Even if Quicken seemed to import those QIFs, your confidence that it imported your last 10 (or whatever) years of data correctly should be very low. This is part of where my “Don’t migrate, archive and switch” recommendation that I made to Glenn comes from. No one is trying to make things awful, but they basically are and always will be, because different systems have different data models and QIF is less a file format than a series of vague suggestions about how a file might be organized, maybe.
Generally what I’d say is that for both personal finance and accounting software, file formats are a mess. GnuCash can import QIF, and the price - free - makes it mostly harmless to give it a shot. I think one other psychological thing that keeps people locked into one tool is they like seeing a chart that goes back 10, 15, 20 years or whatever – but if you’ve run the reports, it’s easy enough to roll those up in a spreadsheet and do them there, too. And it’s as easy to search for “ConsultingLLC” in Numbers or Excel or your PDF reader of choice as it is in Quicken (I in fact will claim it’s easier.) (2) If you need the transactions, even in the facehuggeryiest software you can typically still get a CSV (or as you say, PDF) out. (1) If you need the reports, you can just print / save those off and refer to them as needed (and in fact, you really don’t want to update a report 6 years later - you want it frozen). Yes, this is exactly the realization that most people don’t reach, and it sounds like you just hit it: Because a PDF is easier to search if I don’t need to generate a customized report, but am just looking for one thing!
As you say this, though, I think I will do a full report dump to have offline at the end of future years.
0 kommentar(er)
