How are you tracking your spending? (GnuCash has become too much work)

[blurkraken22]

TLDR: Looking for the best software that can capture all/most of my expenses with minimal manual input. What do you use?

Backstory: When I was a landlord I learned to use GnuCash and loved the fact that I had absolute control over my accounting. I manually classified every transaction and knew exactly where every penny was going. Since I was already using it for the business, I started using it for the personal money too. I got decent at this, but there are a lot of manual steps and I would say that getting my monthly accounting figured out grew to about 1/2 day task every month if I didn't get too fussy about things. That just feels fundamentally unsustainable for a task I don't enjoy.

I've used Mint in the past, but at the time their auto-classification was really bad. It seems like a lot of banks and credit cards break compatibility from time to time, leaving the end user with an incomplete picture of their finances. I also have a friend using YNAB.

I can say a lot more about how I did my accounting, pros/cons, and the Mint experience if anyone's interested. But first I'd like to see who's interested. :)

I'm surprised that I didn't find much on this topic here. Maybe Reader Recommendations is the wrong sub? the kraken tries Duck Duck again on the whole forum Nope, there's just not a lot on this topic around here...

• https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/reader-recommendations/ynab-to-use-or-not-to-use/
• Really, that can't be it, I must have missed some important threads

[blurkraken22]

*reserved*

[BC_Goldman]

I've been using Microsoft Money for the past 20+ years.

[MDM]

Quicken

[traveler]

I’ve used Mint for 10+ years.

The auto categorization has improved. Not perfect, but nothing you can’t fix with a couple clicks. I spent more time splitting Amazon transactions and the like.

It doesn’t get new features anymore, which I thought meant that they were going to close shop, but it’s been years and still going.

I do pay them 99 cents per month for the ad free iOS app. Love it.

[cool7hand]

We tracked early on. Now we just eyeball. This works better for us.

[charis]

I’ve used Mint for 10+ years.

The auto categorization has improved. Not perfect, but nothing you can’t fix with a couple clicks. I spent more time splitting Amazon transactions and the like.

It doesn’t get new features anymore, which I thought meant that they were going to close shop, but it’s been years and still going.

I do pay them 99 cents per month for the ad free iOS app. Love it.

Same here.  I have the app and don't notice the ads.  I log into it daily as part of my morning routine and fix any categorization errors for a few seconds.  People to whom I have recommended Mint do not like it for tracking because they have issues having certain accounts sync and it requires regular manual manipulation of entries and some two factor authentication.  I don't know if it's popular but I love it and it's really helped me see the progress we are making toward FIRE (backwards and forwards depending on the market).

[Sandi_k]

We're 2.5 years away from retirement. I have a lot of spreadsheets. I am considering paying for an app that will confirm what I think we pay in each category annually. ;)

I tried YNAB, and while I got it, it was too much work for the "mine, yours, and ours" accounts, especially if I tried to rope in DH.

My current lead contender for a paid App is Tiller. It decants to spreadsheets, allows for my own customization, and works with my credit union.

https://www.tillerhq.com/

[eyesonthehorizon]

Edit: oops, this was supposed to be a reply.

... [Mint] doesn’t get new features anymore, which I thought meant that they were going to close shop, but it’s been years and still going. ...

Mint is getting new features, they're just mostly aimed at monetizing the userbase. They now offer bill negotiation referrals. They introduced some gamification on the mobile app where you receive points (that reset monthly & mean nothing) for categorizing or splitting transactions, or checking your alerts. For a while during 2021-2022 you were entered in a drawing every day you logged in over a set period to have them cover X months of your expenses, which was a good way to incentivize people to connect more of their accounts for data mining & demonstrate what user demographics were most engaged.

[geekette]

Quicken for 30+ years.  I would hate to be unable to look up old stuff, like how much we paid for that sofa, or when did we reroof the house, or how much we spent on groceries last year vs. this year, or any number of things. 

I'm annoyed that it's gone to a yearly subscription model, though.

[Sandi_k]

Quicken for 30+ years.  I would hate to be unable to look up old stuff, like how much we paid for that sofa, or when did we reroof the house, or how much we spent on groceries last year vs. this year, or any number of things. 

I'm annoyed that it's gone to a yearly subscription model, though.

I have Google Sheets going back 15 years or so. I can look up past purchases as long as I know what year they were made in. :)

[Stimpy]

As others on here have said, mint is perfectly fine for the most part, most transactions are categorized correctly and usually fine.  But there are some hiccups here and there as you said.

