Very Computer

The only reason I have to keep Windows around is because I've used
Quicken for a while now, and I'd like to keep using it.

Is there a Quicken-like program for Linux?

The feature I'm most interested in is the bill payment by modem (CheckFree).

Thanks.

--
Javier Henderson

: The only reason I have to keep Windows around is because I've used
: Quicken for a while now, and I'd like to keep using it.

: Is there a Quicken-like program for Linux?

: The feature I'm most interested in is the bill payment by modem (CheckFree).

: Thanks.

: --
: Javier Henderson

: Is there a Quicken-like program for Linux?

Quickbooks (for DOS) seems to work fine under doeseu.

--
Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155  (206)PUBS-REF

Quote:>>> Publishers of pocket references for UNIX, C, ..., Linux Journal <<<

-Rob
--
Robert W. Brewer  "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him

Ari Shapiro

______________________

||___INU\/            |
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    >>> The only reason I have to keep Windows around is because I've used
    >>> Quicken for a while now, and I'd like to keep using it.
    >>> [Is there Quicken-like software for Linux?]

    bn> Frankly, though, Linus himself posted (in
    bn> comp.os.linux.advocacy) that he considered the United States to
    bn> be the equivalent of a "third world country" [sic] in terms of
    bn> the way we here in the states handle personal finance. He had
    bn> mentioned that in his (obviously more advanced) part of the
    bn> world, the use of checks is rather uncommon.

Indeed!  Even in certain parts of the USA!  :)

I haven't used a check in many months myself.  Why?  *Because* I use
Quicken.  You can use Quicken (with CheckFree) to auto-pay your bills
right from your computer.  It'll even pay your "static" bills for you
(rent, mortgage, etc.) without you having to do anything.  No checks
needed.  And of course my bank allows "phone banking" so I can transfer
money, etc. over the phone.

You can also get a Quicken credit card which will allow you to download
your credit card statement via the modem (no typing it in!) and even
sort your purchases into categories for you.

Now if I could just download my bank statement as well, I wouldn't have
to type hardly anything at all!

In other words, just because checks are on the way out doesn't mean we
don't need good financial management software: on the contrary, in order
to deep-six checks we'll *require* it :)

Until some Linux-based package can handle all that for me, plus the more
mundane budgeting, forecasting, stocks/bonds, tax help, and of course
bank statement reconciliation, I'm going to have to keep my Windoz
around (sorry, DOS-based Quicken doesn't cut it for me: I use tons of
Windows-only features).

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Senior Software Engineer                                   Bay Networks, Inc.
-----------------------------------------------==<http://www.baynetworks.com/>-
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.

Quote:>> The only reason I have to keep Windows around is because I've used
>> Quicken for a while now, and I'd like to keep using it.
>> [Is there Quicken-like software for Linux?]

Another poster had indicated that "personal finance software is not a
hot topic".

Perhaps this attitude is prevelant among application developers for
Linux? Additionally, I'm not real optimistic that anyone associated
with the FSF would be motivated to develop an app devoted to something
as "mundane" as money management.

--
=============================================================================
        Bob Nelson: Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.  -  Linux for fun, M$ for $$$

=============================================================================

:     bn> Frankly, though, Linus himself posted (in
:     bn> comp.os.linux.advocacy) that he considered the United States to
:     bn> be the equivalent of a "third world country" [sic] in terms of
:     bn> the way we here in the states handle personal finance. He had
:     bn> mentioned that in his (obviously more advanced) part of the
:     bn> world, the use of checks is rather uncommon.

: I haven't used a check in many months myself.  Why?  *Because* I use
: Quicken.  You can use Quicken (with CheckFree) to auto-pay your bills
: right from your computer.  It'll even pay your "static" bills for you
: (rent, mortgage, etc.) without you having to do anything.  No checks
: needed.  And of course my bank allows "phone banking" so I can transfer
: money, etc. over the phone.

I would love to use CheckFree.  
However, I'm not willing to pay $10/month for it.

--
Tom Barringer      : Progress Software Corp.   : The Tall * is looking
QA Development     : 14 Oak Park               : for members.  Please see the

GEnie: T.Barringer : #include <std/disclaim.i> : the top of your refrigerator.
URL MOVED--------->:"ftp://ftp.progress.com/pub/tomb/tomb.html"

    tb> I would love to use CheckFree.  However, I'm not willing to pay
    tb> $10/month for it.

Well, if you can do what CheckFree does for less than that, I'd be your
first customer :).  They certainly don't seem to have any competition
that I know of, which isn't healthy (for us).

