Ashwini,

We’re working on an easier conversion tool. Coming soon: here’s more info from Todd: http://blog.quicken.intuit.com/announcement/2009/09/26/ms-money-converter-coming-soon/

Chelsea

@JohnGalt.

John,

I didn’t need to install anything. I originally had Money Plus Deluxe and that’s what I got from eBay, so it was the same exact software as my original. I then went into the about box and clicked on the link “Your online services have expired” (or something along those lines). Then I was presented with a few choices, one to extend the services (which we all know no longer works) and one to enter a new product code, which is what I did. Once I entered the product code from this newly purchased copy of Money the software went through the activation paces. Once it was done, I restarted money and it said that my online services will expire on September something, 2011. As we know, MS servers will cease to function on January 31, 2001 so I would consider the reported date to be overly optimistic, but it should definitely last long enough for Quicken 2010 to come out and hopefully even 2011 will be out before the expiration.

To: Todd Stanley, Vice-President/General Manager Quicken

With all due respect, let me report that the conversion tool from Quicken doesn’t work… I tried two-three months ago to transfer data from MS Money Home and Business. The business part just got lost. The invoices, customer accounts, etc. “cannot” be transferred. I spent three-four hours on phone but no luck. I got the same story that we’re working on it. Here is my suggestion to Intuit: buy a few copies of Microsoft Money from Ebay, give it to your hot-shots to set up some dummy accounts and try importing into Quicken. That will be a real test…

Ashwini Kumar

does quicken give bill pay as a free service to people that buy the program, or do you have to pay for it in addition as a monthly fee. I have had that as a free service for years with my ms money and it is one of my favorite features.

I have downloaded and installed Quicken. I have downloaded and installed the so-called conversion tool to import my MS Money data in to Quicken. It doesn’t work. I keep getting an error message saying that there’s no room on the drive–which is baloney–or that the TEMPLATE.* file needs to be changed from read-only.

Why is this so difficult? It’s bad enough that I’m forced to go to Quicken, when I hate its interface, but is there no easy way to import my Money data?

I thought I could hack it out until Quicken 2010 came out after my MS Money online services expired on the 7th and my attempts to buy an extension from MS proved fruitless. But after spending just a few days without online services I realized I won’t be able to hold out another week and got a new MS Money copy off eBay. Back in the “online saddle” and I guess waiting for Quicken 2011 instead of Quicken 2010 now…

Hi there Lisa,

Quicken 2010 will be out this fall. Stay tuned for exciting news and updates soon. Thanks for your patience.

Chelsea

Thanks Ryan.

Quicken 2010 for Windows will be released in just a few more weeks. Hopefully you’ll only have to do manual entry until then.

Thanks,
Scott

Hi there Jeff,

Quicken 2010 is on it’s way this fall. I understand you’re anxiously awaiting it and we’re in the process of working with Microsoft on the converter.

Chelsea

When will Quicken Rental Property Manager 2010 be available? Will those that purchase that version have a MS Money converter built-in, too?

It didn’t work for me either. My attempts at getting going with Quicken 2009 were at least as frustrating as the news of Money’s demise.
The multi-currency feature doesn’t seem to work when you migrate your data from MS Money. And the support for the Canadian version of Quicken sucks.

Paul that didn’t work for me. I was on the phone with MS for hours and they absolutely refused to extend my license which is expiring in18 days (even though this would require no effort on their behalf + I’d pay money for the key!) I talked to many different people in many different departments at Microsoft and no luck. Its very strange how they’re treating their customers who’ve been with them for man many many years. Total disappointment.

So in essence i’m toast. Nobody knows the exact date intuit will be releasing their migration tool and Microsoft is not willing to extend my license. At this point I’m seriously considering to switch to an open source solution, as I absolutely cannot afford to potentially have several months of down-time where I cannot use Money or Quicken in that window.

I wish quicken would come out with an exact release date of this migration tool. “It will be released in fall” absolutely doesn’t do it for us who have a hard cut-off date from Microsoft.

OK, for those of you who asked how I got my on-line services extended….well, here is how it happened…..first I went to on-line tech support and started a file basically asking why they were discontinuing the services for me, when the server was obvioulsy still running until Jan 2011. Here was there reply and my reply back to them:

Roxie,

Thank you for your quick response. However, you did not answer my central question which is: What is the logic for not allowing me to continue to have access to the on-line features of this program until the January 30, 2011 cut off date?

In addition, and I don’t mean to nitpick, but some of the “facts” as you state them are unfortunately not facts:

“The Online Services along with the Activation Requirement are handled by a server which will become inactive on 2011, which is the reason it can’t be reactivated nor keep the Online Features” ….If the server is still active until 2011, then it stands to reason that I should be able to have access to it until then….this is simply an illogical statement…I’m not asking for services beyond 2011, simply UNTIL then.

