comparing Mac financial software
I'm trying to pick a new financial software for my Mac. I've been using Quicken since migrating to my first Mac in 2005, and it's a frustrating software to use. It keeps eating my budget amounts, and randomly does unexpected stuff, but it does have all the features I want. I don't like the way it has so many windows open, and it just isn't very Mac friendly. So I'm looking for a replacement. I'm writing this out more for myself than anything, but figured it could help others on Vox so I'd write it out here...
My needs are:
- Import from my bank's site (B of A), even if it means I have to manually go to the site and download the file like I do currently with Quicken. It'd be cool if it could grab it from inside the software instead of going to Firefox.
- Reconciliation for each month's physical statement in the mail. So there should be a cleared, reconciled, etc. flag for each transaction.
- Import from my current Quicken QIF file.
- Multiple Accounts in a single screen to allow for transfer between, like Checking to Saving.
- Budgets. Ideally, it should allow me to set a specific amount for a specific month rather than just a blanket amount for the year.
- Reports should be very customizable (like expenses in "Crafts" for last quarter rather than just "Display all Expenses for 2007"). These should also be easy to get to, from the register rather than having to go to the Reports and then remember what category I was trying to find out more info about
- Ability to do split transactions
- Sub-categories for income/expense categories, and reports that utilize this feature.
- Less bulky to use than Quicken.
- Recurring payment reminders would be nice, but not absolutely necessary.
So far, I'm just having a hard time finding one that meets all these requirements, or I'm getting road-blocked in my searching. Here's what I've looked at so far:
Current version: 2 Current price: 49.99 with free upgrade to iBank 3 when it comes out.
iBank was mentioned in MacWorld announcements because around that time, they announced they'd have a new version that worked with an iPhone. This caused a lot of buzz.
Unfortunately, iBank 3 is ONLY for Leopard. There's a beta out now, but since the reformatting of my computer and replacing the bad RAM (yay, that's fixed as of yesterday!), I'm not buying a new computer immediately, so I'm not going to bother getting Leopard until then (hopefully in the next 6 months, it's just not as urgent any more). iBank 3 is a major step up from iBank 2. iBank 2 does NOT have all the features I want, and the 15 minute trial after importing my entries was a pretty small amount of time to test it out.
From the forums, it sounds like Budgeting features aren't their priority, so I'm not sure that iBank 3 is even going to cover my requirements. It sounds like a budgeted amount is only set for a full year, and can't be divided further into how much is budgeted on a given month. The budget screen also doesn't give you any help for what you've previously spent, and that means more back and forth to get it set up.
In iBank 2, the reports were not helpful enough (date ranges weren't changeable, which may have been a demo limitation?), and didn't have easy way of making sub-category reports. In fact, it was really focused on charts rather than reports, which doesn't give me a very specific view of my transactions.
The setup had a flaw in that I couldn't set up accounts while I was importing, and I had to get out of my import, create accounts, and then select the items I wanted to dump into each account. I was lazy and just dumped them all into a single account to test.
On the positive side, one thing I really like the idea of is Smart Import rules - that would
be very helpful. It's also got a really nice interface that I could
really love. I do think that iBank 3 will be a huge step up from 2, but I won't be able to use it until I get Leopard, and I don't think the budgeting tools will be enough for me.
Current version: 2.1.2 Current Price: 59.99, download only.
Liquid Ledger is one I saw mentioned on a message board. It's got a 60 day trial which is much nicer than 15 minutes, and the import of my transactions worked successfully into all of my existing account names.
It's much more light on features than some of the others, which is good in some ways (speed, I guess, is the best reason for feature-light). The reports are very streamlined. However, this means you loose a lot of customizability when the reports can only be modified by dates and not content. You can see lists of each category's transactions, but can't filter that at all to see multiple together. Subcategories from quicken appear to have just created their own categories with a colon in the name (and some names didn't get pulled in). You can't create subcategories at all.
Nothing is right clickable for more info, what you see is what you get. This means there are also no notes/memos on any of my transitions about what they were for, and I'd forgotten how much I like that feature until I lost it.
On the Budget screen, it's not intuitive to see how to actually budget for something. It does show me when I pick a date range how much I spent during that range, though. Edited to add: I found where to add the budgeted amount, it just wasn't intuitive.
On the reports, it was not intuitive how to set the date range until I consulted the manual.
I haven't tried importing directly from my bank, looks like you use the Import menu.
