Quicken for Mac Alternative

[mic j]

Just reporting back to this thread that I have been using Quicken for Mac 2016. It has been working well and has had many updates -- they actually are working on the software and making it better. So I'm a happy camper.

Looking at some of the issues I brought up:

Still not there, but I've got a Hazel task that zips any manual backup I make and moves it to an archive folder on my server.

They've added the annual budget.



I figured out a workaround for the problem by using hierarchies of categories and rearranging.



I discovered that I could put the Quicken data in a Dropbox folder, so now I get access from different computers, even when not at home!

They've also vastly improved the reconcile feature. Only thing that is still awkward is investment transactions.

Sounds like they have made some significant improvements over their previous version. And it's nice to hear they are updating and adding features to the current version.

If I am ever assured that they won't extort me every couple years, by making me by the latest version in order to maintain my ability to download transactions from my bank, I may consider returning to them. It's going to take a lot of convincing, though.

 

[talmy]

If I am ever assured that they won't extort me every couple years, by making me by the latest version in order to maintain my ability to download transactions from my bank, I may consider returning to them. It's going to take a lot of convincing, though.

Honestly, I don't think that will ever happen. It's a part of their business model that seems set in stone.

 

[Le Big Mac]

Only thing that is still awkward is investment transactions.

What are the issues for investments? Tracking investments is a key feature for me, so curious what problems I might encouter.

 

[talmy]

What are the issues for investments? Tracking investments is a key feature for me, so curious what problems I might encouter.

These are the shortcomings relative to the Quicken for Windows I had been using:

• My investment accounts are linked to cash accounts. This apparently is not supported in Quicken for Mac as they aren't linked. Entering in a dividend now requires two entries, the second for the cash transfer, and entering the cash transfer requires adding a split containing only one item (!) the transfer. Huh??
• In Quicken for Windows I had bonds at $1/share rather than "Quicken Shares" (a $1000 bond would be entered as 1000, not 10 Quicken Shares). Import into Quicken for Mac messed everything up -- I had to edit all purchases, sales, and bond prices, for all my history in order to make reports look correct. Even worse, often adding prices or editing existing prices, the new prices would not "take" and I'd have to edit repeatedly.
• When a mutual fund issues a dividend and capital gains, I now have to make separate entries for the dividend, short term, and long term capital gains rather than a single entry. And of course the third or forth entry for the transfer to the cash account.

Additionally, I haven't been able to come up with a way so that income from tax deferred accounts (401Ks, IRAs) don't appear as income while those from taxable accounts do. Quicken for Windows didn't handle it right nor does Moneydance. I can deal with this for taxes all right (I don't export tax information from Quicken), but want a correct Income calculation for budgeting. There's no description anywhere of how Quicken (or Moneydance, for that matter) calculate Income. On the Budget pane, my income shows as $0. On the Overview pane my spending is correct but "Net Income" bounces all over the place and in some months is negative. For instance this month it shows $-X saying it comes from 88 transactions and splits. Yet when I double click to see the breakdown the total becomes a positive 3.5X from 8 transactions, the correct amount. Very maddening!

On the other hand it implements transfers between accounts as two transactions using an intermediary account named "Transfer". This looks awkward at first but it allows me to ignore the "Transfer" account in reports so that transfers don't artificially inflate income and expense numbers.

 

[aristobrat]

And it's nice to hear they are updating and adding features to the current version.

I've been pretty impressed with the rate at which they've been updating Quicken for Mac 2016.

If you're curious to see what they've been up to, check out the release notes. Lots of bug fixes and new features.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

Honestly, I don't think that will ever happen. It's a part of their business model that seems set in stone.

Perhaps, but there was mention of a subscription model. That should take care of the upgrade-every-3-years tax. Yes?

 

[hindmost]

Quicken for Windows, unfortunately. I'd love to get rid of everything Intuit, but I've not found a substitute for Quicken.

It is my understanding that Intuit SOLD Quicken several months ago. I don't know who the new 'owners' are but they still call the product 'Quicken'

 

[Le Big Mac]

Perhaps, but there was mention of a subscription model. That should take care of the upgrade-every-3-years tax. Yes?

And replaces it with an annual tax. Depending on how you view things of course - but I don't see a real difference between being asked to upgrade every three years and being asked to "upgrade" every year. If anything, the upgrade every three years tax provides more incentives for continued development.

