Is Quicken at the end of the road?

Conventional wisdom is that Intuit's acquisition of the personal finance Web service Mint will mean the end of the line for the company's standalone software app, Quicken. Upstart Mint, which is being acquired by Intuit for $170 million, has a personal finance product more in line with the times, with a younger demographic, a working business model, and a passionate CEO, Aaron Patzer, who's slated to take over the Quicken product line at Intuit once the acquisition closes. It doesn't look good for the old desktop app, Quicken.

It's a shame that we think of Quicken that way, but it's Intuit's own fault that we've gotten here. The product, according to Intuit legend, started at founder Scott Cook's kitchen table in 1983 as he watched his wife struggle with paying bills. The original Quicken, little more than an DOS-based checkbook and register, over time became an ambitious personal finance suite that handled budgeting, retirement planning, loans, public equities and employee stock options. It became more capable but also more complex, harder to use, and much harder to get started with.

Mint got access to investment data a year ago.

(Credit: Mint.)

More importantly, as Julie Miller, director of corporate communications for the consumer group at Intuit told me, "Quicken made its way through the organization. We shuffled the Quicken business around. That had a direct effect on the quality of the product." You can see the effect on CNET's own reviews. Users hate Quicken. Few products have user reviews scores as low: none of the variations of of Quicken from recent years have user reviews garnering more than 1 and a half stars out of 5. (Our official reviews score the products higher.)

Another reason that Quicken suffered: Intuit shifted its focus away from the flagship product to new moneymakers, in particular its small-business product, QuickBooks, and its tax software and service, TurboTax. As Miller says, "There were decisions made over time that had the unintended consequence of putting the Quicken business where it was starved for focus and resources."

Finally, though, the light began to dawn at Intuit. Miller: "Our thinking was too limited. We weren't thinking beyond the desktop solution. The way we grow this, we realized, was to look for acquisitions."

Fortunately, while Quicken was alienating users, in 2005 Mint was born. Patzer, who had held several engineering jobs, including at Sony (working on the PlayStation) and at Internet start-ups, founded the company in his own kitchen table moment, when he became frustrated with existing personal finance software apps--like Quicken.

And now the upstart is moving into the big house. When the Mint acquisition closes, Patzer will be vice president and general manager of the personal finance group at Intuit, which will include Mint as well as Quicken. (TurboTax will stay with Patzer's new boss, Dan Maurer, senior vice president of the Intuit consumer group.)

Quicken 2010 is a bit easier to user than Quicken 2009.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

What will Patzer do with the ailing Quicken product line? While he hasn't taken the role officially yet--the acquisition has yet to close--already we can see that there may be a few conflicts as the two products come under unified management. Ultimately I believe this will be good for personal finance users, although I expect a few rough years for Intuit employees and their customers, too. Here are some points of conflict:

Quicken Online versus Mint: Patzer told me, when he came in to be interviewed for a recent Reporters' Roundtable podcast, that Quicken Online, Intuit's existing Web-based personal finance products and its competitor to Mint, will "go away" some time after the companies merge. "We have four personal finance code bases," he said, referring to Mint, Quicken Online, Quicken for the Desktop, and Quicken for the Mac. He made it clear that he sees it as inefficient to maintain them all.

Miller told me more recently that Mint will be seen as a "customer acquisition engine" at Intuit. (To decipher: She probably means that the free online personal finance site will be kept feature-light to encourage users who want more capability to pay for the full desktop version of Quicken.) And compared with Mint, she said, Quicken Online will be "more connected to the desktop experience." (This paragraph has been updated from the original version of the story, based on a clarification from Intuit.)

Quicken for the Mac: At MacWorld 2009 in January, Scott Cook, now chairman of Intuit's executive committee, handed me a copy of the beta version of Quicken for the Mac, then called Quicken Financial Life. The product is still not out. Miller told me it's scheduled to be released in February 2010. Based on my talk with Patzer, I strongly doubt he will devote resources to its separate code base. Furthermore, Quicken Mac will not be able to read and write files from Quicken for Windows. I gather the conversion code is yet to be completed, since Miller called it "a top priority," not an existing feature. She also said the conversion of data from Windows to the Mac version will be a one-way trip. Patzer has indicated to me that his vision is to give consumers access to their data no matter what platform they are on. A locked-in financial application like Quicken Mac doesn't fit with this world view.