I look at it this way: $10 a month, but that's ~20 checks == 20 stamps I
don't have to buy == $6.40 right there, so it's really $3.60.  Plus I
don't have to buy checks (admittedly, at ~$12 per 250 checks that's not
much of a savings :)

Then add in my time and effort of writing out all those checks,
addressing and sealing the envelopes, buying stamps, and typing them
into Quicken, not to mention forgetting to pay my rent/mortgage/car
loan/student loans/insurance etc. on time, and it's worth it I think.
YMMV of course.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Senior Software Engineer                                   Bay Networks, Inc.
-----------------------------------------------==<http://www.baynetworks.com/>-
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.

:     tb> I would love to use CheckFree.  However, I'm not willing to pay
:     tb> $10/month for it.

: Well, if you can do what CheckFree does for less than that, I'd be your
: first customer :).  They certainly don't seem to have any competition
: that I know of, which isn't healthy (for us).

Now _there's_ a thought.  I wonder what competition would do to them.
CF in its current incarnation has been around for quite a while; no
pressure to evolve.  I'd love to take this on, but I don't know how.

: I look at it this way: $10 a month, but that's ~20 checks == 20 stamps I
: don't have to buy == $6.40 right there, so it's really $3.60.  Plus I
: don't have to buy checks (admittedly, at ~$12 per 250 checks that's not
: much of a savings :)

: Then add in my time and effort of writing out all those checks,
: addressing and sealing the envelopes, buying stamps, and typing them
: into Quicken, not to mention forgetting to pay my rent/mortgage/car
: loan/student loans/insurance etc. on time, and it's worth it I think.
: YMMV of course.

Of course. :)

Question for you:
  How many checks do you send out in a month?  Your $3.60/month figure,
as I pointed out to someone else with whom I am having this same email
discussion :), is valid only when you send out exactly 20 checks every
month.  If you send out only 5 or 6, and you hold to your $3.60 cost,
you're throwing away stamps.

Also, I submit that no way are they paying 32 cents to mail _any_ check.
The overwhelming majority of their payments are surely electronic and/or
bulk-paper (i.e. five hundred checks in one envelope); the rest are
almost certainly ZIP+4, barcoded, presorted, etc., cutting down the
cost.  (If they aren't, they're stupid, and should be. :) )  Send a check
to yourself sometime and see how much postage it takes.  That amount
is the _maximum_ that they ever pay to send a check -- add half a cent
for the envelope and another cent for the lease on the machinery (and
I think I'm being generous; there are significant economies of scale
here) and figure out what they're really paying for the small percentage
of payments which are their _most expensive._

Granted, _you_ would pay $.32 to mail that same check... but what I'm
trying to get at is that that $10/month from the average CF customer
almost certainly is at least 80% gross profit.  I'm not willing to do
business on that basis; if they're going to get that much they've got
to reduce my out-of-pocket costs before I'll be interested.

--
Tom Barringer      : Progress Software Corp.   : The Tall * is looking
QA Development     : 14 Oak Park               : for members.  Please see the

GEnie: T.Barringer : #include <std/disclaim.i> : the top of your refrigerator.
URL MOVED--------->:"ftp://ftp.progress.com/pub/tomb/tomb.html"

Quote:>Perhaps this attitude is prevelant among application developers for
>Linux? Additionally, I'm not real optimistic that anyone associated
>with the FSF would be motivated to develop an app devoted to something
>as "mundane" as money management.

Quote:>: I look at it this way: $10 a month, but that's ~20 checks == 20 stamps I
>: don't have to buy == $6.40 right there, so it's really $3.60.  Plus I
>: don't have to buy checks (admittedly, at ~$12 per 250 checks that's not
>: much of a savings :)

>: Then add in my time and effort of writing out all those checks,
>: addressing and sealing the envelopes, buying stamps, and typing them
>: into Quicken, not to mention forgetting to pay my rent/mortgage/car
>: loan/student loans/insurance etc. on time, and it's worth it I think.
>: YMMV of course.

>Of course. :)

>Question for you:
>  How many checks do you send out in a month?  Your $3.60/month figure,
>as I pointed out to someone else with whom I am having this same email
>discussion :), is valid only when you send out exactly 20 checks every
>month.  If you send out only 5 or 6, and you hold to your $3.60 cost,
>you're throwing away stamps.