 

[talmy]

It is my understanding that Intuit SOLD Quicken several months ago. I don't know who the new 'owners' are but they still call the product 'Quicken'

Maybe that's why I like it now.

 

[Le Big Mac]

Maybe that's why I like it now.

Yeah, sold to an investment company. Same leadership for software development (apparently), but with added investment. Intuit seems to be focusing on small businesses and tax now.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3040...icken-to-private-equity-firm-hig-capital.html

 

[TonyK]

When I moved from Windows to OS X back in 2008 I had to replace Quicken. Not that I liked Intuit any longer. Back in the 90's they sunsetted the banking features I used meaning I could no longer do bill paying through Quicken.

So I evolved a system which includes a spreadsheet, my bank's billing paying feature and MoneyDance. In MoneyDance I track several bank accounts, several retirement accounts and some stocks. It does all of this easily.

MoneyDance also has a bill paying feature but after being burned by Quicken I won't go back to use the integrated features. Then came all the hacks. Not for MoneyDance but for a lot of other places. Target and other retailers have been mentioned.

By using my bank's bill payment feature I only have a single point of failure, not multiple points of failure.

So where does the spreadsheet come in. It allows for a check and balances system and is used for budget planning and tracking purposes. When 2 sources out of the 3 agree, I go and find where something was missed or not recorded yet. It has been highly beneficial through the years and is now going on 16 years I believe of growth.

MoneyDance, in 2008, was one of the few financial packages that would import in our old Quicken files. As noted it took some effort to get all in error free but it was finally accomplished.

Any package that stores my information online is discarded immediately. It is only a matter of time before any system is breached. Or if a system goes down then it will be hard to recover information. No, I want my data on my computer where I can back it up and track it more closely.

Take care,

 

[Pyrotechnic]

As previously mentioned, I have been watching this thread in the hope a miracle happens and a decent software solution comes along. I still have Moneydance but the graphical display of information is terrible and very cartoon looking. I do like the written reports it gives me in each spending group. I have just given the trial of iBank (Banktivity) a go and do like the graphical display, but then the textual reports aren't as nicely laid out as Moneydance, so I can't seem to win. Ive also emailed them a few questions, however the support is non existent as I've not heard back.

I now appear to have tried every app going but can't find one that simply allows me to add my transactions via a QIF file and then see them in graphical categories.

I still wish you could try the quicken products before purchase just so I could check it does what I need it to do. Im sure it does but again, I can't justify the spend and go through the hassle of trying to get a refund. As a UK customer, theres not much about.

 

[AJsAWiz]

As previously mentioned, I have been watching this thread in the hope a miracle happens and a decent software solution comes along. I still have Moneydance but the graphical display of information is terrible and very cartoon looking. I do like the written reports it gives me in each spending group. I have just given the trial of iBank (Banktivity) a go and do like the graphical display, but then the textual reports aren't as nicely laid out as Moneydance, so I can't seem to win.

I now appear to have tried every app going but can't find one that simply allows me to add my transactions via a QIF file and then see them in graphical categories.

I still wish you could try the quicken products before purchase just so I could check it does what I need it to do. Im sure it does but again, I can't justify the spend and go through the hassle of trying to get a refund. As a UK customer, theres not much about.

After many, many years I've grown to despise Intuit. It started with my bad experiences with Turbo Tax (mostly customer support/service) than it spilled over into Quicken, which I used to like. I went on a search to find another financial alternative and, eventually, found iFinance 4. It has all of the features I need. There was a learning curve, coming from Quicken. The written documentation isn't as useful as I'd like. I would have wanted to see more details. However I did figure it out and can't see myself going back to Quicken . . . ever. I also have iFinance on my iPad and iPhone. The synchronization is somewhat clunky but I've devise a "work around". The problem is that it doesn't sync correctly when you have the same database open on more than one device at the same time. After seeing how the price of Quicken continues to escalate, I'm so happy to have iFinance.

 

[talmy]

I still wish you could try the quicken products before purchase just so I could check it does what I need it to do. Im sure it does but again, I can't justify the spend and go through the hassle of trying to get a refund. As a UK customer, theres not much about.

FWIW, the hassle is minimal. I bought the Windows download version by mistake and a short call to Quicken got the cost refunded.
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After many, many years I've grown to despise Intuit.

Quicken has been spun off (no longer part of Intuit) and has markedly improved, especially for the Mac.

 

[Pyrotechnic]

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Quicken has been spun off (no longer part of Intuit) and has markedly improved, especially for the Mac.

This is one of the reasons I am tempted to give it a go. Do you see any restrictions for. UK customer? I have no desire to connect to my bank with it. My bank allows me to download a QIF file and import into software. I simply want to categorise my income and outgoings and simply see it in nice reporting format, both graphically and textually. Turbo tax and the like mean nothing in the UK. Although I do worry its just not for us ?

 

[YMark]

FWIW, the hassle is minimal. I bought the Windows download version by mistake and a short call to Quicken got the cost refunded.
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Quicken has been spun off (no longer part of Intuit) and has markedly improved, especially for the Mac.

 

[talmy]

This is one of the reasons I am tempted to give it a go. Do you see any restrictions for. UK customer?

I don't know what problems might be with dealing with Quicken (the company) in the UK.

 

[YMark]

I'm tempted to try Quicken again (2017), but I see good reviews on Amazon and not so good reviews elsewhere. I'm currently an iBank 4 user and it blows.

 

[talmy]

I'm tempted to try Quicken again (2017), but I see good reviews on Amazon and not so good reviews elsewhere. I'm currently an iBank 4 user and it blows.

It's still not Quicken for Windows, which I consider the "gold standard". But it is getting better and they claim to be working for parity. So in a way it's a bet on their future.

 

[DotCom2]

I'm tempted to try Quicken again (2017), but I see good reviews on Amazon and not so good reviews elsewhere. I'm currently an iBank 4 user and it blows.

I'm tempted as well. It looks like it's getting better and better.

 

[Pyrotechnic]

I just wish they would trust their own commitment and let people try it on a trial as many others do, either with a restriction of 100 transactions or a time limit. I would be more inclined to buy it then. I am reluctant to spend that sort of money before I even get to try an entry into it.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

I'm tempted to try Quicken again (2017), but I see good reviews on Amazon and not so good reviews elsewhere. I'm currently an iBank 4 user and it blows.

I use Banktivity (nee iBank) 5 and it's the only one I found that will import E*Trade Bank transactions.

It appears that DirectAccess is the issue every 9-12 months, and the IGG people are really good at getting them (the DirectAccess people) to update their software to whatever got changed by E*Trade to make it not work again.
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I just wish they would trust their own commitment and let people try it on a trial as many others do, either with a restriction of 100 transactions or a time limit. I would be more inclined to buy it then. I am reluctant to spend that sort of money before I even get to try an entry into it.

Same here. I don't like being a customer of an outfit that says, "We'll hold your money while you try out our software, and if you don't get back to us in 30 days, we'll keep it."

 

[mic j]

From a program aspect I think Quicken for Mac is probably adequate now and i would go back to it but for the fact that every 3 years you have to buy the product again in order keep your bank downloads working. The old Quicken really ticked me off with that approach. If the new group changed that approach, I might go back as I have not found anything as good.

I should also mention that I do not need to do any investment transactions, only standard bank, credit card and loan transactions.

 

[YMark]

I'm tempted as well. It looks like it's getting better and better.

Well I bit the bullet and purchased a copy from Amazon for $54 and some change. I've only played with it for a couple hours, but so far I'm pretty impressed with the new 2017 version. I haven't reconciled anything, but the register, transactions, bank access, etc are all heads and shoulders above that junk iBank (version 4). I think I'm going to like this.

I use Banktivity (nee iBank) 5 and it's the only one I found that will import E*Trade Bank transactions.

I don't use E*Trade so this wasn't a consideration. But after 3+ years with iBank, I can't handle this junk software. The final straw is that it keeps crashing with Sierra.

It appears that DirectAccess is the issue every 9-12 months, and the IGG people are really good at getting them (the DirectAccess people) to update their software to whatever got changed by E*Trade to make it not work again.

I don't find IGG to be good at anything, especially support.

 

[Pyrotechnic]

That sound encouraging YMark. I am very tempted to take the plunge and as I have said many times, I only want it so I can import my transactions, categorise and then see graphs and reports on my spending. I have no need for anything other than that. I guess my only concern is as a UK user and if the software is designed with UK in mind.