The Quicken code base overall: While Patzer has yet to take the reins at Intuit's Quicken group, he's already thinking about unifying the code bases of the various personal financial products that will be under his purview. He's considering developing a cross-platform version of Quicken on Adobe Air, not just because it's one code base that can run on Windows and the Mac but because it's easier to make a version that integrates with the Web. Patzer admits that "getting up to feature parity on an Air app will take years," though.

Quicken's enforced upgrades: Quicken "sunsets" its desktop applications every three years. If you're using an older version of Quicken, it will still function on the desktop, but its ability to access online information, like stock prices and bank balances, will end. Intuit does this so it can focus its development and maintenance on newer versions and shifting standards for online financial services, I'm told. Skeptics believe it's so Intuit can squeeze upgrade dollars out of locked-in users. Regardless of the reason, it angers users who are forced to upgrade their software even if they're satisfied with it. Miller told me that Intuit "will continue its sunset policies." But Patzer told me that "we might go to a subscription model," adding that it's "speculation," as he's not yet on the job. The key point is that he's open to examining the sunset practice, even if the existing Intuit management has not considered doing so.

The good news: Assuming Patzer can exercise control over the combined Mint/Quicken product lines, the best possible outcome for customers will be a personal finance suite that exists online for those users who want it, on the desktop for those who don't, and in both places at once, as well as on mobile devices for the more flexible consumers. The desktop product will get easier to use (as Mint is), but the online version will get more features as well as the capabilities to pay bills and do other transactions (as Quicken allows). Miller also said that TurboTax Online and Mint will get integrated, although not likely in time for the coming tax season.

All this is great, but in the short term I fear greatly for Quicken desktop users. As Patzer said, integrating the products will take years, especially if a rewrite of Quicken is part of the plan. Recall that Miller said that Quicken has been bounced around for years. This acquisition and change of leadership is yet another bounce. While under Patzer the product may finally have a loving home, it will take time for it to settle in. I will avoid Quicken 2011.

At least, Quicken 2010, just released, seems to be a solid if unspectacular yearly upgrade of the Windows Quicken legacy product. I use Quicken 2008 (I've been using the product line overall since 1989) and will be moving to Quicken 2010 to manage my own finances. I also find myself using Mint more and more; it works well alongside Quicken. Assuming I'm not forced to by sunset policy, I am fine with waiting a few years to upgrade Quicken itself again until Patzer puts his mark on the product.

[icfdude]

My copy of Quicken 2000 has been useful for all of these years but since I got a Mac a few months ago I was hoping they would come up with a decent Quicken for Mac OSX.

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

agreed quicken needs a major overhaul.

[bonesbautista]

First thought I had - "Well, that's it for Mint, another Intuit crap app." Intuit WILL find a way to screw up Mint, it's time to find another solution for me.

Couldn't agree more - that's exactly what I thought. I love Mint - I actually chose to move an account last week to a new bank because the previous bank doesn't support Mint...

[baggyguy1218]

I also use Quicken 2008 and did check out Quicken 2009, but it was so annoying and controlling that I dumped it for a reinstall of 2008. I do not overly enjoy 2008 but it works and as long as I do not try to change things around, it works for me. I have had issues with deleting a bill and when I changed accounts toand from another bank, oh boy that was fun.

I wish it would just work, but I know thats asking too much.

[T_Hoff]

Do people really want their financial data in the cloud and subject to fishing, hack attacks, and possibly Sidekick-like data loss? If I run an app locally, at least I can back it up myself and protect the data from data loss or corruption (user error).

