Quicken for Mac v6.0 Released

Scott Rose

I totally agree that Apple's iOS design decisions make very little sense on the desktop.

Rich August

I agree as well. Please provide at least the option for more contrast on the menu bar. I've generally found that many of the changes to a "modern" UI design by both Apple and Microsoft are to the detriment of usability and efficiency.

User251646

> @rundrbillrun said:
> Just installed v6.0 and 6.1 for the Mac. Checking account balances have changed and they no longer reconcile with my Union bank account. Anyone having this problem?

When I tried to reconcile my Union bank account under 6.0.1, the starting balance in Quicken did not match the ending balance from my last Union bank statement. With Quicken 2007, I could look at previous monthly reconciliations and find out which month had a problem (usually operator error resulting in an accidental deletion of a reconciled transaction), but with the new Quicken I had to create an adjustment to get the reconciliation back in sync. I went back through 12 months of statements, but I could not find a transaction on the Union statement that was missing from Quicken. I still suspect the difference was caused by operator error, but It’s frustrating that I couldn’t find the cause.

Will

caram

Payees & Rules > QuickFill Rules

Is there any reason why it's not possible to sort by Category, Tag, Memo or Amount?

There is no such issue for Payees and Renaming Rules. 

jacobs

@caram  You should create a new Idea post for this functionality in the Product Ideas section, so people can vote for it and hopefully get it to the attention of the developers. I'd vote for it.

smayer97

@User251646 Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Track/store Prior Reconciled Statements/periods.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

caram

jacobs said:

@caram  You should create a new Idea post for this functionality in the Product Ideas section, so people can vote for it and hopefully get it to the attention of the developers. I'd vote for it.

@jacobs, I don't think it's a new idea. I think it's simple a bug/oversight/broken functionality. There is no obvious reason that the other two tabs in the same window have full table sorting by any column, only not this one.

You could nonetheless upvote this post.

PS. It's a little frustrating that I can no longer report problems using the Help/Report a Problem... feature.

caram

SplitView

I'm noticing some different behavior between QM windows, related to SplitView. An important feature, in particular on smaller screens:

1. SplitView between QM main window and, let's say, Safari: NOK. The QM window will occupy half the screen, but you will never be able to select the 2nd window.
2. SplitView between QM Reconcile window and, e.g. Safari: mostly OK. Contrarily to 1. above, the 2 windows will happily stand side-by-side. But if you try to change the ratio from 50-50 to something different, both windows will suddenly each enter full screen. Not quite the expected behavior.

Maybe the adaption to BigSur would be a good opportunity to address this semi-working feature?

jacobs

caram said:

jacobs said:

@caram  You should create a new Idea post for this functionality in the Product Ideas section, so people can vote for it and hopefully get it to the attention of the developers. I'd vote for it.

@jacobs, I don't think it's a new idea. I think it's simple a bug/oversight/broken functionality. There is no obvious reason that the other two tabs in the same window have full table sorting by any column, only not this one. You could nonetheless upvote this post.

This may be an "oversight," but it's probably not a bug as a software developer defines it: is it doing what it was designed to do? If making sortable columns in the QuickFill Rules window wasn't part of the original design, then it would be deemed as "working as expected" -- and adding sortable columns would be viewed as an enhancement to make it work better.

The only way we users have to encourage the developers to make such enhancements -- even when they seem like pretty obvious usability fixes -- is to create an Idea post on this site and hope that it garners enough votes to be forwarded to the development team. (I'm not defending this system or saying it works well; I'm just explaining this is the way things work.)

User251646

> @smayer97 said:
> @User251646 Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Track/store Prior Reconciled Statements/periods.

Thanks, @smayer97. I had already voted for this change. I do prefer the Q2007 style of reconciling, but I can also understand the appeal of adding an adjustment and moving on.

RalphS

Is Quicken ever going to make the Mac version more like the Windows version? I love my Mac.. but I use Quicken on Windows via Parallels. The reporting for investments on the Mac is essentially non-existent.

jacobs

@RalphS  Well, I'd say that with almost every update, they are making Quicken Mac more like Quicken Windows!  Or at least adding useful functionality users have been waiting for.

