Quicken Windows to Mac. Major Pain!

Update 1/10:  I have decided that Quicken for Mac is junk and removed it from my system. I managed to get over $3k out of sync with my Bank of America checking account, and kept complaining that Discover was sending it invalid dates. Good riddance to  a crappy application!

So far I like Mint.com , though I’m not sure I am psychologically ready to have only an online checkbook. Must be the baby boomer in me talking. For now I still have my Quicken on my old XP laptop. One idea is to move this to Parallels (which I already have) on my Mac.

—- original post ———–

As part of our family’s move from Windows XP to Mac OS X, we installed Quicken for Mac. Should be easy: just install the Mac app, copy the quicken files, load them into the new app. But nooo …. It was a major pain in the you-know-where. Firstly, the data files are so dissimilar that one has to export all to a set of .qif files which are then imported into the Mac version. There are many limitations and gotchas here. If you have a relatively simple and straightforward check register you are OK. If you have a complex financial life with multiple retirement and investment accounts, you are in for much trouble.

Gary’s set up was not too bad, he has a few accounts in his Quicken. It only took a couple of tries, less than 2 hours. My data was a different tale. I have investment history going back to the stone age. Plus lots of accounts. I spent much of the day fighting this monster. The import process randomly assigned transactions to what ever account it felt like – I found a $10K transfer from an IRA to a checking account which existed only in the mind(less) of Quicken. This will not do. I finally gave up trying to import transactions and just downloaded as much data as I could from various financial institutions. This was fine with credit cards, but the Bank of America web site only has 13 months of data per account. My E*Trade accounts are totally screwed up for cash balances – I had to make some bogus balancing entries and I am not sure how this will pan out going forward.

I’m seriously thinking of trying out Mint and junking Quicken. Anyone try this site? I have been using Quicken for a long time it’s become my way of doing personal finance. And I am not sure about putting all my financial info on a web site, though what I have read about Mint seems OK.

Presidential Candidate’s Positions on Guns

Here’s an article from CNN on the presidential candidate’s positions on guns.

Humor: Things to forget about the year 2007

There’s a very funny sequence on cracked.com about things to forget about 2007. It is several pages long, make sure you see the one about Windows Vista and one about the taser.

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all who visit here.

 It seems to me that I am hearing “Merry Christmas” more often than the bland, politically correct “Happy Holidays” – except for the much commented on sign atop the Prescott city hall. And Prescott is AZ’s Christmas City. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

And this is a positive trend. Even for the non-Christians among us, this is a great season. Except for the commercialism, increased traffic – never mind, no complaints from me.  Christmas has been bittersweet for me the past 10 years or so because many of the people who passed away in my family have died between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My dad, two grandparents including a grandmother who influenced me greatly and is one of my all time favorite people, my mother-in-law. Even a beloved dog. I’m OK with this bittersweet experience. My brother and I joke with each other “If we live to see the new year then we will live another year”, it seems morbid but it’s not rather it is a shared thought.

No snow here but we do have winter temperatures, 16 degrees F. as the low today with the same forcasted for Christmas day.

Mrs Paul on Ron Paul

Ron Paul’s wife Carol writes about Ron, also the Paul’s wedding photo.

read more | digg story