“Since the product is discontinued we are unable to provide you with Extended Online Services or a License to renew them” …..I will be kind here and just say that you must be confusing company policy with ability…to say that Microsoft is “unable” to allow me access is ludicrous. We both know that this is simply a matter of providing me access to a server that is right now in full operation.

The cost to Microsoft for the server time required must be miniscule. I have not asked for anything for free. I’m willing to pay whatever the cost is, in fact I’m willing to pay many times over what the cost is. The abrupt termination of the on-line capabilities is costing me a tremendous amount of my time, which is quite valuable. I understand that you may not be in a position to answer my question and although you have been very clear on “what” Microsoft has done in this case, what I am asking is “why”. If you are unable to provide me with this answer, please forward this to someone that can.

Thank you,
Paul Alford
—– Original Message —–
From: Consumer Finance Support
To: P_Alford@msn.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:34 PM
Subject: SRX1110540850ID – Microsoft Money Plus Premium\On-Line services extension Logical Explanation

Hello Paul,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Money Online Support Services. My name is Roxie, and I’ll be assisting you with your case.

I hope you are having a fantastic day!

To give the most accurate support possible, I would like to give a brief summary of the problem as I understand it.

You would like to Extend the Online Services until January 30th, 2011

If I have misunderstood the issue, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

As you mentioned, we are not able to provide an extension for the online services at this point. I am sorry for the inconveniences, I truly understand the situation, however as much as I wish, unfortunately I am afraid I am unable to supply you with a different alternative.

However, I would like to provide you with the correct information in this matter.

ü The program was discontinued and not available for purchase as of June 30th, 2009

ü The Online Services for all versions of the program will expire on January 31th, 2011

ü Microsoft does not provide the product until Jan. 2011 because as company policy the product can’t be sold after discontinued

ü The Online Services along with the Activation Requirement are handled by a server which will become inactive on 2011, which is the reason it can’t be reactivated nor keep the Online Features

ü Since the product is discontinued we are unable to provide you with Extended Online Services or a License to renew them

ü Microsoft announced the circumstances in http://www.microsoft.com/money and an automatic message was posted for Money program of all versions as an ‘Important Notice’ a couple of weeks before the dead line to renovate the services

ü After Microsoft Money is expired you are still able to use it with manual entries or downloaded\imported statements

ü Microsoft Money Technical\Online Support will be available until January 31th, 2011

Also, please be assured that our customer are very important to us, and we completely are aware of the inconveniences of this situation, however we expect your understanding for our decision to discontinue the program, as specified in the website, ‘With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed.‘

I hope you find this information useful. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with. I look forward to your reply.

Thank you for your comprehension.

Kind Regards,

Roxie

Microsoft Money Online Support Services

Thank you for choosing Microsoft.

Paul/Laki and others chatting back and forth,

We have a better forum than the blog (i.e. you can subscribe to discussions, get tech answers and ask questions) for customers to talk to one another and help each other out: Quicken Live Community. I urge you to visit.

We’ll post any updates about the converter in that forum – so you can subscribe to the discussions about it and automatically be in the know once we have more information.

The converter will be out this fall. Thanks!

Chelsea, Quicken

Well I decided to buy another copy of Microsoft Money Plus off of eBay as it appears that Quicken 2010 won’t be out prior to mid-October. Based on the climbing prices for the unactivated versions, I must not be the only one in this boat.

At least this buys me some breathing room – quite a bit actually but stinks that I had to buy the same version of software twice!

David,

Hi there – we’re working on a conversion tool from Money to Quicken this fall. Please stay tuned! Thanks.

Chelsea, Quicken

***NEWSFLASH****
Microsoft extended my online services after they expired. It took a bunch of emails, but it finally happened…at no charge. It was a bizarre series of events and if anyone is interested I’ll share the whole saga with you. Now, if Quicken will just come through with the 2010 version that handles the conversion properly, I’ll be a happy camper.

Hi Ken,

Quicken 2010 for the PC will be out this fall. Stay tuned for more details.

Thanks!
Chelsea, Quicken

Another orphaned Money User here (been using Money since version 1.0 came with my Gateway computer for free)….

Any new word? My copy expires 9/29/09 and I’m going to be in limbo until the new Quicken version is released.

For those stuck in the middle like me…. I believe we will be able to export updates from bank websites and credit card sites until we can get Quicken to migrate us over with less pain than we will right now. I’ve got 14 years of data that I want to migrate and I’m NOT starting from scratch without a history to fall back on (7 years worth for the IRS, which I track meticulously just in case).

I’ve been a MS Money user for many years. Being a retiree working to control investments and distributions from IRAs for monthly expenses I have found Money’s Cash Flow forecast extremely valuable. I can setup recurring bills/income over the year. I can make decisions from where to get income and to where to use it. Money has the ideal Cash Flow forecast program. Will Quicken have a similar program? Please say “Yes”.

I will be completely amazed if this conversion tool
a) Works like advertised.
b) Actually arrives in October.
Looking at Quicken’s track record, i’d say the odds are stacked against them.

