Download Squad

Tweet this!

Intuit, the company behind financial management app Quicken, has purchased Mint.com, a web-based personal finance tracker, for $170 million. Quicken already has a web version that plugs into its desktop software, and Mint apparently isn't going to replace it. Meanwhile, Intuit doesn't have plans to change the way Mint works, and the CEO of Mint is joining the company to direct its online operations.

That's not enough to reassure some Mint users, though, who are fleeing the site in fear of Intuit's awful user experience and propensity to milk its customers for fees.

Felix Salmon, a blogger at Reuters, describes Intuit as "The Borg," and plans to deactivate his Mint account (although he admits he doesn't use it often). Users in Mint's forums are also not convinced that Mint will be helping to improve Intuit, rather than being swallowed and ruined by it.

What do you think? Is the Intuit Borg going to assimilate Mint, or will it stay as it is? Will you be keeping your account, or canceling it? Take the poll after the break!

Read more →

Tweet this!

Last week Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing Microsoft Money, the company's personal finance application. Download Squad readers came up with a number of great suggestions for anyone looking for a replacement. But the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Quicken. And now Intuit, the company behind Quicken are reaching out to Microsoft Money customers by offering tools to import Money data to Quicken. The company is also offering discounts of up to $50 on Quicken software.

Those coupons start at $20 off the price of Quicken Deluxe, bringing the price down to $39.99. You can also get $30 off the price of Quicken Premier or Home& Business, or $50 off the price of Rental Property Manager. Or if your finances aren't that complicated, you could just try Quicken Online for free.

The coupons are good through July 31st. Microsoft will stop selling Money at the end of June, although support will be available through January, 2011.

It turns out Zoho, Invoice Journal, Invotrak, and Freshbooks aren't the only companies offering online invoicing solutions. Intuit, the company behind the QuickBooks accounting software also has a billing solution, cleverly titled Intuit Billing Manager.

This free web service has been around since last year, but we first heard of it when WebWare ran an article this afternoon. Intuit Billing Manager offers users several templates for invoice creation, and you can slap your company logo on any invoice. You can also email your invoices to clients directly from the web site. They'll received a text based email with a link to an online version of the invoice. Unfortunately, there's no way for them to pay the invoice online using the service.

Once you've added your company info and created a few clients, you can create and send invoices in a matter of seconds. We do wish there was an easy way to save invoices as PDF files which look a little more professional than text based emails. We tried printing an invoice using a print to PDF application, but the results didn't fit properly on the page. Still, if you're not happy with the umpteen other services offering online invoicing solutions, you might want to check Intuit Billing Manager out.

Looking for some cheap but effective accounting software for your small business? The field just got a bit more crowded. Last year Microsoft began offering a free version of its accounting software, and this year Intuit has followed suit by providing a free download of QuickBooks Simple Start Edition.

Up until now, Intuit had been charging $100 for its starter accounting app. By offering a free version, Intuit stands to gain some small business customers who might have otherwise gone with Microsoft. And the only reason either company offers any software for free is because they plan to make money down the road, either through advertising, selling your data, or enticing you to upgrade when you outgrow the limitations of the free software.

But for a free application, Quickbooks Simple Start is pretty powerful. Here are just a few of the things you can do:

Create and manage invoices
Analyze your income and expenses
Manage multiple accounts, vendors, and services
Run sales, transaction, tax, and expense reports

If you want to access some of the more advanced Quickbooks features like payroll management, Quickbooks Simple Start will urge you to upgrade to Quickbooks Pro, which will set you back about $180 - $200.
[via AppScout]

The leader in personal finance is getting set to launch a strong presence online. All startup finance applications start shaking in their winter boots.

Intuit is getting ready for their winter launch of Quicken Online, a web based version of their personal finance application. If you have worried about security in the past with the recent slew of online financial software, Quicken should ease your mind. Intuit has a strong following due to their consumer trust for desktop applications, and they have been working hard to build that same trust for their web based application. So far it is known that this application will hold basic balance charts, reports, and bill payment services.

Quicken Online is currently in closed testing modes, with beta set to open the middle of September. Look out for further discoveries closer to September.

