How does the new Quicken Mac Classic for Personal and Business handle invoices?

PrimalCreative

How does the new Quicken Classic for Personal and Business handle invoices?

Does the feature exist? Detailed info about the Mac version's business features is scant.

THANKS!

Jon

It doesn't do invoicing right now. Presumably that will be coming in the future, but nobody knows when.

jacobs

Presumably that will be coming in the future, but nobody knows when.

It's no longer presumtion; Quicken executives have now unequivocally stated that invoicing is coming for Quicken Mac in the future. But, as you say, no one can say when.

Jon

It doesn't do invoicing right now. Presumably that will be coming in the future, but nobody knows when.

jacobs

Presumably that will be coming in the future, but nobody knows when.

It's no longer presumtion; Quicken executives have now unequivocally stated that invoicing is coming for Quicken Mac in the future. But, as you say, no one can say when.

Stuart Christoph

With all due respect, WTF?

I bought the yearlong subscription upgrade to Personal and Business so that I could terminate my Quickbooks Online subscription and now I can't even make a simple invoice?

What's the solution here? Use a windows virtual machine on my Mac in order to use the full featured product? Just do manual creation of 'paper' invoices and enter them as expected income?

"Send Invoices in a flash" is advertised and one of the main value propositions on the product page yet it is wholly unavailable to Mac users?

The engineering and product marketing teams need to get their **** together and rectify this so that customers like myself don't buy a product and not get the key feature they were expecting.

jacobs

@Stuart Christoph With all due respect, and understanding your frustration, I think you read the website wrong. There are separate pages for Quicken Business & Personal for Mac and for Windows, and the Mac page. Here's the Quicken Mac page:

https://www.quicken.com/products/classic-business-personal-mac/

Invoicing is not mentioned.

Business and Personal for Mac is just in its infancy. It didn't even exist until last month. The first release contains limited functionality. The product manager has said they will continue adding additional features over future releases, and that invoicing will be among the features added.

If you just purchased your Quicken subscription in the past 30 days, you can get a refund from Quicken if the product won't meet your needs and you can't wait for the invoicing functionality to be added.

NotACPA

@jacobs Actually, the website DOES say "Send Invoices in a flash" but on the QWin page!

https://www.quicken.com/products/classic-business-personal/

jacobs

Actually, the website DOES say "Send Invoices in a flash" but on the QWin page!

Yes, that's what I was saying. The features mentioned on the Mac page are different than the features described on the Windows page. Unfortunately, the product pages created by the Quicken marketing people make it extremely difficult for people to compare features between subscription levels and between platforms.

PrimalCreative

I agree - IMHO they are concealing material differences in their product that makes the Mac version inferior, yet charging the same price.

It’s bizarre that in the 21st century (where we all fly on jet packs) that a business bookkeeping app can’t do an invoice. Really? Really?? Sure the product just came out, but that ability has been in other products since the dawn of the century

jacobs

It’s bizarre that in the 21st century (where we all fly on jet packs) that a business bookkeeping app can’t do an invoice. Really? Really?? Sure the product just came out, but that ability has been in other products since the dawn of the century

The issue is that they have been working to build up the features in Quicken Mac since re-creating it from scratch a decade ago. It was only last year that the gt to a point in development where they committed to building business features for Quicken Mac. (Note that the legacy Quicken for Mac which ended development in 2007 never had a business version to match the Windows version.) So they have two choices: (1) release business features in pieces over time, to allow users who would benefit to start using the initial features right away and to get feedback on their implementation, or (2) design and work on a "complete" business solution — including invoicing — and release it only when it's done. The latter would mean that there would not yet be a Business & Personal version for Mac, and its release would probably be a year or more off in the future. Would that have been better?

Jon

The latter would mean that there would not yet be a Business & Personal version for Mac, and its release would probably be a year or more off in the future. Would that have been better?

