Moneydance 2010 for Mac arrives; another personal finance alternative

I've been a Quicken user on Windows for 10 years but switched to a Mac about a year and a half ago. I've been using Quicken on a Windows VM since then. I decided to have a go at finding a replacement and evaluated iBank, GnuCash, Moneywell and Moneydance. I dismissed Quicken essentials after reading the rather paltry feature list.

iBank looks great and so does MoneyWell but they were so slow that they were unusable for me. Maybe I have too much history imported. GnuCash is free but just isn't there yet, feature-wise. They all had trouble importing my QIF file.

I went with Moneydance for a number of reasons. Cross-platform, blazing fast performance, correct import of my QIF file, all the features I need, and a reasonable price. I honestly don't know what the Java issue is on here; on my relatively new iMac it outperformed every other finance app I tried.

I love the home page on Moneydance; clean and relevant. Intuit just tried to cram too much stuff into a small space. The Moneydance trial is very liberal too; I had plenty of time to make sure it met my needs.

Graphing is a little rudimentary with Moneydance but it's adequate. Split transactions don't have their own memo fields. The interface is a little different than what I'm used. Not much, just a little. Not really much else I can complain about.

I'm not sure why iBank, Moneywell, and GnuCash were so slow but it was a strong reason why I stayed away. They were all also missing at least one key feature I needed. Moneydance isn't perfect, but it's close enough for me.

iBank, Moneydance, Moneywell are all good options. Intuit is releasing Quicken Essentials for Mac next month so that should be interesting to see. There's some information here on Mac finance software: http://www.financesoftwarestore.com/mac-personal-finance-software-comparison.html.

Right I'm using Parallels + Microsoft Money 2007. I tried Moneydance and a couple other mac products, but none of them seemed to work as well as Money.

condoms

I replaced Quicken for Mac a while back with Moneydance and have used it since early 2008. Moneydance feels a lot more stable and less tedious than Quicken for Mac ever did... but somehow the interface isn't conducive to an easy financial management program. At least with Quicken I stayed on top of things, but with Moneydance I somehow wind up paying bills online and reconciling my accounts every 3-4 months. Not very effective.

I've been very interested in trying iBank. I used iBiz a while for freelance web development work, and somehow felt "constrained" by the interface. I think iBank is a bit better in that regard. However, what's really missing from iBank and most of the financial managers for Mac is a simple "How Am I Doing?" report that lists a summary of the previous month's financial highlihgts. If I'm spending more in one category than I should be, what my Net Worth is and how that may have changed, if I've skipped check numbers (not that I write checks any more, but you know), and perhaps other financial facts that the program can draw from my data. This was one of the most amazing features of MS Money, and I've missed it since I converted to Mac in 2005.

Until then, I'm still likely going to try iBank as a New Year's resolution to stay more focused on finances.

I've tried many personal finance programs for the Mac. I've long used Quicken, but I got sick of the floating windows in the 2007 mac release. I switched to Gnucash, but I didn't like the lack of import and export in QIF. I tried iBank, but, and I know this is a personal issue, I found the interface ugly, and the budgeting feature was incredibly rudimentary.

I finally settled on MoneyWell. MoneyWell is a tremendous tool for budgeting, and that's the main thing I use personal finance software for. In terms of watching what you're spending, MoneyWell can't be beat.

I do, however, still maintain a Moneydance file as well. I've been using Moneydance off and on for ten years. I like that it's platform independent. If anything happened to me personally and financially, and I had to abandon my Macs in favor of some cheap windows machine, I would still be able to open and use my Moneydance file. That makes maintaining two sets of data worth it to me. Moneydance 2010 also looks great. I've upgraded, and I'm looking forward to their iPhone app.

If I were forced to choose, I would probably choose MoneyWell, but I'm not, so I'll be using both.

I'm really happy with iBank. The desktop app is reasonable: easy to use for the basics with enough power under the covers to do the more complex tasks if you need them. The iPhone app is excellent and the integration between the two is great.

I just use a spreadsheet in Numbers.

I'd like it.

Count me in as one more frustrated Quicken Mac user, desperate to find an alternative. I did try iBank, liked it a lot, except the lack of direct bill pay from within the app made it frustrating, I just don't like to have to deal with 'double entry', even if I'm using my bank's online payment site. So I also tried Moneydance ... good news is that it does enable direct bill pay, bad news is that it is really slow, feels bloated, and has had far more tendency to crash than did Quicken Mac or iBank. I think that when iBank enables direct bill pay, perhaps in next version, it'd be a winner.