[lakewinnipesaukee]

My thoughts exactly. I'm an old-timer compared to the ipod/iphone generation, but I am totally scared about saving any of my financial information in the cloud. I managed internet banking at a bank for 3 years, and I can tell you an individual bank may be secure online, due to various federally mandated annual security reviews. But I can also tell you nothing is 100% secure. I can also tell you downloading transactions was the number 1 cause of quicken corruption when customers called the bank asking "what happened?". I managed it - I was the primary contact between my bank and Intuit - and my personal quicken files got corrupted using my own bank's downloads. And for what it's worth, intuit holds the banks ransom for them to offer downloading. For our bank (and it was a small $500M bank), intuit would have charged us almost $30,000 per year to support interactive downloads if I remember correctly. That figure scales logarithmically up the larger your bank is. We could simply not offer two-way quicken interaction, and had to fall back on "downloads only" via the QIF file. That was a few years ago, so maybe that's changed, but I'll leave that up to the community's imagination.

Accessing quicken from anywhere has it's appeal, but I'm fine stuffing receipts in my wallet and working with quicken at home. This is CNET, and the majority of readers are informed about technology, security, and the like. But you are in the upper 5% of users "in-the-know". Ninety five percent of users don't have a clue what's at stake when they put sacred information online. Online access via browser/phone has a selling feature of being available anywhere, anytime. But the real reason is a single code base to support by any software company.

[moeseph]

Is it not a little bit worrisome that the two people you talked to gave different answers for almost every question? Not to mention the talk of rewriting the code base ? the rewrite for the Mac alone has already taken close to three years. If they start rewriting again, I don't think you'll ever see another finished desktop Quicken App.

[rafe]

Am I worried? You bet I'm worried. It's a good thing Quicken 2010 looks solid. 2009 was, I believe, an unnecessary version. Like I said, I'm planning on sitting out 2011 and may possibly avoid 2012 given that it appears clear there will be internal battles fought over Quicken that will probably reveal themselves in weird product decisions in the next few updates. I'm hoping Patzer can do a good job with the products there, but even best case, it'll take him some time.

[HPWestphal]

I have been using Quicken for the Mac for years and am becoming very discouraged at the lack of updating of the app taking place. I would like to upgrade to Snow Leopard and here's Quicken, still not converted to run on Intel Macs. They say it runs under Rosetta and I sure hope it does as there is really nothing out there to take its place that I know of. Now, with this Mint deal it sounds like it will be even longer before an Intel version comes out.

[jerrymacGP]

I'm still using Quicken 2004 for Mac, installed on the original PowerPC eMac desktop that came with Quicken preinstalled when we bought it a few years ago, and a second install on my new MacBook Pro running under Snow Leopard with Rosetta, accessing the same account files stored on the desktop via our home network. So, yes it works.

However, we are in a bit of a bind. We are definitely among the "locked-in" users described in this article. We first started using Quicken for Windows 98 on our old H-P we bought in 1999; when we switched to Mac we were able to migrate our Quicken files over without too much difficulty. But we saw no reason to pay for an upgrade to our Quicken application. Our bank does not allow any home finance software through their online banking firewall for automatic downloads anyway, for security reasons, so we aren't losing any functionality there. And Quicken does adapt its transaction categories and some other features (like taxes and mortgages) for Canadian users, which is important for us. And finally, since my wife & I have a joint account, and she is quite conservative in her approach to software, we are reluctant to jump into something altogether new in fear of losing access to our previous data. So we are stuck with Quicken 2004 for now. However, it is showing its age, and we are disappointed that the new Mac version is not going to be forthcoming anytime soon.

[jltnol--2008]

It's all the fault of Intuit. In an effort to make folks want to upgrade yearly, feature bloat crept in, complexity went thru the roof while user ability went thru the floor.

I've used QBPro at work and it suffers from the same fate.... too much worthless code, and some of it doesn't work very well anyway. The total lack of a built in Payroll for QBPro for Mac has been a 10 year disaster. The total inability to swap data files between Mac's and PC's is another long standing, still 'stupid to have' problem. There simply is no reason why other apps can share files across platforms, that in 2009, none of Intuit's products can do so.