The really important thing for me as a MS Money user is that I don’t need to export my Money data via QIF or transaction reports for Quicken to be able to read it, because there is a ton of data that is not part those transaction reports:
- Currency of account
- Exchange rate for transfers between accounts with different currencies
- Currency exchange rate, when security’s currency is different from account currency
- Lot information on securities’ sales when specific lot identification is used
- Handling of options (IIRC Quicken does not handle options, so it may be necessary to treat options as a stock and convert the number of shares accordingly, e.g. 1 contract -> 100 shares.

I’m sure there are many more examples like this that are best handled by a dedicated import/conversion functionality. I have 15 years of Money data and assume that I’d have 1000s of transactions that would need manual adjustment, if there weren’t such an import/conversion functionality that would handle them.

Bernhard
Mountain View, CA

Uh oh – so the new conversion tool doesn’t sound like it’s coming out until October. My Money expires 10/5/09….

What is the best solution for me right now? I have lot of transactions and well over a decade of data. I can’t figure out how to tell how many transactions but I bet it’s more than 10K.

Advice please….

OK, this sounds really great that us long time Money users (read “huge number of transactions”), will be able to migrate to the Quicken platform easily with the 2010 version. From everything I have read in blogs, converting to the 2009 version is extremely painful, so that doesn’t interest me at this point. The only thing that I can’t seem to find out is exactly when 2010 will be available, there are some vague references to Fall ‘09, but no date. What does fall mean, September….November? I’m still using Money, but without the online capabilities it takes me forever to update all my accounts manually which is a huge pain. PLEASE HURRY!

Hi, I am waiting for Quicken 2010 to be released. I need to be able to transfer data from MS Money to it. This is the most important feature for me. Please make it work.
Thanks.

I currently use MS Money Plus Premium. If I buy Quicken Premium 2009 now, will I be able to convert 10,000 transactions to Quicken Premium 2009? And when the better conversion tool comes out in October, will this be a free download for Quicken Premium 2009 users or will there be an additional cost?
Thanks.

I have been a MS Money user for 10 years and recently purchased Quicken Home and Business. You will find that the conversion tool does not work for MS Money Plus so plan on converting your money data manually (re-entry) if you must. I will keep my historical data pre-2009 in MS Money and enter all 2009 data in Quicken. I will probably run in parallel through the end of this year just to be safe.

Welcome aboard, Money users!

I hope you’ll find Quicken useful. I can’t say I was a Money fan (tried it way back when, hated it), but I found Quicken by comparison a superior product, although not without it’s own flaws.

I will point out that the version you choose is critical to a happy experience. If you get a smaller package than you need, you’ll be quite disappointed.

I like Dave’s suggestion that Intuit just take over Money and then gradually merge it with Quicken. I too have been using Money more than 15 years. I recall that back in the 90’s Intuit bought out the tax product I was using and modified Turbo Tax to read the other products files inorder to provide a smooth transition. If they want to serve all the money users they should make the transition as transparent as possible. If they can’t they don’t want our business.

I’m a MS Money user since about 1997 I think. My MS Money file doesn’t have data going back quite that far, but what a disappointment this. My file has gotten bloated and I thought I might just create a new one and archive off the old one. When I learned of the announcement I asked a friend of mine who was a long-time quicken user about it. We set up a file on his PC so I could play with it. I just wasn’t all that impressed. Maybe the new version will delight me, but I may well be one of these people we work with who uses a 2000VM in Windows 7 to run an old app that just won’t run in anything but 2000 without issues. In five years I may have a VM running MS Money in Win7 on Win10. I hope not.

Still running the 2007 H&B version as I never did upgrade. Now I don’t see the point as eventually they’ll kill activation for the product which is pretty much the nail in the coffin for Money Plus IMHO.

I have also been a longtime MSMoney user since 1995, but have also periodically attempted to change over to Quicken so I have my data in both MSMoney Plus and Quicken 2008. I am not really concerned much with the conversion process, since it is generally just a 1-time pain.

My real concern is with 2 specific functionalities from MSMoney that have been mentioned above, and are the primary reasons for my sticking with MSMoney and not using Quicken over the years:

Cash Flow Calculations: MS Money allows me to generate a cash flow chart for an individual account (I generally use my checking account) and predict the cash flow for that account for the next 90 days (or 1 year).

Edit individual future entries on a scheduled transaction: MSMoney also shows the individual transactions that will occur over the timeframe within the Cash Flow Calculator and allows me to edit future individual entries.

I use these features daily to adjust the amount I will pay on my credit card, the additional principal payment on my mortgage, or to adjust the date I will make a payment. This allows me to accurately forcast upcoming expenses.

Quicken has a somewhat similar feature for past entries if you look at the past account balance bar charts, but does not address future account balance forcasting.It also does not allow me to edit individual scheduled recurring deposits/transfers/bills like MSMoney so I can’t forecast expenses as well.

Please ensure that these functionalities are added to your product and I will deal with the pain of transition.

