Q: best financial software for mac

Good place to look for software:

http://www.macupdate.com/

And for free alternatives to some popular software packages:

http://alternativeto.net/

(If you see an ad there for something called MacKeeper, ignore it and on no account install it - it is malware.)

So far, good financial software for Macs is like the holy grail ... everyone wants it, but no one can find it.

That said, you might start by checking out Mac Personal Finance Software Reviews

"Best" is relative.  If all you want to do is keep a transaction register, almost any of the apps will suffice.  But if you want to do meaningful recordkeeping and reporting, print checks, tax categorization, etc. they are all very limited.  Last month I  installed iBank and Moneydance on my Mac to evaluate the current  versions of each.  Even though they are the best of the lot, they still  have a long way to go to be truly useful ... still sadly lacking  critical features ... there seems to be more emphasis on having a pretty  UI than on capabilities ... tax category support is useless to nearly non-existent ...  reports are very basic with very limited customization ... and check printing setup is a disaster.

I'm still using Quicken Home & Business on an aging pc (sigh, just upgraded to Quicken H&B 2012) because there is nothing even remotely comparable to it on Macs.

I found a website with several options:

http://personal-finance-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-personal-finance-s oftware/

It compares Money; iFinance; Moneydance; YNAB (You Need A Budget) and several others, including Quicken.

I am stil researching, since I am not familiar with the source of this website.

Money, iFinance and YNAB look promising for my purposes (basic personal financial organization).

Does anyone else hae experience with any of these?

-Ann

Following up on Martin's post. I've been using iBank since July as a test and I cannot recommend it. I don't understand why so many people view it as best of breed. The application is full of idiosyncracies put in by the developers that simply don't make sense. Their knowledgebase is full of questions pointing out these quirks but they rarely offer solutions. As of this month, I'm going back to my previous soultion.

As someone who needs to track a full personal portfolio (cash, checking, savings, 401k, Roth, active stock trades, and various loans), I'm still looking for a solution for my Mac. It continues to surprise me that there's no good software for a high value activity.

Interestingly, I've never lost any Quicken data and my current database dates back to 1/1/96. I've moved to Q '07 for Lion and it runs in all three OSs. You might want to perform data file maintenance, as per Quicken's help and consider upgrading to Snow Leopard.

Harry,

Best way forward in my opinion is to search for Cloud based accounting /finantial system. These run on any platform Mac/PC via browsers. This will save you any headaches in the future.

Cannot advise on any specific one as I am from the UK.

TZ

You need Q '07 for Lion. Costs $15 USD. FWIW, Q '97 meets my needs and I'd never use anything cloud-based, but that's just me.

I'm using iBank.  I switched from Quicken 2007 for Mac because it hadn't been updated and I wanted software that would accompany a switch to Lion or Mt. Lion.

iBank has it's quirks.  I schedule a lot of transactions.  iBank's scheduling regimen is far less helpful than was the similar regimen in Quicken.  The major drawback for me is the lack of "category reports" as summaries for "detail reports".

All in all, however, it generally does what I want it to do and I have found ways to work within what's quirky.  It ain't "great", but it does work for me.

It really is unfortunate that there isn't an excellent personal finance management product for Mac out there.

BTW, I just noted a fat-fingering mistake in my last post. Should read "Q '07 meets my needs and I'd never use anything cloud-based, but that's just me."

TD Bank lost connectivity to Quicken 2007 2 months ago and there has been no progress on restoring it.  I've been entering all my transactions manually since then and then this week my Quicken 2007 data file became corrupted and I've lost all data back to August.  Just cannot figure out how to get it back and did not know that you must do periodic file maintainance to guard against corruption.  I am fed up with TD Bank and fed up with Quicken and going to look somewhere else.  iBank looks most popular and seems to have a way to get transactions even if bank downloads fail.  That might work.

I did some research last spring, including reading the MacLife comparisons and made the mistake of choosing iBank.  I used Quicken for years and was very happy with it, but heard stories that the Lion version wasn't good.  Well, I have no idea whether that is true, but I really don't like iBank.  You can't even void a check with it, its reports suck, it is hard to navigate.  It really has few redeeming qualities.  So I'm hoping someone with recommend something decent, even though it is a pain to switch.

Again, I repeat, I HATE iBANK!!!

This is a bash on Quicken reply. I have struggled with Quicken (currently Q07) for many, many years (back into the 90's). I counted 13 different sets of Quicken datasets which have been left hanging on my various hard drives over these years as I found out through different support calls that I would have to discard a corrupted database and start over.

Last year, I was told by Quicken support during a  call I paid for that I had too many accounts and the database was too large. (This has been a common tech support comment for me) I've only tried to use Quicken for personal finance tracking, no securities tracking and the heavier features (thank goodness). The call ended with an all too familiar bottom line which was that the backups were all bad so they didn't help. The support person couldn't figure out how I could utlize the backup data so in the end, I re-entered the previous year so that I could get my taxes done and search for another program. I've researched enough to know I was lucky to not move to Quicken Express as was once advised. Apparently that software doesn't allow an export in the event you would find a different software.

The good news is that I just upgraded to Mountain Lion. As you may know, Quicken in any version does not work with this OS. I've finally found a perfect reason staring me in the face to never struggle to use Quicken again. Now to find a better option. Money has many features that seem like what I need for handling 5 or 6 bank accounts and credit cards. Has anyone experienced SEE software? It too seems to have decent features.

I don't know the background of this link but it may be a place to start:

http://personal-finance-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-personal-finance-s oftware/

MacWorld also has a review on financial software for the Mac 2013

Best of luck to us all. Deciding on MtnLion and Mac vs. Quicken pppfffft no question which gets dumped!