Moneydance Review 2022 – The Best Quicken Replacement?
For years, I used Quicken. It worked well on the Macintosh and had a ledger-looking interface that I loved. When I bought a computer in 2008, it came, pre-installed, with Quicken 2005 for the Mac. Awesome.
However, when I bought another computer in 2012, I discovered that Quicken 2005 was no longer being supported. I was discouraged with the Quicken Essentials for Mac. Even the new Quicken for Mac, doesn't do the trick for me.
Cost - 8.5
Customer Service - 8
Ease of Use - 7.5
Tools & Resources - 7.5
Synchronization - 7.5
Accessibility - 7
7.5
Looking for an alternative to Quicken for Mac? Moneydance could be a great alternative for you. You can use it to manage as many as 100 transactions for free or buy it outright for $49.99. The app can help you manage your investments, remember to pay bills on time and create budgets.
After poking around a couple years ago, I found Moneydance. I'm fairly satisfied with Moneydance, and while it isn't as awesome as Quicken 2005, it is the closest thing I've found to it, and I still like it better than the new Quicken for Mac 2017. It's not worth making the switch for me. Here's my full comparison between Quicken, Moneydance and Personal Capital.
What is Moneydance?
Moneydance is a personal finance software that's available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and mobile devices. It can help you create budgets, stay on top of bills, and view all of your financial accounts from one central dashboard.
The software looks like a ledger, and that's one of my favorite things about it. I enter my transactions manually, but it's also possible to update with transactions from your bank, but you have to download them and import them to Moneydance using OFX, QIF, or QFX files).
You can also arrange to have your transactions automatically updated from your financial institutions, by linking accounts. I've never been a fan of that since I prefer to manually enter my information. But if you like the automatic update, and you are interested in mobile access from anywhere, Moneydance can be a great option for keeping track of your finances — including investments.
Moneydance Features
| Price | Min: $49.99, Max: $49.99, Term: none |
| Budgeting | |
| Bill Payment | |
| Investment Tracking | |
| Access | Web Based, iOS, Android |
| Credit Score Monitoring | |
| Bill Management | |
| Retirement Planning | |
| Tax Reporting | |
| Reconcile Transactions | |
| Custom Categories | |
| Import QFX, QIF Files | |
| Two-Factor Authentication | |
| Online Synchronization |
What Does Moneydance Offer?
Create Budgets
One of Moneydance's main features is to create budgets so you stay on track with your spending. The software can sync with hundreds of different banks and financial institutions to download your transaction history. From there, it automatically categorizes expenses so you know how much you're spending. And when you approach the limit in your categories, they show up orange to warn you that you are close.
Another great feature of Moneydance is that you have a great home screen that helps you keep track of where you stand. You can quickly see what you've spent so far in the month. It's color-coded so that you can see which categories you are spending the most on. It's a quick and easy way to see where you stand in the month, and it's right there when you first open the software. Overall, it's a similar budgeting system to apps like Mint and PocketSmith, and it's great if you like ledgers and organization. Moneydance also lets you organize all this data by account, which is useful if you're using several mobile banking apps and brokerage accounts.
Bill Reminders
Another useful Moneydance feature is the ability to create bill reminders. This sends you reminders of upcoming payments so you don't miss them.
Additionally, Moneydance offers free billpay. This is one way that you can stay on top of what you owe — and when you owe it. Your upcoming bills are also represented on the home page when you open the software. There is also a handy list of bills that you owe off to the right, so that you can quickly click and see what you normally pay. Unfortunately, what's listed is all bills past and present, so some of them might be items that you no longer pay, or that have changed.
Investment Support
You can also track your investment portfolio with Moneydance. Customize your options, and take advantage of the possibility of specific ID of shares so you can track tax lots.
Moneydance can also be set to automatically download current prices. The software also helps you perform cost basis computations and stock splits computations. It's a quick and easy way to stay up to date on what is happening with your investments.
Useful Graphs & Reporting
Generate a number of reports that can help you keep track of your spending in certain categories. You can also generate graphs and charts that let you see your entire financial picture.
