Gnucash

[gbalin]

Hi. I've been using Quicken for years, but a recent crash made me worry in case the disc fails and I can't retrieve 15 years data.
Does anyone use gnucash here? It looks very good, if a bit daunting if you are not used to double entry bookkeeping. Online share updating doesn't work thanks to Yahoo, as hyptus users here have found out. Thought I'd give it a go in parallel with quicken for a bit.
Has anyone used it, and if so, are you happy with the report generators?
Cheers,
Graham

[formoverfunction]

Hi, yes, I've used Gnucash for almost a decade, but not to manage my portfolio.

Just general money management.

I've looked at the stock managent modules, but never got as far as setting it up. I went for the now defunct Investorscope. Which I'm still using even though it doesn't update prices any longer.

Gnucash can be used across several platforms and that can be a blessing. I've used it on Mac OS X and Linux.

It's quite robust in my experience and free!

I also use OpenOffice which is my go to office product.

[staffordian]

I've tried it but not found it as good as my current personal finance program, Moneydance.

I've used it since the UK version of Quicken disappeared and have found it reliable and easy to use.

It too suffered the Yahoo problem with regard to portfolio updating, but it can be got round using an extension which allows prices from a Yahoo portfolio csv export to be imported into Moneydance. Not quite seamless, but it works well enough.

The other bonus for me is a free android app which allows transaction entry on a phone which then syncs with the main program.

It isn't free, but a trial version can be downloaded for free as a fully functioning version, unlimited transaction can be imported into it and up to 100 new transactions entered to give an insight into whether it suits you or not. If you like it, you simply buy an unlock code which allows the demo version to continue as a full version. The other thing I like is a free upgrade to the next version, reduced rates for sunsequent versions and a commitment not to hobble old versions, so when you are happy with features you can remain on that version for a significant time.

The downside is that because of some of Quicken's limitations on qif files, importing any quantity of data can be quite long winewd, and involve a fair bit of manual pruning of duplicate transactions, but when I tried Gnucash, I had the same issue, so can't really blame Moneydance for it.

[gbalin]

'It too suffered the Yahoo problem with regard to portfolio updating'

Gnucash has got over that - most stocks are updatable using the US Alphavantage site, and funds by using the ISIN code and Morningstar GB

I'm not trying to import old data from Quicken - which won't let me export in QIF file anyway, I'll keep Quicken for old stuff but just worried in case both hard drive and CD fail together, so starting afresh with Gnu. Bit tedious setting up all the stocks and funds, but will see whether it is worthwhile

[staffordian]

'It too suffered the Yahoo problem with regard to portfolio updating'

Gnucash has got over that - most stocks are updatable using the US Alphavantage site, and funds by using the ISIN code and Morningstar GB

I'm not trying to import old data from Quicken - which won't let me export in QIF file anyway, I'll keep Quicken for old stuff but just worried in case both hard drive and CD fail together, so starting afresh with Gnu. Bit tedious setting up all the stocks and funds, but will see whether it is worthwhile

Moneydance lffer tha Alphavantage option, they developed it quite quickly after Yahoo went pear shaped.

I tried it and found the results were rather hit and miss. Sometimes the prices were right, sometimes they were missing, sometimes 100x out (£ not p) and it screwed up my historical data by overwriting some old prices with totally wrong ones. Hope the Gnu implementation is better...

[staffordian]

I have been having some success with google sheets with a combination of googlefinance functions and importhtml shenanigans to scrape data as needed. Works for me...

I do have that sort of option as a backstop, but for me, the convenience of all my finances in one program is a major plus, and the extension which enables a direct import of a Yahoo csv file, which updates all the share prices is more than adequate for me. I know I could do it all in a spreadsheet, but things like budgets, account reconciliation and graphs and reports would be beyond my spreadsheet skills