|
Recently, Quicken Online has switched to a free service in order to compete with other free account aggregators. I have never consistently used an account aggregator to manage my personal finances, I have mostly used the Excel and file folder method. I gave Mint a shot when it first arrived on the personal finance scene, but I stopped using it when I couldn’t import my Capital One Money Market Rewards account. When Quicken Online changed to a free service I decided to give online aggregating another shot. Home The home page keeps track of all of your accounts in a column on the left-hand side that is divided into three segments (at least for me): bank accounts, credit cards and loans, and investment accounts. Each section has a total and there is a total balance that sums up the three sections. This is the most useful tool in my opinion. It will make my monthly financial updates significantly easier to keep track of. Also, it’s a great way to make sure that accounts that are no longer in use, but are still open do not incur random fees or begin to accumulate interest. The home page also has a tool for bill pay reminders, which I will most likely not take advantage of. I don’t have any problems paying bills on time and most of my bills are automatically paid. There is a pie chart that keeps track of spending for the previous rolling month. There’s also a tool that displays your money in, money out and the difference between those two numbers for the previous rolling month. These two tools are not exactly useful for me upon first glance as it considers my down payment an expense. Apparently, I have overpaid in the last 30 days by over $40,000 and my pie chart is 95% Misc. Expense. There is a way to change the time range that is displayed in these tools to any value desired under one year. My Transactions The my transactions page has all of the transactions for all accounts that occurred in the time line selected. Each transaction includes the date of transaction, account, payee (ie. Mcdonald’s), category and amount. This page has potential to be very useful, however, it does a poor job at first of categorizing the transactions. My paychecks are categorized as “transfer in” instead of paycheck. The categories may be changed manually and new categories may be formed. Track Spending This page breaks down where you are spending your money. It has the same pie chart from the home page. There is a bar chart that breaks down your total spending by month. Also, there is a list that sums up the expense categories. This page will be more useful once I manually correct the categories. My Budget The my budget page tracks selected categories for budgeting purposes. Goals are entered for a given category and the amount spent already for the month is tracked. At the top the overall expenses and goal is tracked. I have never used a budget and I do not foresee myself using one in the near future, however, the functionality of this budgeting page appears to be good. Other Features Quicken Online provides mobile and email updates and reminders. You can have balances and transactions sent to your mobile device either daily or weekly. Weekly summaries can be sent via email. You can have bill reminders sent a desired number of days prior to the due date to either your email of mobile device. You can also have alerts sent to your email or mobile device if your checking account dips below a certain level, a large expense is made or your credit card account goes over a certain limit. There is a community section that allows you to post questions for other Quicken Online users to answer. I haven’t surfed around this section yet, but it appears to be a nice way to have any questions answered by experienced users. Also, there is a blog run by Quicken Online that will keep you updated with changes and upgrades. Security The security of Quicken Online is very similar, if not the exact same as online banks. I’m not sure how this whole online security works, but here is what the website says:
Good enough for me. Overall The simplicity and quickness that an account can be set up was extremely encouraging. It was nice to see all of my accounts were fully covered by the service. The major down fall is the inability to automatically and correctly categorize my spending. I will most likely continue using Quicken Online as it is very nice to have all of my accounts aggregated in one place. |
- High Interest Rate Checking Accounts
- Deals For Opening ING Direct Orange Savings And Electric Orange Checking Accounts
- New Devon Bank Rewards Checking Account and My Bank Rotation
- Current Savings and Checking Account Setup
- Mortgage Transfer of Servicing Rights