Quicken for Mac 2017 v4.2.1 Released

jacobs

smayer97 (QM2007, CDN user since '92) said:

I'm greatly disappointed in the latest report format. Quicken Marcus originally replied here that they were working on the Columnar report format because it was the "top requested item", as requested here: https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/in-quicken-2007-i-can-create-custom-reports-with... only to deliver a Year-Over-Year Comparison report format. NOT THE SAME!!!

Not a single one of my required features has yet been implemented since QM2015 was released in Sep 2014. This is one of my top hold outs before being able to move off of QM2007 (among several others).

You may want to add your VOTE for the Columnar Report format, at the link above.

Be sure to click on the link to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page to increase the count and therefore its visibility to the developers.

If you do not click VOTE at the top of the page of each feature, your vote will NOT be counted!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

 

smayer97, note that Marcus says "a top priority," not "the top priority." Small but important difference. I imagine there are probably  to 10 things that are on his "top priority" list. (Elsewhere in this thread, he described loan amortization as "the top requested feature.")

Marcus has explained in the past that the top request doesn't always translate into first-to-be-done. They may decide to do three smaller things than one large thing. One one large thing may be easier to implement than another large thing. Often, it involves which individual programmer on the team is working on what, since their skills or areas of expertise aren't equally interchangeable.

I can think of three reasons they may have done comparison reports first. (1) More people requested comparison reports -- after all, it was something people could vote on on the main Feedback page, unlike columnar reports. (2) It was faster to build, using the current reports framework. (3) Comparison reports is an easy concept for people to understand, and they very much needed a feature they could use to market Quicken 2017 (note that it's the first bullet point on the quicken.com page for what's new in 2017).

Since, like you, there are many things I have been hoping will be improved with reports -- from more flexibility in including/exclusion of columns to subtotals that appear on the bottom instead of the top -- I'm just hoping that they did the comparison reports now as a way of delivering a feature people have been asking for, but plan to do a more significant overhaul to the report engine in the future. 

jacobs

Drew said:

Having a couple issues with 2017 so far:

1.  As with 2016, I'm backing up my 2017 files (using "Save a Backup) to my iCloud drive.  I'm finding that in contrast to 2016, which would back up and sync in a minute or two (1.2GB file), the 2017 files is taking at least 15 minutes to backup and sync.  I tried one right after the other, and the behavior of the 2017 file is problematic.  I've tried on two different fast internet connections with no change.

2.  The 2017 file backup has a blank white icon.

That's it for now.

Drew, have you also just upgraded to macOS Sierra? Just wondering if it's a macOS issue.

What happens if you Save a Backup to a location on your Mac that is local and not on iCloud? Does that go quickly? If you then drag that file to iCloud or a folder saved in iCloud, does that go slowly or quickly? I'm just trying to suggest steps that might point a finger to where the problem is.

jacobs

Tanja Cucuz Bolen said:

my old quicken quit working when I upgraded mac. I just purchase 2017 but can't seem to get it to open and update my old version

Tanja, just to be clear, Quicken 2017 won't do anything to your old Quicken Essentials application, or even your data file. What it will do -- should do -- is import that Quicken Essentials data file and convert it into a Quicken 2017 data file.

So, repeating what Marcus asks above, if you simply double-click on the Quicken 2017 application, what exactly happens? You should get to a Let's Get Started screen giving you a list of several choices, one of which is to start from a Quicken Essentials file. Then you'd navigate to your existing data file, select it, and Quicken 2017 would import and convert it. 

jacobs

Zoolook said:

Can you track loans?

And, as our political candidates remind us every 10 seconds, college loans, too!

smayer97

Doug Hensley said:

Quicken Marcus, are there plans to Automate the Scheduled Transactions (like in QM 2007)?