Reports in the original incarnation of the modern Quicken Mac were terrible. Over the past few years, they created a new under-the-hood reports engine and a new user interface, and the reports now -- for income, expense, net worth -- are far, far better than before. But you're right, the reports available for investments are limited to what you can construct in the Portfolio view -- and approach with some limitations and no ability to save specific reports. You can actually do a fair amount in terms of investment reports with all the the configurations available in the Portfolio, but it's certainly not as robust as many users would like.

They almost never pre-announce what new features are coming, or when. But I think there are some reasons to believe that they will turn their attention to investment reports in the future. From some comments the Quicken Mac product manager has made, it seems their approach has been to work on building out the features of reports for the banking-type transactions first, and once they have a robust reports infrastructure, turn to investment reports. (Instead of working on both types of reports at once, and having to go back to add additional features in multiple places as they move forward.) It would be great if he dropped a comment about their plans in this area here, but that doesn't often happen.

jacobs

@RalphS One additional comment: you should hop over to this Idea post for investment reports and add your vote at the top, and any specific features you're looking for int he comments; some other Idea threads about investment reports have incorrectly been marked as "Implemented", but this seems to be the one active Idea thread on this topic which users can vote for and comment on. More user votes and comments on specific needs can help push this forward on the developers' roadmap.

Chris_QPW

One observation from a Windows user about the "flat" "monotone" look.

In some ways Microsoft and Apple are a lot alike.  They are constantly changing their APIs/GUIs and expect every program to jump on the "new look".  And since complex programs like Quicken don't get rewritten from scratch every time this happens over the years you get a program mixed with the different looks, and all the problems that come with that.  If the programmers don't at least attempt to do this the users start talking about how "dated" the program is.

Well when Windows 10 came out they went to the flat/monotone look, and shortly after Quicken Windows did the same.  Which of course the immediate response from the users was they hated it, especially since at the time a lot of them where still using Windows 7 with a colorful 3D GUI.  All the effort to look more like the mobile devices and such.  Which is very ironic because that look originally was done because these devices didn't have the CPU/graphic/space/resolution (not to mention touch) that limited what the GUI could be.  And now most of that is not true any more.

Well as time has gone on Microsoft has started back on the path of coloring everything up again.  The 3D isn't back (yet), but the colors are getting there.

It reminds me of the home renovation shows that one week gold is out and brushed aluminum, and then the next week gold is back.

My opinion is that no matter if Apple is going to monotone developers should buck that trend for two main reasons.  The first is the most important.  Monotone has no contrast.  It is very hard to read such for very long.  And the second is that some might consider it "slick" and "modern", but most will find it "boring".

sabronson2020

Security Classes.

I've been waiting years for Quicken for Mac to be on par with Windows Premier for investments. Am I still correct that you cannot change/edit the security type as you now can in Premier? My work around has been to use the Goal selections instead, but I can't find that even that is available to set for the Mac version. please tell me I am blind, or it's a feature that will arrive immenently.

thank you.

jacobs

@sabronson2020  You should be able to change the security Type (stock, bond, mutual fund, etc.) and Asset Class (large cap stock, small cap stock, international bonds, etc.) in Quicken Mac -- but only among the existing list of Types and Classes; you can't create your own security Types or Classes.

As for what functionality is coming in the future, and when, no one on this forum has any information about the developers' roadmap. There are hundreds of feature requests from users, and the developers keep chipping away at them -- but never fast enough . And because we all use Quicken differently, we all have different things we  consider top priorities. 

It can help if you add your vote to existing Idea threads for a topic. Go to this thread and add your vote (in the blue box at the top, click the little gray arrow under the counter to register your vote). These votes on idea do influence which user requests rise to the top of the developers' list faster.

caram

jacobs said:

it's probably not a bug as a software developer defines it: is it doing what it was designed to do?

I will put my developer hat for a second: one of the first things you do when you are implementing a table, is make sorting work, because that is what your users want (always). And in 2020 it's most often supported natively by your underlying data structure. If you can do it for one table, you can do it for another (at almost zero cost).

This is why I think it's a mere oversight.

jacobs said:

(I'm not defending this system or saying it works well; I'm just explaining this is the way things work.)