Quote:>Also, I submit that no way are they paying 32 cents to mail _any_ check.
>The overwhelming majority of their payments are surely electronic and/or
>bulk-paper (i.e. five hundred checks in one envelope); the rest are
>almost certainly ZIP+4, barcoded, presorted, etc., cutting down the
>cost.  (If they aren't, they're stupid, and should be. :) )  Send a check
>to yourself sometime and see how much postage it takes.  That amount
>is the _maximum_ that they ever pay to send a check -- add half a cent
>for the envelope and another cent for the lease on the machinery (and
>I think I'm being generous; there are significant economies of scale
>here) and figure out what they're really paying for the small percentage
>of payments which are their _most expensive._

>Granted, _you_ would pay $.32 to mail that same check... but what I'm
>trying to get at is that that $10/month from the average CF customer
>almost certainly is at least 80% gross profit.  I'm not willing to do
>business on that basis; if they're going to get that much they've got
>to reduce my out-of-pocket costs before I'll be interested.

The costs of this kind of operation are very high - in part, because of
the way the banking laws are written in the US.

The best way to avoid all of this cost is to see if the folks you pay
regularly have direct debit programs; in my case, just about all of my
"regular" bills are paid electronically, at no cost to me.  The mortgage,
the telephone bill (local and LD), the Internet service, the gas company,
and the electric company are all paid electronically.  If I could get
the cable TV and cellular phone bills handled that way, I'd be down to
one check a month.

With all that, I'd still like a Quicken-like program (or even better,
Quicken for Linux).  As someone observed earlier in this thread, doing
things electronically means you need BETTER record keeping.

--
------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
Stan Young                    | Serendipity is looking in a haystack  |

                              | farmer's daughter.  - Julias H. Comroe|
------------------------------+---------------------------------------+

    >> : I look at it this way: $10 a month, but that's ~20 checks == 20
    >> : stamps I don't have to buy == $6.40 right there, so it's really
    >> : $3.60.  Plus I don't have to buy checks (admittedly, at ~$12
    >> : per 250 checks that's not much of a savings :)

    >> How many checks do you send out in a month?

Yep.  Rent, mortgage, gas, electric, phone, water (3 times a year),
cable, newspaper, insurance, credit card payment(s), donations, martial
arts classes, probably more, *plus* once-in-a-while stuff like magazine
subscriptions, etc.

I do it all :)  Why not?  I'm paying for it anyway and it's easier to
add a new electronic payee via Quicken to pay it than to write out the
check, and once I've done it once it's *really* simple to reuse.
CheckFree doesn't charge extra for storing a lot of payees, only by how
many you actually use per month.

I rarely have below 18 payments a month; I can't say I have exactly 20.

    >> customer almost certainly is at least 80% gross profit.  I'm not
    >> willing to do business on that basis; if they're going to get
    >> that much they've got to reduce my out-of-pocket costs before
    >> I'll be interested.

Hmm.  That's one way of looking at it.  I don't think that's how
capitalism usually works though :).  The question is not how much profit
they make, but rather how much would you pay for the service?  If no one
would pay enough for them to make a profit, we just wouldn't have that
service.  If everyone is willing to pay so much that they make huge
profits, more people will provide the service at cheaper prices.  That's
the theory anyway :)

Since you can't know how much profit they actually make, boycotting them
because you think they make too much doesn't seem reasonable :).  If the
service is worth $10 a month to you, get it.  If it isn't, don't.

    sy> The best way to avoid all of this cost is to see if the folks
    sy> you pay regularly have direct debit programs

This is true, many of my bills could now be paid via direct debit as
well (although not when I started using CheckFree).  At some point it
will probably become worthwhile to do it that way.  Although I do have a
lot of bills which will probably never be able to be paid that way.

    sy> With all that, I'd still like a Quicken-like program (or even
    sy> better, Quicken for Linux).  As someone observed earlier in this
    sy> thread, doing things electronically means you need BETTER record
    sy> keeping.

That was me again, and amen.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Senior Software Engineer                                   Bay Networks, Inc.
-----------------------------------------------==<http://www.baynetworks.com/>-
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.

Quote:>Yep.  Rent, mortgage, gas, electric, phone, water (3 times a year),
>cable, newspaper, insurance, credit card payment(s), donations, martial
>arts classes, probably more, *plus* once-in-a-while stuff like magazine
>subscriptions, etc.

If I felt like getting sophisticated about it, I could make
arrangements with the individual institutions authorizing regular
automated withdrawals.

Unfortunately my trust company does not yet support data connections,
but some of our banks allow customers to dial in and check up on
both transactions and balances electronically.  I think *that* is
an extra charge item.  The other things aren't.
--

Q: How do you make Windows go faster???                  A: THROW IT HARDER!!!