Q Windows -> Mac in 2021 - what will make me sad?

BrianR

I'm thinking about moving from the Premier version of Quicken for Windows to Quicken for Mac in 2021. This would be on an M1 type MacBook Pro. I have more than 20 years of Quicken data. I have investment accounts (taxable and tax deferred). I track many (but not all) investments by lot. I pull in all my credit card data. I don't do much reporting, mostly just trying to record all my financial transactions to fully understand my status. I don't currently use the built-in budgeting capabilities, per se.

I've been using macs for years, so I don't expect problems understanding the mac side of the world. (At one time, I ran Q for Windows under Parallels, but moved it to a dedicated Windows machine for various reasons.)

What's missing, different or broken in the current version of Q for Mac that you think would prove frustrating to someone trying to change from Q for Windows (including converting over all my historical data).

Thanks for your insights.
-Brian

John_in_NC

I would just try it and see how you like it. (You have access to both versions.) Doing such certainly won't affect your Win installation. You might, as some folks do, prefer the Mac version.

Reporting is typically what people say is a weak spot, but you noted that is less important. 

The program does have explicit lot tracking. Whether or not it is robust enough for you-I do not know. 

Without knowing your specific needs/what investments (and types of transactions) you have, it is difficult to give any better answer. I would just try it and keep an open mind until the newness wears off. Good luck!

jacobs

I agree with John. People here can point to posts which document or complain about features in Quicken Windows which are missing or different in Quicken Mac, enough to scare you off! There are undoubtedly hundreds of differences, large and small. But what's a critical feature for one person can be a minor issue, or a complete non-issue for another, and the only good way to know how the current Quicken Mac fits your needs is to try it for yourself.

From your description of how you use Quicken, I suspect that if your data imports cleanly, you will find Quicken Mac suitable. But I can only take a broad guess at that, whereas you'll be able to judge because you're familiar with your data and the things yo do in Quicken. I mention the import because it works well for most people switching from Quicken Windows to Quicken Mac, but some types of investment transactions prove problematic for some Quicken Windows users. For instance, the combined BuyX and SellX type transactions in Windows don't exist in Quicken Mac, so you have to see if it brings them in cleanly as two transactions or leaves you with a little or lot of manual clean-up required. If you have file attachments to transactions, those don't migrate to Quicken Mac. But otherwise your transaction data should import smoothly. The retirement/savings/tax planner features in Quicken Windows don't currently exist in Quicken Mac.

I could go on trying to list things people have noted, but I think the best approach is to try it and judge for yourself how well it meets your needs. It takes a little time to get used to the differences in the user interface and figuring how how to do some things differently in Quicken Mac -- use this forum to ask questions where you get stuck -- so you might want to do a trial run while continuing to use Quicken Windows, and then re-covert your data if you decide Quicken Mac works for you. Or many users decide to make the leap and not look back, so it's a matter of what you're most comfortable with, and how things look after your data is imported.

smayer97

Note that for a successful conversion from QWin to QMac, any BuyX and SellX type transactions have to be undone in QWin. Otherwise they will be messed up in QMac.

jacobs

smayer97 said:

Note that for a successful conversion from QWin to QMac, any BuyX and SellX type transactions have to be undone in QWin. Otherwise they will be messed up in QMac.

Are you sure of that? My sense was that it was an issue in some accounts (possibly single mutual funds accounts), but that it did correctly translate these transactions into two Quicken Mac transactions in some instances.

Here's a quote from product manager Marcus from last year: "We have not added the boughtx or soldx types from Quicken Windows, but I thought we converted better than you described since this can be represented by 2 separate transactions - one for the buy and the other for the transfer."

In any case, this is why I suggest @BrianR try an import to the Mac version to see the state of his accounts. It may require some minor clean-up, or might require a bit of work -- and if so, it may or may not be easier to make changes in Quicken Windows and re-import to Quicken Mac.

smayer97

This is what has been repeatedly reported by users in spite of what Marcus has said. @John_M has much better direct experience with this has he has had to massage this type of data to make it work.

@John_M care to comment?

jacobs

To be clear, I know some people have had to do manual work to fix the BoughtX/SoldX-type transactions in Quicken Windows to migrate to Quicken Mac; I'm just not sure it's all users with these transactions. (As Marcus suggested, it might be certain types of accounts.)

BrianR

Thanks for your comments!

Hopefully I won't need to cleanup 20+ years of Vanguard BoughtX/SoldX/DivX transactions. I'll give it an experimental shot on a mac when I can free up a block of time.

RalphS

My main complaint over Quicken for Mac is the lack of adequate reporting for investments.. So I use Parallels to run the Windows version..

BrianR

Thanks @RalphS, that's interesting. If you don't mind, could you say which are the most important investing report(s) missing in the mac version?

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @BrianR

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to ask your question. At this time, the Mac offers a customizable portfolio view as shown below.



However, there are no investment type reports similar to the windows version. They are on the development roadmap, however, there is no ETA available. If you have not already, I would take a moment to visit the post below for more details.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7635204/investment-performance-report-for-quicken-mac#latest

I hope this helps to clarify!

-Quicken Tyka

jacobs

I'd just add to Tyka's post above that it isn't as limited as it might at first seem. There are filters to show your portfolio value (shown), as well as performance and realized gains (each with unique columns that can be activated). The columns can be shown or hidden and re-arranged as desired. And then it can be printed in a report, and/or exported to a spreadsheet for additional formatting/configuring. So you can get a fairly good amount of data about your investments out of Quicken Mac. But you can't save the portfolio views, so you have to set the filters each time you want a particular report, which is annoying but not showstopping.

india just

I recently updated from Mac 2007 to current beta version on mac. 
[removed - beta]