Is something our customers can count on and look forward to in the future.Welcome to my third annual review of the personal finance software, Quicken for Mac. Another area that people have complaints about is the interface.We get asked all the time, how is Banktivity better than Quicken for Mac. Quicken for Mac also falls a bit short when it comes to investment tools, especially in regard to its lack of automatic cost-basis calculations. Quicken for Mac still trails Quicken for Windows in ease of use, interface (i.e., navigation), intuitiveness, versatility, and features.Now with more powerful mobile app for 2017.8 Quicken Alternatives. Stay on top of spending by importing transactions from multiple financial institutions and categorizing them all in one place, create a budget that keeps you on track today and manage investments for the future. I wrote about the process of switching from Windows to Mac here.Quicken for Mac helps you plan for today and tomorrow.You can select to rename future transactions or existing and future transactions. In this post, I’ll share an update on how it’s gone using the latest version, Quicken 2020 for Mac.Click the dropdown arrow for more renaming options. As I wrote then, I had very high expectations for the Mac version under new leadership, independent of Intuit, and the financial benefit of a new subscription-based business model. Promotions: Get a FREE portfolio. Minimum Balance: None 100,000 to invest.My work for a publicly-traded company for the past twenty years has allowed me direct experience with stock options, restricted stock units, performance shares, deferred compensation plans, and a variety of employee benefit programs that follow that kind of employment. My finances mirror those of many mid-life families eyeing retirement: a half-dozen investment and retirement accounts, college savings accounts, a home, etc. Quicken for Mac software and the Quicken App are not designed to function outside the U.S.I began my career in public accounting, and while I no longer provide accounting or auditing services to clients, I’ve held a CPA license here in the state of Washington for over thirty years. My BackgroundQuicken for Mac has lagged behind the Windows version for years and even though Quicken 2019 was an improvement, the decision to make it subscription only was the final straw for many faithful users. If you’re a Quicken Windows version thinking about switching over to the Mac, this review should be useful. If you have chosen to apply the rule to existing transactions, click Review.Unlike other written reviews of Quicken software, my recent experience is exclusive to the Mac platform, though I will make feature comparisons to the Windows version.
I switched over to Mac for most things almost twenty years ago, except Quicken. Quicken for Mac – An EvolutionFor most of my time on Quicken, I used the Windows flagship version of the program. With this background and financial situation, I have had many opportunities to evaluate and tug at the boundaries of Quicken as a personal finance program, particularly on this evolving Mac version of the software. With all its shortcomings, Quicken is still superior to any other personal finance program on the Mac if you need robust investment tracking. I 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. Instead, I used a virtualized version of Windows inside the Mac to use Quicken. I am heartily glad of this development. These updates, both major and minor, have continued to push the Mac platform forward, perhaps even narrowing the gap between its Windows big brother. Quicken 2020 for Mac and the Subscription Business ModelSince my last review of Quicken for Mac 2019, there have been seven updates to the software, occurring every four months or so. For this type of financial management, Quicken is still the only consumer-targeted personal finance software game in town. Video game controller for macQuicken’s private equity ownership period hits the five-year mark in April 2021. This has brought my annual cost to around $40, which I consider a bargain given how much I rely on this software.I remain vigilant, however. I typically renew in November and watch for Black Friday sales at Amazon. This is surprisingly robust and complete. Touted as their number one feature request, Quicken introduced access to your financial system via the web in 2019. New Features in Quicken 2020Web Access. We’ll have to wait and see if this happens with Quicken. One glaring omission is two-factor authentication as a security measure. But it’s a handy tool to check in on your finances while traveling without having to pack a computer (access on an iPad Pro using Safari was fine). It doesn’t appear you can pay bills from the web platform, nor can transactions from investment accounts be downloaded. I’ve tinkered with the new version, but haven’t used it. Paying bills from within Quicken is only available for Premiere subscribers, and the previous incarnation made no sense to me. Quicken revamped its bill-pay functionality in 2020. I’ve turned off web access for this reason, but will turn it back on when better security measures are in place.Bill/Check Pay. It seems to work well, unless it doesn’t. This is a convenient way to access these bills without having to navigate to the vendor’s web site, type in credentials, and search for the latest bill or statement. Another new feature is Quicken’s ability to automatically download bills and credit card statements in PDF format for review and filing. ![]() That has mostly been corrected now with their new transaction renaming engine (a bug still persists that makes Quicken unable to remember transfers to other accounts as part of a memorized transaction). For years, I would shake my head as Quicken would stubbornly refuse to learn the proper expense category for the utility bill I download and pay every month. This is a welcome addition. Long a sore spot on the Mac, Quicken added some new functionality in properly renaming downloaded transactions. A few additional reports were created, but sadly, we still don’t have any budget to actual reports, which is a mainstay of personal financial management.Transaction Renaming Rules. ![]() Budget, which is an essential financial planning tool. Reporting in the Mac version of Quicken has improved, but you can’t create a report of your actual results vs. What’s Still Lacking or Needs ImprovementReporting, Particularly Against Budget. This is especially important for retirees or those soon approaching retirement age. You can now include account transfers and investment income in your annual budget. Future For Quicken Full Budget ForHow in the world can a software program designed to help individuals and families manage their personal finances not include a budget to actual report?Tired of waiting, I now export actual and budget figures out of Quicken to create a proper actual vs. Budget report since 2016, a report that has been available in the Windows platform forever. I’ve been waiting for this basic actual vs. Month-to-date actual results. Unless you happen to view the 12-month screen on the very last day of the month, the year-to-date totals are useless: the budget total includes the full budget for the month you’re viewing vs. 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. Of course, my Excel hack lacks interactivity and drill-down capability, which is important in tracking down the source of budget variances.Quirky Transaction Download Errors.
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