Quicken Online shutting down this month

The popularity of free budgeting sites continues to soar. But users of one of the big players in the arena, Quicken Online, will no longer be able to sign in starting Aug. 29.

The owner of the site, Intuit Inc., last year purchased rival site Mint.com. The company says it has combined the best features of the two sites under an upgraded Mint.com.

Users of Quicken Online don't necessarily need to do anything. Intuit says it will delete and securely remove all account information from its servers. Users who want a record of their transactions can export the data to a file before the site is shut down.

That file is for record-keeping purposes and cannot be uploaded onto Mint.com.

However, those who open a Mint.com account can import their Quicken Online information. Users simply add the Quicken account as they would any other bank account.

This could cause duplicate transactions if the bank accounts listed in a Quicken Online account are also independently added to the Mint.com account. Duplications can be deleted by users.

Note that Quicken transactions can be imported, but other features such as budgets and bills cannot.

In addition to Mint.com, Intuit is promoting its Quicken desktop products as an alternative for Quicken Online users. The desktop products cost between about $50 and $90.

There are also other online budgeting sites, including GnuCash.org, HelloWallet.com and Yodlee.com.