Switching "to" Quiken?

[Vincent V]

Judah
It really depends on what functionality you want from it. I have been 
researching quite a number of accounts packages recently, I used to use 
MoneySmith (does run inder wine in Linux but now no longer supported and 
becoming long in the tooth) and was looking for a package to replace it: 
first for my personal accounts,  and now for my (very small) business 
accounts.

For my personal accounts the choice was between GNU cash and Moneydance, 
I went for Moneydance (http://moneydance.com/)because at the time the 
GNU cash shipping with Mandrake did not have scheduled transactions - 
dont even think of tring to 'roll your own' gnucash - the main page is 
also simpler / nicer and more similar to MoneySmith. MD also has the 
advantage of being written in java so it will run on Linux, Windows and 
Mac. The latest preview (beta) versions (http://moneydance.com/preview/ 
)are quite good now (I don't know what the current release version is 
but Sean Riley will be making a new one soon). For me, the data entry 
isn't as nice as GNU cash and splits are a pain since they must all be 
'to' or 'from' one account and you must be in that account to edit them, 
however, I am told that this is exactly how Quicken works. Help is (now) 
fairly good through the user group 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moneydance/. The documentation is a bit 
like GNU cash: some bits are excellent, some bit are lacking. MD can 
also import and export to quicken format. If I were making the choice 
now, I don't know whether I'd choose MD or GNU - they both have their 
good and bad points.

For my business accounts I will probably go for GNU cash since the 
latest versions now have scheduled and business support (MD does not 
have any vendor / sales type support). As you are obviusly very familiar 
with GNU I will say no more.

Other packages which you might look at if you want a business package.

Quasar
Runs on Linux or Windows (www.quasar.com) and is fairly easy to install. 
The basic accounts package (which includes customers / vendors etc) is 
free of charge for use on a single computer, options for advanced use 
and multiple licenses attract a nominal fee. This is quite a nice 
package and can grow into a full 'point of sale' system with multiple 
shops if you want it. An overkill for home accounts probably.

SQL-ledger
http://www.sql-ledger.org
SQL / perl so runs on multiple platforms. The software is free but there 
is a charge for support - although the inbuilt help is quite good. 
Allows multiple databases and user via a web based server. Very 
powerfull but a pain to set up since  you must have an Apahe server 
running and an SQL server running (ideally Postgress or Oracle).

Nola
 http://nola.noguska.com/profile.html
Similar functionality and licensing to SQL-ledger, the presentaion is 
slightly nicer and there is a budgeting mechanism. I haven't tried 
installing this so I don't know how easy it is.

Hope that helps

Vince