It might have been better to wait until they had a bigger set of features to offer Mac users that justified the extra expense of the B&P subscription, or at least hold off on promoting it on the web site. I'm not saying they should have waited until they had feature parity with Windows but I can understand somebody upgrading their sub to B&P hoping to use QMac for their business and being disappointed at what they're getting right now.

jacobs

@Jon I'm not disagreeing, but hopefully that's why people are asking questions about what it can and cannot do, in order to make an informed buying decision about whether it meets their needs.

While Quicken's marketing does provide the information on its website, it's much harder to find and almost impossible to fully discern the differences. I blame their marketing people more than their product development people for that.

BBacon

The marketing people are misleading ***holes. How dare they. The CMO should be fired. I just got sucked in too. Bought the annual sub of Personal and Business for Mac, set up 9 accounts etc and searched for ages for 'invoicing' only to find they've sold me a BASIC software package (priced as something more) that doesn't even include BASIC invoicing!! WTF indeed. So now I have to UNDO everything and cancel. What's the CMOs contact details so I can send him/her a bill for wasting my time! I mean seriously. Whomever thought that was smart is either greedy or incompetent or both. They are damaging their brand with this nonsense.

jacobs

@BBacon I understand you are frustrated, but…

"The CMO should be fired." Really? Because you didn't research the product you were buying? The absence of invoicing in the first release of the Business & Personal product has been widely discussed on this forum since the release in December. The original announcement of Quicken Mac Business & Personal details what features are included, and mentioned some that are not which are slated for future releases: the "Mac development team plans to expand on business-related features such as including invoicing, balance sheets, etc."

Or Google "Quicken Mac Business Personal" and click the first link for Quicken's web page about Business & Personal for Mac — and note that it doesn't mention an invoicing feature anywhere.

Or go to Quicken Mac's online help and scroll down the left side to click on Business & Personal — where there is also no mention of invoicing.

I can understand hoping or even expecting the product to be able to do invoicing, but it's pretty easy to discover that it doesn't yet.

Then you're angry because you set up all your accounts before doing some limited testing with one or two accounts to discover how the software worked? And you're angry because "now I have to UNDO everything and cancel"? If you're going to cancel and not use the product, there's nothing to undo; just delete the program and the data file, and contact Quicken Support for a refund.

Again, I understand you're upset that the Mac Business & Personal doesn't contain the features you need or expected. But I think rather than wanting to bill the chief marking officer for wasting your time, you should take a step back and recognize that some of this falls on you for not checking what functionality the program offered before buying it.

"Whomever thought that was smart is either greedy or incompetent or both. They are damaging their brand with this nonsense." Again, really? They released what they had complete, and for some people, this is helpful in its current form. For other people, it won't be useful until they add more functionality. The alternative was to release nothing for another 6 or 9 or 12 months until there were more features ready. So why is it incompetent to release a first iteration, help those people for whom the current features are helpful, find and fix bugs in this new code they're building upon, and continue to hear feedback from users about what business features are most needed, all while continuing to work on building additional features?

I absolutely feel the web pages on Quicken's website could be constructed to be much more helpful to users, particularly in comparing across subscription levels (Starter, Deluxe, Premier and Business & Personal) and across Mac and Windows platforms. They used to have a comparison page which was imperfect but did an overall good job of showing which features were and weren't available at each level and on each platform. It seems stupid to me that they took that tool away, and I wish they would bring it back. But I think saying people should be fired because of that is a bit too much.

Just my $.02…

2018schule

I bought Quickbooks Business & Personal for Mac a few days ago after the Quicken sales representative ASSURED me more than once that it supports invoicing ON A MAC. And yes , I also just found out , after spending a good amount of time setting up my personal info , that I cannot do any customer invoicing . I have cancelled the subscription but I wish the Quicken salesperson knew what he was talking about. I should be able to trust what the salesperson said.

… disappointed:)

smayer97

Yes, QMac B&P does not handle invoicing or Rental at this time The agent was wrong.

JoelC

I am hoping that this feature capability is added soon.

