Q: best financial software for mac

Hi

You hit it on the head.....I would like to see some reviews/info regarding  ifinance, moneydance, which are mentioned in the top 10 ....has anyone had any experience with anything BUT Quicken or ibank?????

I have used See and Moneydance, both were so poor I went back to the bank website and a spreadsheet.

TammyLee69 wrote:

 

.....I would like to see some reviews/info regarding  ifinance, moneydance, which are mentioned in the top 10 ....has anyone had any experience with anything BUT Quicken or ibank?????

The November 2011 issue of Mac|Life has an article commencing on page 42: "Replacing Quicken with a real Mac solution!"  This was during the era of no Quicken for Lion (which was released by Intuit in Feb/Mar 2012), so missing from these comparisions is how well they compare to Quicken 2007 for Lion/Mt. Lion:

iBank

SEE Finance

Moneydance

iFinance

Mint

I personally have never replaced Quicken, even during this period of time, so I have no direct experience with any of these alternatives.

It was based upon that MacLife article that I switched to iBank. After the problems I had returning to Quicken, I switched back to iBank.  It isn't the perfect solution, but I've gotten used to it and it does most of what I want.  I'd still give it just a B-/C+ compared to Quicken in the good old days, but I won't use Quicken again until they act like they actually care enough about our business to give us some service.

For those unafraid of the Cloud, Mint is pretty good. You may want to check that out.

Shari

Shari, I used Mint for a while, but had connection problems with several institutions, and felt that the format was a bit inflexible for my needs, as there is little manual control compared to client-side applications. Plus, I decided I wasn't 100% comfortable having all my financial data in one place in the cloud in that manner. (I know, I know, it's out there anyway; nevertheless...)

The problem with cloud based computing for financial solutions is that its cloud based. 

That's a lot of trust to keep a database of your financial life in the cloud, what with sites and servers being hacked daily.  I want that database local and backed up locally. 

Best solution I've found for Mac is to run on an intel based Mac with Windows dual boot, running latest version of Quicken on the Windows side. 

A better solution is to install virtualbox and then install windows and quicken.

No need to reboot with virtualbox;  just run as a mac app in a separate desktop.

par333 wrote:

 

A better solution is to install virtualbox and then install windows and quicken.

 

No need to reboot with virtualbox;  just run as a mac app in a separate desktop.

+1

Using Boot Camp for Quicken is akin to using a steam hammer to crack an egg.

That depends. I have a bunch of legacy RTS games I still enjoy and they tend to not work well in a virtual machine. So in my case, since I'm running WinXP for those anyway adding Quicken Premiere isn't an issue. 

PaulB190 wrote:

 

That depends. I have a bunch of legacy RTS games I still enjoy and they tend to not work well in a virtual machine. So in my case, since I'm running WinXP for those anyway adding Quicken Premiere isn't an issue. 

Were we talking about old games?

Using Boot Camp to only run Quicken then, is that better?

Games are things I could not care less about, especially on 12 year old operating systems.

Well if we're talking old platforms I'm an old ArpaNet and Fidonet'er.  So I know well the old adage about arguing on forums.

Have a great day. :)

PaulB190 wrote:

 

...Have a great day.

A few on this forum suffer from two common technophobe syndromes:

1.  Reading a post literally; and

2.  Reading a post from the point of view of their mindframe, not the poster's mindframe.

You will see this approach by some over and over again...  Add to this an attempt to always have the last word and some of these threads needlessly gain girth!

The common ground to this thread is that Quicken 2007 for Lion/Mt. Lion is probably the best (a relative term) financial software available to run natively on a Mac (leaving aside the negativity that many have against Intuit for their continued poor treatment of Mac users). 

Is that the be-all, end-all answer to the question? 

Of course not!  Many still prefer to run Quicken for Windows on their Mac, which has a more robust set of features available to them (but not necessarily all Quicken users, many of whom do not need the full set of features).

How to run Quicken for Windows on a Mac?  There are, of course, many different ways to achieve this solution: Bootcamp, virtualization, accessing a Windows PC with screen sharing, etc.

All of these approaches are correct and should be considered by those who face this problem, so as to tailor a solution to their particular use and needs. 

Poorly criticising one approach over another can be based upon the responder's specific needs and experience and not the needs of the poster!

And when running Windows, it is folly to think that ALL users would run Windows SOLELY to run Quicken. 

Once you have access to Windows on a Mac (and have paid the price to be able to do so), of course, there are other reasons than Quicken to run Windows on your Mac: games, AnyDVD, video editing tools, etc.

So, yes: please have a great day!

I misused the word "technophobe" in the last post, so please reread that post with that word deleted.

Lost of opinion and frustrations in this thread and out there on the interwebs......

My 4 cents:

YNAB is a fantastic new option you HAVE TO CHECK OUT!  It's like Dave Ramsey but even more simple.  My wife and I have never been able to follow a budget for more than a month or two for the last 10 years of marriage until now.  Check out the site and videos for more background.

It's the best system I have used, but it requires a lot more work on my part.  If you're looking for sofrware that does all the work for you, then I'd stay with something similar to Quicken.

Quicken is the most robust:  Quicken Essentials for Mac

People either love or hate it, so read the reviews for lots of perspectives

MlchaelLAX wrote:

 

PaulB190 wrote:

 

...Have a great day.

 

A few on this forum suffer from two common technophobe syndromes:

 

1.  Reading a post literally; and

 

2.  Reading a post from the point of view of their mindframe, not the poster's mindframe.

The question here is about Financial Software on a Mac, not about games.

I do not believe that a Boot Camp installation simply to run Quicken is warranted when a compatible Mac version already exists.

You are welcome to disagree, as ever.