Is Quicken/Mac worth trying? - a Quicken/Win user asks

DaverDee

Hello.

I am a long time Quicken/Win user and use Quicken extensively for tracking personal and business expenses along with a number of investments.

It just so happens I am also a Mac user who runs Quicken via a Windows virtual machine with Parallels.

I have been watching Quicken/Mac mature over the years and am wondering if you have an opinion as to whether Quicken/Mac is mature enough to manage what I use Quicken/Win for.

Any opinions?

Thanks in advance.

Chris_QPW

You are probably going to have to give more details about your usage before people can really give you an answer.  For instance, Quicken Mac doesn't have any business features, but some people have run businesses using just Quicken Windows Deluxe, so that just saying business expenses isn't enough.  The business features are the invoicing and special business account types like accounts receivable, which won't be there.

EDIT note since your license allows you to run both I don't see why you don't just try it for a while.

DaverDee

Good feedback. Thanks.

The business aspects are essentially for recording business expenses with a one-man consulting practice. No employees. So we are talking about auto expenses, office supplies, 3rd party services, business lunches, etc.

The investment management aspects are relatively heavy. This includes a number of brokerage accounts in stocks and bonds.

Lastly, I am just starting to put my toe in the water with Bill Pay. Doing it direct with the vendor or different banks is becoming a drag and I am hoping Bill Pay can centralize the work and thus requiring less time.

I hope these details help in generating opinions.

Again, thanks in advance.

-DaverDee

jacobs

@DaverDee  I'm a longtime Mac user, so I can't offer you help from a Windows user's point of view. But I can tell you what I've observed over the years in this forum...

A majority of Quicken Windows users have a successful conversion of their data and are either happy with Quicken Mac or find it at least "good enough" to fill their needs. Some users convert successfully, but find some feature which is missing from Quicken Mac to be enough of a problem that they decide to stick with Quicken Windows. And some have such significant problems with their data conversion that they never get started in Quicken Mac. Which of those groups you'll fall into is impossible to know. What's a dealbreaker issue for one user is a complete non-issue for someone else; some people's data files convert cleanly and others have significant problems.  

That being said, I absolutely agree with Chris above: you are fortunate to be able to run both the Windows version and the Mac version on your computer -- so give Quicken Mac a try. Your subscription lets you download and install it for no additional charge. Follow all the recommendations for converting your Windows data file and see how things look in Quicken Mac. You may ned to do some minor clean-up in some accounts, but see if with a little work you can get everything looking correct. Then try using the Mac version for a bit while continuing to also use Quicken Windows. You should be able to do everything -- except bill pay, of course -- in parallel on both systems. There's a definite learning curve for Quicken Mac, so see if you can climb that hill and get to where you find Quicken Mac is viable for your needs or not. Come back to this forum to ask questions as you go, and try not to have negative knee jerk reactions when something is different but workable in Quicken Mac.

Whether Quicken Mac can meet your business needs depends on what you need it to do. I can also tell you that in addition to our personal finances, I've used Quicken Mac to manage the books for years when my wife ran her own business, and for a decade as treasurer of a small national non-profit.