What do you mean by "Automate"?

jacobs

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

Marcus: And, as many people have pointed out, budgets need to have a way to include transfers. Paying loans are transfers, so they're excluded from the budget -- but home paying home loans, auto loans, and college loans are a major component in many people's budgets the Quicken Mac currently doesn't allow. (Similarly, if people want to budget to transfer money to savings -- whether it's a savings bank account, an IRA, or investments which are savings -- there needs to be a way to include transfers of funds to savings in a budget as well.)

smayer97

Steve Ascheman said:

I'd like to know if one of my annoyances with the Reconcile process has been fixed since Quicken 2015 for Mac, which I'm still using.  When I'm reconciling transactions, I hate how a split transaction pops open when trying to click (reconcile) the transaction.  I would like to just be able to go down the list and click on transactions without split transactions popping open.  I don't need to see how a split transaction is coded . . . I just want to check it and move on to the next transaction.  Does that make sense?

For those interested, you can add your Vote for the feature for automatic remainder calculation to split transactions, here: https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-automatic-remainder-calculation-to-split-tra...

Be sure to click on the link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page to increase the count and therefore its visibility to the developers.

If you do not click VOTE at the top of the page, your vote will NOT be counted!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

smayer97

smayer97 (QM2007, CDN user since '92) said:

I'm greatly disappointed in the latest report format. Quicken Marcus originally replied here that they were working on the Columnar report format because it was the "top requested item", as requested here: https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/in-quicken-2007-i-can-create-custom-reports-with... only to deliver a Year-Over-Year Comparison report format. NOT THE SAME!!!

Not a single one of my required features has yet been implemented since QM2015 was released in Sep 2014. This is one of my top hold outs before being able to move off of QM2007 (among several others).

You may want to add your VOTE for the Columnar Report format, at the link above.

Be sure to click on the link to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page to increase the count and therefore its visibility to the developers.

If you do not click VOTE at the top of the page of each feature, your vote will NOT be counted!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

 

ok. fair enough..."a" vs "the"...and I understand size vs effort vs results/impact. Thx.

smayer97

Drew said:

Having a couple issues with 2017 so far:

1.  As with 2016, I'm backing up my 2017 files (using "Save a Backup) to my iCloud drive.  I'm finding that in contrast to 2016, which would back up and sync in a minute or two (1.2GB file), the 2017 files is taking at least 15 minutes to backup and sync.  I tried one right after the other, and the behavior of the 2017 file is problematic.  I've tried on two different fast internet connections with no change.

2.  The 2017 file backup has a blank white icon.

That's it for now.

is it repeatable at different times of the day, different days, etc? consider internet related issues too - traffic bottle necks, ISP issues, etc.

jacobs

Concordman said:

No not at the present

Megnmac: on the main Quicken Mac webpage, if you scroll down just a little, you'll see "What’s new in Quicken for Mac 2017":

• Compare your income and spending against year over year with custom reports
• Pay your bills in Quicken, now includes Quicken Bill Pay* service for small, regional banks (fees apply)
• Get our more powerful mobile app, now with investment tracking, offline use & enhanced search*
• Enjoy a new look that’s easier to use and navigate
• Convert from Quicken Windows to Quicken Mac with just one click*

If you're one of the customers who has been chomping at the bit for Quicken Bill Pay, this upgrade may be worth the cost to you. If you use the mobile app but have been frustrated by its limited functionality int he past, this upgrade may be worth the cost for you. But for many Quicken 2016 customers, there isn't much that's compelling at the moment to justify the immediate purchase of Quicken 2017.

As in the past two years, they will add more features in .1, .2, .3, etc. releases over the course of the next 9 or 10 months, and some of those features may make it a more compelling upgrade. For instance, if loan amortization gets added in a release next March, then it will suddenly be more valuable to users who have been waiting for this feature. There's no one-size-fits-all answer -- it really depends on how each person uses Quicken and what features are important to them.

They released Quicken 2017 because 12 months have passed and they do this every 12 months. Unlike the old days, they don't wait a year and release a bunch of new stuff; they release new stuff throughout the year, so the new annual release is really just an incremental change at the time it's released. (Among other reasons, the annual releases create a cycle of retiring older versions 3.5 years down the road, as it's very expensive to keep updating old versions to work with changing bank procedures and security standards.)

