Our thanks to Dave Schlicher for presenting his views on alternatives to Quicken at our last User Group Meeting. The following is my summary of his talk – don’t hesitate to ping me if there are any errors or misunderstandings contained in the following.
Tried Three Products in Parallel
Caveat: Not an accountant – and not a tax expert. Also – does not own stock in any of the companies.
Why not Quicken ?
Quicken 2007 no longer will work under Lion – so the only alternative is Quicken Essentials – which will. BUT
Though it is easy to make the transition, it is not a good solution.
- Intuit has not treated mac users very well
- Quicken 1998 and 2002 have both been killed off before
- The Quicken product on the Mac was always a poor second to windows machine
- Quicken recommends changing format of data downloads – this ‘cannot’ be a good idea
- What is the future for Quicken ? Unknown
- All of this with the CEO sitting on the board of Apple
- Investment tracking limited
- Bill paying never imported
- Data import only under Snow Leopard
- If you put data into the product – will you be able to get it out ?
- It is the ‘Roach hotel of data’. YOu can get data in – but to get it out VERY gnarly
- CSV data files can be used – but complicated
- Perl being used to clean up data – too hard
- Proprietary format – but it is your finances we are talking about.
- For as little it does and need for flexibility in moving data around – not recommended.
iBank and Moneywell
- are both well regarded programs
- both handle budgeting
- both offer iPhone apps
- both free input and export
Trial in money dance – written in Java – so started away
iBank – igg software – 4.2.5 is latest version
- Comprehensive number of account types
- Auto downloads
- Multiple currencies
Moneywell – 1.6.8
- Overall more limited
- V2 under dev for a year – and still not ready
- In Moneywell, budgeting idea is integral to design
Importing data – both worked well though Moneywell a little bit better it handled reconciliation
- IBank can’t change account type on the fly – Moneywell can
Transaction entry
- Quicken good at entering data
- Both iBank and Moneywell have failings
Reconciling
- IBank not as easy
Budgeting
- Money well makes it as easy as it possibly can be
- But maybe so tied into budgeting that if you don’t use it, could be problematic
Support
- Excellent for both
- How To videos and documents are good
Conclusion
- Both are a real change
- Neither an exact fit – but both will work
- Entered the trial with a bias for Moneywell
- But with usage gravitated to iBank
- Moneywell v 2 will be Lion only – WHEN it is available
Another review to compare the two