My bank and my investment company gives me plenty of FREE information online, so there is just less and less reason to even bother with any of Intuit's offerings. I WOULD, but Intuit has dug their own grave, I'm happy to help shovel on the dirt.

[Ralph Doctorow]

I'm in the process of moving to my financial institution's on line system. I doubt I'll go back to Quicken and I'm not very happy with TurboTax either.

[RobertFHarwood]

As a long time MS Money user, I am also upset about this turmoil. MS Money Home and Business is going away. Intuit doesn't have a import for anywhere near the amount of data I have for a given year, much cumulative since inception. If they are going to be fighting amongst themselves, they may not have the conversion ready in time.

[jequeen1]

I am also a long time MS Money user but I started first with Quicken and used it for several years.

My Bank ONLY supports the QIF format and at least once a month, I always import data from my checking account.
When support for the QIF format was dropped by Quicken after they released Quicken 2005, that was it for me - Hello MS Money.

I used to dread reconciliation day every month with Quicken because it took me at least an hour of my time but the data import feature in MS Money solved that. I can balance my accounts in just a few minutes minutes with that feature.

BTW, The QXF format may be much better that QIF but it is a moot argument with me since my Bank only does QIF..

Now that MS Money is no longer going to be updated, it looks like I am going to be stuck in time.

[surprisinguy]

I as well am a Money2007 user. I have been completely happy with that product over the years and really dont need to update it. My bank still supports that version, though I'm not sure how long that will last. It downloads my checking/saving accounts daily, files everything where it's supposed to be, reminds me of bills and keep a projected balance for me. Some of the features I'll never use but some of them I cant live without. I have YEARS of data that I would not want to lose on a conversion and am not sure if there will ever be a product that will even attempt to do that for future customers. I guess I could convert to Mint if I absolutely had to, but I'm hoping I wont have to. It doesnt seem there are very many capable finance products available anymore.

[superswiss]

I like Quicken. It gets the job done for me and it's not that hard to use. It tracks all my accounts, expenses, investments etc. and when tax season comes around I just have to export all the categorzied data into TurboTax and my tax return is done in about an hour. It also nicely projects my federal taxes throughout the year. What's not to like? I'm ok with doing my tax return in the cloud, but I'm not gonna put my raw financial data in the cloud. At least not if there isn't a way to keep a local copy. The cloud is great for having access to your data from anywhere, but if that's the only place where your data is stored you need to rethink the approach. I'm a big supporter of cloud computing, but I don't recommend to anyone to keep the only copy of their data in the could where they can't verify that it is being properly backed up.

[WhyUseFacebookConnect]

After over 10 years of use, I gave up on Quicken about 2 years ago after I sold the Windows machine I owned solely to run it. (Quicken for Mac diverged from Quicken for Windows so long ago that the two are almost totally incompatible.) Today I use GNUCash on my Mac OS X laptop. GNUCash is open source and its file format is XML-based, so I don't have to worry about the planned obsolescence and easily-corruptible binary files that occasionally required time or money investments with Quicken. Sure, GNUCash looks a lot less slick than Quicken did, but I can still run the same reports that I did before. I can even bring my data file to any other OS that can run GNUCash without compatibility problems.

[angry jubu]

OK, I just tried downloading GNU. I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do with it now. Apparently, you also have to download Gnome and a number of other platforms or environments just to install it. Seriously? It has to be that difficult? They can't just compile an exe file for us?

Is this what computing will be like once the Linux people overthrow the current hegemony? I'd rather go back to pen and paper, frankly.

[DarrenUtd]

Yes, angry jubu, welcome to the world of GNU. I have to administer Linux systems at work, and installing anything on them takes several days of beating one's head against the wall. There aren't simple insallation files that you double click on, like in Windows. And if there are pre-compiled binaries, your machine will be lacking, or will have a different version of, some libraries. Many times you have to compile the source code yourself, making sure you use the proper compiler flags, link the right libraries, etc. Stick to Windows if at all possible!