For instance, sometimes it will remember that consistent purchases should be marked as Blank, and other times it won't.  Also some accounts just don't like to connect consistently to mint and/or can't connect, but assuming 90% or more of your transactions are easily connected, the other minor accounts can be worked around.

Also yes, they are trying to monetize more of their user base.  It's annoying, but nothing that can't be ignored in the long run.

Finally from my understanding Quicken, tillerhq, and YNAB are also good choices, I have not used those so I can't speak for quarks etc for those.  But I believe those are perfectly valid choices for what your looking to do.

[FiveSigmas]

@blurkraken22, I'm curious: can you talk a bit about the work involved with GnuCash. Is it the import or categorization or something like that? Any annoying bugs?

FWIW, I've been using YNAB 4 (non-subscription version) for a few years now and have been pretty pleased with it. I do worry that some future OS upgrade will break it, so I keep my eye out for alternatives. The OSS nature of Gnucash is also interesting to me, as it'd be nice to tweak/add features as needed.

[dang1]

mint https://mint.intuit.com/

[blurkraken22]

@blurkraken22, I'm curious: can you talk a bit about the work involved with GnuCash. Is it the import or categorization or something like that? Any annoying bugs?

FWIW, I've been using YNAB 4 (non-subscription version) for a few years now and have been pretty pleased with it. I do worry that some future OS upgrade will break it, so I keep my eye out for alternatives. The OSS nature of Gnucash is also interesting to me, as it'd be nice to tweak/add features as needed.

To get transactions into GnuCash is a 3 step process now:

• Download data from bank - This could mean stopping at one or more websites each time. I've tried downloading the data from Mint, which is convenient for accounts that work with Mint. Your time to complete this step depends on how much stuff you can get into Mint and if you like their download format.
• Potentially edit the data if it doesn't have the right columns and then run through the importer - I think I've mostly got this.
• Manually classify transactions - The auto-classification system is hopeless. It's so bad that only way I have figured out to avoid errors is to map every transaction to "Imbalance" and then manually match every transaction. If I dare let it classify anything at all I have to review every single classification it made. The interface they give you for this during import is very clunky and if you wait until import, you'll never find the ones that it classified.

TLDR: Importing transactions is much work.

It's a lot of extra friction each time I want to look at my finances and it would be a better habit to look more frequently because I already like to procrastinate on this task. Which might be because it feels like a high-friction task. Which starts to feel like a loop.

[blurkraken22]

For people using Money and Quicken, can you give me a quick overview of the experience importing your transactions and assigning them into budget categories? What do you like about it? Anything you don't care for?

@geekette @MDM @BC_Goldman

[BC_Goldman]

I've never set up online access thru Money. Didn't seem prudent since it's no longer a supported program.

I just generally enter my receipts as I get them. It autofills category based on last use of the payee and I've taken some other shortcuts such as having a generic "Fuel Purchase" payee rather than a list of various gas station names.

I also periodically compare my online accounts activity with what's in Money and mark them as cleared so the reconciliation goes quicker. I mainly do this for our joint CC since that's where most activity happens.

I used QuickBooks Online for a business a couple years ago and found it to be a horrible experience with downloading transactions and general use. Money might be more manual but I don't feel like I'm fighting the program to do basic stuff.

[GilesMM]

Mint is super easy. I export each month to Excel so I can plot it all up.

[dcheesi]

@blurkraken22, I'm curious: can you talk a bit about the work involved with GnuCash. Is it the import or categorization or something like that? Any annoying bugs?

FWIW, I've been using YNAB 4 (non-subscription version) for a few years now and have been pretty pleased with it. I do worry that some future OS upgrade will break it, so I keep my eye out for alternatives. The OSS nature of Gnucash is also interesting to me, as it'd be nice to tweak/add features as needed.

To get transactions into GnuCash is a 3 step process now:

• Download data from bank - This could mean stopping at one or more websites each time. I've tried downloading the data from Mint, which is convenient for accounts that work with Mint. Your time to complete this step depends on how much stuff you can get into Mint and if you like their download format.
• Potentially edit the data if it doesn't have the right columns and then run through the importer - I think I've mostly got this.
• Manually classify transactions - The auto-classification system is hopeless. It's so bad that only way I have figured out to avoid errors is to map every transaction to "Imbalance" and then manually match every transaction. If I dare let it classify anything at all I have to review every single classification it made. The interface they give you for this during import is very clunky and if you wait until import, you'll never find the ones that it classified.

