I was just wondering what software do people use to manage and keep track of their financial affairs? Right now I have a fairly well developed set of Excel sheets but I'm just interested in what other people are using and the advantages in switching over.
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H Telomar. Well, I'm sorry to inform you, but the Mac has NO real good personal finance managers. The only real one, with direct connect functionality - limited to very few financial institutions, is Quicken, which is a total pile of junk. Intuit just release Quicken 2007 for Mac and it's not a universal binary (Intel native) which just goes to show you Intuit's level of commitment to the Mac platform. Intuit has a monopoly on this market.
It's funny that there's still a major void in this market... to make matters worse for me, I'm in Canada and NONE of the other packages have support for Canadian banks, etc. I still use MS Money on Windows for my financial management...
MoneyWorks Cashbook is quite pricey.
Moneydance seems to claim some online banking features but I can't test how well they work.
This company has a range of solutions but they look a bit basic.
iBank also has some importing features.
CheckBook looks a bit basic.
Last up Liquid Ledger
So I guess the question is what features do people value most in their accounting software? I was looking because I wanted something that would ultimately help simplify my tax and keep track of important receipts for warranties, currently I scan them and link them back to Excel, but I'd like to know what other people use frequently and how I could possibly improve how I do things.
Not crash, not be hard to use, not be a general pain... I had the *worst* time with Quicken 2004, and it hadn't improved in the previous five years since I started using Quicken in '99. Has it improved any, or is it still pretty much a steaming pile of poo?
well, the first mac version of quicken that I used was 2006. I run an iBook G4 with 1GB of RAM. No crashes that I can recall. I don't find it particularly difficult to use. But then again, I don't have the frame of reference that you do. Nor do I have much experience using quicken on windows. I'm not defending Quicken for Mac, but then again, I don't understand the complaints against it either. I would be interested to hear some specific complaints. What I have heard is that the Windows version is soooo much better... when I get my next Mac, one that dual boots, I will see.
Well, this was back in the OS9 days, mostly, but when you have to make sure you backup your entire dataset prior to *every damned launch* because it has a nasty habit of corrupting said dataset on crashing, which it does *often*... it's a PITA.
Admittedly, Quicken 2004 (the only experience I have since it came with my iBook) didn't crash that I can remember but it's still a pig to use. I have no Windows experience using Quicken either, but compared to MS Money, it's junk IMHO.