OT: Turbo Tax Software

[Bill]

It's true I don't understand your software needs, so I don't intend to be harsh.

[Swingman]

Good you realize that.

I also use Quicken because, _for me , its basically the best available at what it does, despite the aggravation of dealing with Intuit.

I don't like a lot of Apple or Microsoft business practices either.

Compromise, in some manner, has always been the key to living in this world.

Just ask your wife ... ;)

[Scott Lurndal]

I've used

in the past, and it seems to be pretty good. I don't use it any more because I don't need to keep track of transactions that way for anything other than curiosity and I've better things to do with my time (like go hiking at yosemite,

2.5 hours away; or this time of year at pinnacles, 30 mins away :-)

scott

To import your quicken data:

import xactions from bank:

[Leon]

If you no longer use this program, do you use another program to keep up with your bank accounts, etc? IMHO Accounting software is a big time saver over not using anything at all. How do you keep track of your assets now?

[Leon]

Not taken harshly at all Bill. And I was only saying that for me holding a grudge does me no good and can cause me to miss opportunities. From a fair decision making stand point you have to leave emotion out of the equation and rely on the facts as they currently are at the moment you make the decision. That works for me but certainly is not a way everyone feels comfortable with.

[Scott Lurndal]

Equities, T-bills and T-bonds, Municipals and industrial bonds are tracked in a custom mysql database (plus the brokerages have nice on-line tools for history, cost basis calculations and such).

I keep a custom mysql database with all the equity data (cost basis, drip reinvestments, sales, purchases, etc.). I trade infrequently, I just update the database monthly when I get the brokerage statements. I've a few shell functions that construct SQL queries and insertions/updates as necessary.

For example, a drip reinvestment, purchase, sale is a single shell command:

$ itran 1 2014-10-27 2014-10-27 0.1796 25.5006 GE 0.00 0.00 D

itran

can be B (buy), S (sell), R (release of restricted stock) or D (drip reinvest).

Takes less than 10 minutes a month to key in all the drip/sale/purchase transactions (command-line editing is your friend). Much faster to me than GUI-based stuff like gnucash; never have to touch the mouse.

I've a python script that prints a nice table from database queries:

$ ~/database/pandl.py Symbol Quantity Held Invested Cost Basis Current Value Yield ______ _____________ __________ __________ _____________ _____ AAPL 280 8047.50 8047.50 30441.60 378.27%

.... (numbers made up for these example).

[Bill]

I have no harsh words for you. There sort of a "prisoner's dilemma" aspect to some of these things. But anyway, here is an article to which a link was posted at Amazon.com:

I'm not sure what it says except that they try to "buy the rules" with their dollars.

[Leon]

OK, that is way over my head, LOL. And yes, I don't know of any software in the Quicken class that does a decent job of keeping up with that sort of investing in s a decent way. I go to my money managers site to keep up with my investments and I use Fund Manager.

[Leon]

Yeah, you make the best with what you get dealt.

[krw]

You're probably right but there is a lot of information in the worksheets and probably in background files that doesn't translate well. Last year and this, I have rental income (on a house we rented on a sales contract for a year) so there is a ton of data that isn't on the tax forms. I expect TT to pick all of that crud up this year and deal with it. Next year, I don't care. All of that goes away, and possibly even the mortgage interest on this house. It's highly likely that my taxes will he incredibly simple, with just a standard deduction.