Intuit has abandoned us
Are you contemplating an upgrade to Quicken Essentials for Mac? Don't waste your money. Recently I tried to upgrade from Quicken 2004 for Mac to QE, and I was dismayed to discover that QE cannot import my existing financial data from any Quicken for Mac version before Quicken 2005. ("You will need to start from scratch" is not an acceptable solution, but it is my new favorite example of customer abuse). The thread containing my conversation with Quicken support is at the end of this post, but in a nutshell their solution is that you have to upgrade from Quicken 2004 to an intermediate version of Quicken (like Quicken 2005) and then import the Quicken 2005 data into QE. Which sounds reasonable until you think about it: Quicken 2005 is no longer available, and if I'm trying to upgrade from 2004 it's pretty obvious that I don't have a copy of 2005 on hand. For that matter, how am I supposed to trust software to handle my personal financial information if the company producing it can't even make new products backward compatible with their own products?
Anyway, after seventeen years of loyal use of Quicken and Turbotax, I suddenly found myself in need of a new financial software company, because I'm thoroughly disgusted with Intuit. I found Money and iBank4 reasonably well recommended, so I gave trial versions of both a shot. Money didn't import my Quicken 2004 .qif file accurately, but iBank4 did so seamlessly, and I'm pretty happy with it as my new home. So if you are contemplating an upgrade from Quicken 2004 or earlier, don't waste your money on Quicken Essentials because it cannot import your data. Instead, I recommend that you switch to iBank4.
Chris Carlson
Recently you requested assistance from Quicken Customer Care. Below is a summary of your request and our response. We are committed to resolving this issue to your complete satisfaction.
Discussion Thread
Response (Amjad) 09/01/2012 06:02 PM
Dear Christopher Carlson,
Thank you for contacting Quicken Customer Care.
Christopher, if you do not have older version of Quicken for Mac 2005, 2006 or 2007, there is no way to convert the file of Quicken 2004 in Quicken Essential.
You will need to start from scratch.
If you require additional information or feel that the above resource(s) did not assist with supporting your issue, then please feel free to reply to this email.
You can also contact Chat Support, by visiting this URL:
https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/chat.php
Chat Support is available anytime, 24x7.
To call phone support regarding this issue, you can visit the following URL and submit an incident post. This will give you a number to call the phone support:
https://quicken.custhelp.com/app/contact/plvl1/win
Phone support is available from 5AM - 5PM PST, Mon-Fri.
Sincerely,
Amjad
Quicken Customer Care
Auto-Response 09/01/2012 03:27 PM
Thank you for contacting Quicken Customer Care.
We have received your question, and will respond to you within 48 hours.
Regards,
Quicken Customer Care Team
**This is a system-generated confirmation. Please do not respond to this email.**
Customer (Christopher Carlson) 09/01/2012 03:27 PM
Okay, how the heck do I import my old Quicken 2004 data into QE 2010? Telling me I cannot just pisses me off, and I'm already thinking that any company incapable of backward compatibility with their own software really isn't the sort of company that I want to trust with my personal financial records. Telling me to use Q2005 for mac isn't helpful, because I DO NOT HAVE a copy of quicken 2005 for mac, nor can I buy one anymore.
