Linux finance management program (ALA Quicken?)

[Josh]

OK Folks, here is what the deal is.

I recently purchased a laptop for my wife for her college class and as such, the main PC in my home is up for grabs. As such, I am going to give ubuntu a full try, or maybe opensuse, and see how things go.

The primary piece of software I REQUIRE (No, this isn't a want, it's a need) is a financial management application similar to quicken. One thing I would like to experiment with is using quicken in Wine and see how that works. Barring that, can anyone recommend, from first hand experience, a good linux based finance management program which can download information directly from various banks and credit agencies? This is a must. My entire financial life is on my PC and as such, quicken use or a similar app, is a requirement for any OS.

Any thoughts?

[Gothi[c]]

Gnucash sounds like the obvious answer... though I'm not familiar enough with quicken to know what it should do/have.

http://www.gnucash.org/

[40hz]

The only Linux personal financial app I know of that supports online banking is MoneyDance.

It is not free. A single user license costs $40 USD. Versions are available for Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux.

You can download a 100-transaction trial copy from their website to see if it will do what you want.

http://www.moneydance.com/

----

RE: running  Quicken under Wine

In a word: don't.

If your entire financial life is on your PC, you do not want to take chances running a non-native financial application. There are too many ways you could run into problems. Wine is far from bulletproof. And Quicken also has it's share of technical problems.

If you just want to try  Ubuntu, a far better approach would be to install it via the WUBI option and keep Windows intact until you decide where you ultimately want to go.

If you do finally decide you're going to make the switch to Linux, I'd still strongly recommend keeping Quicken on its own small Windows partition, and dual-booting your PC.

Why settle on using one OS when you can have both? Even longtime Linux users like me still need to boot Windows from time to time.

[zridling]

Ubuntu Doctor has a nice list of 10 Linux finance tools. They suggest only using Quicken under Crossover Office.

[40hz]

Ubuntu Doctor has a nice list of 10 Linux finance tools. They suggest only using Quicken under Crossover Office.

-zridling (February 09, 2009, 11:33 AM)

It still scares me.

[Edvard]

If your entire financial life is on your PC, you do not want to take chances running a non-native financial application. There are too many ways you could run into problems. Wine is far from bulletproof. And Quicken also has it's share of technical problems.

If you just want to try  Ubuntu, a far better approach would be to install it via the WUBI option and keep Windows intact until you decide where you ultimately want to go.

-40hz (February 09, 2009, 07:19 AM)

Or install Windows in a VirtualBox or something...

Actually this article is from 2002, so I wonder if it's not so bad an idea after all.
Folks towards the end of this thread are recommending MoneyDance. Sorta telling, isn't it?

[Josh]

Has anyone ever messed with Win4Lin?

[ljbirns]

Has anyone ever messed with Win4Lin?

This copied from from their website would make me nervous:

Win4VDI for Linux Workgroup Edition (10-user pack $699 until 15 September 2008)

[zxcvbn]

This is kind of off topic - but on it if you see what I mean ?

You don't ?

Oh.   

I have tried running two Family History programmes on Ubuntu 8.04 under Wine.  One would not work at all. The other sort of worked, but with all sorts of oddities.  So, I remain one of those who thinks that Linux is a Good Thing, but is of no use to me at the moment.  I certainly would not commit something important to such a system at the moment.

(PS. Yes, I know about Gramps, but that would need to be a separate thread.)

[longrun]

If you go with MoneyDance (I use and like the Windows version), here are a couple of resources for figuring out how to download data from banks that aren't on MD's list:
http://ofxblog.wordpress.com/about/
http://www.jongsma.org/gc/

[gorinw13]

now quicken can be accessed online version for FREE ....

go to:

http://quicken.intuit.com/

so you can use your linux browser to use quicken for free, online....


another alternative:

http://www.mint.com

again can be accessed online with a browser.
 

[zridling]

Here is more Josh, but not sure it's what you're looking for:
Free and Open Source Finance/Accounting Software for Linux