Yea, I'm beginning to think that Quicken is a TOTAL waste of time!
I thought I'd give it a try. It is one of the most counter-intuitive applications I have used. The help is much, much less than helpful.
I can't get any useful reports, because it mis-categorizes stuff. For example, it decided that my rent checks are negative income, rather than an expense. Sure, it balances out the same, but it means they do in the wrong place on reports! (I double-checked to see that "Rent" is marked as an expense. It is. I have NO IDEA why it wants to see it as negative income!
I've had a half-dozen more similar baffling experiences, and I've only been using Quicken for a day!
I agree with your assessment on another aspect of Quicken. Everywhere you turn, there they are trying to sell you something, and staying as quiet as possible about the fact that that is what they are doing. Very careful phrasing, such as "pay your bills online", rather than "sign up with us for a service where we will pay your bills online for you for a fee". That is, addon services are constantly described as if they are inherent features of the software. This is deceptive, IMO.
On the other hand, I've had good luck using TurboTax to enter my trades for tax purposes. Unfortunatley, that forces me to enter everything at the end of the year. Now, if I could get TurboTax 99 in January of 99, I'd be happy. ;) But I can't, so I figured that Quicken would work in a similar manner. Probably a bad assumption. :(
The hell with Quicken. |