[aeysha78]

Aaron Patzer, If you are listening to, please stop the release of Quicken Desktop 2010.
I checked it out and it is as bloated and complex as the previous versions.
If will be more beneficial to release a mint lite desktop version (using adobe air or google gears)

What Intuit needs is fresh minds like yours and your engineering skills as well.

Best of luck, we wish to see mint desktop 2010 rather than quicken desktop 2010

[webdrifter]

I desire to keep some data and apps on my client machine versus in the cloud. So when Quicken formally announces its last standalone Home/Office product I will milk the last version for a long long time.

[benjimen]

I'm assuming this article is an editorial, it's certainly not factual. It should be labeled as such.

I like Quicken, works well for me. With all the negative comments here, no one is really stating what it is they want the product to do that it isn't currently doing. It does everything I need it to, and does it well. I skipped the 2009 upgrade, but just got the 2010 version -- seems pretty much the same but 'prettier'.

Can't believe the guy that wrote this article references the CNET star ratings to back up his case. I use Quicken without issue, it's simple, straightforward and complete. I would have no reason to come to CNET and give it a star rating. The people who've done so are mostly likely trolling, like those who are jumping on the negativity bandwagon here.

This would be an example of CNET at it's worst, fortunately it's not the norm of editorial quality here.

[Renegade Knight]

I wanted my old copy of quicken to keep working like it did the day before the sunset kicked in. In other words I want what I paid for to keep working. They got to keep my money, I want to keep using the software.

My main gripe about quickn was all the adds for Intuit services. You would think I was using free software and Intuit was in the business of selling the ads to make their money and not the paid product I had. Look past that and the prodcut was great but for the deal breaking sunset.

[bingothechimp]

The article has interviews with key people involved with Quicken and facts about the current code-base. Rafe speaks to his own experience in a very limited way.

CNET star ratings are certainly not a statistically reliable way to measure user satisfaction (so I agree that Rafe's statement, "users hate Quicken," is inappropriate), but it's bound to be more representative than your personal experience as a single user. Not to begrudge you your satisfaction, it's just that you can't extrapolate that as "evidence" that the article is "not factual."

[montex66]

I want Quicken for Mac to be Intel native, or at least Universal Binary. I want to be able to have a Quicken iPhone app that syncs with Quicken on my Mac. And I want a Mac version that is feature identical to the PC version.

You asked.

[SftIX4]

There's no way in hell Quicken's buying Mint will result in anything good. Plus, I don't want my financial data any more in "the cloud" than it is.

I switched to Moneydance 2008 a couple of years ago and have never looked back -- no ads, local backups done by me, and easy, breezy useful simplicity...

[rlpick54]

Thanks for introducing me to Moneydance. After two days I have all my home accounts reconciled with my bank for the year 2009. Easy. Quicken is toast for me. You couldn't recommend a good replacement for Quick Books could you? I have used a Mac for years. But my professional design business uses a CAD PC program. Thanks again.

[Renegade Knight]

I liked quicken. It did what I needed. Then I hit the sunset built into the program. That shuts off the ability for quickent to update your data online. At that point it became worthless for my use and I refuse to buy software that has built in obsolesence. So quicken lost a customer. MS Money had quit the game. The Open Source stuff couldn't do the job (or I couldn't find the stuff that did). So I tried Mint. Works great when it can connect to my bank. The intuit bought mint and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and Mint to become worthless.

At that point I'll back to paper as it's a simple and workable solution.

[rsmith187]

This built in obsolescence is what infuriated me about Quicken. I as perfectly happy with the old "2000" version, but Intuit likes to play this forced upgrade game every 3 years. And the new versions get more bloat and crap. Quicken's investment management has always been broken - I get more accurate and understandable results from my mutual fund company's free online tools.

... and QuickBooks - they treat business customers like criminals. We bought a 5 user license and the activation key that came in the box was incorrect. Trying to get support from Intuit to resolve the issue was not pleasant. Unfortunately they seem to be the only game in town for small businesses.

