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Moneydance

R

rayward

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 13, 2007
1,697
89
Houston, TX
I'm using Parallels to run XP on my iMac simply for Quicken. My worry is that Quicken isn't getting backed-up automatically by Time Machine because it's lumped in with all the other Parallels data (someone please correct me if this isn't the case). The Quicken Financial Life revamp doesn't look like it's going to drop any time soon, so I'm considering alternatives (and in any case Quicken have pissed me off because of their terrible support for Mac).

One name that comes up as being very good - and fully compatible with Quicken - is Moneydance. Anyone out there who has had any experience with this app and can share some comments? How is the conversion from Quicken (for PC) to Moneydance?

I use Quicken for online banking (but not bill pay as they charge extra for worse service) and to track investments; all of which is well within Moneydance's wheelhouse or so I've read.

Thanks in advance.
 
another option

check out iBank 3, another excellent alternative to quicken. (i work for the developer, so i don't want to oversell it in the forum. more info at ibank3.com if you're interested.)
 
Moneydance is one of the more capable Mac finance apps. Its been around for ages and is cross platform. It is java though so the UI is a bit quirky but it does what it does well.

iBank 3. When a developer chooses to incorporate Coverflow (which is a non-published API and a hack) in a finance app instead of concentrating on "finance" functionality I go elsewhere. iBank2 was pretty good apart from a few bugs but iBank3 is glitz for no reason.

I've bought and use Moneydance while writing my own (I need envelope budgeting). Another reasonable one is Liquid Ledger. Not sure it does online though.
 
Yeah I've had a go at both Moneywell and Budget. Both are good applications but don't suit my requirements. Moneywell, which is the more modern of the two is obsessed with the rollover concept and also locks the calculation cycle to monthly. I get paid every two weeks and things quickly get confusing. It also doesn't follow the HIG.

I've managed to massage Moneydance into doing envelope budgeting quite well. The only drawbacks is the lack of reporting and the UI makes it a bit unwieldy. Its possible to massage almost any standard finance app to do enveloping with a bit of creative thinking. Of course, as my application development continues I may hit design issues that explain why Budget and Moneywell are as difficult to use as they are. I guess time will tell.
 
Envelopes/Buckets for MoneyDance??

mongrol, I'd love to hear how you pulled this off. I'm about to start working with Moneywell, but if the envelope approach could work in MoneyDance, that might be my ticket.

Anyone else tried to do this?

Thanks.
 
Its quite simple to do but a little awkward to actually use. Here's how I work it. This will work in almost any standard finance application.

  1. Create normal expense categories and an income category.
  2. Under your main bank account create sub accounts that match your expenses and income. So if you have expenses and an income like this;
    • Salary
    • Food
    • Fuel
    • Baby
    You're asset accounts would look like this;
    • Bank
      • Salary
      • Food
      • Fuel
      • Baby

The sub accounts act as your envelopes. When I get paid I do this;

  1. Import latest transactions as a QIF file into the "Bank" account
  2. Assign the transactions to the correct expense and income categories

    We now need to move the amounts into the correct envelopes starting with income.

  3. Rightclick the salary transactions and do "Batch->Account Move" then choose the "Bank:Salary" account (not the Salary category)

We then have an Salary envelope with our wages in it. I have an Oo spreadsheet where I track what my allocations for each envelope per pay is.

Inside the Salary sub-account I create "fund" transactions that transfer the allocated amount into the correct envelope sub-accounts. This funds all my envelopes for the fornight.

Back in the main account I Batch-Account Move all the expense transactions into the correct Bank-Expense sub-accounts. On the home page you can see which you've went over as those accounts will go red as the expenses are more than the allocation.

At the end of each fortnight before I do allocations I move cash around by using "extra fund" transactions from envelopes that are in the blue to ones that are in the red. If I run out of money and need to tap into the main Bank account for funds then I have an argument with the wife.

For verification, on the home page, the total balance of the main account and all the sub-accounts should equal the balance in your bank.

That all may seem a bit complicated but its quite easy once you practise it a bit. The GUI makes it a bit difficult and I think Liquid Ledger might be easier as you can drag and drop transactions, but there's no sub-accounts. My own program (60% complete) will automate most of this.

There's a post here explaining the same thing in a different way. Have fun. :)
 
Didn't read the whole thread (somewhat intoxicated), but couldn't you save the file to a shared folder in OS X from Parallels?
 
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