Thanks

-Rick

It is really bad the conversion utility. Quicken Product management should do something about this.
1) Cannot convert more then 10000 transactions.
2) Does not recognize credit card accounts from Money and once you convert there is no way to change it.
3) No multi currency support for the whole account. You need to enter individual transactions.
4) It cannot link investment cash and transaction account from money so they show up as separate accounts.
5) Quicken crashed few times trying to handle my money transactions. Money was so smooth and has never crashed for me.

Still working on it before giving up. Already spent a week on it.

I’m another MS Money user of 10+ years. Just last year I started a new money file since my old one got too unwieldy. Just thinking about converting to a new program makes me cringe. When I decided on Money I tried Quicken first, but I could not get used to the ‘check-writing’ philosophy of the program at the time (over 10 years ago). And now I seriously need multi-currency support for investment and banking accounts. I hope Quicken 2010 will have that, or I have to go look for something else.

I AGREE WITH DAVE!!!!!!!!!!!

July 13th, 2009 10:11 pm – Dave…Intuit just buys MS and makes all our lives easier….

another long time user over 10 years…

maybe its sounds simple but I back up my data to a USB every time why cant we just import from the back up file??? Instead of all this crazy xml stuff.

All the information is there in one easy file…click and bam its done…..

If you are working with MS I would think they would make it even easier. I am sure every Money user has a back up copy of all the data.

John…thanks for your note.

We’re working with Microsoft on a new conversion process to make this all easier for you. It will be ready in the fall.

Thanks,
Scott

I have 19 years of MS Money to convert. I have tried Q H&B 2009 and used the conversion tool. Practically useless. It ignores the currency of all imported accounts and securities and makes them US dollar denominated. There is no way in Quicken to edit the accounts or securities back to the proper currencies (..what’s with that??). Yes, you can rename the accounts and set up new accounts with the correct currencies and cut and paste over (ensuring first you set the FX rates to ONE temporarily, and then hit a confirmation return key EVERY transaction!!), or export to a QIF, and do the same, BUT you cannot multiple select transactions from investment accounts to cut and paste to new ones as you can for bank accounts! And to make things all the more impractical, as you cannot change the currency of a security (even though it has the correct ticker symbol), you cannot just manually replace the security in each transaction with the new corrected one, as each transaction account is limited to securities of the same currency of the investment account (which again cannot be changed). These basic things have to be fixed for anyone to convert multicurrency Money files.

Zaacharia said, “The ability to edit future scheduled tranasactions. I use the cash forcasting tool primarily and will often estimate scheduled expenses. I find I am not able to do something like the following with in a scheduled transaction.

Auto Insurance:
06/01 $100
07/01 $100
08/01 $125
09/01 $100

In MS Money I use the cash forecast tool and bills section as my budget tool. With out the ability to edit single future transactions in a scheduled transaction list my forcast is inaccurate.

Hope so see some action on this item”

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE DONE FOR OVER 10 YEARS. THIS FORECASTING IS IMPERATIVE FOR ME.

Sorry about the yelling. I just want to be sure that it was seen.
Thanki

I have been using MS Money since 97? I don’t keep all my old transactions around cause I primarily use the software for future planing. The last few years I have trialed Quicken and 1 item consisitantly bothered me enough about quicken to go back to MS Money.

The ability to edit future scheduled tranasactions. I use the cash forcasting tool primarily and will often estimate scheduled expenses. I find I am not able to do something like the following with in a scheduled transaction.

Auto Insurance:
06/01 $100
07/01 $100
08/01 $125
09/01 $100

In MS Money I use the cash forecast tool and bills section as my budget tool. With out the ability to edit single future transactions in a scheduled transaction list my forcast is inaccurate.

Hope so see some action on this item.

I am a 12 year MS money user, with every banking, credit, investment, debt transaction I have ever completed recorded in that software. I updated every year and generally used a great deal of the functionality. As many have indicated, I can’t imagine trying to manage my families finances without a tool. I almost chose Quicken to begin with in 1997..in fact, not sure why I didn’t at the time. Anyway, I want to buy your product as quickly as possible, but I want to wait until you nkow the conversion tool is ready. I am interested to see how it will handle my 61 meg (currently) MS Money file. How do I best keep up with your progress?

Hi Kirk,

Check out the new Quicken Live Community. You’ll find support Q&A there, plus updates about our progress on MS Money data transfers. Here’s the link: https://qlc.intuit.com/app/full_page?fullpage=categories

- Chelsea, Quicken Blog Team

Since hearing of the end of Microsoft Money last week, I purchased your Quicken Home & Business 2009 and wanted to begin getting used to the program. I believe I may have done so prematurely since all I am reading is that your wont have your new data migration available until version 2010. Once that version is available, will there be an update to the 2009 versions for the data migration tool instead of me having to purchase yet another version? I have been using Money since 1999 and I would exceed the current 10,000 transaction mark in just over 6 months worth of data so the new tool is imperative. I look forward to using Quicken once this tool is available.