Of course I know 

Rick2022

Regarding "Type" for the security, you can change it BUT if the security is set up for downloading data, you have to deactivate that, change the Type and then connect back to the institution in the 6.0.1.  I don't know why it is essentially locked for download connected securities.  

sabronson2020

Thanks Jacob, to expand, I use about 10 asset classes and rebalance between them based on my risk tolerance. I break down domestic stocks into large cap value, large cap growth, small cap value and small cap growth. I break my bonds into 3 classes but would like to do more (duration, risk, and currency/geography). I have one for commodities as well. So I am limited by what quicken offers with their predefined classes. Ply I’d have to have a chart handy to remember which of Qs classes match mine. I would like to break down some classes even further (EM to Em large cap and EM small cap)

Quicken just recently allowed you to add custom fields in the Windows Premier which I am forced to continue using parallels to run on my Mac. I may redo all my holding in windows for this new features which would be tedious. But if I knew it was coming to Mac, I would gladly wait.

I was hoping Quicken would finally match the features from the windows counterpart but it continues to just be a dream.

jacobs

sabronson2020 said:

I was hoping Quicken would finally match the features from the windows counterpart but it continues to just be a dream.

Consider that while the Quicken Windows developers add one new feature like this, it gets added to the hundreds of other feature requests the Quicken Mac developers have on their list. If the two programs were even in capabilities, then it would be reasonable to expect roughly similar enhancements in each. But they aren't. So either Quicken Mac needs a much bigger development team than Quicken Windows to keep up with new Windows features while simultaneously adding older ones, or Quicken Windows needs to stop adding new features to allow Quicken Mac to catch up. Neither of those will happen. So just because something new was added in Quicken Windows doesn't mean it won't also come to Quicken Mac -- it's just a question of where things fit on their priority list.

Scott Rose

There is a bug in Quicken Mac 6.0:

(Note that we do not have the "transfers" column showing in our register. But we do have the "Category" column showing.)

In the past, when we created a Transfer transaction to a Payee that we have used in the past, Quicken Mac would automatically type in the Transfer information into the Category field for us.

Now, in Quicken Mac 6.0, the transfer information no longer shows up in the Category field, and we have to manually type it in every time.

This would be great if this was fixed! Thanks!

jacobs

@Scott Rose  You've already commented in the thread about problems with transfers in the category field being blanked in some instances, and this has been acknowledged by Quicken as a bug (CTP-1137) in this post of that thread. I'm not clear if you're trying to adding something new here, or just wishing the known bug was fixed?

Temporary workaround: If you have the previous transaction saved as a QuickFill rule, then when you select this Payee with the rule -- the pop-up list of matching Payees shows the saved Transfer -- you won't see anything in the Category field as it QuickFills. But if you immediately press return to save the new transaction, or click in the Amount or Memo field to edit those values and then save, the saved transaction will be populated with the Transfer showing in the Category field. The key is to not tab through the Category field before you save. (You also may find making the Transfer column visible in your register may make it easier to see what's happening, until this is fixed.)

Scott Rose

Thank you, @jacobs, for locating that thread for me, and for reminding me of the workaround. 

Haha, yes, I was just hoping that that bug was fixed... but I couldn't find the earlier thread.

I was looking all over for that earlier thread and I couldn't find it anywhere. I wanted to see if anybody from Quicken had any additional information about any progress being made on that bug.

The workaround won't work for me b/c I like keeping the Transfer column hidden, and I like having the Category field right next to the Payee Name, but hopefully they'll fix this bug soon.

jacobs

@Scott Rose It's rare to hear from Quicken about progress on a bug, or when it will be fixed. We can only hope it will be soon. It actually surprises me that this one has lingered through multiple releases as it has. That likely means either (a) there's something complex about fixing it or, I think more likely, (b) it's not on the developers' radars as being as problematic as it is for some users.

Speculation aside, the workaround I described does work in your setup. The Transfer column does not need to be visible, and Category can be next to Payee. As I said, the key is clicking on the Payee showing the QuickFill Transfer from the drop-down Best Matches list. After you do so, your cursor is still in the Payee field. Either press Return right away to save the transaction,  or click in any field other than Category, make an edit, and then save. Yes, the Category field looks empty before the new transaction is saved, but as soon as you save, it becomes populated with the transfer. (The transfer is there all along, which you'd see if you made the Transfer column visible; the bug affects what shows in the Category column, so as long as you save without clicking in Category, the value of the Transfer remains, and re-displays in the Category column when the transaction is saved.)

