Better Budget & Personal Asset Tracking Application?

[jnw]

I've used Mint, Personal Capital, YNAB etc.  Used to use Quicken.  I've also used GnuCash for double entry accounting for my business bookkeeping.

I've yet to find an app that does everything I want.  I'd like the following:

1) Ability to manually enter in transactions, especially important for cash accounts -- I need to categorize cash transactions to properly track budget.  (Gnucash would be good for me for this but I haven't figured out to manage my stocks in it and get live quotes etc.. also I can only use it on my Mac at home, not mobile).  Quicken used to work well for me for this.

2) Have it track my individual share purchases, how much I paid for them and remind me when it's time to harvest a capital gain or loss.  Also keep track of my average share price etc.  Personal Capital doesn't seem to do this.  e.g. I see my avg share price in Robinhood for AAPL but don't in Personal Capital.

I don't mind entering in everything manually. just want something that does it all and works on mobile phone as well as pc/mac.

Any recommendations?

[COEE]

I'm also looking for this - I've yet to find it.  The investment part is the hard part.  Every software on the planet has a register to put individual purchases / income events into.  The more difficult part is the investments - which I wouldn't think would be pretty easy to keep track of really.  IDK.

I don't like personal capital because of the security risks of having everything in one place.  However, I think it would be easy to enter stock purchases/sales into a register of sorts and have software track the value.

[jnw]

Thanks, glad to know someone else is interested in this as well.

I suppose I should just try to make GnuCash work, learn how to enter in investments into the double entry accounting system, and get the live quote system working.  You can generate some really nice reports in any date range and have a large hierarchy (chart of accounts) to track expenses down to fine detail.

I'd just have to live with the fact I'd have to enter in all the transaction on my computer at home saving all the paper receipts etc.  Like I used to do in the old days with Quicken 1.0

[I do love double entry accounting now and use GnuCash for my small business -- works great for that. Just learned double entry accounting this past year.]

EDIT: I also like the idea of doing it in Gnucash manually because it's up to date all the time, as you enter in the transactions manually.. no waiting 3 days to re-check Personal Capital to see what you spent (not including cash accounts).  Also it serves as a way to reconcile with bank in case there are bank errors.

[MDM]

Quicken used to work well for me for this.

...remind me when it's time to harvest a capital gain or loss.

Other than the lack of a "harvest time" reminder, what are Quicken's shortcomings for you?

[jnw]

MDM: I haven't used Quicken in a while, and I heard Intuit doesn't even own it anymore.  Then I heard there were a lot of bugs with it?  I don't know.  I haven't used Quicken for over a decade.  Do you use Quicken?  I do remember Quicken did have nice budgeting tools and reports and ability to track everything in cash accounts as well.  I also knew it had investment accounting but I never used it for that back then.

Ihamo: I'll have to check out Tiller thanks much for sharing this.

[MDM]

MDM: I haven't used Quicken in a while, and I heard Intuit doesn't even own it anymore.  Then I heard there were a lot of bugs with it?  I don't know.  I haven't used Quicken for over a decade.  Do you use Quicken?  I do remember Quicken did have nice budgeting tools and reports and ability to track everything in cash accounts as well.  I also knew it had investment accounting but I never used it for that back then.

Yes, we have used Quicken for ~25 years.  Plenty of things to nitpick, but it works for us.

[NorCal]

I still use Quicken, and it works pretty well.  You have to pay to upgrade it every three years if you want to keep using the sync feature (well worth it IMO).

It absolutely has some annoying features, but it is very functional.  I think it would cover all of your needs quite well.  I don't think it will remind you when to tax harvest, but it should do everything else.

[jnw]

The tax harvesting thing isn't a big deal, I can track that manually in spreadsheet or whatever other means.

So what version of Quicken do you both use? I am sort of partial to the desktop version myself if they still offer that, and if it works well syncing with phone.

[MDM]

Quicken Premier 2017.  Desktop only.  Never tried syncing with phone.

[geekette]

I still use Quicken, and it works pretty well.  You have to pay to upgrade it every three years if you want to keep using the sync feature (well worth it IMO).

It absolutely has some annoying features, but it is very functional.  I think it would cover all of your needs quite well.  I don't think it will remind you when to tax harvest, but it should do everything else.

I may be mistaken, but since Quicken went subscription, I think they’re requiring more frequent “upgrades” to keep using the sync feature.

Since I only use that feature to update a few mutual funds, I’m going to milk my 2017 version as long as I can, and just update them by hand when they cut me off. 20 years of data...

[catccc]

I haven't found one that does both, so I use YNAB (classic) and personal capital.  I would like to move to Mint, but the budgeting portion of Mint leaves much to be desired in comparison to YNAB...

I don't know of any non-robo advising apps that track gain/loss harvesting opportunities, though.

[NorCal]

I still use Quicken, and it works pretty well.  You have to pay to upgrade it every three years if you want to keep using the sync feature (well worth it IMO).

It absolutely has some annoying features, but it is very functional.  I think it would cover all of your needs quite well.  I don't think it will remind you when to tax harvest, but it should do everything else.

I may be mistaken, but since Quicken went subscription, I think they’re requiring more frequent “upgrades” to keep using the sync feature.

Since I only use that feature to update a few mutual funds, I’m going to milk my 2017 version as long as I can, and just update them by hand when they cut me off. 20 years of data...

Yikes, thanks for sharing.  I have 2017 and didn't realize they went subscription for 2018.  That's roughly a doubling of their price based on a 3 year upgrade cycle.  I'll have to think about that carefully when they cut me off.

[NorCal]

The tax harvesting thing isn't a big deal, I can track that manually in spreadsheet or whatever other means.

So what version of Quicken do you both use? I am sort of partial to the desktop version myself if they still offer that, and if it works well syncing with phone.

I use the desktop version.  I find it works best on the desktop.

I tried their mobile app a few years ago, and found it to be largely useless.  However, they may have improved it since then.