It’s too bad really. I went ahead a tried Quicken Deluxe – converted my money bank accounts and everything was imported number wise just fine, but all the bank account transaction details were listed as “Auto:xxxx” – such as “Auto:groceries” or “Auto:Pet Care”, or “Auto:Medical Insurance” – every single one was like that. And it flat out refused to import the investment information – always gave me an error and tech support was no help. I also found out after the fact that ING will no longer allow auto updates with Quicken – which was the primary reason for me to switch – if I have to manually go to the website and download the transactions, then there isn’t really any need for me to switch. Last straw was that every time I open the program, it asks me to register the program – even though I’ve already done it a dozen or more times. I asked for a refund and I’m going to wait until the product and tech support are better.

Chelsea & Scott,

Is Quicken going to seek MS Money users as beta testers for the new conversion tool? There are lots of us (myself included) who have been using Money for 10+ years and have massive, complex files that would be able to help assure that the conversion tool does everything it needs to!

As mentioned before, to many of us Money/Quicken is one of the most important software tools we use. I am perfectly happy to make the move to Quicken but I want to make sure that the countless hours I spent organizing and working in my MS Money file were not spent in vain.

Hi! I just recently migrated to Quicken 2009 From Microsoft Money Plus, my concern is that I am noticing that some of my financial institutions that would automatically load my banking/ credit card information and transactions into Money are not available in Quicken, Unfortunately now, I must either manually upload it or do it all by hand… Very time consuming if you ask me. Any talks about possibly adding more of this financial institutions into Quicken soon? Also any talks about possibly being able to sync your Quicken desk top transactions to the iPhone app and vice versa? So I would have all my information Up to date where ever I go. I would totally pay for that feature!

Thank you for listening!

Hey everybody,

Again, thank for the great questions. As Scott mentioned above, we’ve set up a special forum where you can get more specific technical questions answered. Our product and engineering teams will check in regularly so you can get more specific information than the Quicken Blog Team is able to answer. Visit the forum, Quicken Live Community, or read more about it in this blog post on the subject.

Thanks,
Chelsea, Quicken Blog Team

So far, none of my questions have been answered and as far as I can tell most of the others on this blog have not either. Maybe there are no answers yet.

I understand that this has caught Quicken by surprise and that it will take some time to figure out both the programing problems and the influx of new customer support problems even before they become customers.

MS Money customers are feeling betrayed or at least abandoned and that has caused a much higher expectation (translate: anxiety) for integrity and honor from any new relationship, in this case most likely with Quicken.

Those of us that may have months of time left on our Money subscription will certainly handle being patient easier than those who have weeks.

Quicken team – thanks again for your help. I also want to add that i just download the MoneyLink tool for Money (http://www.ultrasoft.com/moneylink/download.shtml ) and was impressed with its ability to import large amounts of data (100,000s lines) in seconds. This tool which i am sure was developed with the help of MSFT gives me assurance that you guys will be able to develop a complete and **interactive** Money to Quicken converter that will do the job fine…

RTS…what answers are you looking for? We’ve been very active trying to answer what we can but we don’t have answers to some questions here because we are just starting to work with Microsoft on helping everyone convert.

We understand all of you want some answers and reassurance that things will work out. We’re working hard to make that happen…but we need to ask for your patience.

In the meantime, please visit the link above and you can ask questions of our product team and experts in the MS Money section of our live community.

We are being direct and up-front with Money customers. But we’re not going to give an answer if we’re not 100% sure what we’re able to provide.

Thanks,
Scott

John A: What do you mean by “activated”? We don’t have any sort of activation in Quicken…

I recently tried Quicken when I needed to purchase a home and business version and tested it against Money. I was amazed that Quicken would not give accurated ytd returns for my mutual funds that matched what Vanguard.com etc said (no additional transactions for the year). Money was dead on and always has been. I googled the problem and it seems to be a known problem with quicken for years and yet they have done nothing about it. Seems like something simple with some basic math. Hence I chose the Money product and now this… It would be nice if Quicken actually had a product worth buying.

Sounds like “Jeff” (above) has a good option since we are not getting any real answers here.

Another copy of Money Plus that carries us through to 2011 would be insurance against the potential catastrophy that sounds like might be waiting if we would have to convert before a realistic Quicken tool becomes available.

I wish I had thought of it earlier and saved myself the time I’ve spent trying to learn what my options are.

I want to say that I am sorry for being so blunt but it seems that someone could be direct with us MS Money customers especially since we are perfectly poised as potential new Quicken customers.

???????????

I just wanted to add my comment to alain’s & Scott’s above. I too use MS Money 2002 (US version). While it works fine for what I need, I would definitely consider switching/updating to Quicken if, as Scott mentioned, there was *faultless* import of my existing Money 2002 data. A bonus would be a limited-time trial version, so as to be able to verify the conversion before buying. Otherwise, there’s no real point in switching (for me).