TLDR: Importing transactions is much work.

It's a lot of extra friction each time I want to look at my finances and it would be a better habit to look more frequently because I already like to procrastinate on this task. Which might be because it feels like a high-friction task. Which starts to feel like a loop.

This is pretty much my experience, though I guess it doesn't bother me quite as much.

I assume you're using Quicken or OFX download formats, right? I found the CSV importer so much more painful that I wrote my own shell scripts to convert the one I can't avoid¹ to OFX for me, and import that. I haven't had too much trouble with any QFX/OFX formats except for Citi (they seem to do everything just a little bit wrong differently lol), and that's just a matter of tweaking the descriptions so they're more useful.

I'm too picky and hair-splitting with categories, so I doubt any automatic choices would suffice for me anyway.

¹ Discover card, which used to support QFX downloads, but dropped it in their last site "upgrade" *grumble*grumble*

[FiveSigmas]

To get transactions into GnuCash is a 3 step process now:

• Download data from bank - This could mean stopping at one or more websites each time. I've tried downloading the data from Mint, which is convenient for accounts that work with Mint. Your time to complete this step depends on how much stuff you can get into Mint and if you like their download format.
• Potentially edit the data if it doesn't have the right columns and then run through the importer - I think I've mostly got this.
• Manually classify transactions - The auto-classification system is hopeless. It's so bad that only way I have figured out to avoid errors is to map every transaction to "Imbalance" and then manually match every transaction. If I dare let it classify anything at all I have to review every single classification it made. The interface they give you for this during import is very clunky and if you wait until import, you'll never find the ones that it classified.

TLDR: Importing transactions is much work.

It's a lot of extra friction each time I want to look at my finances and it would be a better habit to look more frequently because I already like to procrastinate on this task. Which might be because it feels like a high-friction task. Which starts to feel like a loop.

This is pretty much my experience, though I guess it doesn't bother me quite as much.

I assume you're using Quicken or OFX download formats, right? I found the CSV importer so much more painful that I wrote my own shell scripts to convert the one I can't avoid¹ to OFX for me, and import that. I haven't had too much trouble with any QFX/OFX formats except for Citi (they seem to do everything just a little bit wrong differently lol), and that's just a matter of tweaking the descriptions so they're more useful.

I'm too picky and hair-splitting with categories, so I doubt any automatic choices would suffice for me anyway.

Thanks @dcheesi, @blurkraken22. This is useful info.

FWIW, my experience with YNAB 4 seems somewhat similar: It too seems to do much better with QFX than CSV, and I have to manually download the files from my bank to import into YNAB (though I don't mind this, since I like to keep the number of 3rd parties with access to my login info to a minimum).

@blurkraken22: when you mention "auto-classification" are you referring to matching against existing transactions (i.e. if one imports from both a checking account and a credit-card account, there will be duplicate transfers on opposite sides of the ledger) or to categorization into expense types (e.g. "groceries", "insurance", etc...)?

I also don't trust YNAB's auto-categorization (which it "learns" -- poorly -- from my previous choices). I basically went into "Payee Settings" one day and cleared out all the auto-categorization rules. It seems to do a pretty good job at auto-matching transactions, though, and it's fairly easy to identify and fix issues when it gets it wrong.

¹ Discover card, which used to support QFX downloads, but dropped it in their last site "upgrade" *grumble*grumble*

!? That sucks. I wonder if it's a business or a technical decision?

[dcheesi]

¹ Discover card, which used to support QFX downloads, but dropped it in their last site "upgrade" *grumble*grumble*

!? That sucks. I wonder if it's a business or a technical decision?

They didn't say, but I think maybe a bit of both? The speculation I read somewhere was that it had to do with how Intuit/Quicken is licensing the QFX format (their proprietary extension of OFX), with some new direct-import method possibly being cheaper than the older methods, including file downloads...? I didn't really follow all of it, since I'm not in the biz and I don't use Quicken.

So far, none of my other financial institutions have followed suit. And some of them explicitly support OFX (sometimes labeled as "M$ Money") in addition to QFX, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

[MDM]

For people using Money and Quicken, can you give me a quick overview of the experience importing your transactions and assigning them into budget categories? What do you like about it? Anything you don't care for?

Using Quicken, we never worried much (at all?) about budget categories, but it has been useful and not onerous to assign tax and spending categories.

There are many ways to approach budgeting, none of them more correct than others, except as they fit individual preference.  Our approach: set up automatic investment withholding from paychecks, and put projected monthly (e.g., mortgage payments) and "lumpy" (e.g., non-escrowed property taxes) expenses in Quicken, then live on what is left over without bouncing checks.  Works for us - may or may not work for others.

[geekette]

For people using Money and Quicken, can you give me a quick overview of the experience importing your transactions and assigning them into budget categories? What do you like about it? Anything you don't care for?

@geekette @MDM @BC_Goldman

Sorry, I don't import.  Like others, autocomplete helps a lot, memorized transactions help a lot, but we also don't buy a lot.  Investments were a PITA until DH retired, though.  Too many funds.  Simplify, simplify.

[elysianfields]

¹ Discover card, which used to support QFX downloads, but dropped it in their last site "upgrade" *grumble*grumble*

!? That sucks. I wonder if it's a business or a technical decision?

They didn't say, but I think maybe a bit of both? The speculation I read somewhere was that it had to do with how Intuit/Quicken is licensing the QFX format (their proprietary extension of OFX), with some new direct-import method possibly being cheaper than the older methods, including file downloads...? I didn't really follow all of it, since I'm not in the biz and I don't use Quicken.

So far, none of my other financial institutions have followed suit. And some of them explicitly support OFX (sometimes labeled as "M$ Money") in addition to QFX, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Just noting for the record that Intuit sold Quicken to H.I.G. Capital in 2016, which in turn sold it to Aquiline Capital Partners in 2021.

I'm running Quicken for Windows on a virtual machine hosted by a very old Mac laptop.  It's a heavy burden for the laptop, and I don't like having to manage & update two OSes.  Quicken works pretty well on the web (except for accounts which it cannot update - looking at YOU, TSP !!!) and I'm now checking out Quicken Desktop Companion on my iPhone.

Quicken auto-completes pretty well and has made life a bit easier than after my Quicken 2013 expired and I had to update everything manually.  That said, I'd rather not pay the subscription fee and have been thinking about using GnuCash once I buy a new Mac laptop.  OTOH, the subscription isn't that expensive  (I pay $60 / year for Deluxe) and the new Mac should run Windows in a VM with much improved performance.

Quicken for Mac currently doesn't include the features I need, and that has been the case for many years now.

[dcheesi]

¹ Discover card, which used to support QFX downloads, but dropped it in their last site "upgrade" *grumble*grumble*

!? That sucks. I wonder if it's a business or a technical decision?

They didn't say, but I think maybe a bit of both? The speculation I read somewhere was that it had to do with how Intuit/Quicken is licensing the QFX format (their proprietary extension of OFX), with some new direct-import method possibly being cheaper than the older methods, including file downloads...? I didn't really follow all of it, since I'm not in the biz and I don't use Quicken.

So far, none of my other financial institutions have followed suit. And some of them explicitly support OFX (sometimes labeled as "M$ Money") in addition to QFX, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Just noting for the record that Intuit sold Quicken to H.I.G. Capital in 2016, which in turn sold it to Aquiline Capital Partners in 2021.

I'm running Quicken for Windows on a virtual machine hosted by a very old Mac laptop.  It's a heavy burden for the laptop, and I don't like having to manage & update two OSes.  Quicken works pretty well on the web (except for accounts which it cannot update - looking at YOU, TSP !!!) and I'm now checking out Quicken Desktop Companion on my iPhone.

Quicken auto-completes pretty well and has made life a bit easier than after my Quicken 2013 expired and I had to update everything manually.  That said, I'd rather not pay the subscription fee and have been thinking about using GnuCash once I buy a new Mac laptop.  OTOH, the subscription isn't that expensive  (I pay $60 / year for Deluxe) and the new Mac should run Windows in a VM with much improved performance.

Quicken for Mac currently doesn't include the features I need, and that has been the case for many years now.

Ah, that actually makes more sense then. I vaguely recall it was something about Quicken being beholden to Intuit as a middle-man for their data traffic, or something? Didn't make sense when I thought they were owned by the same group, but if they're a separate entity now, and Intuit still has its hooks in the process somewhere, I'm sure they'd love to monetize it.

