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I'm starting to reach my limits using OpenOffice to track our investments and am curious what/how everyone else tracks theirs.
Started out using Google Spreadsheets as that imported lots of data...alas they have a limit on the number of "ImportData" entries.
So I then moved on to try the on-line finance trackers (PageOnce, Mint, and Wikinvest). None of these really had what I was looking for.
I have a membership with Morningstar and like their portfolio tool but find it awkward updating dividends.
Several times I have asked Vanguard to incorporate the web accessed features of Mint to track funds/stocks outside of Vanguard..."they are looking into it..."
And Quicken is very un-mac friendly.
So back to OpenOffice. Very slow, lot of crashes and no where as financially friendly as Excel.
"So Rob, just get Excel...."
Well, I'm driving a Mac. This means buying Bootcamp, Windows AND Office. There is an emulator out there but it doesn't really allow web queries like a native PC and Excel.
So what are you using to track or manage your portfolios?
Happy New Year!
Rob
There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up
Frederick Buechner
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I use the Morningstar portfolio tool. It's ok, I would switch if I found a better solution. I'm curious if anyone has some good excel spreadsheets setup that they wouldn't mind sharing.(Sorry that doesn't help you out, RobandCindy!)
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Rob,
Have you tried LibreOffice? They are an off-shoot of OpenOffice and did add quite a few fixes and enhancements when OpenOffice seemed to be lagging in development. I use it all the time -- of course, it's on a PC.
I'm revising all my spreadsheets so don't have anything to share just yet. I've been thinking of posting about sharing spreadsheets but got sidetracked. The thing I'm lacking is keeping track of dividends by company. Trying to figure out the best way to organize that without adding tons of sheets to the workbook.
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“While the dividend itself is merely a rearrangement of equity, over time it's more like owning an apple tree. The tree grows the apples back again and again and again, and the theoretical value of the tree doesn't change just because of when the apples are about to fall.” - earthtodan
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Yahoo finance, seems like it does everything I need except for tracking yearly dividend income, so I do that in Excel.
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(01-06-2014, 08:45 PM)Dividend Watcher Wrote: Rob,
Have you tried LibreOffice? They are an off-shoot of OpenOffice and did add quite a few fixes and enhancements when OpenOffice seemed to be lagging in development. I use it all the time -- of course, it's on a PC.
I'm revising all my spreadsheets so don't have anything to share just yet. I've been thinking of posting about sharing spreadsheets but got sidetracked. The thing I'm lacking is keeping track of dividends by company. Trying to figure out the best way to organize that without adding tons of sheets to the workbook.
Does libre office import live stock info? I've been using OpenOffice with the GetQuote add on....very frustrating sometimes.....
There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up
Frederick Buechner
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Rob, I'd never heard of GetQuote so did a little research. Seems the developer has stopped working on enhancements in 2011 with version 1.1. and OOo was in the 3.x series of revisions. LibreOffice is now onto the 4.x revision series and don't know if they are compatible.
If I had time, I'd experiment with it. Maybe soon I'll be freed up enough to give it a go. I still use the old fashioned method of manual entry.
=====
“While the dividend itself is merely a rearrangement of equity, over time it's more like owning an apple tree. The tree grows the apples back again and again and again, and the theoretical value of the tree doesn't change just because of when the apples are about to fall.” - earthtodan
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(01-09-2014, 10:12 AM)Dividend Watcher Wrote: Rob, I'd never heard of GetQuote so did a little research. Seems the developer has stopped working on enhancements in 2011 with version 1.1. and OOo was in the 3.x series of revisions. LibreOffice is now onto the 4.x revision series and don't know if they are compatible.
If I had time, I'd experiment with it. Maybe soon I'll be freed up enough to give it a go. I still use the old fashioned method of manual entry.
Worked about as well with LibreOffice as OpenOffice. Wouldn't work on NeoOffice (which overall works better than OpenOffice). My issues seem to be that my spreadsheet is too large/complex.
Cheers
There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up
Frederick Buechner
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"Well, I'm driving a Mac. This means buying Bootcamp, Windows AND Office. There is an emulator out there but it doesn't really allow web queries like a native PC and Excel."
Why that route? You can buy MS Office for Mac for $139.00 (comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint), or you could use the Office 365 on up to 5 computers for $99.99 per year, or a little over $8 per month.
As a side - I did use open office for awhile and there was an add-on that someone made that did query Yahoo for stock information which I used to update my open office spreadsheets. I ended up back on Excel since my wife bought a student priced MS Office Professional (overkill but was only $79.99 at the time).
Even though the office 365 looks like an expensive solution you are getting the benefit of using it on 5 machines, you get web storage, it costs barely more than one Starbucks fancy coffee + tip per month, near 100% compatibility with other tools of primary use, lastly you have a gigantic user base out there for help and there are stacks of books written about using Excel.
I'd test Office 365 for a month and see if it meets your needs.
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I drive a Mac and I am using Numbers as my spreadsheet. Still getting used to it, but it seems to do everything I need it to
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(01-10-2014, 06:41 PM)mjs_28s Wrote: You can buy MS Office for Mac for $139.00 (comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
Yeah, this is what I do. Here's a link.
Interestingly, word and excel are the only things that EVER crash on my mac. It is pretty rare, so shouldn't deter you, but I always find it funny.
I've also looked at a lot of different products, and nothing ever comes close to excel. I just like how well I can tailor everything exactly how I want it.
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Clearly the last update to OpenOffice isn't happy with the GetQuote add on. I've spent the last three days searching for a Mac friendly excel template to track our investments. Not much out there.
So I saved my spreadsheet to ".XLS" and started a free month trial to Office 365.
Biggest issue is Web Query to insert price, P/E, and yield info that I track. Found a Yahoo Finance data tracker at Gummy-Stuff and spent today integrating it as a data sheet in our spreadsheet.
As we say up here in New England, "so faahh, sooo good." 
Gummy Stuff Excel
There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up
Frederick Buechner
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