Scott Rose

Thanks for the insights, @jacobs! And thanks for clarification on the workaround — I understand now. I need to click with my mouse (I was hitting return) on the proper selection in the drop-down menu, and then it actually WON'T move my mouse into the Category column. I can then click in the amount column, type in the amount, and hit return, and it works. Thank you!  

Austin@

I just noticed that accounts that I keep separate in the sidebar are still being represented in the Overview graphs and charts on the Home tab. For example, I spent $50 on food in an account I keep separate, but the Spending By Category pie chart on the Home tab includes that $50 in its representation of my spending. However, when I click on the Food & Dining category on the pie chart and Quicken opens a new window to show the breakdown of the category and its transactions, the $50 from the separate account is (correctly) not represented. My separate accounts don't show up in reports or in the All Transactions register, but it's my understanding that accounts kept separate also shouldn't be reflected on the Overview page. Is anyone else seeing this?

Just Lurking

User251646 said:

> @smayer97 said:
> @User251646 Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Track/store Prior Reconciled Statements/periods.

Thanks, @smayer97. I had already voted for this change. I do prefer the Q2007 style of reconciling, but I can also understand the appeal of adding an adjustment and moving on.

smayer97 said:

@User251646 Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Track/store Prior Reconciled Statements/periods.

I will head over to that thread to add to the commentary there, but just in case anyone on this thread is thinking about how to improve reconciliation, I wanted to call out the free online accounting app [removed - solicitation]. I am very impressed at how intuitive, functional, and just pleasing to the eye is their reconciliation process. 

I am aware that designing how a feature will work can be as much if not more work than actually programming it, so I'm sharing this in the hopes the QM team might come across it and be inspired to crib from it.

[removed - Sorry, posting instructions for using our competitors' products isn't really appropriate here. @Just Lurking - By all means, please do describe what, and how, you'd like Quicken to work. Please just do so without quoting our competitors.]

It may not hit every bell and whistle that QM2007 reconciliation offered, but this would be an excellent improvement over the current situation.

Edit:

I was edited above by a moderator. I just wanted to say sorry! I was just trying to help make Quicken for Mac a better product. I don't consider the other company to which I linked a competitor to Quicken and so I didn't think it would be an issue, but as they are sort of adjacent products in the financial space I can see why the Quicken mods might feel differently.

Anyway, the information I posted was more aimed towards Quicken for Mac product managers and designers, so maybe I'll try to send it to them another way. Can anyone comment whether the "Report a problem" link in the QM help menu is a good place to do so? Or how about the new beta forums (I am a beta tester)?

Just Lurking

deholz said:

Thank you! Thank you for addressing the MFA error on d/ling transactions! While I understand it's a difficult issue to directly process two factor auth within Q4M, you've made it much less painful. Thanks for removing at least a couple steps - the new process is much less cumbersome - while still providing the security of MFA at my institution (NFCU).

Hi there - any chance you could expand on what has changed/improved for you?

I haven't noticed any changes and for me the MFA process with Quicken is extremely painful (multiple accounts each with multiple phone numbers). For every sync I have to wait for the account to be queried, select the correct phone number, wait for the code by text, paste it in, wait for the account to sync and the next account to be queried, select the phone number, paste the code in, and so on...

As a result I tend to avoid using Quicken as much I should, just because syncing is so painful. I could also envision some fairly straightforward ways to make it much less painful for me, e.g.

1. Let me set the default phone number. It's the right one 99+% of the time as the other(s) are just for backup.
2. Let me continue using the app while the querying process happens unobtrusively in the background.
3. Wait until all the MFA codes have been requested, then present me with a screen that contains a field for all of the security codes and let me paste them all in at once (instead of one at a time).

I wonder if there's already a feature request for something along these lines? I did a quick search but did not see one.

Joe Ciccio

todays error message

jacobs

@Joe Ciccio There's an existing thread about this error which you might want to follow.