While Moneydance doesn't have tax integration, it's still possible to sort things by category. This is what I did in Quicken anyway, breaking out business expenses and other deduction categories. You can also get a solid idea of cash flow.
I like to use the graphs that let me quickly see where my income is coming from, as well as where my expenses are going. You can get a detailed cash flow report, as well as see graphical representations. It's a good way to keep on top of exactly what your financial picture looks like. You can look at year-to-date, all of last year, or adjust to a variety of different time periods to see where you stand.
Moneydance Mobile
You can now monitor your finance while on the go with the Moneydance app. It's available for iOS and Android, and it's pretty handy since your mobile and desktop are in sync almost immediately, so you don't have to worry about changing it yourself later.
Foreign Currencies
Alongside automatic transaction downloads, Moneydance also works with multiple currencies and can convert currencies automatically for easier record keeping. If you have banks with different currencies or are a freelancer who gets paid in another currency, this is quite useful for bookkeeping.
Moneydance Pricing & Fees
A Moneydance license costs $49.99 and is free for your first 100 transactions. There's also a 90-day money-back guarantee, so you can test out the software to see if it's right for you without any risk.
Pros & Cons
pros
cons
Best Alternatives
If you want an alternative to Quicken, Moneydance is one of the more popular options. The fact it has bill payments and integrates with numerous accounts makes it a close competitor. And if you like the older ledger style for your bookkeeping, it's right up your alley.
That said, there are other Moneydance alternatives you can consider, including Quicken, if this software doesn't meet your needs.
| Highlights |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rating | 9.5/10 | 8/10 | 7.5/10 |
| Budgeting | |||
| Investment Monitoring | |||
| Retirement Planning | |||
| Bill Payment | |||
| Manual Entries | |||
| Bill Management | |||
We like Personal Capital as an all-in-one financial toolkit because of how many features it offers. For example, it has budgeting tools and a net worth tracker to help you stay on top of your finances. And its investment fee analyzer can look at your 401k and other portfolios to see if you're overpaying on fees. Plus, if you invest $100,000 or more, you can work with Personal Capital's investment service and work with advisors to build a custom investing plan.
Now, if you're just looking for budgeting help, you might be better off with budgeting-focused apps instead. Both Mint and YNAB are excellent options, and you can also read our article on the best Mint alternatives for even more selection.
Bottom Line
One of the biggest complaints about Moneydance is that the transfer from Quicken isn't all that smooth. I converted my Quicken data to a QIF, and then followed the prompts to “Import File,” and selected “From Another Program.” Most of my data transferred, along with most of my categories.
I did have some duplicate transactions to fiddle with, and for a couple of months I had to make adjustments as I reconciled my account statements, but things seem to be running smoothly now.
However, now that I'm used to using Moneydance, I don't want to go back. I tried the new Quicken for Mac, and it just didn't hold up, so I decided not to switch. I'm pretty happy with the situation as it is now.
Overall, I really like Moneydance. It's a great alternative for Quicken lovers, especially those who are disappointed with Quicken for Mac.
Related Reading:
MoneyDance won’t let you set up a credit card payment reminder if you pay the entire balance each month. People have been asking since 2016, but the people at MoneyDance won’t address the issue/suggestion. Quick allows to set one up.
Yes you can manually. Set up your account with the current balance even if zero. Now enter your “charges”, then enter your “payments”. Your balance is updated and it records and subtracts the payment from the balance and records/subtracts the payment to the account you designated. I enter a reminder for it too. Works fine. There is no bell that goes off and flags you down, but there is a summary of accounts that displays your bill reminders.
Bought Moneydance about a year ago to replace the Quicken version that came with my original PPC Mac in 2006, as PPC vesrions lost Apple support some OS updates ago.
If you just want to record banking, it’s fairly easy. My quicken accounts came across relatively seamlessly. My share portfolio did not (note I don’t link to any financial institutions, just record.)
Entering past history of share dividends was a disaster, as having fixed up the share price and dividends for several decades while Quicken was still working, the share prices enterd in history did no translate across to what it thought the share price was. Turns out what to me was the intuitive way to do it (start a new entry, enter the date and the share price) did not work. You had to enter the share price, then press new entry, then modify the date. Works fine if you are entering data on the day, but a pain for entering past records.
