At first, Mint.com gave me everything I needed: a free and simple budget tool that I could use on my computer or phone. We had a good run while it lasted. This year, I broke up with my budgeting software. Why I cancelled my account with Mint.com, and what I did instead.Though I started on a Mac, and use a Mac today, the vast majority of my use has been on Windows. The accounting software company says they will have a solution that makes Quicken 2007 for Mac 'Lion-compatible' by early.I have been using Quicken to manage my finances since 1989, making this my 30th anniversary with the program. Also, you can create QIF files for Quicken 2007 for Mac, and other personal finance applications like MS Money , You need a Budget (YNAB), NetSuite, etc.Intuit has just released some good news for 'Quicken for Mac' users. See my Quicken 2020 for Mac Review for the most recent review.People are apparently trying online personal finance aggregation services like Mint or Personal Capital which do not use Direct Access (they use web scraping).Details: CSV2QIF converts CSV and Excel files to QIF format ready to import into Quicken 2017 for Windows, as well as Quicken 2016, Quicken 2015, Quicken 2014, and earlier versions.
With this background and financial situation, I have had many opportunities to evaluate and tug on the boundaries of Quicken as a personal finance program, particularly on this evolving Mac version of the software. I’ve always tried to be disciplined when it comes to money, a natural-born planner, and I’m comfortable managing my own finances. My finances mirror those of many mid-life families: a half-dozen investment and retirement accounts, college savings accounts, a home, etc., though working for a publicly-traded company these past twenty years has also allowed me direct experience with stock options, restricted stock units, and a variety of employee benefit programs that follow that kind of employment. My BackgroundI began my career in public accounting, and while I no longer provide accounting or auditing services to clients, I am still a licensed Certified Public Accountant here in the state of Washington. In this post, I’ll share an update on how it’s gone using the latest version of Quicken, Quicken 2019 for Mac. Parallels for mac desktop 3 osI chose the high-end version because I needed the investment accounting and tracking features.Let me be clear about something before I get into what’s changed in the latest version of Quicken. I planned to run parallel systems between Mac and Windows, but that became too much effort, so in January 2017, I switched entirely to Quicken Premiere for the Mac. I finally took the leap in 2016 after Quicken 2017 for the Mac was released, and initial feedback was mildly positive for the first time. Each year I would await the latest incarnation for the Mac, only to be disappointed by the one-star feedback of early adopters on the Mac App Store. I had to run Windows virtually inside a Mac which was a hassle, so I was eager to move to the native version of Quicken. I switched over to Mac for most things about 15 years ago, except for Quicken which initially wasn’t available at all, and early versions were either too basic or too buggy. Since I purchased a 20-month subscription to Quicken Premiere last year during an Amazon.com Black Friday sale, updates like the 2019 edition have been provided at no additional charge. Quicken 2019 for MacQuicken 2019 for Mac was released with little fanfare in November 2018. For this type of financial management, Quicken is still the only personal finance software game in town. There may be better cash flow and budgeting software (Banktivity and YNAB, for example), but these apps fall short, in my view, of keeping tabs on the intricate accounting treatment for the variety of obscure transactions that flow from owning stocks, mutual funds, stock options, and employer-granted restricted stock. Last year, I complained of performance delays when switching investment views and exiting this program. Just since the 2019 rebranding. So, the improvements I’ll note here relate to software updates during all of 2018 vs. I can view investment returns by class of investment (stocks, bonds, cash, other), security, holding period, etc., and drill into lots of purchases for my original cost basis, current gain or loss, and most recent market changes. It’s been a while now since I’ve used the Windows version of Quicken, but I no longer feel like I lack analysis features for my investments. Long a sore spot on the Mac, investment tracking and analysis continued to see updates in 2018. I’m using a newer iMac to run Quicken, so your mileage may vary, but my experience has been positive.Investment Tracking and Analysis. Opening and closing the program is much quicker, and, while I still see the occasional beachball icon when viewing investments, the overall program seems faster and more responsive. Quicken claims that portions of the program are four times faster in 2019. ![]() The details open in a new window which can be customized and saved as its own report, or exported to Excel. Reports in Quicken for Mac finally gained the basic and longstanding Windows capability of drilling down to transaction-level detail. Not everyone will use this functionality, but for Excel nerds, it’s a handy addition.Reporting Improvements. I was never all that happy with even the most robust reporting available in Quicken’s legacy Windows product and found myself using this copy/paste function a lot to do my own report creation and analysis. The Quicken data file is now encrypted on your hard drive, so long as you are using a password to access it. Maybe next year.Other Updates. I wish a Budget to Actual report were available in the Mac version, as this drill-down capability would be a big help in more quickly identifying the source of budget variances. This has improved allegedly, though I haven’t tried it again. I feel more confident in paying my bills through my bank’s Bill-Pay feature than Quicken’s offering. I was flummoxed by the complexity of this service when I first tried it and stopped using it even though it’s a free service as a Premiere subscriber. If you use the Bill-Pay feature, things are cleaned up and more intuitive to use. Mint Error In Quicken 2016 Download Errors EveryI’ve automated this the best I can, but still takes a time each month to update references and labels, and once in Excel, loses its interactivity and drill-down capability.Quirky Transaction Download Errors Every time I do an online update of my accounts, I receive the same throttling error for a random set of accounts with my primary bank. As a workaround, I export actual and budget figures out of Quicken to create a proper actual vs. A software engineer without any financial sense must have put these views together. Instead, you get a bizarre on-screen visualization of budget performance for the month, or an unwieldy 12 month stacked grid, neither of which I find at all useful. As I mentioned, I still can’t get a report of my income and expense against budget, a staple of the Windows version and basic financial management. Reporting in the Mac version of Quicken has improved a little, but not near enough. Thank you, Quicken!Mobile App is Underwhelming. Editor’s Note: These download errors were fixed in Quicken’s August 2019 (version 5.12.3) update. Try again later.” Downloading transactions in Quicken on Windows was always a tricky proposition, so I can’t say this is a Mac issue. Quicken’s response is consistent: “your bank’s servers must be busy. I’ve researched this error online and discovered that many users suffer from this across a variety of financial institutions. I click the “try again,” and the process completes. Quicken also released web access in the fall with similar capabilities.Trapped Investment Data. I’m not alone: the app ratings are abysmal which many reports of the app crashing or not being able to log in. I tried it again for this review, and I am still unimpressed. I tried it out when it first came out and was underwhelmed. This limitation affects not only your ability to move back to the more robust Windows version of Quicken should you grow tired of the Mac’s shortcomings, but also impacts your ability to switch to other personal finance software products on the Mac if you decide to give up on Quicken altogether. Investment accounts, and all the related historical transaction details, cannot be exported. While Quicken promises a “Data Access Guarantee,” the export functionality of the Mac program remains severely crippled.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorCynthia ArchivesCategories |