[FiveSigmas]

@elysianfields, thanks for the deets on ownership!

OTOH, the subscription isn't that expensive  (I pay $60 / year for Deluxe) and the new Mac should run Windows in a VM with much improved performance.

Quicken for Mac currently doesn't include the features I need, and that has been the case for many years now.

I would double-check this if your new mac is an M1/M2/etc... (almost all Macs are these days). Apple's new processors are ARM based, and this makes running Windows apps -- especially x86/x64 versions -- a bit trickier. The latest VMWare Fusion can apparently do this, but it's brand-new and I can't find a lot of info about how fast/bug-free it is. M1 support in VirtualBox is still under development, I believe.

[GreenQueen]

I have been using Mint for 8 years. So many accounts in two countries and it's great. I have a few transaction rules in place, and do need to spend about 20 minutes a month fixing transaction mis-naming, etc.

Then I export all transactions for the month, convert all my USD transactions to CAD (Mint should do this but they don't), add them by category and use the spreadsheet I got from MMM forum.

[elysianfields]

@elysianfields, thanks for the deets on ownership!

OTOH, the subscription isn't that expensive  (I pay $60 / year for Deluxe) and the new Mac should run Windows in a VM with much improved performance.

Quicken for Mac currently doesn't include the features I need, and that has been the case for many years now.

I would double-check this if your new mac is an M1/M2/etc... (almost all Macs are these days). Apple's new processors are ARM based, and this makes running Windows apps -- especially x86/x64 versions -- a bit trickier. The latest VMWare Fusion can apparently do this, but it's brand-new and I can't find a lot of info about how fast/bug-free it is. M1 support in VirtualBox is still under development, I believe.

Parallels can already run Windows 11 ARM in a VM on Apple silicon.  I'm following some discussions about issues installing & running Quicken on such a setup; those who have gotten it to work say it's speedy.

Unlike Parallels, VirtualBox is free, so development may take a while longer.  As we're targeting purchasing our new Macs during a visit to the US in a few months, perhaps the bugs may have shaken out by then.

I suppose I could always use a cloud platform (ACS, Azure) to run Quicken on a Win11 VM...

[FiveSigmas]

Parallels can already run Windows 11 ARM in a VM on Apple silicon.  I'm following some discussions about issues installing & running Quicken on such a setup; those who have gotten it to work say it's speedy.

Unlike Parallels, VirtualBox is free, so development may take a while longer.  As we're targeting purchasing our new Macs during a visit to the US in a few months, perhaps the bugs may have shaken out by then.

I suppose I could always use a cloud platform (ACS, Azure) to run Quicken on a Win11 VM...

Ah, great. Sounds like you've got your ear closer to the ground than I do. :-)

FWIW, it kind of blew my mind how well Apple executed the Intel -> ARM transition. VMs (and kernel extensions) were some of the few gotchas I was aware of. I'm sure any remaining issues will get sorted out in good time.

[Calimerostache]

I’ve been using Mint for 10+ years and while it does the job I feel like there are some things I don’t like/ are getting worse.
I feel like The automatic categorization is getting worse (consistently put ADP payroll as a transfer rather than paycheck even when I create the rule)
I’m just staying cause that’s where I ve my historical data.
I definitely do not use it for the networth or portfolio. For that personal capital is a much better product.
 
I hope the paid subscription won’t Become the standard. Otherwise just like for TurboTax (another intuit product) I’ll take my business somewhere else.

[elysianfields]

Parallels can already run Windows 11 ARM in a VM on Apple silicon.  I'm following some discussions about issues installing & running Quicken on such a setup; those who have gotten it to work say it's speedy.

Unlike Parallels, VirtualBox is free, so development may take a while longer.  As we're targeting purchasing our new Macs during a visit to the US in a few months, perhaps the bugs may have shaken out by then.

I suppose I could always use a cloud platform (ACS, Azure) to run Quicken on a Win11 VM...

Ah, great. Sounds like you've got your ear closer to the ground than I do. :-)

FWIW, it kind of blew my mind how well Apple executed the Intel -> ARM transition. VMs (and kernel extensions) were some of the few gotchas I was aware of. I'm sure any remaining issues will get sorted out in good time.

I should have mentioned VMware Fusion, another hypervisor which is free for individual users and can run Windows 11 in a VM on Apple silicon.

