quicken equivalent

Looking for a Mac equivalent to Quicken

pheona said:

Looking for a Mac equivalent to Quicken

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Intuit do a Mac version Quicken Essentials for Mac - Personal Finance Software for Mac

I have read reviews of Quicken for Mac that say it is not as thorough as Quicken for Windows. For that reason, among others, I downloaded Parallels 8 and then used Quicken for Windows. Works great, just like on my PC.

Rick

Well, Intuit has stated that they will be doing a better job of supporting Quicken for Mac and they did do an upgrade that helped but then they updated again for Mountain Lion and now it is a bit glitchy. Entering numbers is a real chore to do, not a good thing for an accounting program. I have been waiting months now for them to fix it but no luck so far.

Just my opinion here.... I have dealt with Intuit over the years and have found them to be the worst software publisher with regard to support and user interaction. I usually advise anyone - whether it be purchasing tax software (TurboTax) or accounting (Quicken) to find an alternative.

chscag is correct. But, sadly, with Money out of the picture, I know of no good alternative. It puzzles me why somebody has not come up with a really good financial program that is reliable and has support. I would pay good money for such. But, it doesn't exist. With no competition, Intuit has no incentive to fix anything or offer even a modicum of support. It stinks, but that's all there is.

Unless ... somebody out there has an alternative!!

After using MS Money for years I looked long and hard for a mac replacement and finally choose iBank which does I want to. Might be worth you looking at.

iBank, MoneyDance, Money (from Jumsoft, not MS), SEE Finance, Intuit's own Mint ... there are lots of options ...

iBank and Money got panned by reviewers at the Apple Store
MoneyDance and SEE Finance may be worth a look.

OK, I have some experience now with a couple of these. I tried SEE first. I finally figured out from slogging through their FAQs that you have to export a Quicken 2007 file from Essentials to have an importable file. It did import my credit card account and checking accounts. The checking account balance was off by about 400%, but it apparently did not recognize a very large transaction. The credit card balance was correct. Ah, but the investment accounts! None of them was imported. So, I started trying to import them one by one. Nothing balanced on the first two. Finally figured out you have to sync the most recent stock prices to get a non-zero valuation for a mutual fund price. But, the Fidelity cash account symbol was not recognized. So I went to the help again and NONE of the instructions for how to manually edit the price of a symbol not on Yahoo Finances (which it uses) was on my screen. Apparently, instructions for an older and now long gone version of SEE. That was enough. Off my computer.

So, then I downloaded iBank. It did import all of the accounts from Essentials after I found that a bug prevents you from doing the import on startup (you have to import after you set up an account ... contrary to the startup instructions), BUT ... the investment accounts were essentially empty of transactions. I would have to go in an mess with each account and manually set up the link to the investment company, re-download the info, and check it to be sure it was correct, etc..

Sigh. I think I'll stick with the vagaries of Quicken Essentials for the time being, as rotten as the program is and as non-existent as Intuit support is. Sometime when I have a month with nothing to do I will maybe mess with one of these other programs.

My conclusion ... I stick by my original question. Where is the robust-and-reliable, easy-to-use financial program for handling personal finances, one that has support and documentation???

The reason you're not finding the answer you require is because you're not being very specific. For some people, "personal finance" means "balancing a checkbook." For others, it involves MANY accounts covering mortgages, retirement funds, non-retirement investments, money markets, checking savings, etc. and I'm not even going to BEGIN to discuss the needs of home-business/small biz owners!

Tell us what you WANT TO DO and most likely we can recommend a solution.

Maybe I'm missing something but I thought he stated what he needs financial software for in his previous post. How specific does he need to get?

"Where is the robust-and-reliable, easy-to-use financial program for handling personal finances, one that has support and documentation?" see above

chas_m, not sure who you are responding to in this thread. If it is me, I'm looking to replace Quicken Essentials with something more reliable. I need to track transactions in cash accounts like checking accounts, but I also have investments I want to track at places like Fidelity. I need good reports, I need transaction categories, I need ease in importing and exporting data (so I don't get into a dead end when that product goes belly up), I want software that has good documentation and preferably live support at least via email (Quicken does not), I need as many of my financial institutions on live update as possible, etc., etc. Nothing is going to have all of that, and some software will be better at some things than others.

iBank, Money, SEE Finances, and MoneyDance all do what I want to do... more or less ... but my very brief experience with trying them so far in just getting them to import Quicken Essentials files (which does NOT make a .qif file) and give me some semblance of an account setup like I now have in Quicken has been a frustrating failure. If I have to spend a week or so hand reconciling accounts, reloading accounts from financial institutions, setting up data input connections, and dealing with no poor documentation and/or no support or import bugs, I might just as well spend that time on the short comings of Quicken Essentials.

My problems have nothing to do with my description of what I am trying to do. It has to do with poor software design.

wizardchef said:

iBank and Money got panned by reviewers at the Apple Store MoneyDance and SEE Finance may be worth a look.

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I think you must have been looking at some other product. Most of the iBank reviews that I can see are 4 or 5 star. When did you last check it out?

Sawday, take a look here and read some of the reviews. Some pretty damning.

Customer Reviews: iBank 4 - Apple Store (U.S.)

wizardchef said:

Sawday, take a look here and read some of the reviews. Some pretty damning.

Customer Reviews: iBank 4 - Apple Store (U.S.)

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Bit different on the App store - 58 out of 89 4 or 5 stars.

I've been using iBank since version 3 and am now on version 4. I have been using it for nearly three years and have to say I cannot fault it. It does everything I want of it, Bank Accounts, Building Society Accounts, Credit Card, Budgets, Projections and the rest of it.

I for one would recommend it.

OK. I am taking the plunge and giving iBank a try. Moving information over is the nightmare I anticipated. But, I am stuck with one financial institution and their .qfx file. All I seem to get are the last 6 months or so of transactions, but I do not get my total share holdings on a security. Does anyone know what the format of the .qfx file is? Is it financial institution peculiar? Is it time limited, i.e., does it only hold the last N months of transactions? Should it show my total holdings?

iBank help has been good, but they have not solved this one yet. I already see some strangeness about iBank that will take some getting used to. Also, not having classes will be an issue.

All I can tell you is that there are a half-dozen clients who switched to iBank and love it. Just got word today that it now imports from Quicken Essentials as well.

I have no use for any such program as my finances are gloriously uncomplicated. I make money, I spend money. The only tricky bit is trying to spend less than what I make.

After reading this thread I decided to try iBank 4 (30 day demo) yesterday. I used Quicken for PC for 20 years and when I switched to a MAC 18 months ago I switched to Quicken Essentials. Unfortunately I have been disappointed with Q-Essentials because I can't work with reports. It is especially important this time of year when I am working on tax returns.

My first impression of iBank 4 is not good. It did import my Quicken data file but not all the information transfered.
1. Check numbers and classification as a check did not transfer in my checking account. All checks are classified as "withdrawals" not checks.
2. All my investment accounts did not transfer any information or setup as accounts. All accounts are missing.

I hope this is helpful.