What is your recommendation for personal finance software?

[kavika411]

Thank you for reading this. I need personal finance software to keep up with my couple of deposit accounts. I need to be able to catagorize entries to track my spending/create budgets. What is the best Mac-friendly software out there for this? I've tried the Mac version of Quicken but did not like it. Is there something better? Thank you.

 

[epochblue]

You might take a look at Cha-Ching. Their 1.0 comes out on Friday, and I've been using it for a while now with zero complaints.

 

[Klrbee25]

I'm in the same boat. I'm switching over to Mac and have read terrible reviews of Quicken for Mac. It looks like Cha-Ching doesn't support direct banking transactions (downloads, payments, etc) which I find to be the best part of Quicken. Does anyone have any finance programs for Mac that are usable (moreso than Mac Quicken) and still allow direct connection to your bank to send and download transactions?

 

[swiftaw]

Sadly I have found nothing better than Microsoft Money, which I run through Parallels

 

[eji]

I love the Mac OS for so many reasons, but the personal finance software options blow. Google the right keywords and you'll get pages and pages of people lamenting the pitiful state of this type of software on the Mac, and begging for people to come up with solutions. They still haven't.

There's Moneydance, Cha-Ching, Quicken, iBank, and a few other minor apps. Practically none of them have the tight integration with online bank accounts that Quicken for Windows and MS Money do; most of them are cute personal budget-type apps rather than being one-stop money management apps.

Personally, I use Quicken 2007, but it doesn't keep tabs on my UK and German accounts, and I have to manually download most of my US transactions instead of just a one-click automatic update.

I wish I could point you in the right direction, but sadly, I don't think there's a right direction to go in. As "swiftaw" said, Parallels and MS Money might be not just your best option but your only option. And I'll join the chorus of lamenters: we need good personal finance software for the Mac. Desperately.

 

[eji]

One thing you might want to consider is Wesabe. It's a free online money management service, and there's even an uploader for OS X. It is more in the "budget" category than the "management" category, but it might be enough to help you keep track of your accounts.

 

[justG]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/295239/

I'll reiterate the recommendation I made in that thread: iBank.

 

[epochblue]

It looks like Cha-Ching doesn't support direct banking transactions (downloads, payments, etc) which I find to be the best part of Quicken.

I can't say for certain, but I know this feature is something the Cha-Ching devs have been working on for a while now. I'm guessing that with the release of 1.0, this feature will be available.

 

[mania]

Well despite the whinings about quicken its really not that bad on the mac. I mean geez it works fine. quickbooks mac is pretty good as well and your accountant will like that cause you can export a windoze version and they will never know.

 

[blackstone]

Moneydance is able to use the OFX/QFX connection with my credit card company (syncing new transactions with the ones I've recorded in the register), and I've found it works pretty well for me. The interface doesn't conform all that well to Mac interface guidelines (it's a cross-platform app), but in that respect it's no worse than Firefox.