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Program similar to Microsoft Money for a Mac ?

ron7624

ron7624

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 14, 2011
2,228
437
Houston, Texas area
I've just purchased a mid Mac Mini for my wife. She loves it. I loves it lol.
I'm set up as an administrator on her machine and am really enjoying using it and am wanting to get rid of my Win 7 home computer.
But... I keep up with my checking accounts using Microsoft Money 2006 or whatever the last version they built. Besides being a MacRumors member, I use my home computer to pay bills. That's all.
I know their is an Intuit program that is probably written for a Mac but the Windows version is just too heavy, I've tried. I don't want to have to categorize every keystroke.
Has anyone been in my boat?
I want a Mac program that will allow me to keep a check register and print checks from that every now and again.
Is there anything out there?
I may have to resort to parallels and install windows, but past experience has warned me that anything like that is never really stable.
TIA for any suggestions.
 
ron7624 said:
I may have to resort to parallels and install windows, but past experience has warned me that anything like that is never really stable.
Click to expand...
You shouldn't have any stability problems with that route. Both Parallels and VMware Fusion are very stable ways to run Windows on your Mac. I've been using Fusion daily for the last four of five years at work to run my Windows-only tools.

For finances, I just switched to Quicken 2015 for Mac. Before that, I was using Quicken Essentials, which I think would be great for what your'e doing, but Intuit has End-of-Life'd it. I'm not thrilled enough with Quicken 2015 for Mac enough to recommend it yet, but I'm still getting used to it. Sounds like it'd be overkill for using as just a check register.

iBank is the other Mac software that gets recommended a lot, but I don't have any personal experience with it. It has a free 30-day trail, if you want to kick the tires.
 
This was discussed in a recent Mac Power Users podcast. I recommend devoting the time to listen. I think the part on banking/finance apps is about halfway through the episode.
http://www.macpowerusers.com/2015/01/18/236-managing-digital-finances/

If I recall correctly, there was only lukewarm endorsement for any of the banking/personal finance apps. My experience has been similar to that described by Katie and David in the podcast - that is, none of them are great.

The problem is that there is not a good workflow that prevents a lot of manual data entry. Downloading data from bank accounts is problematic. Some of the apps cannot handle this, and some of the apps (or the banks) assess a monthly charge to download bank data in those cases in which the bank participates.

My experience has been that simply using my bank's billpay service and Vanguard's website work very well, with little effort on my part. I simply funnel all payments - utilities, mortgage, credit card payments, taxes - through this one bank account. Record keeping for payments is then easy - just check the bank website and statements for complete payment records. The "activity" page of the bank website is essentially my check register, with a running balance. Because the electronic payments are so fast (usually 1-2 days, the balance shown, less a couple of upcoming payments, is current. There is a way to enter recurring payments, and there is no need to keep a manual register. A little judgement is required - keeping a comfortable buffer amount in the bank account is a good idea. If you make a big or unusual credit card purchase, you should enter that as an "upcoming" transaction in a special section that will show upcoming or projected future activity and balances.

For your personal balance sheet (or list of investment accounts), Vanguard's web site excellent. All of your Vanguard accounts, of course, are listed. In addition, non-Vanguard investment accounts can be linked, and will appear correctly in your balance sheet page. You can also manually enter other investments such as savings bonds, bank CDs, etc., that are not suitable for automatic linking with Vanguard's aggregation service. Vanguard does a great job of reporting detailed asset allocation and of pointing out deviations from your desired or goal asset allocation.

It takes a little care in planning and setting up your bank's billpay service and Vanguard's reporting setup, but this works very well and is as close to automatic as you can get. I can't imagine having to manually enter every check or payment into a 3rd-party finance app.
 
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I have the same problem with MS Money. I have not found a satisfactory solution to the problem that allows me to stop using Money. The primary problem I have is that I have been unable to find a way to transfer my Money data to any other program, let alone to a Mac program.

I have 17 years worth of financial data within my Money program that is very, very useful, and Money has enough analytical power to use that data to help with analyzing my finances.

I keep Windows 7 via boot camp on one of my computers solely for running Money. Still my best solution.

I am using Money 98, having upgraded from Money 95.
 
Thank you all. I will listen to the podcast recommended by infantrytrophy and appreciate the time you took with your post. I also have many years of financial info in Money and was afraid there was no solution other than porting windows into a Mac.
That is what I will probably do, as I really want to move from my windoze environment to the wonderfully connected Apple systems.
Again, thank you all and will continue to listen to any and all advice.
Ron
 
I still use MS Money through VirtualBox. However, I have looked at Mac applications but did not find any that fully supported what I want. As far as testing these - you export your Money data as a QIF file then you are able to import it into the Mac applications you want to try out.
 
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