As a long time Microsoft Money user, I’d be lost without some kind of application to keep track of all our finances. I wouldn’t be comfortable using an online tool to track finances as I’d always be concerned that the provider would decide to discontinue the service. At least if you buy a desktop application from a vendor, contiune to be a loyal customer by buying their upgrades every 1 – 2 years, they’ll probably continue the product. Oh, wait, never mind. Thanks a lot Microsoft. I just hope Quicken doesn’t decide to do the same after I convert to them.

I’d like to share my use case with the Quicken Product managers. I’m looking forward to the Quicken 2010 convert tool. I noticed that you’re offering discounts (targeted at MS Money users) to purchase Quicken – but it’s only valid through July 31? My guess is that you won’t have a convert tool by July 31, and if you did, I wouldn’t be comfortable using it. After all, if it was easy to develop the convert tool that really works (vs. what you offer now) my guess is that you would have done it by now. Granted, maybe it’ll be easier to develop if Microsoft gives your developers access to the Money source code, or shares information to make the convert process easier. Since my Micrsoft Money automatic updates expire 9/2009 and Money won’t be sold after June 30th 2009, it looks like I have to make a decision fast. My best option may be to purchase one last copy of Microsoft Money so that I can continue to do online updates until Jan 31, 2011. I would then purchase Quicken at that time (can you say Quicken 2011). That should give plenty of time for Intuit to develop the convert tool and to get all the bugs worked out. I realize developing these tools takes time. But since MS Money won’t be sold after June 30th, I don’t have much time to figure out what to do. Since I realize it’s early in the product development cycle, I can understand how it would be difficult for Intuit to give a firm date as to when the Quicken convert tool will be available. That means my best option is to stick with Microsoft Money for now. My next best option would be to forgo online updates after 9/2009, then wait for Quicken’s convert tool. But since I’d be lost without the online updates, it’d be worth it for me to buy one last copy of MS Money just so that I can get the updates. Once I do that, I don’t have much incentive to convert to Quicken until 2011. By that time, most of the bugs in the convert tool would be worked out, and I’d have an easier upgrade path.

BTW. I would be willing to be a beta tester of the convert tool. I have 3 different real world Microsoft Money files that I can test with (one really small, one medium size, and one with about 11 years of financial data). I would not be willing to share my financial data though, and I will not be willing to pay to test it for you. I.E., you’d have to provide me with a copy of Quicken to do the testing. On the other hand, I would be willing to purchase the product once the convert tool is released.

Scott (Gulbransen):

Thanks for your reply. I’m happy to see that our comments are being reviewed and I will certainly look forward to the upcoming data converter at the end of the summer.

In the interim, I’ll be returning my Quicken 2009 Home & Business for a refund as it’s useless to me as is and wait for the release of Quicken 2010. Or, is it possible to qualify for a free upgrade to 2010? Why should we need to buy version 2009 and version 2010 within a few months?

I’ve been a Microsoft Money customer since 1993. I’m actually looking forward to switching to Quicken (when the import process is improved). Thank you Intuit for continuing to support your loyal customers — I hope to become one myself when Quicken 2010 is released!

I bought Quicken Home & Business 2009 last Friday and did the conversion using the latest version of the data converter. Read the instructions carefully and got the conversion working (split transactions, etc) but I was basically left with a large mess (the investment cash transactions were moved to separate accounts / many duplicated transactions in banking accounts). I’m giving up on it and hope that the upcoming data converter + 2010 will do a better job. What a waste of time.

Trust is important in a software vendor and Microsoft has lost mine totally. While I understand vendors discontinuing products that are not profitable, it is how they do this that is important. From a large company like Microsoft, I expected more – I have gotten better responses from small startups. They waited until the last minute when online services were expiring before pulling this stunt. In any case, my online services will stop in less than 2 months so I need to find an alternate solution fast. Although I would love a solution that just read my Money file and converted, I would be content with a solution that read each account individually as long as it worked and was accurate. Can the current version of Quicken do this? I’d be happy to try and upcoming version if need be.

Hi Jethro,

When you first add your banks and financial institutions to Quicken Online, you get about 90 days worth of back-dated data to start. From there, you can build a history through a year, and export all transactions to a spreadsheet in the Transactions tab. See a pic here: http://twitpic.com/7holu

Thanks,
Chelsea, Quicken Blog Team

Hello. As a Microsoft Money user since the 90s, particularly the small business edition, I am interested in Quicken and/or Quickbooks to now meet my needs. My my file is 48mb and full of invoices, transactions, accounts, assets, loans, etc.

I’m ready to transfer and pay. Please do keep us in the loop via your blog and/or email signup.

As (yet another) long time user of MS Money, there are only TWO FEATURES I consider mandatory.
In this string of comments you seem to have addressed the first; Online BillPay.
For me, the ability to automatically back up my financial data online after each session with MS Money is crucial.
As a matter of fact, it saved me from a tragedy recently when I had to replace my computer (and the backups I had were ‘not quite current’).
I am not as concerned about the price as it seems many others – if it does what I need it is worth the price.

