Quicken 2016 for Farm Accounting

[Guilherme]

Anyone using Quicken Home and Business 2016 for Farm Accounting? I’ve downloaded it and have a big issue. I don’t know if it’s a “bug” or I’m asking the program to do something it’s not designed to do.

Technical support by chat was a bust. When the tech finally “got” what I was trying to do (after almost 15 min.) he informed me that Quicken was a “personal” product and if I wanted business features I had to buy Quick Books. When I reminded him that I had purchased “Home and Business” he got rather “huffy.” I terminated the link.

Help from any quarter appreciated!!!

G.

[Palm_Beach]

I use qb, and love the product and the tech support. I don’t do the farm books on it, but use it for my business. From what I recall years ago, the Home and Business software was way too basic for my business. I think if you do anything more complicated than a paper route or babysitting, it’s insufficient. I also use Turbo Tax, and love that product and the support staff. I’d pick up the phone and call them. If you just downloaded it recently and it’s not going to work for you, it would not surprise me if they make it right and give you a refund, or credit towards qb.

[Frog_Pond]

I used Quicken when it first came out, then found it too clunky and just went back to paper. I downloaded it again last year and thought it could handle my more complicated financials – a farm, a spouse with a main job & consulting gigs – and it most definitely cannot. When I pointed out its several clear flaws, Intuit did refund my money, which was nice.

Intuit has made its fortune in offering feature-rich products and removing one, logical function in order to upsell you to the next product. Hence Mint for millennials – good at debt, bad at assets --, Quicken for people who like computers but don’t have complex financial lives – lousy budgeting, lousy for families --, and QB for business. Turbo Tax is their most feature-rich, smart tool, for sure. I’m going to try QB this year – I’ll come back and post if I find it worthwhile! To be fair, I’ve never found a better financial management software . . . I just really with Intuit would streamline & improve what they’ve got.

[Jim_in_PA]

Home and Business is feature limited when it comes to “real businesses” and you may actually need to consider QuickBooks if you need things like billing and other business features. H&B is fine for simple business needs that only require record keeping but it’s not really a “business” product.

[Guilherme]

Thanks for the input.

I used Quicken for several years, then went to QB when we got too big for Quicken, but we’re now in the end stages and will retire the business side of things in a few years. QB would be “swatting flies with a sledgehammer.”

The thing that’s annoyed me may be a “quirk” or a “bug” or just an attempt to “up-sell” me. Quicken permits the creation of Business Income and Expense accounts and allows the creation of tax categories that will put stuff where it belongs in TurboTax. I’d expect nothing less from something that advertises itself as a “business” program. When creating a Category for business income on Sched. C, for example, it allows the item to remain in the Business Income category. When the same action is taken for farm income on Sched. F it moves the item to the Personal Income category. This does not seem right to me; the Tech guy blew the whole thing off by telling me the program was “Personal” and I could buy QB.

I realize that Quicken won’t manage inventory or do true double-entry book keeping but I don’t need any of that. I just want to see Sched. F information treated like Sched. C information. Both are business; why the difference?

I’ve just downloaded Quicken2016 so I’ve got a bit of time to return it if this is really an issue. As long as it, in fact, puts the data on Sched. F in TurboTax I really don’t much care. So far I’ve not gotten anything like a straight answer from Quicken on that one.

G.

[fordtraktor]

I use Quicken but I don’t export the data to my tax forms (I use an accountant), so I can’t help you on the functionality.

I will say I have found it increasingly frustrating over the years. I want Quicken just operate like a ledger and not connect to things I don’t want it connecting to – I have figured to just open “cash” accounts so it will leave me the heck alone and I can just input my darn numbers. I have a new cash account for every year and business.

It tries to be too smart for its own good. That is fine if you are just watching your personal spending but that isnt what I want it to do. But it isn’t smart enough to sort out expenses, I really need to allocate them manually.

I am using it even more bare bones than you are, though, for sure. I use it like it is paper but it sucks I have to trick it to let me do that.

[Guilherme]

Don’t know why this zombie thread came back to life but I tried the link and my anti-virus said “no.”

It’s likely a troll; don’t click on the link.

G.

[gumtree]

I use Quckbooks Pro for my farm and horse business. Setup a different account for home/personal. I’ve been using Quickbooks Pro since 2005. Before that I used Quicken.

It is key to spend a fair bit of time making a list of “accounts” sub-accounts to “tag” ALL the various things, expenses etc. Doing this correctly give much better, more accurate “reports”, P&L, clients reports, inventory, accounts payable and receivable, tax reports etc. Done correctly cuts down on accountant, tax preparation fees. It is a PITA to go back and reorganize lots of things after the fact.

[gumtree]

@Guilherme

Don’t know why this zombie thread came back to life but I tried the link and my anti-virus said “no.”

It’s likely a troll; don’t click on the link.

G.

Wonder how people pick up on this stuff so quickly. Wonder if the new website platform makes it easier?

Edit, didn’t realize the thread was a year old. So not that “quick”.