No one is forcing Quicken 2016 users to upgrade. If you look at what's new and it doesn't seem to help you, then keep using Quicken 2016. The onus is on Quicken to continue to release new updates with enough compelling improvements to drive people to want to purchase the new version; until they do, there's no reason not to sit on your wallet and keep using your existing version.

smayer97

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

You can now VOTE for the feature to Include or Exclude Transfers on Budgets, here: 
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-transfers-on-b...

Be sure to click on the link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page to increase the count and therefore its visibility to the developers.

If you do not click VOTE at the top of the page, your vote will NOT be counted!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

pauldv172

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

I am missing something with having to include transfers in budgets. I use categories and have yet found a problem with it. When I purchase something it gets a catagory assigned to it whether it is paid by my checking account or any one of several charge cards. Transfers included, in my mind would potentially double your budget.

jacobs

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

Pauldv172: You're correct about not wanting to include credit card payments in your budget, since they duplicate the itemized transactors in your credit card account. That's why Quicken programmed the budget to exclude funds transfers.

The problem comes in for certain types of transfer that people actually do need to budget for. The most obvious is loan payments. When you pay a home loan, car loan, student loan, your transaction is typically in your checking account as a split between interest expense and a transfer to the liability account. In the budget, the transfer is excluded, because it's a funds transfer. But unlike paying the credit card bill, this is something people need to incorporate into their budget planning, and there's currently no good way to do that. Another example is when someone wants to budget to transfer money to savings each month or quarter or year; there's currently no way to do that, either. So the Quicken developers will need to implement some user interface to allow people to selectively include transfers on an account-by-account basis, or to create some additional budget lines for loans or savings that aren't tied to expense categories.

jacobs

ozarkcanoer said:

Installed 2017 this evening.  Some things are quicker like initial launching and securities price download.  I noticed that the saved backup file is much smaller than the database.quicken2017 file. Mine is 155Mb and the backup is 86Mb.  Why the difference?  So far so good. Will see how it handles the next batch of transactions when they download.

Larry, Quicken always saves a backup copy of your existing database inside your data file when you install a new version that requires the database to be updated. And sometimes it had accumulated several generations of backups. Since there's nothing an end-user can do to access or use that backup file, they made a change in the Quicken 2016 3.5 release which "dramatically reduced file size by eliminating unused data backups stored in the file."

Unknown

Let's be clear.  Macintosh Quicken went thru a revolution last year!  Because of that I am going to settle for the "annual" upgrade payment to KEEP THE new programmers programming away!.

I have used Macintosh Quicken 2016 all year long and it has been a payment tool god-send.  Being a Quicken user since day one practically (first version on Macintosh) it is critical that I can easily continue to manage all of my account balances and payments in one single application.  The lack of a good Macintosh Quicken for a long time sent me to Windows Quicken using VMWARE on Macintosh and that was just silly.

Keep up the good work guys! (I never could figure out how to setup my auto-pay on my mortgage for the interest and principle, I hope I will see that in this version or updates).

pauldv172

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

Got it. Thankfully I have no loans at this time so I have not run into that issue. Guess I can't get a loan or I won't be able to budget for it

pauldv172

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

Another thought. If the split is categorized as auto interest and auto payment and those 2 categories are included in the budget doesn't that accomplish it

Unknown

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

Yesterday I had an option for a $10 reduction in price   today it is gone... I am being asked to pay the full price.  What gives?

jacobs

opt said:

Was hoping that 2017 would be the year for budgets with account selection options. How about it?

Paul, yes if you do it that way, but it's really the wrong solution. Paying the loan down isn't an expense category, it's a transfer to a liability account. I suppose if a user doesn't want to keep track of the amount of their loan, they could do what you say, and just treat the loan principle payment each month as an expense -- and then it would show up in the budget. But most people will want to enter their loan as a liability account, and each month reduce the liability by the amount of principle they are paying. That's a transfer from checking to the loan account, and it does NOT show up in the budget. Make sense now?

