This tip is targeted to users of Microsoft Money. In case you have not heard, Microsoft will be discontinuing this product. Due to this, if you are an active user, you should start evaluating other options and planning on possibily making a transition so you are not stuck with a ‘dead’ product.
I have written several endorsements for the use of GNU Cash, but if that is not your cup of tea then this article on Consumer Reports site may help. It offers several suggestions which you might want to try. Of course, Quicken is by far the most popular of the alternatives and they are offering a discount to Microsoft Money users.
Jason Faulkner is the man who brings you our daily tips. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
What about Office Accounting 2009 it’s free seems feature filled…?
As a very long-time user of Quicken (more than ten years), I say stay away from Quicken like the plague. It is the only software I know of where each successive release makes the software worse. Intuit makes sure you have no choice when it comes to upgrading: if you want to be able to download transactions from financial institutions into Quicken, you have to use a version from within the past three years. So like clockwork, I’ve upgraded every three years, and like clockwork, each step, from 99->2002, 2002->2005, and the latest, 2005->2008, have been a profound disappointment. I’m giving up on Quicken after this. Now I just need to find something that will allow me to keep my 13 years of data that I’ve collected.
I had the same experience with Quicken Home & Business.
I moved to GNU Cash over a year and a half ago and absolutely love it.
I use GnuCash as well.
I too, abandoned the Intuit ship a long time ago. The bloat and constant upgrades were too much. For a fully featured program I also suggest GNUCash. Which is open source and runs on Linux and Windows. Another program for Linux is Kmymoney which is more basic, but has all of the features you would probably want for you personal bookkeeping. Many years ago I used a program named “Managing Your Money” which was a great program. Don’t know if it is still around or not.
An answer to my own question.
http://www.andrewtobias.com/managing.html
What’s wrong with continuing to use a “dead” product if it works for you? I have only ever used 2 versions of Microsoft Money, currently still using the 2001 version and have no intention of changing yet.
A few potential problems in using ‘dead’ software:
1. No future OS support. There is no guarantee it will work with any new OS’s or respective security updates.
2. With financial software, eventually the download transactions may not work due to updated methods of transfer.
3. Possibly more difficult to transfer data to a new system if you decide to upgrade due to there being a lot more data.
If this isn’t a big deal to you, then go with what you have.
whats wrong with old software? if it works keep using it.