Next I had a return of capital event this year. Quicken can’t cope with it, or any other “unusual” transactions. It will do simple buys and sells, dividends etc. but not this. From the discussion pages, it seems that the investment side is much less useful than the money side. So perhaps it has two left feet.
From the reviews I’ve read, and the various trial versions I tried, Moneydance was the best. But it is not that good. I’d give it 6 out of 10 if you won shares, possibly 7-8 if you just want banking.
I used it Quicken for many years and their 2007 was the last best version before they changed the format. Moneydance reminds a lot of that version of Quicken but I never did use the stock quote/retirement planning stuff anyway, but I have investment rental property and it is so much better than Quicken because I can easily create monthly financial reports I used to do in Excel saving a lot of time. Very stable program for sure, Quicken got buggy and now only available on line via paid subscription. There’s a learning curve for sure but minor most is standard a right click here finds most things. I found that my bill reminder would not automatically record my reminfrt psyment unless I put in a 1 in the day before field (zero wouldn’t work). I do wish I could drag a transaction within the same posted date so it lines up with the bank online account activity and then I mark it with the orange “reconciling” status so when my statement comes it just takes a minute to reconcile. I don’t want to wait a month to find out my register is not accurate or some other issue. So far I rate this 9.9 out of 10.
Currently there is no Money management software on the market that does all I need it to do. Fortunately I have been using Managing Your Money since 1989 which is a DOS based product and is extremely comprehensive in what it does. after Win XP was terminated I panicked but I now run it in a virtual machine in Win 7. The program is no longer sold or supported but MYM12 was (is) a very stable platform. If you want personal finance with an emphasis on investments, taxes and reports on your finances you should go through the effort of setting this up. I was willing to even start a company to try and recreate all this program does because it is so far ahead of its time. It’s also a local copy and runs straight from a folder so it’s easy to transfer from computer to computer. There are bloggers that still use this program and they can get you a copy of the last version. Someone needs to redo this in a Win 10 environment. Why can’t Quicken do a better job, a local copy, a more comprehensive version of stocks and bonds and trading etc? Someone needs to. there are lots of ledger programs out there but I need more than that.
DO NOT RELY ON THE MOBILE APP!
I was away from home this winter and used the mobile app exclusively for about two months for my personal and business databases. There were warning signs that I might have been stressing the app—slow syncing, and the occasional incomplete sync that required multiple attempts to complete—but I didn’t have access to my desktop so I had to keep using it.
I needed to generate some reports for taxes so I asked the developer how to install the databases on a new computer. After following their directions, I lost 2–3 months worth of transactions from all accounts in both databases. “No problem,” I thought, “the deleted transaction files are still recoverable on Dropbox, so the developer can help me retrieve them.” Wrong. Customer support took days to get back to me, asked for and received the error log, and never responded to my messages afterwards.
I am done with Moneydance. I rebuilt the databases by hand and I’m looking for another money manager.
I tried Money Dance a few years ago and could not get it to work with my bank. Tried it again and still a horrible experience. I would really like to dump Quicken. But Money Dance downloads simply do not work. Investment accounts balances are off by about 1-2% and it varies. Today they will be higher, tomorrow lower. Bank accounts have multiple duplicate transactions that have to be manually searched for and deleted. On a positive note, they did give me my money back – but what a waste of time.
I had to leave Moneydance after two years as my bank will no longer allow downloads. When contacted, Moneydance said that they can’t control what banks do. I now use the banks bill pay section (though inferior as only two years of information is retained,
Unfortunately, I did buy Moneydance. I downloaded it, but I can’t figure out how to do anything with it. And, there is no customer service to chat or talk with. Anyone else having the same experience?
Not at all, I also use it to keep track of my taxable expenses for each rental property and create income/expense reports. Maybe there’s a Youtube course on how to maintain a checkbook or mini bookkeeping course for beginners.
