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Quicken for Mac Alternative

I don't know whether there are any other Canadians who are following this thread (or, for that matter anyone else who knows the answer to this question) but I would like to know whether any of:

1. iBank

2. Money Dance

3. SEE Finance

4. Any other option

are "Canada friendly" meaning can download transactions from a Canadian bank, can download Canadian stock and mutual funds, can print Canadian cheques, etc.

In responding please note that I have read all three websites but the information is less than clear and includes caveats, workarounds, etc. that do not leave me feeling good about things so I thought I would see real world experience.

TIA.
 
Rigby said:
Just a follow-up on this: I decided to give Moneydance a serious try and migrate all my transactions over from Quicken. Exporting a QIF from Quicken and importing it to Moneydance was easy enough. However, due to the limitations of the QIF format there is no way for Moneydance to detect transfers between accounts with 100% accuracy, so there were quite a few duplicate transactions where it hadn't "guessed" right. Fortunately I could eliminate many of them in bulk using the Find&Replace extension. I also have a foreign-currency checking account which created some headaches because the exchange rates in transfers weren't always correct. All in all it cost me a few hours of my weekend to get all the balances correct.
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Trying it out here now, in parallel with Quicken for Windows. Agree that importing was easy but there are duplicate transactions. More troubling is that it created categories for most stocks I own or owned in the past. Don't understand why and the categories have dollar amounts associated with them so that deleting the categories ends up messing up the account balances.

I think the problem is that Moneydance just isn't as sophisticated as Quicken. Certain investment transactions are available (Add in particular, and the workaround given in the Moneydance manual isn't entirely satisfactory.) I also don't like that there is no support for "Cash" accounts -- you have to use Bank accounts which gives a field for check number that is worthless and can't be removed. I also find totally annoying that if you create a report showing an expense category over the past year (a very common thing I do) the total at the bottom is that for all time and not for the period being reported.

I'll be working on this some more this coming week, but at the moment I'm still torn between Moneydance and continuing with Quicken, which while not being all joy at least does what I want it to do.
 
talmy said:
Trying it out here now, in parallel with Quicken for Windows. Agree that importing was easy but there are duplicate transactions. More troubling is that it created categories for most stocks I own or owned in the past. Don't understand why and the categories have dollar amounts associated with them so that deleting the categories ends up messing up the account balances.

I think the problem is that Moneydance just isn't as sophisticated as Quicken. Certain investment transactions are available (Add in particular, and the workaround given in the Moneydance manual isn't entirely satisfactory.) I also don't like that there is no support for "Cash" accounts -- you have to use Bank accounts which gives a field for check number that is worthless and can't be removed. I also find totally annoying that if you create a report showing an expense category over the past year (a very common thing I do) the total at the bottom is that for all time and not for the period being reported.

I'll be working on this some more this coming week, but at the moment I'm still torn between Moneydance and continuing with Quicken, which while not being all joy at least does what I want it to do.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the added and helpful insight...I will add -- as much as I hat etc admit it -- that as old as Quicken for Windows' interface is and as much as I would like to get off of the Windows platform there is (at least from my reading and research) nothing out there, OS X based or Windows based, that is nearly as full featured and functional.

We can only hope that whoever buys Quicken will commit and deliver on a Mac version that i) will be fully functional (i.e. same functionality as the Windows version) and ii) will easily instal / port a Windows' datafile.
 
So it sounds like Quicken 2016 for Mac is still a poor substitute for Quicken for Windows? It's 40% this week, but so is Quicken for Windows, and Amazon has some good deals on the Premier and Home & Business versions right now. I was tempted to get the Mac version to see how well the Mac and Windows versions play together, but it looks like the answer is "poorly." Is that correct? All I'd like to be able to do is save my data to the cloud and edit it on whatever device I'm using. I like Quicken for Window's level of detail. Even if the Mac and iOS apps could simply edit the file in a non-destructive manner (i.e. not destroy anything they couldn't edit themselves) it would be a good combo. Hopefully whoever buys Quicken realizes this.
 
