Q: best financial software for mac

I'm very puzzled by the posts tht mention they liked Quicken but are looking for something else. It will work on Lion & M.L. with the new version of 2007. In fact it was recently updated. If you've used Quicken Express I understand what you don't like. That's a version better forgotten but Quicken 2007 is much better than iBank, iMoney or any of the others IMO. Try it, you'll like it as the old saying goes.

Like others here, I am trying to move my finances off of Quicken for Windows (2001!)  And I am beginning to have doubts about Intuit's commitment to non-Windows platforms.  I would love to know their business case for ignoring Mac's.  I still use Turbotax, so they appear to have the inhouse talent.

Many of the reviews on the web for any of these products seem a bit suspect, but here is my two cents:

I worked with iBank for a while, and may still purchase it.  It seems to have done a credible job of importing theQIF data.  Reconciliation boggled my mind for a while, but gets a little easier as you learn it.  The transition is much easier if you import accounts which are reconciled, and then immediately create a historical reconciliation that covers all your past reconciled data.  In my case, for the period of 12/31/1995 - 11/22/2012.   This should be nearly automatic, since the opening balance for the statement was "0", and the closing was the last reconciled balance.  If you do not do this, future reconciliations will give you nightmares.  I have not found a way to do period comparison reports.  And although the reports are separated into "Income" and "Expenses",iBank seems to be compelled to surround the later amounts with parentheses.  Somehow, I knew that those cell phone bills were not credits.

iBank is slower than Q. Given the difference in machines, I would conclude that it is much slower.  iBank search mechanism does not cross accounts (how about a check box, or preference?), but it is easy to create a report that will work across accounts.  iBank does due major and sub category detail, and if you click on a total, it will expand into a new detail report (almost like Q).  Basic data entry is slower than Q;  too many check boxes that do not respond to the space bar. (Perhaps there is another entry trick.) 

I also tried See Finance, which had me excited for a minute.  It has Q like speed.  I was even considering living with the fact that transfers are not directly linked.  See's reconciliation was positively scary; it made iBank'sprocess appear seamless by comparison.

I do online payments from a bank site, so that is not a feature that I miss.  Imports of bank data seems pretty good, especially if you do it in monthly chunks.  I have not tried the sync.

Here's my latest Quicken problem.  Quicken 2007 has been crashing. So yesterday, as I was beginning to prepare  my income taxes, Quicken prompts me to update the software.  I do that, and now I CANNOT OPEN QUICKEN!  It "quits unexpectedly" each time.  I contacted Intuit, and was told that they don't support Quicken 2007, which I purchased in January 2013!!!  They referred me to a page with a fix, but that page did not exist.  So Intuit won't help.

Does anyone know how to stop the crashes?

I wish I were a software developer. Mac users need good financial software, and there isn't any.

Thanks. 

Are you using Quicken '07 for Lion? AFAIK, they're supporting that.

Not for free, and I just bought the thing.  I have to pay a $10 charge. Plus what little "help" they have sent my way has not been on point anyway.  I just started loading transactions into iBank.  Hate to do it, but I even reinstalled Quicken 2007 on both my Macsand still can't open a Quicken file.

Sounds like a corrupt file. Do you have a Time Machine backup going back to before it started crashing?

Not time machine, but I have a backup hard drive, which backed up within the past week, and I tried using one of those files.  Still wouldn't open.  Maybe I'm using the wrong file? In the Quicken backup folder?

Plus by downloading and installing quicken again, I have that lousy 16.1.4 version.

See the postings at http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/applications/index.html#d01apr2013 for solutions.

ShariPotter wrote:

 

Here's my latest Quicken problem.  Quicken 2007 has been crashing. So yesterday, as I was beginning to prepare  my income taxes, Quicken prompts me to update the software.  I do that, and now I CANNOT OPEN QUICKEN!  It "quits unexpectedly" each time.  I contacted Intuit, and was told that they don't support Quicken 2007, which I purchased in January 2013!!!  They referred me to a page with a fix, but that page did not exist.  So Intuit won't help.

 

Does anyone know how to stop the crashes?

 

I wish I were a software developer. Mac users need good financial software, and there isn't any.

 

Thanks. 

I have found the 16.1.3 update to crash and I reverted to 16.1.2.  Do you still have that version? If not, email me at MichaelLAX at AOL dot com

I did revert back to 16.1.2, and I can sometimes open files, but I don't trust the program, so I've been putting everything in both Quicken and iBank, which is a real pain. I finally found someone at Quicken who is helpful, but he can't figure out what is wrong, and wants me to email him my whole financial data file, which I am reluctant to do. 

Thanks for the suggestion, Michael.

What do you mean by "I can sometimes open files."

I find 16.1.2 100% reliable.

FWIW, 6.1.4 and earlier versions worked w/o issues across the latest three OSs.

16.1.3 was nothing but crashes for my 2011 Mac Mini in Lion, so, as mentioned, I reverted to 16.1.2, where I have remained happy as a clam!

Then, something's amiss on your machine and you should try to fix it. As I noted, all versions work on my machine with all three OSs.

baltwo wrote:

 

Then, something's amiss on your machine and you should try to fix it.

What do you suggest?

Which version of Lion did you run 16.1.3?