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iBank - iBiz users???

K

kenglade

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 20, 2008
278
1
Issue #1

Having used Quicken on my PC for a dozen years or so, I'm now overwhelmed by the abundance of available financial management programs. I'm in the process of switching totally from MS to Mac. Since I've read some very bad reviews about Quicken for Mac I've been looking for a subsitute.

I'm running Leopard on my IMac G5 with 2GB of RAM so that should be sufficient no matter which program I choose. The question is which?

First, I use a credit union rather than a bank but I can't see where that would make any difference. I have a couple of credit card accounts I would like to keep track of. Other than that, my needs are simple. What I'm looking for is a program that will let me maintain my CU accounts: checking, saving, loan, etc. It would help tremendously if I could import my Quicken files from the PC, but I think iBank does that.

I would be grateful if iBank users would weigh in and give me their views on the program.

Issue #2

In addiition to -- and aside from -- my personal banking requirements I am thinking about starting a small business later this year. From what I have read, iBank might not handle this whereas iBiz might. What I'm looking for here is the ability to keep track of purchases, expenses, invoicing and payments. Again, nothing fancy -- just the basics.

I assume that iBank and iBiz are mutually exclusive programs. Otherwise, why have two?

As with iBank, I would much appreciate hearing from users of iBiz. Or -- even better -- users of both to tell me how they work together.

Many thanks.
 
I realize this may be no help whatsoever...

I'm in the same spot too - I need accounting software for the mac for a small biz for the accounting-challenged. A couple of years ago I did a bunch of hard looking at mac products and ended up installing a virtual machine via parallels to run quickbooks. For the record, I despise quickbooks, but it seemed to be the lesser of all evils :p.

Best of luck in your search!
 
techound1 said:
I realize this may be no help whatsoever...

I'm in the same spot too - I need accounting software for the mac for a small biz for the accounting-challenged. A couple of years ago I did a bunch of hard looking at mac products and ended up installing a virtual machine via parallels to run quickbooks. For the record, I despise quickbooks, but it seemed to be the lesser of all evils :p.

Best of luck in your search!
Click to expand...


I've been through a bunch of 'em today: Moneydance, Cashbox, Mint, Freshbooks, Billable Monkeyworks-cashbook ... and they seem either too simple or are designed to handle subjects I have no use for. I guess, for the tiome being, I'll continue to work with Quicken on the PC and see what develops. I'll holler if i find something interesting.
 
works for me

I've used iBiz for about a year. Works well, but not perfect (some quirky limitations - that I can't think of off the top of my head; I just recall being annoyed). Allows me to track jobs for all my clients - record hours, disbursements, etc. - and tracks invoices and payments in that context. It is not "accounting" software though.

I also bought iBank about 2 months ago, and have been generally pleased so far. This is the typical ledger-style tracking system. It is most useful for categorizing and reporting on expenses and income.

They do work together, and there are some advantages it seems. I think there's actually cross-functionality that I'm not using (or not aware of). So I think the combo can do more advanced stuff than I'm doing. Though I also know that I've tried to do some advanced stuff that I haven't been able to do (e.g. related to tracking existing, as opposed to new, loan accounts).

Overall, it is worth a shot. They both have $ back guarantees, don't they?
 
jdebeer said:
I've used iBiz for about a year. Works well, but not perfect (some quirky limitations - that I can't think of off the top of my head; I just recall being annoyed). Allows me to track jobs for all my clients - record hours, disbursements, etc. - and tracks invoices and payments in that context. It is not "accounting" software though.

I also bought iBank about 2 months ago, and have been generally pleased so far. This is the typical ledger-style tracking system. It is most useful for categorizing and reporting on expenses and income.

They do work together, and there are some advantages it seems. I think there's actually cross-functionality that I'm not using (or not aware of). So I think the combo can do more advanced stuff than I'm doing. Though I also know that I've tried to do some advanced stuff that I haven't been able to do (e.g. related to tracking existing, as opposed to new, loan accounts).

Overall, it is worth a shot. They both have $ back guarantees, don't they?
Click to expand...

Thanks for that good insight. I also mentioned this on another forum and the advice I received -- from a retired accountant who said the financial software for Mac that he had tried was simply not comparable to Windows standards -- was the keep the PC and use it with Quicken. Since that seems both reasonable and economically prudent, at least for now, that's probably what I'm going to do.

But I know I'm going to get tired of suffering with the MS platform (it crashed twice yesterday when all I was trying to do was boot it up) and go all Mac. So your comments are very pertinent. I appreciate you taking the time to answer.
 
I bought ibank and stopped using it. It doesn't do well with multiple accounts in a budget. The reconciliation of monthly statements is also lacking.

I would recommend using something else that is not as expensive and is more user friendly.

Definitely try the trial version before you buy it.
 
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