Version 2016, Beta.

[aviator]

Hi Mark,
I just downloaded FM 2016 (beta) and it's impressive. Lots of improvements that take FM to a new level.

I've brought this topic up before (and got nowhere) but I'm bringing it up again, hoping to convince you...

I'm sure you've heard by now that Intuit is looking to divest Quicken and a few other products. I still use Quicken for my retail banking needs, only because FM doesn't offer those features. Quicken users are all abuzz and anxious about who will buy Quicken and what will become of it. I'm asking, yet again, to please consider adding retail banking to Fund Manager. It would be nice to be able to ditch Quicken (which, for that past few years, has offered virtually no functionality improvements) in favor of Fund Manager which continues to evolve.

[Mark]

Hi aviator,

Thanks for the feedback. I hadn't heard that about Quicken before. This is something we can consider, but it isn't in our near term plans. Keeping Fund Manager focused on investments solely allows us to focus our limited resources.

[DavidJ]

Mark,
Just for the record, I much prefer Fund Manager the way it is now, i.e., investment-only software. IMHO, personal finance software is something completely different, and you would have to start out fresh in a whole new market. The change would also leave your old customers with no appropriate software.

Aviator,
You might want to look at Moneydance. The vendor/developer is someone called Infinite Kind. When I looked at it, it performed all the personal finance functions I checked well and easily, and could import Quicken data with little hand finishing. It is lighter than Quicken, and had no internal self-advertising.

Thanks.
David.

[aviator]

Hi DavidJ,

Thanks for your comments. Based on Mark's comments, I think it's highly unlikely that FM will evolve to include retail banking anytime soon. He has been unambiguous that there are no plans to offer what I've asked for, and I respect that.

Having said that, I do believe there's value in having all finances in one application. While FM is fantastic at what it does, in it's current state it doesn't represent my entire financial picture -- no retail banking, no credit cards, no loans. In short, I can't see my net worth in FM.

I'm not sure what you mean by "personal finance software is something completely different, and you would have to start out fresh in a whole new market. The change would also leave your old customers with no appropriate software."

To be clear, I'm not asking for FM to be compromised for the sake of the additions I was asking for. I was hoping the retail banking portion could be bolted on to the existing software, possibly offered at an additional charge (which I would be happy to pay to avoid having to use two software applications).

I have tried Moneydance, but that still means using two applications to see my entire financial picture.

[finmanjim]

I second Aviator's explanation of some of the features that others (like me) would find extremely useful. FM is by far the most responsive software provider in this arena. There might be some simple additions to FM that would enable it to be more useful for tracking net worth as well as making tax preparation less onerous.

Thanks.

Jim

[Ivan]

I don't mean to turn this into a debate, but I agree with DavidJ. Fundmanager is excellent for trancking my investments and I used Quicken, which does a good job tracking expenses for budgeting purposes. I don't see any significant value in combining their functions.

[ThomasK]

Hi guys,

I am finding it useful to use Fund Manager to track my 'liquid' investments and export on a monthly basis the 4 key values of which I then input into Excel, but am considering Quicken.
- gain/loss
- dividends (long/short)
- interest (in/out)
- commissions

So, Quicken tracks the 'non-liquid' investments and 'external cash' bank accounts, credit accounts, etc. and I input manually the 4 lines from FM.

In fact, I'm at the point I only care that FM tracks my Gain/Loss number, as I can get the other 3 directly from the monthly brokerage statement and manually input those numbers into FM and Quicken. During the course of a month it is the 'liquid' portion that I need to keep track of. At the end of the year, it all simply adds up.

Thomas

[paulk]

PLEASE keep FM a strictly portfolio management system. You've nailed it here with a great combination of content/value and you keep making it better and better. Don't water it down with checkbook/billpay features.

[ThomasK]

Hi All,

I have to agree...keeping Fund Manager as it is. Managing multiple portfolios and having the ability to label investments five-ways-come-Sunday and customize any report, not to mention benchmark comparisons, etc etc. is no small feat.

With the demise of Quicken (issue is old code?) and Intuit running with Mint.com perhaps that is a way to go? Unless 2015/2016 is stable!

Again, tools are tools and somethings are best built with more than one and putting the 4 key line items into something like Quicken or Mint is fine for me. Sadly, I'm considering that the retirement tools are lacking and looking into other software for that! Sigh.

Why doesn't someone buy Quicken and go to the Banks and say for $X they can have a branded internal solution...that way they could use it as a revenue tool charging per user. Most likely as Mint and others are being written with new code I suppose...