Don’t buy Moneydance. It now has a MAJOR problem with printing Checks and Reports. It cannot properly communicate with the print driver and will not print or will print after a 5 or 10 MINUTE delay. It has been 6 months since MD became aware of this problem and as of June 1st the only thing you get from MD is an apology, that they are aware of the problem and they are trying to work out a fix. 6 months and they still can’t fix it, that’s a JOKE! After 5 years using MD I had to bite the bullet, and bought Banktivity. At least Banktivity can print checks, while MD can’t!
Walter Haalck
I suspect you’re the only customer who still wants to print checks in 2017. So not a big priority for them.
Who writes checks these days? You can always just get a box of checks from the bank for your checking account usually free (no paper to buy or ink) by the way checks take special ink to print the numbers on the bottom so they are read by the banks machines. I know I got contacted by the bank over it.
After 10 years of use, Moneydance developed a problem about a month ago that had something to do with Java, according to its error log. Balances on the summary page would be updated every 30 seconds or so, each time with a new, ridiculous number. Balancing my accounts wasn’t possible. I’ve written to Infinite Kind twice about this, including their error log and, each time gotten an automated acknowledgement and then nothing. It’s possible that they are out of business. I came here to find a replacement.
Hi Barry, I had a problem about a month ago with MD not downloading my Amex transactions. It appeared the older version I had was not supporting downloads anymore. I reached out to them and Ian from support got back to me so they are still in business. I do think they take a bit to get back and that is a problem I’m afraid. I’ve bought the new MD version and all is well again.
Which of these, if any can have a hierarchy of categories? I don’t want to have Gas, Electric, Water, etc, I want Utilities, then under it Gas, Electric, Water, etc. In addition, I’d like to have major categories for myself and for my wife. So, for example, Husband – Gas, car maintenance, food, etc AND Wife – Gas, car maintenance, food, etc.
Can any of these products do that or all they all flat?
Hi Bob, all of the personal finance apps we’ve reviewed can do this. I’m not aware of one that doesn’t.
This can be done in Moneydance. The user can define major categories with sub categories.
I have create many categories with no problem at all. Just clear the filed, type your own and a box will come up asking if you want to create a new Category. I guess people don’t just limit themselves from customizing it for what they need. I have an APP and N/A method of payment I did the same thing with. I split payments between categories too. I have a category for each rental property, just think outside the box.
I left Quicken on my iMac and switched to Moneydance. Loved my choice EXCEPT, that after using it for almost a year all my files and entries vanished. I have been trying for weeks to find a way to restore them, so far to no avail. NOTE. Moneydance has no phone in help line. I have repeatedly communicated on the internet, but am losing hope of a solution.
Each time you close MoneyDance, it saves a new file of the current data. It should be in Finder with the extension used by MoneyDance with a date that indicates the lates files saved. You might lose what wasn’t saved since the last time, but that’s true with every application. I also have a backup external drive Seagate very inexpensive works with Time Machine on iMac.
Been a MD user for 9+ years and while a decent app, support is hit and miss. Feature implementation is almost non-existent but they do jump on bugs – so there’s that. But if you come across any UI or wish list items, chances are they will not implement it any time soon if at all. I’ve had at least 6 feature changes to the UI that were all in high-demand by the user community and all were cancelled never to be implemented. Your best option is to presume WYSIWYG – if it works for you right after install, then you’re probably good to go – but if not, then try something else.
Can Moneydance generate a P&L report similar to Quicken’s Home and Business?
I’ve just moved to MoneyDance for Mac after almost 21 years as a Quicken user. The reasons for my switch:
1. The more recent versions of Quicken don’t support foreign currency transactions and foreign currency bank accounts very well or even at all.
2. Quicken no longer seems so interested in supporting Mac users.
3. I actually kept a separate NetBook computer running a 1999 version of Quicken (on Windows XP Home OS) just for my finances. It did everything I needed, and the old MSi netbook still works perfectly, but I was worried eventually it would crash and then I’d be in a mess.
So after exploring many options and doing my research I decided to give MoneyDance a trial. So far so good. I decided to start by creating a new set of records commencing on December 1st 2015 and so that, if everything went well, from January 1st 2016 I’d stop using Quicken and move over to MoneyDance completely. Main points:
1. I had to manually enter all my data into MoneyDance as importing the data from my 16 year old version of Quicken wasn’t going to be very easy. That was my bad, because I’d not upgraded to newer versions of Quicken.
2. MoneyDance does not have the same quality of charts and reports as my old (1999) Quicken did, but then ironically neither does the current version of Quicken. I miss this.
3. MoneyDance seems to work very smoothly. Very fast on my 2011 MacBook Pro (i7 with 8GB of RAM and running OSX El Capitan fully updated).
4. The automatic stockprice data and exchange rate updates work very well. There are a couple of quirks, but nothing I can’t live with.
5. The Summary page that greets you when you start MoneyDance is excellent. It presents you with all the essential information at a glance.
6. Support is superb so far. I had my question answered extremely well within 24 hours.
7. The only thing I’d like to improve would be the charting stuff. I think this still needs work, e.g. I’d like to have pie charts for my portfolios that showed percentages for each stock. Also better bar charts for net-worth and assets vs liabilities and income vs expense etc.
If you’re a Mac user who wants to do their finances on a Mac, and also have multicurrency headaches, then I highly recommend you take a look at MoneyDance. It’s great value for money.
Jonathan.
MoneyDance is awful and a complete waste of money. I too used Quicken98 until I changed to a 16 bit machine and it was no longer avalaible. After shopping around and using their free trial i settled on MoneyDance as the best of a bad job.
It is very clunky and you have to click on an item 3 times to change an entry, you can not tab through with the tab or enter key. After a couple of years I wanted to move to a Mac but my version was no longer supported and I could not export my information so I had to pay £45 for an upgrade! Now although I can get the new Mac version to import my information the import file starts on 12th May 2016.
Where is my current information? Why do I have to pose my question to a forum instead of getting a quick email response?
As the lead developer behind Moneydance, we all appreciate the thorough and thoughtful review. Thank you Ms. Marquit!
Sean
I have used Quicken 2007 for Mac and previous versions since 1992. In the past, I was able to itemize credit card bills by category along with itemizing my checks and then quickly finding individual categories as year-to-date totals. I was unable to do this with Quicken 2015 for Mac, and was wondering if Moneydance would allow me to do this. I would like further information on this asap since I will have to transfer my Quicken 2015 for Mac to Moneydance in time to work on my 2015 income tax.
Does anyone out there have an answer for this??
I tried to import my historical Quicken data to Moneydance by Exporting Quicken files onto QIF files, and then importing to Moneydance. It didn’t work. I asked for support from Moneydance. They asked me to send my Quicken files to them and they presented me with a “clean” QIF file. However when I imported them into Moneyweb, it was a complete mish-mash of accounts and dates that it was totally irreconcilable. As I rely on historical information, and as Moneydance support was not willing to help any further, (I got a blunt Case Closed message from them) I had to dump Moneydance as an alternative to Quicken.
I’m Moving on. I used Moneydance for years, even getting used to their quirky way of merging downloaded transactions. Then, after an upgrade, Moneydance no longer used the date I entered to make a bill payment, seemingly entering a random date that was as much as a week off the date I’d requested. Another upgrade and it stopped connecting to my bank altogether (BBVA Compass). It took my own Internet investigating to find others having the same issue and discovering that Moneydance hadn’t updated their connection information since 2003. Their support sent me “solutions” they’d sent others, merely changing the name on the emails to make them look personalized. Their solutions don’t work. Goodbye, MD.
Bye bye Quicken essentials…
I had Quicken for Windows for YEARS, worked fine. Then I bought an iMac, got Quicken essentials, thinking it would work the same..nope. No amortizations schedule, arrogant support, excessive pricing.
I tried iBank for a few days, not impressed. I tried Moneydance also for a few days and got very frustrated with the the import of Quicken data, eventually gave up and started from a fresh file…but kept the software. Not very sexy UI, missing the ability to customize (ie remove what I don’t care about from the opening UI), but that’s just it, I love the simplicity, the ability to track my investments (with automatic download of updates) amortization schedule of my loans, data analysis.
With the facebook coupon it will cost you $40 ($75 for Quicken Essentials)..
BTW I am also giving up on TurboTax, which I have been using for over 20 years. I am done with Intuit and their idiotic marketing tactics, superiority complex. Giving H&R block a go next year.
Money Dance has abysmal support. I tried for weeks to get support to migrate my Quicken Essentials data to Money Dance and was never successful. All support is done by email — no real time support to solve intractable problems.
2015 Moneydance has changed from previous versions. I’ve been a reasonably satisfied user until this year and will not upgrade to the new version. The flaw in the program is the lack of retention of automatic setpoints to previous dates (a little like system restore) so that you could roll back the program to a previous date if you made a major error in your entries. Previous versions have had automatic setpoints.
The new version removed the setpoint function and replaced it with a manual backup that you can do, if you remember. There is no reminder. This backup is put in a zip file and there is a fairly complicated mechanism described to actually go back and use it. What used to fool-proof is now a set up for foolish disasters.
Hi Paul,
Just wanted to let you know that the latest update to Moneydance 2015 restores the ability to (automatically, if you like) export backups to a folder of your choice. We still *strongly* recommend using a periodic backup system for all of your data files, as those are better at doing this same job: usually they are incremental and hopefully off-site for additional safety.
Thanks,
Sean (Moneydance developer)
Just close the darn application when you’re done and it will backup automatically, 2021. Computer 101, back up your files externally. Seagate is a small external hard drive auto backups hourly.
Miranda,
Thank you for your review… I found it very helpful. Yes, my plight has been my preference for Quicken and my recent migration to a MacBook.
Moneydance appears to be somewhat similar and given your recommendation, worth the switch.
Since I am really hooked on Quicken’s Budget features, I’m curious whether Moneydance offers time variable budget snapshots; i.e., report tables by month or quarter for every category one might choose.
I’d send you a .png but there’s no way to do that with this format.
Hopefully, you’ll understand what I mean.
Thanks and Cheers,
Paul
This last was a great in-depth review and helped a lot. One thing no one has mentioned is support. I have had such bad experience with Quicken (user 1996-2015). Last support spent 1 1/2 hours working on importing addresses and was finally told Quicken only imported Quicken data files. Then was later told to stop wasting supports time when I tried to help someone else. So my question is how is MD support? Thanks
I use both Quicken 2015 (Windows only) and Moneydance (Mac and Windows) in parallel, double recording because comparing balances and reports helps me spot occasional data and date entry mistakes that I make. I have been on Quicken since 1988 for DOS and on Moneydance for close to 4 years. Here is my take. Both applications are really nice to use and I have little to complain about. The work I do requires that on some days I am on Windows and on other days I am on a Mac. I particularly like that Moneydance works the same way on both operating systems and uses the same file format. For me, that is the best strength of Moneydance. I can sync the file across operating systems and it opens perfectly on the other system when I move over to it. The new Quicken for Mac doesn’t offer the same functionality as Quicken for Windows and uses different file formats on the two operating systems. That is a big disappointment. For that reason, I use Quicken only on Windows. Moneydance has a big downside in that some banks refuse to acknowledge it and support it. Moneydance software works anyway most of the time because the banks don’t seem to know or care that it isn’t Quicken connecting to them for transactions and payments. However, Banks occasionally make interface changes that break client applications and when that happens, banks work quickly with Intuit to make things right but they are reluctant to make any effort to help non-Quicken users. When I have asked, banks have told me, “Sorry, we only support Quicken.” (I am talking about Chase, Citibank, SFFCU and BofA). Even then, Moneydance works most of the time. A few months after a compatibility problem starts happening, problems sometimes just clear up by themselves for me. I suspect that Moneydance staff or Moneydance users might be working behind the scenes to help. I wish banks and credit card issuers would be more open-minded about use of non-Intuit software. Quicken software is much faster at account reconciliation from imported transactions, requiring fewer manual steps, but Moneydance does a better job at matching tricky transaction differences even though it is somewhat of a manual process on Moneydance. Reporting is quite good on both apps but Quicken has an easier-to-use reporting interface. Bulk transaction editing is more comprehensive in Moneydance; it is not a native feature but comes from a third-party free add-in. Only Moneydance enables one electronic payee to have multiple account numbers, which is useful for example when different members of a family go to the same doctor but each has a different billing account number, or when doctor offices change all of our account numbers (which happens from time to time). In those situations, Quicken requires me to set up separate payees for each family member and for each account number change, so Moneydance offers a better solution… except for one problem. Going into Moneydance’s menu to set up or edit an online payee takes forever and a day. Moneydance’s report tool is very capable and their graphing tool is extra good to have, but custom reporting using Quicken is easier to set up and tweak. If I could choose only one product, it would be Quicken, and that would be problematic for those days I am only on the Mac. I really like using Moneydance but I cannot give up Quicken because I am totally dependent on having 100% bank support always for electronic transaction downloads and payments and transfers. I have tried other products in the past few years and each offers its particular advantages but they all did a poor job of historical Quicken file imports — Moneydance is the best of the bunch and only needed manual intervention on old IRA/401K transactions — and the other apps did badly at bank and credit card reconciliation, reporting adequately for tax purposes, and bank connectivity.
Reading the above and comparing it with my own experiences is disheartening. Having to run two software packages, bank support issues, software support issues…
Computers are supposed to make life easier. Unfortunately, the financial sectors’ implementation of software solutions has been convoluted across the board. Banks’ Web payment methods are clunky at best and many times buggy. Software “upgrades” often are not. The last decent financial package I used was Managing Your Money by Mecca software. I migrated to Moneydance when I went to a Mac but their last two “upgrades” are buggy in a key area (the software doesn’t honor the date on which you want a bill to be paid). It’s a known issue that just doesn’t seem to get fixed.
Thank you for helping me take a step in the right direction: going back to paying bills with my checkbook.
I’d give the newest Quicken for Mac a spin. Based on what I have read, it is much improved. I find QFW2016 a big step up from managing my checkbook register in a positive way.
Many thanks for the extensive writeup on Quicken vs Moneydance. I’m one of those in the predicament of having 20 years of data and using Quicken 2006 (New Zealand version) and have looked everywhere for an option to move so that I don’t have to run Parallels on my mac just to run Quicken. I have the added problem that the data off my quicken version won’t import into US versions so I may have to just archive it and refer back to it on parallels which would pain me greatly. I find it hugely helpful to be able to go over 20 years of financial data at times.
The problem for me is that I like the quicken investment accounting and reporting and also the customization of the reports available in quicken. I have yet to find another program outside of quicken that can do that as well. A lot of the US based programs like Personal Capital won’t even work outside the US.
May give money dance a go, people on this website talk highly of it.
After I bought my new iMac I purchased Quicken 2015 for Mac and am very disappointed with it. I have been using Quicken 2007 for Mac for years and love it. The 2015 version has been stripped of all its greatest features. Can you tell me if you can use classes with Moneydance? I need to be able to generate reports: income statements, balance sheets and investment reports such as capital gains. I also really loved the report details you can generate with Quicken 2007. I’m considering purchasing Parallels so I can run Quicken for the PC, or can I achieve these things with Moneydance?
Thanks for you review! I am desperate to find something to run on my Mac, Tried Budget Tracker. Did not like it. Quicken Essential for Mac is a joke. One question on the budget feature. Can you set up a budget with different amounts each month in a category. For instance, can i budget “X” amount for insurance in the months it is due and “0” in other months?
Under your review summary, you mention, “You can try it for free, up to 100 transactions, or pay $49 a month.” Is it really $49 per month or $49 one time?
One time fee.
Im so confused, I’m seeing monthly everywhere but on the website it doesn’t say anything about paying monthly.
It is a one time fee. There is no monthly activity and the program does NOT time out and folks are using very old versions with success.
I have been looking for a solid product that can track all my accounts and investments on a mac but yet to find one. I will give these guys a look thanks