GNUCash value proposition

[David Carlson]

Steve,

I have found that I can manually download last month's transactions in OFX
format when I visit my bank's website each month to make sure nobody is
hijacking my bank account.  That is free, and not much harder than messing
with the Direct Connect stuff that frequently breaks.

David C

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:14 AM, C M Reinehr <cmr at reinehr.net> wrote:

> Steve,
>
> Your situation sounds similar to mine. Quicken was the only application
> tying me to Windows & I finally made to jump about three years ago and
> never have regretted it.
>
> At first, I was concerned about being unable to download transactions
> automagically but as Russell just has commented I just switched to entering
> all transactions manually and it has not been a burden. I pay most of my
> bills either using my bank's bill pay service or direct debit arrangements
> (utility & credit card companies only) an enter the transactions into my
> checking ledger as I receive the bills & schedule them for payment. This
> allows me always to know my current & future balances. Even though I could,
> free of charge, download my bank transactions, I don't bother.
>
> The most difficulty I encountered in making the switch was in transferring
> my transaction history from Quicken to GnuCash & that, primarily, was my
> fault. Instead of researching & testing, I just jumped into the deep end &
> did it. A little patience & preparation would have made it go more smoothly.
>
> One final consideration is that I already was very familiar with double
> entry business accounting, so had no difficulty understanding GnuCash.
> Someone without accounting experience and knowing only Quicken's category
> system will have a more difficult time of it.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Cheers!
>
> CMR
>
>
> On 04/24/2017 10:31 AM, Steve Cohen wrote:
>
>> I have stumbled into the world of GNUCash, which I never heard of until
>> yesterday, over frustration with another forced and unwanted upgrade of
>> Quicken.  I use Quicken to track my personal finances, including
>> investements (which I'm not too rigourous with because I have a
>> financial guy who sends me the offical statements upon which my taxes
>> are based).  I mainly want to pay bills, keep a rough running total of
>> my net worth, and be able to download my transactions in banks and
>> credit cards to a central place.
>>
>> I know my way around Linux, Open Source and GitHub and am not unwilling
>> to get my hands dirty with technical details.  It would be one more nail
>> in the coffin of my Windows use, which would make me happy.  And as I
>> near retirement, the thought of possibly even working on such a project
>> is not unappealing to me.
>>
>> But as I began thinking about ways to move from Quicken to GNUCash, the
>> following obstacle is holding me back:
>> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings#Chase It
>> will apparently cost me $9.95 a month just to be able to automatically
>> download my transaction data from Chase Bank, which is more than Quicken
>> would cost me if I upgraded every year (which I don't).  Possibly plus
>> connection fees to the other financial instituations, (brokerages,
>> pension accounts, etc.) that I now connect to via Quicken.
>>
>> So my question is, and please don't take this as a hostile question, is
>> whether it is correct that in making the jump from Quicken I will have
>> to pay the banks these high connection fees to use OFX?   If it is, I
>> might just opt to stick with Quicken, which I'm not crazy about. Or am I
>> missing something?  While there is documentation that is as recent as
>> this year, there are also documents dated 2006 or 2008, so I'm not clear
>> about the prospects and viability of this project.
>>
>> What do GNUCash users do?  Pay the ten bucks a month?  Give up on OFX
>> and automatic downloading, or download data from the banks' websites and
>> manually import into GNUCash?  Or something else?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Steve Cohen
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