When will Quicken HB&RP be available for Mac OS ?

gwbarr115

As Treasurer of an HOA, for several years I have been managing all financial functions for 109 homeowners using Quicken HB&RP on a Windows 10 PC computer. The role of Treasurer is now being transferred to an individual that uses an Apple-Mac computer. Is Quicken planning to develop a comparable Quicken HB&RP for Mac OS computers ?? If so, when will that capability be available ?? The HB&RP product is necessary to maintain continuity with historical records. Thank you, Gerry Barr, [email removed - privacy]

NotACPA

There's no way of knowing since Q hasn't announced such a product and NEVER pre-announces until just before a product is released.

We're other users ... and have no more info about such a product than you do.

[EDIT] And while the QWin to QMac conversion works reasonably well, the reverse (back to QWin) has a multitude of problems.

I'd look into running a VM on the Mac so that you can continue to run your current software.

jacobs

People have been asking about and for a version of Home & Business for Mac for many years. There's a long-running Idea (enhancement request) thread on this site which has nearly 300 votes and are than 300 comments, so it's clearly a hot topic and wish for a segment of the Quicken community. Although the start of that thread was by the Quicken Mac product manager asking to gauge interest in the possibility, there has been not even a hint over the ensuing years about if they plan to tackle this, and if so, when.

The conventional thinking about this has been as follows: the Windows version of Home & Business is built on top of the features of Quicken Premier, but because Quicken Mac doesn't yet have all the functionality of its Windows counterpart, building Home & Business features on top of an incomplete foundation would be problematic and unlikely; the developers would need to make enough enhancements in Quicken Mac to approach the functionality of the Windows version before they undertook adding H&B features. There are still a lot of features in the Windows Deluxe/Premier versions which Mac users have been asking the developers to build that they have not yet gotten to.

The other question is whether the incremental revenue from sales of Home & Business subscriptions is sufficient to justify the thousands of development hours it would take to create a Mac version. Th is, while it's clear there's interest in a Mac H&B version, is the potential user base large enough to justify the cost of building such a product? Keep in mind that many potential Mac users would be switching from Windows, which wouldn't bring in any new revenue. Quicken knows how many Windows users of H&B they have, and they can estimate how many would prefer to switch to Mac if they could; we in the user community don't have any such data to be able to reasonably guess at the answer to this question.


That all said, it remains frustrating that on an issue this broad, Quicken declines to divulge anything about its future plans. Users are constantly trying to figure out their path forward: keep a Windows computer around to run Quicken H&B? Move to a Mac but run a Window virtual machine in order to run H&B? Move off Quicken to a business accounting application like Quickbooks? Quicken could help users plan their hardware and software purchases with some sort of statement of direction:

(a) No, we do not have any plans to build a Mac H&B version within the next few years; or

(b) Yes, we do have a Mac H&B version on our development roadmap, but it is not planned in the next two years; or

(c) Yes, we do have a Mac H&B version on our development roadmap, and while we are not prepared to announce the product today, nor to announce when we expect it will become available, we are actively planning to have a Mac H&B product in the future.

But so far, they haven't budged from their company standard of not speaking about future enhancements until they have something ready to sell. 

gwbarr115

Hi Jacobs, Thank you for the above response to my question about Quicken HB&RP for Mac possibilities. As we are in the process of transition from a used with a Windows environment to one with a Mac computer, we will explore other options in skinning the cat in a different way. Thank you again, Gerry

NotACPA

There's no way of knowing since Q hasn't announced such a product and NEVER pre-announces until just before a product is released.

We're other users ... and have no more info about such a product than you do.

[EDIT] And while the QWin to QMac conversion works reasonably well, the reverse (back to QWin) has a multitude of problems.

I'd look into running a VM on the Mac so that you can continue to run your current software.

jacobs

People have been asking about and for a version of Home & Business for Mac for many years. There's a long-running Idea (enhancement request) thread on this site which has nearly 300 votes and are than 300 comments, so it's clearly a hot topic and wish for a segment of the Quicken community. Although the start of that thread was by the Quicken Mac product manager asking to gauge interest in the possibility, there has been not even a hint over the ensuing years about if they plan to tackle this, and if so, when.

The conventional thinking about this has been as follows: the Windows version of Home & Business is built on top of the features of Quicken Premier, but because Quicken Mac doesn't yet have all the functionality of its Windows counterpart, building Home & Business features on top of an incomplete foundation would be problematic and unlikely; the developers would need to make enough enhancements in Quicken Mac to approach the functionality of the Windows version before they undertook adding H&B features. There are still a lot of features in the Windows Deluxe/Premier versions which Mac users have been asking the developers to build that they have not yet gotten to.

The other question is whether the incremental revenue from sales of Home & Business subscriptions is sufficient to justify the thousands of development hours it would take to create a Mac version. Th is, while it's clear there's interest in a Mac H&B version, is the potential user base large enough to justify the cost of building such a product? Keep in mind that many potential Mac users would be switching from Windows, which wouldn't bring in any new revenue. Quicken knows how many Windows users of H&B they have, and they can estimate how many would prefer to switch to Mac if they could; we in the user community don't have any such data to be able to reasonably guess at the answer to this question.


That all said, it remains frustrating that on an issue this broad, Quicken declines to divulge anything about its future plans. Users are constantly trying to figure out their path forward: keep a Windows computer around to run Quicken H&B? Move to a Mac but run a Window virtual machine in order to run H&B? Move off Quicken to a business accounting application like Quickbooks? Quicken could help users plan their hardware and software purchases with some sort of statement of direction:

(a) No, we do not have any plans to build a Mac H&B version within the next few years; or

(b) Yes, we do have a Mac H&B version on our development roadmap, but it is not planned in the next two years; or

(c) Yes, we do have a Mac H&B version on our development roadmap, and while we are not prepared to announce the product today, nor to announce when we expect it will become available, we are actively planning to have a Mac H&B product in the future.

But so far, they haven't budged from their company standard of not speaking about future enhancements until they have something ready to sell. 

gwbarr115

Hi Jacobs, Thank you for the above response to my question about Quicken HB&RP for Mac possibilities. As we are in the process of transition from a used with a Windows environment to one with a Mac computer, we will explore other options in skinning the cat in a different way. Thank you again, Gerry