Technology Spencer on June 27, 2009 12:30 pm
From Money to Quicken…
UPDATE: The guide can be found here (http://spencer.stantonfamilyonline.com/MoneyTransition.html).
A couple of weeks ago, when opening Microsoft Money; I got the pop up message stating that Microsoft will stop supporting Money over the next couple of years and will no longer produce new versions. I have been a user of Money since I graduated college so this was quite devistating. Now I would have to switch to Quicken or eventually lose the online services of Money (stock quotes, bank transactions, etc.) that I really enjoy.
The problem is this: there is NO GOOD way to move from Money to Quicken. A number of years back, I ran Money and Quicken side by side to see which was better. Money barely edged out Quicken and I hadn’t looked back since. Now that I have to, I wanted to see if there was any better method for transitioning. They have a new data converter; hopefully that will be better. I tried it, and there is a lot left to be desired. Accounts all come in as either banking or investing (no differentiation between credit cards or others you can create in Quicken, but once created can’t be changed, a short sighted error on Intuit’s part). I’m fairly picky when it comes to the details in my finances, so that option just didn’t work for me.
I’m told that Quicken 2010 will have a better transition option from Money since they know now that Money won’t be updated; well I’m a bit bitter so I wanted to switch to Quicken quickly and get it over with instead of waiting for a transition plan that they’ve never gotten right in the 20+ years that they have competed in this market for personal finance software.
So, the bottom line is, I figured out my own method using as much automatic information from Money as possible and doing the rest by hand and I have now officially finished the switch to Quicken… would have been better to have made that decision 6 years ago. I am sure that there are others that are interested so I will be writing an extensive guide and will post a link here to help out others who don’t want to wait and see if 2010 will have a good transition. My guess is no matter what, there will be some manual work that needs to be done.
Overall, I still like Money and am sad that it is going away. I’m sure Quicken will do all that I want and more and as I get used to it will forget all about Microsoft’s product. Money, R.I.P.
on June 27, 2009 at 3:53 pm 1. Chong said …
Great post. Found you via a search in Bing. I am in the same boat, chose Money 6 yrs ago. Look forward to your guide.
on June 27, 2009 at 7:27 pm 2. B.J. Stanton said …
I’m in the same boat, Buddy! Took a quick look at the effort required to port Money data to Quicken, and it is ugly to say the least. I too wanted a turnkey method to bring everything into Quicken with a relatively painless process. But all I have found so far is a tedious, account-by-account export from Money to a QIF format. No mention of a way to port any of Money’s metadata (e.g. list of payees). Any help you provide will be most appreciated!
on June 27, 2009 at 7:51 pm 3. Spencer said …
Well, Quicken does have a Data Converter based on exporting a couple of reports from Money, but even that left a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately, there is still an account-by-account export from Money to QIF and metadata doesn’t come over either. I did create a way to import the QIF data a little faster, and the guide will help avoid pitfalls of the manual portions, but is was still a lot of manual work. Right now there doesn’t seem to be a way around it. I hope to have the first draft posted tonight.
on June 27, 2009 at 11:47 pm 4. The J said …
I’m always surprised when Microsoft throws in the towel on a software package they hold such a large market stake in (unless it has the Windows attached to it).
Glad you figured out a way to make it work. Seems like your not alone.
on September 4, 2009 at 7:12 am 5. Orion Wood said …
Spencer,
I got your guide, and I think I can follow it. Is there any more on this, or did your string end with these four posts several months ago.
Orion
on September 4, 2009 at 6:28 pm 6. Spencer said …
My string pretty much ended with these four posts. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I thought there may be more interest, but it is still a tedious task so I may have overestimated that a bit.
on October 6, 2009 at 9:36 pm 7. Orion Wood said …
Spencer,
I just want to thank you for your help. I made the transition, and now I am a happy user of Quicken.
Yes, it was a bit tedious to convert my Money file, and I find that Money Online had two more links for downloads that Quicken does not have. Fortunately, they are little-used accounts that don’t take too much to update manually.
And there are a few quirks in Quicken, such as the Categories. Money would find the category for a subcategory when you entered it (like “Fuel”), but Quicken makes you choose the category, then select the subcategory. But other features I like; the search mechanism in Quicken is faster and much more intuitive.
I think I am fine now, still learning, but without your excellent instructions, I would have been in a big bind.
If you get this, just let me know at orionw@pacbell.net.
Thanks again!!
Orion Wood
on October 24, 2009 at 12:22 pm 8. JT said …
Well, 12 hours of crunching and I think I’ve completed my transition from Money 08 Premium to Quicken Premier 2010. I wasn’t happy about making the switch…but was without any real options. We have 40-something accounts, so this was pretty tedious. But the new importer sped up the process quite a bit. Most of the day has been spent re-linking the online services and correcting small items from the 45-pages error report the import app generated.
Question for folks that are still following this thread — the old “category” assignment in Money allowed you to assign a loan payment from a checking account to a pre-setup amortized loan — it would do all the split category items for your (principal, interest, taxes, hazard insurance, etc). These transactions now just show up as “split” with no way to assign new loan payments to their respective loans…or if there is, I’m just not finding it.
There is a ‘loan’ category, but that doesn’t tie to your actual loans — same for ‘mortgage payment’ and other categories that are linked to your loans.
Thoughts, anyone?
on November 12, 2009 at 1:58 pm 9. Mike said …
Spencer (and JT if you see this!) great post — thanks for spending the time to document this for everyone. I’m in the same unfortunate boat and anal-retentive pack rat that I am, will have more accounts, both open and closed, then I care to think about to port into Quicken. My question is, since you guide was written pre-Quicken 2010 release, are you aware of the improvements in the new importer and what precautions we should be taking with it? I’m assuming with 2010 that I won’t be following your process. I was hoping JT above would provide a bit more detail on his experience/dos and donts. My quick Google search on the subject really hasn’t yielded anything.
on November 13, 2009 at 6:03 am 10. Spencer said …
I am aware they were working on an improved importer but have not tested it or heard any reports. My guess is that it is probably better, but not a perfect 1 to 1 transition. I’m not sure how close it gets. If/when I upgrade to 2010, I may test out the converter on my old Money file. If I do, I’ll post my comparisons.