[index]

We're 2.5 years away from retirement. I have a lot of spreadsheets. I am considering paying for an app that will confirm what I think we pay in each category annually. ;)

I tried YNAB, and while I got it, it was too much work for the "mine, yours, and ours" accounts, especially if I tried to rope in DH.

My current lead contender for a paid App is Tiller. It decants to spreadsheets, allows for my own customization, and works with my credit union.

https://www.tillerhq.com/

Tiller 100%. You can use the excel plug-in or google sheets and look at your money in any way possible. I used to spend several hours a month importing from Mint into Excel. Tiller has saved me well over 20 hours a year and I can review spending in real time. It is well worth the money and the community sharing sheets and workflows is top notch. 

[KenSimone]

Everything seems to have moved to a cloud / subscription model. I got annoyed with that and wrote my own. I've been using it for a month or so now. It's still a work in progress, but possibly useful to others:

https://ScratchTrack.net

Totally free, and totally open to input, especially on workflows.

It's basically an envelope/bucket budgeting app.

If you've used YNAB desktop, you'll be familiar with the workflow.

No integration with financial institutions. Manual entry for now.

I hadn't really thought much about importing transactions, to be honest. Based on this thread it seems like a worthwhile thing to add. All my institutions seem to offer CSV, QIF, and QFX. Is there one that's the most prevalent or preferred for import?  CSV seems a bit dicey/inconsistent, but QIF and QFX look like uniform across all my providers.

[imperfect]

We're 2.5 years away from retirement. I have a lot of spreadsheets. I am considering paying for an app that will confirm what I think we pay in each category annually. ;)

I tried YNAB, and while I got it, it was too much work for the "mine, yours, and ours" accounts, especially if I tried to rope in DH.

My current lead contender for a paid App is Tiller. It decants to spreadsheets, allows for my own customization, and works with my credit union.

https://www.tillerhq.com/

Tiller 100%. You can use the excel plug-in or google sheets and look at your money in any way possible. I used to spend several hours a month importing from Mint into Excel. Tiller has saved me well over 20 hours a year and I can review spending in real time. It is well worth the money and the community sharing sheets and workflows is top notch.

Another vote for Tiller, especially if you are on the control freak side of things. The data is *your* data, you do whatever you want with it.

I still keep my mint.com account going as it has over a decade of history in it, but Tiller is a revelation after years of frustrations with the limitations of mint.

[YetiSandwich]

Mint

[Bartlebooth]

For people using Money and Quicken, can you give me a quick overview of the experience importing your transactions and assigning them into budget categories? What do you like about it? Anything you don't care for?

@geekette @MDM @BC_Goldman

I download the QFX file for each of ~6 savings/checking/card accounts once every 2-8 months.  Quicken imports the transactions automatically into the correct account (seems to associate an account number of some other key in the QFX file with the account in Quicken).

I'm estimating that 80% of transactions get categorized correctly, 15% come in with no category, and 5% with a wrong category.  Most of the time it handles inter-account transfers correctly on both ends, but sometimes I have to delete duplicates.  After I get the categories fixed, I check that the balance on the statement date matches the statement (I also download and archive every monthly statement) and then mark those as reconciled.

I don't bother importing investment account stuff.  Seems like it generates a lot of garbage.  Though to be fair I probably haven't tried it for five years now!  The transaction volume is low enough that I just enter that manually.

Some bank (Chase?) used to only be able to go back three months with QFX files.  I got about 10 months behind on importing transactions.  So then I had to manually enter 7 months of transactions from statement PDFs.

[dcheesi]

For people using Money and Quicken, can you give me a quick overview of the experience importing your transactions and assigning them into budget categories? What do you like about it? Anything you don't care for?

@geekette @MDM @BC_Goldman

I download the QFX file for each of ~6 savings/checking/card accounts once every 2-8 months.  Quicken imports the transactions automatically into the correct account (seems to associate an account number of some other key in the QFX file with the account in Quicken).

I'm estimating that 80% of transactions get categorized correctly, 15% come in with no category, and 5% with a wrong category.  Most of the time it handles inter-account transfers correctly on both ends, but sometimes I have to delete duplicates.  After I get the categories fixed, I check that the balance on the statement date matches the statement (I also download and archive every monthly statement) and then mark those as reconciled.

I don't bother importing investment account stuff.  Seems like it generates a lot of garbage.  Though to be fair I probably haven't tried it for five years now!  The transaction volume is low enough that I just enter that manually.