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JoelBC said:
I don't know whether there are any other Canadians who are following this thread (or, for that matter anyone else who knows the answer to this question) but I would like to know whether any of:
1. iBank
2. Money Dance
3. SEE Finance
4. Any other option
are "Canada friendly" meaning can download transactions from a Canadian bank, can download Canadian stock and mutual funds, can print Canadian cheques, etc. In responding please note that I have read all three websites but the information is less than clear and includes caveats, workarounds, etc. that do not leave me feeling good about things so I thought I would see real world experience. TIA.
Click to expand...
I switched to iBank couple of years ago and have no regrets. Finally able to ditch Windows. Nothing is ideal these days. The initial import/cleanup process was smooth, took less than a day. I have to manually download/import transactions, but only takes a minute. Cannot download investment transactions from my bank, but I don't see that as iBank's fault. Gets Canadian stock quotes. Cheque writing is clumsy, but I rarely write cheques. For fun I tried to export QIF to import to a trial of Moneydance and that did not go well, but I did not spend time working out why; not sure if that means I am locked in iBank. But it is working fine for my purposes.
 
talmy said:
Trying it out here now, in parallel with Quicken for Windows. Agree that importing was easy but there are duplicate transactions. More troubling is that it created categories for most stocks I own or owned in the past. Don't understand why and the categories have dollar amounts associated with them so that deleting the categories ends up messing up the account balances.
Click to expand...
It creates categories with the names of assets as transfer targets/sources if it cannot determine where an imported investment transaction is coming from/going to. Just list all transactions using the category in question and fix them until the category doesn't have a balance. Then you can safely delete it. Sometimes this may involve changing the transaction type from SellXfr/BuyXfr to Sell/Buy or vice versa.
I'll be working on this some more this coming week, but at the moment I'm still torn between Moneydance and continuing with Quicken, which while not being all joy at least does what I want it to do.
Click to expand...
After using it for a few weeks now I'll stick with it and ditch Quicken at year end. I'm sick and tired of Intuit's "sunset" policy and the fact that they now force you to tie each Quicken file to an Intuit online ID (For what purpose? Are they uploading my financial data to their cloud in the background?). I also have no confidence in the product's future given that Intuit is trying to sell it off.
 
KPOM said:
So it sounds like Quicken 2016 for Mac is still a poor substitute for Quicken for Windows? It's 40% this week, but so is Quicken for Windows, and Amazon has some good deals on the Premier and Home & Business versions right now. I was tempted to get the Mac version to see how well the Mac and Windows versions play together, but it looks like the answer is "poorly." Is that correct? All I'd like to be able to do is save my data to the cloud and edit it on whatever device I'm using. I like Quicken for Window's level of detail. Even if the Mac and iOS apps could simply edit the file in a non-destructive manner (i.e. not destroy anything they couldn't edit themselves) it would be a good combo. Hopefully whoever buys Quicken realizes this.
Click to expand...

I just started the Intuit return process for Quicken 2106 for MAC. It did not work at all as far as reporting account balances correctly. It could not be relied on to report accurate values so I always had to manually check my accounts and reconcile manually.
 
jrsub said:
I just started the Intuit return process for Quicken 2106 for MAC. It did not work at all as far as reporting account balances correctly. It could not be relied on to report accurate values so I always had to manually check my accounts and reconcile manually.
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That's too bad. I just don't understand Intuit at times. They have no difficulty making TurboTax feature-parity between OS X and Windows. They are fully compatible (files and features) and each version conforms to the UI conventions of its respective OS. Yet for some reason they can't do the same for Quicken. Just port the Windows version if you need to, already. All I want is to be able to save my Quicken file to the cloud and edit it at work on my Windows PC and at home on my Mac. Why is this so hard?
 
FYI, if anyone has a CD-drive, Quicken 2016 for Mac is down to $36 right now at Amazon. Intuit's promotion runs through the 4th, so that's my guess as to how long this will last. Too bad it doesn't also cover the download.
 
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Easttime said:
I switched to iBank couple of years ago and have no regrets. Finally able to ditch Windows. Nothing is ideal these days. The initial import/cleanup process was smooth, took less than a day. I have to manually download/import transactions, but only takes a minute. Cannot download investment transactions from my bank, but I don't see that as iBank's fault. Gets Canadian stock quotes. Cheque writing is clumsy, but I rarely write cheques. For fun I tried to export QIF to import to a trial of Moneydance and that did not go well, but I did not spend time working out why; not sure if that means I am locked in iBank. But it is working fine for my purposes.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the response but at least for me the features that you list as "clumsy" or "only takes a minute" are important to me so until these get ironed out I am stuck with Quicken bit hopefully i) iBank will continue to evolve ii) the new owner of Quicken will make the OS X versions feature equivalent to the Windows version with easy data import capabilities OR iii) someone else will build a better mouse trap!

Thanks again!
 