[showstaz]

oh man....dont let me get started on quickbooks. i had quick books pro 2000 and i decided to reinstall it into my laptop. prior to installing my father was doing his invoices and statements by hand (literally crunching numbers all day). so i though this might help my old man. once i installed it, quickbooks promted me to enter my serial number and a product key number. however, i didnt need to enter the keys because if i closed the box then it would let me into the program regardless if i did or didnt enter the keys. then one day i guess the software got fed up and wouldnt let me into the program until i enter the key. thats when i decided to call quickbooks to retrieve this information because i couldnt find it anywhere on the box or the cd. when i call a representative they informed me that they dont provide services to quickbooks 2005 and older....i was in disbelief. they said that they dont carry any information on the previous versions. so my quickbooks was useless. all the invoices and statements couldnt be retrieved. then they went on to tell me that the only resolution was to upgrade to quickbooks simple start which they said they would give it to me for $80. i also specfically asked if i bought this verison would i be able to retrieve my old information and she, without a doubt, said yes. then i said why not, because it was better than starting all over. once i downloaded the software online through assistance i was eager to see what this program could retrieve. when i tried to open the files it prompted me that i COULDN'T because the program i just installed was a quickbooks simple start and i needed quickbooks pro 2009. to my disbelief i called and asked to speak to a manager or a superior. then he and a tech guy tired to open the file themselves (me letting them access my computer) and they couldnt. the only result for me once again was for me to upgrade the upgrade i already got into a quickbooks pro 2009. thats when i said enough is enough. after about 5 hours on the phone with slowbooks i said no more and asked for a full refund. what kind of company doesnt provide free tech support and abandons their long time users? i know what kind, a shabby one. thats my rant

[Renegade Knight]

I've no love of quicken but free support does have to end. The software sunsetting doesn't. That my sunseted version locked up my data was also inexcusable.

[Renegade Knight]

"Quicken "sunsets" its desktop applications every three years. If you're using an older version of Quicken, it will still function on the desktop, but its ability to access online information, like stock prices and bank balances, will end. Intuit does this so it can focus its development and maintenance on newer versions and shifting standards for online financial services,"

This of course is hogwash. One day my online component works the next it doesn't. There was no shift in development time to do that. They built in the sunset and moved on to new versions. I didn't need support, and I didn't need hand holding to do my balances. There is no shift in focus at all. The only reason to do that is to creat a de-facto subscription service. Not all quicken customers are stupid.

[tahoerob]

Great, now Intuit can screw up Mint too! I'm glad I stopped using the service. I'm a Mac user and recently ditched Quicken for one of the many third party Mac finance apps, MoneyWell. I chose MoneyWell for it's clean interface, useful budgeting features, and very active, very helpful, very friendly developer. An iPhone/iTouch version is coming very soon and the developer plans to add a number of missing functions (ie: portfolio management) to the 2.0 release next year.

Given how long I've waited for Intuit to deliver a halfway decent Mac app, I have no problem waiting for a third party developer to improve his already very good product. I'm sick of giving Intuit my money, only to have them return lousy, buggy software. I refuse to support them any longer. I will not buy their products and I will not use their services.

I'd encourage *every* Mac user out there to look at the alternatives, pick one that works best for you, support the developer financially by buying the product, and provide product feedback. There are several Mac finance apps that are quite good. With more support, any one of these apps could be the Quicken "killer" we've been hoping for! My top three, in order:

MoneyWell:
http://www.nothirst.com/moneywell/

iBank:
http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/index.php

Cha-Ching:
http://midnightapps.com/

[riodejaneiro2007]

Both Mint and Intuit leave a lot to be desired. Microsoft Money used to be a good program, however, it's history.

[Renegade Knight]

I liked the Money interface better than quicken. Right up until Money scrambled my files. MS has scrambled more than a few data sets for me making me believe in the power of back ups and quesion their ablity to deal with data.