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Personal Finance Apps - TODAY!

iBank app

Once I switched from PC to my iMac, I transitioned to iBank. Now I do look online frequently for the next update to Essentials for Mac by Quicken, but I find the iBank program and the app to be very beneficial. I think if I ever switch back to quicken I will miss some of the app benefits. The biggest is that it can work as a check register (you can't do this with the Mint app), also I like to have a visual look at my finances whenever I want. The app allows for me to change things on the fly, walk in my house then sync with my iMac and go from there. It works pretty seamlessly.
Then again, if Quicken were to finally make a quality version for Mac, I would seriously consider it.
 
ticman said:
...
But is there a downside to using Quicken this way--ie cumbersome; certain constraints in using? etc.
Click to expand...

FWIW, I have had no problems running Quicken Home & Business 2010 and multiple versions of QuickBooks (including Enterprise 10.0) inside a Parallels 5/Win7 Pro VM on a mid-2010 MBP.

All the Intuit apps I've tried this way are quite well-behaved, or I guess I should say no worse-behaved than they are natively :)

I've been running my personal finances on Quicken since 1993. My strategy for avoiding problems with Quicken is to upgrade only after a new version has received several maintenance releases and reasonable user reviews. I've skipped a number of upgrades in the past when they received continuing bad notices. There's no point in upgrading every year anyway--with a mature product, the developer is just milking their user base for recurring revenue.
 
That is about the time I think I started, if not a bit earlier, running Quicken for DOS. Loved it. Upgraded once or twice but when they sunsetted the ability to do online banking, for what seemed to be no other reason than to force an upgrade, I rebelled.

Until I switched from Windows to OS X, I obtained my bank's data in a QIF file and manually imported the data. Not happy but it served my needs.

Upon switching I resolved to change financial software. Looked at the big contenders and settled on MoneyDance.

Now my Quicken file was pretty straightforward even if it had 10+ years of data. And I did have some manual corrections but it was all worth the effort. For 3+ years now I've been Quicken free and enjoying it. :D

slowtraveler said:
...I've been running my personal finances on Quicken since 1993. My strategy for avoiding problems with Quicken is to upgrade only after a new version has received several maintenance releases and reasonable user reviews. I've skipped a number of upgrades in the past when they received continuing bad notices. There's no point in upgrading every year anyway--with a mature product, the developer is just milking their user base for recurring revenue.
Click to expand...
 
TonyK said:
...looked at the big contenders and settled on MoneyDance.
Click to expand...

It's cool that you were able to convert your historical data with minimal fuss. I should pay more attention to some of the Mac solutions. I need to run various versions of QuickBooks regardless (in order to work on client files), so I haven't been super-motivated to abandon Quicken.
 
I've given up on Mac finance programs. After using MS Money / WinXP / Parallels 4 for four years, we upgraded to Quicken 2011 / Win7 / Parallels 6 last month.
 
slowtraveler said:
It's cool that you were able to convert your historical data with minimal fuss. I should pay more attention to some of the Mac solutions. I need to run various versions of QuickBooks regardless (in order to work on client files), so I haven't been super-motivated to abandon Quicken.
Click to expand...

It was not without pain yet I knew I had no option and jumping in to Windows or using another application I did not like was not an option for me.

I think it took me 6 or more tries on the import to get the file correct.
 
DaveF said:
...upgraded to Quicken 2011 / Win7 / Parallels 6 last month.
Click to expand...

I'm quite impressed with Parallels--I recently upgraded to 6 as well.

I find it to be fast, stable and very cleverly integrated with the host OS. I use Parallels in the mode that maintains a single location for all your documents by treating the OS X Documents path as a Windows network volume and re-mapping the VM's My Documents folder to that volume.

That feature works better much than I thought it would, and it's very nice for organization and backup purposes not to have all my Windows documents hidden inside the big-ass VM file.

It does break the Quicken launcher occasionally, and the various instances of QuickBooks that I run sometimes have to be reminded where their data files are. But in general, using Parallels is fairly painless, IMO.
 
slowtraveler said:
Par for the course with importing data from other apps, in my experience.
Click to expand...

Mine too. There was this Lotus spreadsheet, in the day, that took me months to get converted to a dBase III database because of the cell conversions and splitting I was doing. The end result was worth the effort.
 
slowtraveler said:
I'm quite impressed with Parallels--I recently upgraded to 6 as well.

I find it to be fast, stable and very cleverly integrated with the host OS. I use Parallels in the mode that maintains a single location for all your documents by treating the OS X Documents path as a Windows network volume and re-mapping the VM's My Documents folder to that volume.

That feature works better much than I thought it would, and it's very nice for organization and backup purposes not to have all my Windows documents hidden inside the big-ass VM file.
Click to expand...

Win7 and Parallels 6 is surprisingly fast. I'm very happy with it. And the $120 win7 family pack is nicely priced.

We also keep the finance files outside the VM, in a personal folder, so it's backed up. But I had to turn off Time Machine support for Parallels. It was going crazy, making huge backups every hour!
 
Jumsoft Money

I've tried loads and for me the best for me by far was Jumsoft Money. Been using it for years. Had a few glitches earlier on but now solid. I do simple cash accounting downloaded from the bank. Love it because it's so simple and solid. Download is a bit annoying because you have to keep telling it what each field is every time. Hope they do something about that. Otherwise brill.

But I haven't looked for about 2 years.
 
OK this is a long and interesting thread, which seems to suggest that on Mac there basically isn't any decent financial software comparable to Windows.

So.... I will run parallels.

Given that, what is the best financial software available on Windows today?

I hear people slating Quicken for Mac, but on the PC is it actually good?

Seems that I am down to choosing between YNAB and Quicken on PC...
 
I recently transitioned from PC to Mac. I was concerned that I would not find a decent personal finance app on the Mac. I tried iBank for the 30 day trial and eventually bought Quicken Essentials for Mac.

iBank to me seemed too cumbersome and although it was a very good program really was too much for my needs. I'm really just keeping track of a few savings accounts, 401K, car loan and a checking account.

I am very happy with Quicken Essentials for Mac, it handles my needs very well. My Quicken 2010 files from the Windows version transferred over nicely.

FWIW I used Quicken Premiere 2010 on the PC. I only used the premiere edition because I got it free at a conference I attended in late 2009 and it was included in the welcome packet. Prior to that I was using MS Money and had been using it for about 10 years, updating it every other year or so. So getting the free copy of Quicken 2010 came at the right time since Microsoft abandoned Money.
 
I currently use Quicken 2010 with Crossover from Code Weavers. Instead of running a full Windows XP VM in VMWare Fusion, Crossover opens up a Windows shell with Quicken for me, and it seems to work fine. Not everything is supported by Crossover, but Quicken does seem to get support.
 
I currently use Quicken 2011 with Crossover from Code Weavers in our Mac book pro.
Instead of running a full Windows virtual machine in software like Parallels Desktop, Crossover opens up a Windows shell with Quicken 2011 for us, and it seems to work fine. Not everything is supported by Crossover, but Quicken 2011 does seem to get support according to their compatibility list.
 
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