GnuCash vs. Quicken

Henrik Ahlgren pablo@iki.fi
Wed, 4 Dec 2002 23:26:43 +0200


On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 01:06:35PM -0500, thomas.moersch@accesscomm.ca wrote:
> I have been using Quicken for many years but am now considering switching
> to GnuCash.  I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around
> double-entry accounting.  I asked my accountant friend about this and he
> said "Forget it - keep on using Quicken!  For your personal finances
> double-entry accounting is overkill and you will soon get tired of it!"

Well, maybe he thinks high quality and free personal finance software
threatens his profession or something. It took me about two hours to
learn how to keep double-entry accounts with Gnucash and after using
the software for few months I'm already thousands of dollars wealthier
and managing my money with Gnucash has been really
enjoyable. Double-entry is far from rocket science and it's much more
useful than single-entry, if you really want to know where your money
comes from and where it goes.

I'm not familiar wit Quicken but I believe it's very mature software,
and may have some nice features Gnucash lacks, so of course you have
to ponder what's important for you.