Terribly frustrated with state of financial management websites and software

[archcommus]

I've used Microsoft Money exclusively as my financial management software for nearly the past 5 years. It's been good for me. A couple quirks, but mostly every feature I need and reliable. One thing that annoys is that at least half the accounts I have require "special" log-in information to download directly into Money, information that costs extra (typically a few bucks a month). This annoys me when the online sevices like Mint and Yodlee are able to get this information for free. So I looked at these services, only to be disappointed by their lack of features compared to Money and their inability to import my years of previous data. Plus, I wouldn't exactly trust them to maintain and preserve that data years into the future, either. I've tried Quicken trials, its interface is possibly worse than Money's and it wouldn't solve my downloading data problems. Not to mention everything is graphically old, something that doesn't fit in with the new age of pretty graphics in Vista, and the only place to get a nice looking interface is somewhere like Mint.

What I'm looking for is powerful desktop software like Money, with a nice interface and free download capabilities like Mint. This doesn't seem to exist. I may as well just start my own company and write some damn software myself.

Any thoughts on this topic?

 

[her209]

Just keep spending. The rest will take care of itself.

 

[theflyingpig]

Originally posted by: her209
Just keep spending. The rest will take care of itself.

This is truth. Listen to this man.

 

[speg]

I agree. I wrote my own code to download/update/analyze all my financial info. Basically does the same thing as Mint, but customized to my own needs. It's fun.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: speg
I agree. I wrote my own code to download/update/analyze all my financial info. Basically does the same thing as Mint, but customized to my own needs. It's fun.

Is this an entire software package? Or something to enhance an existing package? I think it would take too much time to write my own software from scratch that could offer even half the features of Money, but I was interested in writing my own software to download and import info for me from bank websites. I wasn't sure if I should approach this with a full-fledged program or just scripting or something.

 

[Red Squirrel]

A while back when I ran a business I had a basic software I coded in php that kept track of my finances. I'd basically open a new sale, enter the items I sold or the services I offered, and the price, I would enter how much the customer paid if they already paid then it would go in my system and fill out my budgets and take care of tracking the tax I owe so far. It also had an option to print an invoice and reference a ticket number if it was a repair trouble.

If only there was decent money in that type of business I'd be doing it full time for a living, as I was really well setup for it.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
A while back when I ran a business I had a basic software I coded in php that kept track of my finances. I'd basically open a new sale, enter the items I sold or the services I offered, and the price, I would enter how much the customer paid if they already paid then it would go in my system and fill out my budgets and take care of tracking the tax I owe so far. It also had an option to print an invoice and reference a ticket number if it was a repair trouble.

If only there was decent money in that type of business I'd be doing it full time for a living, as I was really well setup for it.

With the number of people frustrated with Quicken and Money and unwilling to use services like Mint, I feel like the market could be decent. Combine the "scraping" technologies of sites like Mint that allow it to access virtually any type of account for free with a powerful desktop app and you'd have a winner on your hands. That kind of combination currently does not exist.