In addition to its 32bitness, it had other issues: The UI was tiny and horrid, the windows never opened where I closed them ( Moom's saved layouts to the rescue!), and online access to my accounts was nearly non-existent. But Quicken 2007 was showing its age. Why? Basically because it worked (most of the time), and I didn't like any of the alternatives, which I would occasionally test. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products or services.Yes, I was using an eleven-year-old app to track our family's spending and investments. Thats where Banktivity 7 by IGG Software steps in5 Quicken Alternatives Now that Quicken Online is Dead Advertiser Disclosure This article/post contains references to products or services from one or more of our advertisers or partners. I've been using Quicken in some form since 1994, but stopped with Quicken 2007—I found the newer versions worse than Quicken 2007, so I never upgraded.Quicken is the personal finance software of choice for Windows users, but what if youre a Mac person Quicken 2018 for Mac should be the easy answer, but its completely different from the Windows version, and many users have found it to be a nonstarter.Imported our historical Quicken data I didn't want to lose 24+ years of our financial data. (I hate subscription software in general, but as it turns out, this one isn't really a subscription.)Read on for brief overviews of each of these three apps (with more detail on Quicken) and my rationale for deciding on Quicken. Going in, I was dead set against it, mainly due to its annual subscription structure. It was finally time to find its replacement.After reviewing lists of alternatives—and asking on Twitter—I focused on three apps: Bantivity, Moneydance, and Quicken 2018 for Mac.After looking at all three, I surprised myself by deciding that Quicken was the best tool for our use.Banktivity won't import reconciliations, so none of my accounts were reconciled. Moneydance ignored the "hidden" status of accounts, so a lot of old, closed accounts showed up. As such, I can't vouch for how well any of these three programs handle those tasks.All three apps imported my Quicken data file, though with varying degrees of success. Included online account access I want to update our bank, credit card, and investment accounts from the source, instead of having to manually enter transactions.Things I don't really care about are bill pay (I use our bank), reports, budgets, and charts and graphs for anything outside the investments section of the app. Offered accurate investment tracking Our investments are in a few accounts, and I like to monitor them all in one spot.
And while that doesn't inherently make it bad, Java's generic "write once for many platforms" code shows itself in a few places: The Preferences window doesn't look anything like a native Mac app window, and the buttons in the app are definitely not macOS-style buttons. (It's easy to tell them apart in this four-line partial register, but in the full register with comments on the second line for many entries, everything blends together.)Moneydance is a Java app. I found the interface not to my liking—there are icons next to each account, which makes the layout look busy, and I found its register view confusing:Notice that entries take up two rows, but the white/blue background alternates every other row…so if you're glancing at the register, it's nearly impossible to pick out one transaction unless you click on it to select it. In the register view, each entry is two rows, but the alternating background is also two rows, making it easy to see each transaction at a glance.Banktivity has two methods of data download: OFX (free) and Direct Access (subscription required). It looks very busy, but once you get into an account, the view is much cleaner than Moneydance:This view can also be infested with icons, but those can (thankfully) be disabled in the app's preferences. Its account list view is also laden with icons—folder icons, new activity count badges, and status badges. 2 - BanktivityBanktivity was a strong contender it was neck and neck with Quicken until I got more into the transition and looked closely at all of our accounts. This is true even if it's an account I just opened and then closed.Due to these issues, I quickly decided that Moneydance was not for me. Trade in your macbook pro for the 2016 mac bookThat's a big time waster for me.On the investment side, I had issues with two stocks that had had stock splits. Unfortunately, you can't do that with a double-click, as that brings up the account's info panel you need to right-click and choose Open in New Window from the contextual menu. Outside of that, Direct Access is a $45 per year subscription.Banktivity doesn't have any of the "non-native" issues I found in Moneydance the app looks and feels like a traditional Mac app, and opening an account window from the account list is speedy. Quicken 2018 Alternatives Trial Of QuickenAs I hoped, Quicken handled the import of my old data perfectly, bringing across the reconciliations and handling investments properly. That allayed my fears of needing to subscribe forever, just so I wouldn't lose access to my financial data.Unfortunately, there's no free trial of Quicken, but they do offer a 30-day money back guarantee, so I paid and started testing.What I found is an app that, for the most part, takes everything I liked about Quicken 2007 and modernizes it. 1 - Quicken 2018When Quicken 2018 was released as a subscription product, I tweeted my displeasure with the change, as I have a big issue with "software as a service." But as I dug into the app, I discovered that their subscription isn't really a subscription: If you stop subscribing, you can still use the app to enter and track financial data you just lose access to the online components and Quicken's support services. Banktivity didn't handle this correctly, so our balances were way off in those two accounts.In the end, I decided against using Banktivity due to its cost ($65 up front, plus $45 per year), the overabundance of icons in the layouts, its inability to import reconciliations from Quicken, and its difficulties handling some investment data. (Though it is a complex app, so there's a lot to look through.)The app is a real Mac app, with none of the weirdness that comes from a Java app. The help file itself is detailed and well indexed, making it fairly easy to find what you want. After buying, I received an email thank-you from the CEO, explaining where they've been and where they're trying to go, and thanking me for being a customer—sure, it's a form letter, but it's more than I ever got from Intuit.The in-app help options, as seen at right, are extensive and include a link to the community forums as well as an in-app screen sharing feature. And to me, it seems "new Quicken" is trying hard. But it's possibly bad in that an investment group only buys a company for one reason: To later sell it at a big profit.But to get to the point where the company is worth a higher valuation, they have to offer things that customers want. That's both good and bad it's good that they're out from under Intuit's lack of interest in the Mac app.
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