I’m in the same boat – a long time MS Money user with data on some 25,000 transactions. Would love to convert to Quicken if you guys can provide a path. Thanks.

Hmmm. This situation is a little scary. From 1994 till 2002 I used Quicken, then foolishly switched to Money, then about 2008 noticed that MS seemed to have abandoned us Canadian customers. (For once we Canucks were apparently at the vanguard in a software event!) Somehow I got my PC to install a US update to MS Money, then got it working in Windows 7 telling it to use Loonies rather than USD and now MS Money dies altogether, Dozens of accounts, of course. Please do a great job on a converter and please don’t charge more than a few thousand dollars for the converter! Joke (I hope!).

I just read logged on to my Microsoft Money software and was stunned by the pop up notifying me that MM will no longer be available to me in 2011. While that seem a long way off I know I need to start preparing now. I am freaked with this as I have used MM for over 10 years. I did try Quicken twice but struggled with it and went back to MM. Now I don’t know what to do. I read Mr. Todd Stanley’s letter and would very much like to be able to contact him directly. Can anyone help me with this?
I am a 58 yo nurse practitioner working f/t and needing all of the help I can get and I will be lost without MM. I use in nearly everyday and record every penny that goes in and out as well as all bill paying etc.
SOS!!!

Well, another 10+ years MS Money user here. I switched to Mac in 2006, and invested in Parallels just to keep MS Money going. I would have switched to Mac Quicken 2007, but it’s not that great really. Quicken Financial Life has a lot of holes in it too, functionality wise.

- You really should support multi-currency accounts in all versions. I gather this is not the case

- QIF Importing is critical

- Online Bill Pay is very useful. I’ve used it ever since MS introduced it in their product

Also, Money Plus is fully supported and will work with online banks until January 2011, everyone should be clear on this. There is no reason to panic and jump ship immediately. MS Money was good competition for Quicken, if nothing else, and now that the competition has gone, you wonder whether Quicken will continue to evolve. If QFL for Mac is anything to go by on a system with virtually no competition, the future doesn’t look that great.

I actually tried to switch from MSMoney Plus to Quicken, but ended up sticking with MSMoney.

The reason wasn’t as much about most of these posts, as I am not as worried about past transactions, but simpler and efficient ongoing use.

The issue I had with Quicken was quite a few of my accounts did not upgrade to the newer Quicken download standard (yea I know QIF was replaced by OFX in 2005), but many of my accounts haven’t switched – I even contacted several of them and their reply was that they had nothing currently in there plans to do so).

Maybe with Money discontinuing they will change there minds, but if they don’t – I am hoping there is another way to get these to download by Quicken rather than having to go to each individual site and load from there

Note to others: The above link does work and I tried it this evening. For the most part it has done pretty well. But after studying the data, It shows that I’m broke.
Yep, that’s likely true. so overall I’d say it did work.

It did not bring in some transactions correctly. It seems to have duplicated some that were not reconcilled or that were not in my register.

So I purchased Quicken tonite from Amazon, and now I’m trying to web connect to Navy Federal. Nope. Then I tried to export QIF to get money checking data. Nope. Tried to connect to Union Bank, CA, nope.

Why not?
Seriously I know I have done this before, last year I had to take msmoney data to quickbooks. Now I am trying to recall how I did it.

oh yeah, for those of you looking, I did it using this
http://financialsoft.about.com/od/quickenforbeginners/ss/Money2Quicken.htm – I guess I’m in to trying that tonight.

Because I have 15 days to decide to continue with a product that won’t support anything, or to change now, I figured Quicken desktop would be better.

I have a year of data to figure out how to migrate before the recession ends and I’m already frustrated with Quicken. ( and of course MsMoney).

I looked at Quicken several times but stuck with MS Money over the years because Quicken does not allow setting up accounts in different currencies, e.g., an account in US dollars and another in Canadian dollars, something that MS Money allowed. MS Money also allowed reporting transactions totals from accounts in disparate currencies by converting them into a “home” currency at the current exchange rate. I suppose this is not an issue for most people, but it is a deal-breaker for me. If Intuit wants the business of current MS Money users, they need to do more than offer seamless data import, they also need to improve Quicken to include the features that were in MS Money.

With regards to the importing software to be developed my concern is that the current Quicken import tool does not import stock splits. I am concerned that I will lose my cost basis information. I am so pissed at Microsoft for doing this to their loyal customers, please be sure to address the ability to import stock splits in your tool. Thanks.

I was drawn to this post because I have been a MS Money user for over 10 years, and am somewhat distressed about the impending loss of a familiar product that I use almost daily.