I tried Quicken 2015 and after about 1 hour I ask for a refund. I did notice when I was updating some accounts I received a excessive spend email for mint. I guess Intuit already gave up on quicken. BTW I love MINT but use it for my checking and credit cards only. So for me is a hybrid system of mint and excel.
 
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lugesm said:
I found other information on Quicken alternatives, but none of the responses address my particular question.
Looking for a little help.

I tried Quicken for Mac 2015. It is a dog compared to Quicken for PC 2015. I am running Parallels and Windows 7 for the sole purpose of using Quicken for PC 2015.

That is a waste of computer resources, as my needs are really simple. I only need a check register and (most importantly) the ability to run reports as Quicken-PC does. I have to say Quicken-PC is excellent for this feature.

Question: Does anyone know of a good MAC alternative that is well designed to run checking account records and to generate useful reports therefrom?

Sincerely appreciate any suggestions.
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I've tried a few things: MoneyDance and YNAB had lots of potential, but there were usability issues. The version of YNAB I used was based on a Adobe Air (a Flash derivative), and proved to be slow and cumbersome -- it was also the wrong tool for what I needed. MoneyDance was an utter failure as it had problems importing CSV files as it self-corrupted on every import. I also tried iBank, which was supposed to support QIF files, but it proved to be a disaster. I eventually realized that I would have to build my own custom solution using Excel, VBA and a Filemaker database to house historical transaction data.
 
KPOM said:
FYI, if anyone has a CD-drive, Quicken 2016 for Windows is down to $36 right now at Amazon. Intuit's promotion runs through the 4th, so that's my guess as to how long this will last. Too bad it doesn't also cover the download.
Click to expand...
The download is 29.99 for Windows 2016. I bought it and returned it because like the MAC version, it had trouble matching account balances to the actual balances.
 
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jrsub said:
The download is 29.99 for Windows 2016. I bought it and returned it because like the MAC version, it had trouble matching account balances to the actual balances.
Click to expand...
I meant to say Quicken for Mac.
 
SpinalTap said:
iFinance is currently available with 50% discount - for OSX, iOS, and iWatchOS.

http://www.syniumsoftware.com/ifinance
Click to expand...

No longer 50% off . . . drats; I just missed it!
I downloaded the demo. It looks promising. It downloaded transactions from my bank without a hitch. The one feature I miss, though, it reconciliation. I really want to pull the plug on Intuit (currently a Quicken and Turbo Tax user) because of their very poor customer service/support. I had a rather unsavory experience while trying to resolve a Turbo Tax issue with them on the phone. So, I'm trying very hard to find financial software that has the same features as Quicken.
 
I still watch this thread more out of curiosity and can confirm that a couple of months down the line I am more than happy with MoneyDance. I don't think its perfect, but its the best I have tried and it does what I want it to do. I hope as it moves along and is developed, some of the little niggles are ironed out. Hope you all find your own resolutions soon ;)
 
I returned both the MAC and Windows versions. Neither could accurately keep all my accounts up to date.
 
I use turbotax every year, and every year I say I an going to try something else. So this year I saw a promotion on Amazon that bundled Turbo Tax with quicken for mac. I have been trying out Quicken for about 3 weeks now. I was able to convert my Quicken 2007 files with not too much effort. Keeping trick of checkbook and credit card expeensives are OK but the investments features are very sparse. I am also using a mix of Mint (for credit cards and checking) and personal Capital (for investments) and find the features to be much more robust. Along with my brokerage website I am thinking that may be all I need. But I think I wall also stay with quicken for a little bit because I do have 20+ years of data in it.
 
I downloaded the iFinance 4 demo. I wanted to see if transactions would download from my bank as well as trying it out, before deciding to purchase it. So far I'm impressed but I do have one question. When I downloaded transactions from my bank only 7 days of transactions downloaded to iFinance so the balance was inaccurate. Is this a restriction with the demo version? Will all of my transactions download with the full version? I don't look forward to entering all of my past transactions from Quicken. I need to know before I go ahead and purchase the Mac and IOS versions.
 
Complete overkill for the average home user. It will cost you recurring $$$ and Quickbooks is notoriously bad on customer service. You will end up needing professional support at a high cost.

kendaluk said:
As a qualified accountant for over 10 years, I personally wouldn't recommend anything other than QuickBooks Online (QBO) from inuit,

You get all the features that you loved from Quicken but with the freedom of a cloud based system

We now act for more than 400 QBO users and a handful of them made the switch from Quicken itself, any questions or you would like to see a demo them drop me a message.

Cheers

Aaron
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