[via webware]

ThumbStrips is a Firefox add-on which allows you to see your search results in the form of a filmstrip at the bottom of your screen. This is way handy since the alternative is peeling your eyes on your history view and stabbing at a string of single line text results, which for whatever reason, don't get you what you were looking for.

When you download ThumbStrips, it loads an icon in your toolbar and your status bar. When you want to start using ThumbStrips, you just click on the icon and it will load.

While it doesn't take a lot of page space, you can hide ThumbStrips (and it will still record your search results) by clicking an arrow icon. You can also press a button to make ThumbStrips stop recording your search results (which will keep it a little more private).

There's a way to share your ThumbStrips on the web -- just choose the "share on innovation.intuit.com" option when you save a ThumbStrip, and then anyone with a web browser can see what you saw and saved.

ThumbStrips has a tendency to slow down Gmail, as well as some other Ajax sites. There is a quick fix for Gmail by going to https://www.gmail.com/ instead of http://www.gmail.com/. It's a nice little work-around, since ThumbStrips ignores secure sites (https instead of http), and because Google allows you to see Gmail both securely and unsecurely. While you're there, you can update your bookmarks to do the same.

Developed by Intuit's Innovation Labs (think Quickbooks), ThumbStrips system requirements are Firefox 2.0 or later, PC or Mac.

Download and let us know what you think of Thumbstrips - thumbs up or down?

[via Digital Inspiration]

It's not been a great week for Turbo Tax. First it comes out that there's a security flaw allowing uses to see tax returns uploaded by other customers. And now parent company Intuit is confirming that all the last minute filings on Tuesday night bogged down the company's online tax filing system, leaving some customers unable to e-file.

Intuit says the problems with their servers have been fixed, and is telling customers to try electronically filing their taxes again. Intuit is working with the IRS to ensure that late filings due to the system overload are not treated as late.

If you refile and get a message sayin that your return has already been filed, you will need to call Turbo Tax support in order to verify that your documents have already been accepted by the IRS.

Google and Intuit have been rumored to be entering into a partnership. The news will supposedly be dropped at 1:15pm Pacific time. Michael Arrington dropped some news today that Google could be integrating into QuickBooks 2007. This would supposedly allow small business users to add listings of their businesses to Google Maps, and create and manage AdWords campaigns, as well as post listings on Google Base.

The conference is scheduled for 1:15pm Pacific, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Intuit President and CEO Steve Bennett speaking on the partnership.

Stay tuned as the news unfolds.

UPDATE: Google has in fact announced a strategic partnership with Intuit, which is designed to help small business owners promote themselves online. The new partnership will see Google's services built into most Quickbooks 2007 products.

Small business owners will have the option to list their businesses on Google Maps, create and manage Google AdWords campaigns, and post their products for sale on Google Base. The Google integrated Quickbooks 2007 will be in stores this fall. No word on the 2007 pricing as of yet.

Partnering Google products with Intuits small business products is going to make some small businesses very happy at realizing the potential that Google's products have for the bottom line.

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Jay Hathaway	111	5
2	Lee Mathews	75	33
3	Sebastian Anthony	45	152
4	Brad Linder	36	8
5	Jason Clarke	32	0
6	Grant Robertson	8	12
7	Dolores Parker	7	2
8	Victor Agreda, Jr.	7	1
9	Nik Fletcher	4	0
10	Matt Heerema	3	3
11	Paul O'Brien	2	0
12	John Burke	1	0
13	Download Squad Staff	1	0

Download Squad

intuit posts

Intuit buys Mint.com, sends users running

Quicken offers coupons to attract abandoned Microsoft Money users

Intuit Billing Manager: Online invoice app from the makers of QuickBooks

Intuit releases Quickbooks Simple Start 2008 for free

Quicken to go Online

Thumbstrips - great way to see and track your search results

Turbo Tax electronic filing system overloaded on Tuesday

Google-Intuit QuickBooks partnership rumored

Featured Lists Feed

Featured Stories Feed

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

Featured Galleries

Sponsored Links

Flickr Pool

Download Squad bloggers (30 days)

Most Commented On (7 days)

Recent Comments

More Tech Coverage

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse