What is the best personal finance software for Mac?

You may want to check out.


1. iBank from Igg Software
2. Moneywell from nothirst software
3. Moneydance from Infinite Kind
4. Cha Ching from from Midnight Apps

ANYTHING BUT QUICKEN
i use ibank 3.x its nice but not complete, for example when i run a report it gives a total, but when you print (gliches, so i make a pdf to send to my cpa) it doesn't give you a total, they have fixed bugs which shorten the search. they best thing is the ease of downloads and the import rules that auto fillin the category etc.
i wish it was as good as quicken 03 in making reports and category summaries with the ease of downloads and import rules of ibank.

ibank also syncs with your iphone but i never used it, just in case my iphone is stolen.

with ibank, i wish it would auto place category when i put in the payee.
do a better job printing, print the registry with a total. now i make a pdf send to my cpa and I PUT the total (my cpa trusts me)

the online types, i don't think let you make category summary reports, which i need for business.

someone needs to make a full review of these

there is also mint, but you get adds of suggestions for credit cards etc.

I use Excel.

I created a custom spreadsheet to track my finances. I never liked using other products (I tried most of them).

Just wanted to jot my thoughts on iBank 3.4.1 (the most current version as of this post) and how I got to it. I've completed my first year as a Mac "switcher" and am getting off the Windows bottle soon. The last two things are MS Money replacement and of course, the most important, UT3!

If you Google "Mac Financial apps", you'll find a few articles about there not being a good finance app for Mac, how Quicken sucks, and how MS Money is still the best finance app out there. Alot of negative reviews about iBank as well and that was for prior versions and releases. I downloaded a lot of Mac finance demos and some were insanely humorous by calling themselves a finance app or an MS Money killer. Most of them were still "in initial development".

The two I came down to testing more in-depth were MoneyDance and iBank 3. Honestly, I have a Mac and want my software to look like Mac and not like an old Linux program. With the vast reconciliation improvement from iBank 3.4 to 3.4.1(still think it should be bumped all the way to 3.5), the new reconcile feature is what sold it for me. I use the iPhone app and understand a new widget is forthcoming, so all the development to refine and add new features to a more functional software is very encouraging to me.


Nice Bells and Whistles:
*iCal integration-Having the option to send to iCal when setting up Scheduled Transactions is imperative for me because I sync with Google on my iPhone and have paid late fees simply because I didn't get a reminder in time to set the BillPay via Bank Of America. Since I can pay bills on my iPhone with the BofA app, this is a saving grace for me.

*Category Pictures-Very original idea and it helps me to see spending at a glance and to even find unique pics to use by simple copy/paste of the pic I want.

*Initial QIF import-The initial export from MS Money was flawless coming into iBank. Three other apps I tried for Mac really mangled up the numbers and didn't import everything, or worse, skipped alot of transactions and mis-categorized them. iBank handled it perfectly and scored major points with me.

*Forum support-It's important to me to have access to support, even if solely by email. The fact that the Support team is ACTIVE on the forums and available via email, and takes our requests, complaints, and suggestions speak highly of the software company. Sure, we may not always get the answer we want or think we should have gotten, but I have to remember that I'm not a software developer who knows the boundaries and limits of code writing. :wink: I know what I would like the software to do and have the confidence that it can be suggested and possible implemented.

Overall, I am content with iBank. I believe with the active development AND the active input of the end-users, iBank will certainly become the MS Money killer it needs to be.

i have the same ibank 3 upgrade still the above is all well and good BUT
i must make category reports for my cpa every quarter
when i get a category summary IT DOESN'T PUT THE TOTAL AMOUNT IN THE LIST LIKE A REGULAR CHECK BOOK summary or like quicken did.....so i have to have my cpa really trust me
my work around
i prep the summary then "print" put in pdf format attach it to my email and MANUALLY PUT THE TOTAL NEXT TO THE PDF, thank goodness my cpa trusts me. also the other formats don't work, and depending on the set up cuts off the last column or two so the standard view excludes the line by line amount. gee, i am enduring this because quicken sucks so much.

so to show the amount i "print" (pdf) in landscape mode, move the amount colums over a couple of spaces )looks weird and manually place the amount of the summary

the best feature for ibank??? the memorized, auto category for imports that keep me with ibank

IBANK IT NEEDS TO BE A FUNCTIONAL FORMAT FOR MY REPORTS ANY REPORTS, OK, GET THE TOTAL IN THERE SOMEWAY....OK its got to be useful to accountants its got to have this basic function
IBANK ARE YOU LISTENING????

just a thought maybe make a screen shot and attach that as well, GEE all these work arounds to get a summary report in some reasonable format for my cpa, i'm not the only one needing this, this should be a standard simple function of all personal finance apps....but ibank is still better than that mess called quicken, if money was ported to mac i'd consider that ...... less wizbang and more standard functionality but i will still use ibank till a better thing comes up since quicken is so much junk...i said that already...needs to be said again QUICKEN SUCKS

I have never done online banking but I'm getting the urge. Is there any rule of thumb to help me understand if software packages will interface with my bank? For example, my bank's website says their electronic banking is compatible with Quicken, QuickBooks and MS Money. Is there anything I can assume from that statement on whether something like iBank, Moneywell, or others would also work?

i looked at online vendors my issues

how many years do you have access to
printing reports, category summaries for my taxes and cpa
backups
when you change what format is your data and how much for that data backup disk, download etc,
will it interface with other software

basically you'll need to call customer service with your questions because most of the online vendors don't have all these questions answered

i do online banking, but they have no way to add categories or print reports and it makes a "check image" but you can download in several formats, but i need to keep at least 5 years data so i download to ibank and back up to idisk

Just curious: doesn't your bank provides in-house developed software for downloading and off-line managing your financial data?

I don't think they provide software but do have a decent web portal for online banking. I guess I'm of the mindset that real software is almost always more comprehensive, convenient, and useful than a web portal so that's why I'm looking for opinions on things like Quicken, Moneydance, Moneywell, etc.

BTW, my bank is Fifth Third ( www.53.com ). So far I know that transactions download from my bank into all of these software packages. I haven't yet figured out what will upload to Fifth Third. My goal is to get some learned opinions from folks before I take $40 to $50 plunges with software licenses only to find down the road it's not what I need and/or want.