Now that I am looking at alternate products, I see that Quicken Online does everything I was using Money for (I didn’t use Money for taxes or investments). So, seeing that Quicken is offering its online service for free, I am forced to consider… what is Intuit’s profit motive for providing Quicken Online? I see that I will be offered coupons and other discounts by using Quicken Online. Does that mean that Intuit would be trending and reselling data on my spend habits? Although I understand that is a relatively common practice in marketing, I am concerned about my individual anonymity and overall privacy. Also, in general, it is important for me to understand Intuit’s motivations before I trust it with all of my financial data.

I, too, am concerned with all of the above comments, of course, but I am also concerned about the price issue, especially now that your main competitor has decided to throw in the towel.

Quicken has always been more expensive to begin with. Now that there will be no competition we will be stuck if we convert/commit to Quicken and the price becomes unreasonable.

I am probably not the only one to have considered this.

I’ve used MS Money exclusively for about ten years now. I’m a little worried about the switch, but I look forward to trying Quicken. Most of my worry has to do with the possibility of losing data – not just transactions, but also notations and information I’ve kept within the account attributes. I hope to be able to transfer it all over. In addition, MS Money has an option for me to query my Money file via Excel. I use this feature frequently in a budget template I’ve set up outside of Money (never liked the Money budget application). Does Quicken have a way to query the file via Excel?

I tried to convert to Quicken a couple of years ago, but you were unable to import my data; so I’m still with MS Money Plus Home & Business. I have 15 years of data in Money, including the past 5 years of running my small business (over 20mb data file, if that matters).

I like to have the latest version of any software I use (I have continued upgrading to the latest MS Money, even though I don’t use most new features) – but, I cannot lose my historical data. Please get this right with Microsoft (a new importer tool) ASAP. I am definitely willing to test (beta / whatever), but not share my financial data.

Please manually add my email address to whatever mailing lists necessary to ensure I am kept up to date. Thank you!

Bill

Good morning to all of you MS Money customers. We appreciate your questions and we’re working on several ways to answer them all the best we can.

Here are a few you’ve sent us:

1. How will we know when the import tool will be done so we can switch to Quicken?
A. We’re working on a way for you to give us your email address so we can keep you informed of the progress and any news regarding your ability to import Money data into Quicken. The best thing to do right now is to visit the blog often and we’ll let you know here when it’s ready to go.

2. I use Money for bill pay today. Can I continue to pay my bills through Quicken?
A. The answer is yes. Quicken products have billpay built right in, and we also have an online service that allows you to do that. Here’s a great video to show you how it works in Quicken Deluxe: http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance/deluxe-money-management.jsp?lid=site_banner.

Thanks again for your interest…we’re working hard to make the transition easier for you and to answer your questions. We want to earn your business so stay tuned for more news soon!

How does Quicken Financial Life for Mac compare to Quicken 2010? Are they one in the same?

Does Quicken have a mailing list available that will inform the MS Money community of updates relating to MS Money to Quicken conversion tool?

It is my understanding that “Money 2008 files with more than 10,000 transactions will not currently convert to Quicken.” Will this issue be addressed in Quicken 2010?

Is it possible to pay bills via Quicken 2009 Deluxe without having to subscribe to Quicken Online Bill Pay? If so, would this include non-financial parties such as a babysitter?

I’ve depended on MS Money for years. It is one of the few databases that I back up on a regular basis because I’d freak out if I lost that data. I’ve spent countless hours carefully categorizing every expenditure I’ve had for at least 5 years.

About the only thing that MS could never get right was transfers between accounts. The software never had a good way to associate transfers and I always had to do an ugly workaround (delete one transaction and convert the other to a transfer).

I’m worried that it will be hard to transfer so much custom data (categories, investment transactions, bank/broker/etc online connections, etc). I hope MS has opened up the program to you guys so that a really good and comprehensive conversion program can be developed. Best of luck–I’m sure a lot of MS Money users are counting on Intuit.

I do have many years of data in my Money file and am very pleased to see this response from you guys. I’ll be watching for your updates and certainly converting to Quicken when the 2010 version is released.

Thanks for your timely reaction to the situation.

Thank you for the fast response Scott. I did find the video on bill pay the product manager did. Did find one thing interesting they may want to look at though – in the video he said bill pay was an option that was little used? It did take me over an hour to find that video so they might want to consider advertising that capability a little better. I couldn’t find anywhere in the product description that highlighted/advertised the capability to schedule and pay bills online. Maybe it’s just a wording issue? Just a suggestion. Again, thanks for the help.

Being able to import data from Money would be nice in the future but what product do I need to actually pay the bills like I am with Money right now? Just signed up for online and that doesn’t do it. My bank suggested Quicken but not what version. I need something that compares to Money Plus that tracks all acccounts and that I can set up and pay bills from without using each financial institutions “bill pay”. I don’t see in the online descriptions that any of the Quicken version do that?

What are the differences between a desktop financial manager and a web based finncial manager. I have always uses a desktop manager but a free web based manager is well …free. What am i missing here. Maybe its that you cannot balance your accounts on a web based manager. can you tell me?

thanks