We use Quicken to keep track of our account balances and pay bills on-line. The last time we upgraded was back in 2013. As every Quicken user knows, once 3 years pass you are forced to upgrade to the latest version if you still want the on-line banking option. Yes, of course, we have to pay for this, although that is not my major concern. I am mostly concerned about the huge amount of time I had to put in to make Quicken 2013 functional when we did the last upgrade. It was so bad, it was traumatic. I do not recall the whole ordeal in detail, but I do remember that it included spending 10 hours (no exaggeration) with customer service trying to figure out why Quicken now coughed and died when I tried to pay some bills. It turns out that the upgrade no longer supported apostrophes in names. Thus, we finally figured out that I had to order the check payable to Joes Lawn Service instead of Joe's Lawn Service.
Anyway, it is that time again. I have put off the upgrade as long as reasonable. Our on-line bill paying will be disabled as of April 30th.
So, I have a few questions. Has anyone here already upgraded to Quicken 2016? How painful was it? Any advice on making it go smoothly?
Also, does anyone have other suggestions for bill paying programs? A few years ago (when I was in the thick of the previous upgrade), I remember someone saying that most banks have a bill paying feature for free, or close to. Is this true?
It is true that Quicken has other functionality and that is one reason why my husband always thinks we should stick with it. But the fact is that we never use the other features. OK, Quicken supposedly shows us how our investments are doing, but the data is far from accurate (it doesn't seem to work with all the funds we have). There is a feature to track home equity and mortgage payments. We don't use this either. And then there is a budget feature. And guess what? We don't budget either. (I wouldn't say this on any other forum but Mr. Money Mustache, but we've never had a budget because we've never needed one, the problem has always been what to do with the cash that is accumulating in checking and savings, since we have a pretty swell income coupled with tastes that are far from extravagant).
I'm thinking of biting the bullet and doing the upgrade tonight. So any advice on this matter would be welcome.
