Personal accounting is a tough one. I recently switched accounting software. There aren’t really any great FOSS options that I’ve found and automatic bank transaction syncing is a major obstacle there. Not to mention, any good accounting software is complex and detail oriented. I ended up switching to Quicken; which is probably not a phrase said often. Quicken Desktop is legacy and their online/mobile offering is lackluster at best. But the desktop suite, “Quicken Classic”, effectively has no competitors and has a feature set far more advanced than any other personal accounting suite.

I’ll admit my situation is probably unique. I manage our personal finances and two businesses and I am incredibly picky. The next logical step would be QuickBooks but I don’t have a payroll and don’t really want to spend that kind of money. I made the switch – somewhat begrudgingly – and after doing lots and lots of research. Overall I don’t regret going with Quicken. I definitely have some complaints and concerns, not the least of which is that it’s closed source and extracting my data would be difficult. If I had the time, I probably would have used Excel w/ Tiller. That gives you the flexibility to do just about anything. But, spending my evenings creating VBA scripts and pivot tables is not my idea of a good time. I really wish there were a better and more comprehensive solution because I would be all over it.