Some bank (Chase?) used to only be able to go back three months with QFX files.  I got about 10 months behind on importing transactions.  So then I had to manually enter 7 months of transactions from statement PDFs.

Sounds exactly like my experience w/ GnuCash, actually. Though I wonder if they were asking more about the auto-import functions that Quicken has for some banks (and Money used to, back when it was actively maintained)?

[MustachingInIreland]

I have Google Sheets going back 15 years or so. I can look up past purchases as long as I know what year they were made in. :)

Would you be willing to share an anonymised version of your google sheets? I use a super basic spreadsheet that I can tell is not ideal (I am not very good at spreadsheets haha)...

[Sandi_k]

Sure - just send me the gmail address via PM.

[RetireOrDieTrying]

I use Google Sheets (web-based spreadsheet). I grew up with CPA parents and have done double-entry accounting since I was 8.

With that said, I recognize I'm probably not the demographic from whom you are soliciting recommendations.

[Agatha Thrifty]

I consider manual/tedious data entry a feature, not a bug.  It adds another level to the perennial needs vs. wants question.  Do I need this thing? Do I really want it? Do I want it enough to have to add another line item to my tracking?

The process also motivates me buy in bulk. (I am single and this is a constant struggle for me).  Sometimes the cost savings is there, but I still balk for whatever reason (especially when shopping in person  - waaah, I don't feel like hauling this in and out of my shopping cart/car/house).  But it is easier to buy in bulk and enter an item once than to enter the same item multiple times.

(Tracking manually since 1999; 11 years of that with GnuCash)

[elysianfields]

Parallels can already run Windows 11 ARM in a VM on Apple silicon.  I'm following some discussions about issues installing & running Quicken on such a setup; those who have gotten it to work say it's speedy.

Unlike Parallels, VirtualBox is free, so development may take a while longer.  As we're targeting purchasing our new Macs during a visit to the US in a few months, perhaps the bugs may have shaken out by then.

I suppose I could always use a cloud platform (ACS, Azure) to run Quicken on a Win11 VM...

Ah, great. Sounds like you've got your ear closer to the ground than I do. :-)

FWIW, it kind of blew my mind how well Apple executed the Intel -> ARM transition. VMs (and kernel extensions) were some of the few gotchas I was aware of. I'm sure any remaining issues will get sorted out in good time.

@FiveSigmas et al.,

So I bought a sweet new M2 MacBook Pro, I’m very pleased with this awesome upgrade over my 11 year-old previous MBP.

After looking into Parallels (quite expensive) and not seeing any progress from Virtual Box, I decided to install & run VMWare Fusion.

Somewhere (I’ll update this post if I find it again) I read instructions on how to install Windows 11 ARM.  In short, you install Parallels and have it download Windows 11 ARM for you, then stop the installation.  Then you have Fusion boot the .iso you downloaded to install Win 11.  Once I got Win 11 installed, it was pretty easy to get Quicken going.

Unlike Virtual Box, Fusion doesn’t do a good job for establishing shared data between the host and virtual machines, so I used SMB as a workaround to load my migrated Quicken data.  Now that I have that loaded, I turned off sharing (it’s a potential security vulnerability).  I back up to a cloud service.

One can never experience the same speed on a VM as on a hardware host, and my Quicken data file is quite large, but I find the performance reasonably good, and a night/day improvement compared to my old MBP, under this setup.

[Scandium]

I have been using Mint for 8 years. So many accounts in two countries and it's great. I have a few transaction rules in place, and do need to spend about 20 minutes a month fixing transaction mis-naming, etc.

Then I export all transactions for the month, convert all my USD transactions to CAD (Mint should do this but they don't), add them by category and use the spreadsheet I got from MMM forum.

I always need more spreadsheets in my life! Mind telling me where to find some of these? Search is not helping me at the moment..

[beee]

I run HoneyMoney and use it personally since 2011.
It's all about manual tracking of your finances, so you pay more attention to your money.
The planning is cashflow-based. It splits your money into envelopes and recommends how much should be reserved for your future planned expenses taking into account future planned incomes.
The rest can be either spent on unplanned expenses or saved for financial goals.

[FiveSigmas]

Thanks much for the update, @elysianfields!

Hopefully they'll make this all a bit simpler in the not-too-distant future, but it's good to know that you can get it working now and run it at an acceptable speed.