Unknown

ozarkcanoer said:

I've purchased QMac 2017 at the reduced price - thank you - but haven't installed it yet.  Want to make sure I've got backups of QMac 2016 and its database backups on TimeMachine first.  Will Quicken Mac 2016 continue to work including investment & bank transaction downloads?

Spend the money wisely!

I’d like to know where it is too...

Unknown

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

try this link, then use the Products pull-down for Q for Mac

https://www.quicken.com/whats-new-quicken?t=1&priorityCode=1337900000&utm_medium=cpc&cid=ppc_gg_nb_stan_402-5276342-4703410&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=CUS__Quicken%20GDN%20Remarketing

Unknown

ozarkcanoer said:

I've purchased QMac 2017 at the reduced price - thank you - but haven't installed it yet.  Want to make sure I've got backups of QMac 2016 and its database backups on TimeMachine first.  Will Quicken Mac 2016 continue to work including investment & bank transaction downloads?

Spend the money wisely!

Try here, then use the Pructs pull-down for Mac

https://www.quicken.com/whats-new-quicken?t=1&priorityCode=1337900000&utm_medium=cpc&cid=ppc_gg_nb_stan_402-5276342-4703410&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=CUS__Quicken%20GDN%20Remarketing

jacobs

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

Dave, I think it's one of those damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't problems. they probably try to avoid spamming people with the upgrade message every single time you launch Quicken -- people complain about that. But clearly, there has to be a way to get back to the discount upgrade offer, and it's not discoverable.

I would suggest contacting Chat Support, which is open 24x7. My guess is that they will be able to process the order with the $10 discount. (If you do this, and it works -- or doesn't -- could you take a minute to post back here to let others know if this works.) Unfortunately, with the release of Quicken 2017 for Mac and Windows this past week, there are likely to be longer than normal wait times this weekend, so maybe try to do this when you have something else to do on the side while waiting to move up the queue!

jacobs

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

Bo: That URL you posted doesn't work. It just takes me to the What's New page on the Quicken website. The Products pull-down shows me Quicken Mac at the regular, full price.

Unknown

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

Hmm, ok when I pull it down it's 64.99.  I had googled Q for Mac 2017 and all of the computer sites I visit now have ads linking to the $10 off.  Maybe it's computer-specific

Unknown

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

Maybe this?  Googled it again and followed the "AD" link for quicken.com

https://www.quicken.com/personal-finance/quicken-mac-2017?t=1&priorityCode=1337900000&utm_medium=cpc&cid=ppc_gg_b_stan_402-5275388-5468931&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=CUS__Brand%20Mac%20Exact%20-%20New

Unknown

Robert B said:

I too am feeling taken advantage of.  Less than a year ago I purchased QM2016, it has never worked totally and now you offer a $10 discount to upgrade.  The term robbery comes to mind?

I’ve tried both these URL’s and only get $74.99...  I’ll try to google it myself to see what I get.

Unknown

Tanja Cucuz Bolen said:

my old quicken quit working when I upgraded mac. I just purchase 2017 but can't seem to get it to open and update my old version

Have quicken essentials v. 1.7.4. Will I be able to upgrade this with Quicken 2017? I am currently running MAC el capitain. And want to upgrade to Sierra.

Concordman

Tanja Cucuz Bolen said:

my old quicken quit working when I upgraded mac. I just purchase 2017 but can't seem to get it to open and update my old version

Yo should be fine, do the upgrade to Qm17 , make sure all is working for you , then do the MacOS Sierra upgrade from el Capitan

Unknown

RCinNJ said:

I am amazed that more users here don't seem to be as disappointed as I am. Users have been reporting major problems for months and yet I only see a few new features with no mention of fixing what is broken in QM2016! I am so done. Also, I echo the posts about looking more like Windows being a downgrade, not an improvement.

I would be grateful for any recommendations for a Mac alternative.

Banktivity