I like that it's been regularly updated since October of last year when version 2 was released. However, there is a lot of unhappiness on the forums. Apparently features from 1.5 were taken away to go into 2, and that never bodes well.
Overall, this seems okay, but it's certainly light on features and I would miss some of the features I've grown accustom to in other softwares.
Current version: 2007r5 Current price: 29.99
Moneydance I saw mentioned on a forum talking about mac money software. It's software for Mac, Windows, or Linux. The feature list looked like it had most of what I wanted, even though I wasn't really overwhelmed by the screenshots.
The import from my QIF file worked successfully, including subcategories and memo/notes on transactions, and the multiple accounts.
I don't enjoy the look of this software though. It's not easy to look at, and could really use some polishing. The Home screen has a giant listing of the various Exchange rates, and I definitely don't need that. The options in the toolbar are limited, but they do get you to a lot of helpful tools, it's just not obvious where to click without searching around.
The budget does have quite a bit of functionality that I need (allowing you to set a beginning and ending date for when that budgeted amount applies goes further than the other software I tested, but not quite as far as Quicken) Clicking into fields doesn't always act as I'd expect. I can't type when there's a category to try and get a result, I have to use my mouse. There's nothing in the budget screen to help me fill it out, I still have to cross over to the reports to see how much I've spent.
The reports are much more customizable than the other softwares, and that's nice. Graphs AND reports.
The website and forums and trac are hard to navigate to find more information, and there's no forecast on when another version or new features will show up.
I couldn't find a way to easily reconcile my accounts. The import from B of A didn't work directly, and the forum mentions lots of people having problems with this. It seems like I could still use Firefox and download the files, but I didn't try that yet.
I think it comes down to the way this looks, it's not more user-friendly than Quicken to me at this point in development, and so it's not worth switching. That may change in the future.
Current version: 2 Current price: 39.00
Money 2 is another one I saw mentioned on a forum. It's features looked solid and they had a free trial.
Importing my Quicken data went smooth, even though I had to create an account before I could see that option on the screen. My transactions seemed to import successfully, including splits and memos.
The reports are bizarro and slow to load. My categories seem to be added after their list, which is odd. All payees for transactions are divided into first and last name. When running anything, it slows down my whole computer. My first try at a Smart Account found way more results than it should have.
For me, I like to see a forum on the site for the software, and this site doesn't have any user support that's public.
Cha-Ching.
Current version 1.2.2 Current price: 40.00
This one was mentioned as a bad software on a Vox blog I read, velvetsmog. But since I was testing out the others, I thought I might as well look at this.
I was able to import my Quicken data, but it would have been nice if it had prompted me to make accounts first instead of just importing it all into the master library. None of my categories stuck with the transactions because this software uses tags instead. Memos also weren't pulled in, although there is a note field for each transaction. There are no splits, but it sounds like that's coming in version 2.
There is a budget, but doesn't have much detail. There are no reports, but there are Smart Folders (ala iTunes Smart Playlists) that let you divide things up. That did work successfully.
Everything is very pretty inside the software, and is very "mac-y". If I were starting from scratch rather than importing, maybe this would be a consideration, but it still doesn't have all the features I need. I also don't like that the blog is a string of kinda negative posts and apologizing for not meeting deadlines. It just didn't leave a very good taste in my mouth.
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I also looked at the following, but didn't download them:
- Budget - it wasn't as transaction based as I wanted, but it did do interesting things for budgeting.
- Mint - but I'm really not interested in an online tool right now
- Eric suggested I check out a pro version of Quicken, too, just to be sure it wasn't better than my current (2006 standard).
Current version: 1.2.9 Current price: 39.99
This is a little more like Budget where you are dealing with "envelopes" of allocations. Because one of my primary goals *is* robust budgeting, this was worth downloading.
I was able to easily import my Quicken data. It divided up into accounts, and kept my memos and splits in transactions. Categories are called "Buckets". There are no sub-categories.
The "Spending Plan" (their word for budget) has historical data and allows for filling in certain months having different amounts. This is super.
It appears you can import in your bank data, but not during the trial. I didn't try out reconciling, but there's statuses for each transaction, which looks promising.
The whole thing looks nice, it's a very good mac-y interface again.
Reports are the downfall, though. There are plenty of transaction listing, but not real reports yet. However, it appears it's in very active development, there's a good user community (google groups) and a planned release in the very near future with scheduled transitions. So it's really promising, and I could definitely see myself using this.
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