs that make it crash out at times, but there are features in it that MS Money doesn’t have that I realized I can’t live without, such as showing you a full monthly calendar with all the bills and paychecks in specific day squares, and your total daily cash balance at the bottom of each day’s square. Using that I can look ahead to see if I can afford a purchase or investment without risking accidentally going below 0. Overall, Quicken seems to be much better at detailed money management, giving you much more info about your account specifics. The only place it lacks, to me anyway, is all the reports that were MS Money’s strong suit. Quicken’s reports and graphs are somewhat cumbersome.

    Rassah


  3. To follow up on Rassah’s comment, Quicken Online is definitely a limited personal finance package (and unusable for my situation). The desktop version is hands down more featureful.

    For me the killer feature of Quicken (H&B 2008) is its investment management features….mainly asset allocation and rebalancing. I tried MS Money and it fell waaay short along that dimension (I might have switched had it had a fuller investment feature set).

    Where Quicken fails utterly is in its bugginess – I have encountered many many bugs around password management and transaction downloading that make me try other accounting software packages every so often. But the pain of those issues is not so much that I sacrifice the many investment management features that I have yet to find anywhere else!

    jrh


  4. Be careful, when I looked into this last week, it was free for just 60 days. Then it was $2.99/month.

    I could have been looking at something different, but just be warned.

    THank you.

    ~M


  5. Even though Quicken online has recently offered a free service, I still believe that Mint.com offers a better service because they actually keep you update on all of your finances and investments.

    Donny Gamble


  6. I have been a Quicken user for 10 years now, and was disappointed to see that I can’t import my current Quicken data into Quicken online…

    MITBeta @ Don’t Feed The Alligators


  7. I actually prefer Mint over Quicken Online as well. The only “feature” Mint is missing is being able to add your own transactions without having to download them, but Mint is definitely nicer for helping you track your budget.
    Oh, btw, I noticed you haven’t mentioned the $30 cash back for signing up for a Quicken Visa (from Chase). Quicken lets you sign up for it, and use it instantly, when you buy their software online, without needing to wait to get the card. My Quicken Premiere ended up costing me $40 that way, but supposedly the $30 cash back works on anything you buy for your first purchase. Maybe this is something you can mention in your next Friday’s “Free Money Fridays.”

    Rassah



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