I would love to be able to move from QWin → QMac but until QMac catches up a bot more, I am stuck on QWin.

That said, I am using both concurrently — somewhat time consuming — so can answer questions between the two should you wish.

PrimalCreative

This issue certainly became a hot topic! I'm also hoping invoices are integrated quickly ~ that would be wonderful!

JoelC

@PrimalCreative I think that there are a fair number of Mac users who are running QWin on a separate laptop, on Parallels, on VMWare, etc. who would really like to move to QMac permanently but cannot make teh move until QMac catches up to QWin with one of the key areas being business capabilities.

I know, that in my particular case, there are three things that need to be caught up on for me to make the move with the business capabilities being one such area.

TLayne

I recently moved from my PC to a MacBook and did buy the QClassic Business & Personal. There was not full disclosure that invoicing was NOT included. It seems the higher ups forgot that they put the "business" in the title of this version. There does not seem to be a sense of urgency with Quicken to put this function in the software. I need to bill for my services so that I have money to drive my "Business". Give us, the people, a work around to help solve our problem so that we can bill for our services. Also, how will they let us know if and when this function is working? I wasted well over 3 hours today trying to solve their problem that became my problem. I have used Quicken products for over 20 years and this is the service that they provide. Not a good way to run a business. This is on their website for QClassic for the Mac.
Send invoices in a flash. they should read their own ads…………

JoelC

@TLayne this is one of the reasons that I am running QWin and QMac in parallel. The other reasons are that there are other QMac functional limitations (i.e., cannot run reports based on what is entered into the memo field [though this is in progress]).

The way to know when to change from QWIn → QMac is by running the two in parallel as every user's needs are different.

This will also let you tweak teh QMac setup to meet yoru needs.

Good luck!

jacobs

@TLayne Quicken Mac, going back to its start 30+ years ago, has never had a Business version. Last month, the developers debuted the first-ever Business & Personal release for Mac. It has functionality for creating and reporting on one or multiple businesses, but it doesn't yet have invoicing. It also doesn't have rental property management features. The developers have said that invoicing and other business features are under development and will be released as soon as they become ready. In its current form, the Business & Personal software will be useful to some small business owners, but many will need to wait for additional features to be added.

At this moment, if you need invoicing and can't do it manually until it is added to Quicken Mac, you could consider using Virtual Machine software (like Parallels or VMWare Fusion) in order to install Windows and run Quicken Windows Business & Personal.

how will they let us know if and when this function is working?

There is an announcement post here when each new release comes out, with a list of new functionality. Or you can periodically check the web page with Quicken Mac release notes.

JoelC

@jacobs as always, much thanks for the helpful answer. I will mark those sources for tracking updates. It is better than my current method of waiting for the app to update and then reading the release notes.

timhinz

I'll be fine for now, but would agree the website marketing is misleading into thinking invoicing is available now on mac.

https://www.quicken.com/goals/manage-small-business/

See "Invoice Customers in a Flash"

This is not a windows only page. This is for both versions, with both logos shown to 'get started' (purchase).

Not well communicated at all.

Chris_QPW

Recently they changed a website that did a poor job of explaining features of the different editions/Windows vs Mac to one that is totally useless and only "marketing hype".

If you look at the Canadian site it is even worse. Especially since you can click on some links that then put you back on the US site.

JoelC

@Chris_QPW

If you look at the Canadian site it is even worse. Especially since you can click on some links that then put you back on the US site.

Te Canadian website provides virtually no useful information. It is simply a platform to purchase.

gerrib

Truly misleading by hiding the details. I too just subscribed and am very disappointed that there isn't an invoicing option for my Mac that I can use. Because I'm close to retirement, I only have several clients. So it's possible that I many keep it and send PDF invoices via email. Is there anyone else in this community that has chosen to stick with this subscription and found a workaround to invoicing until an invoicing option is offered. I'd like to learn what you're doing.

myqf

I fell into the Qmac BP does not do invoicing after all trap, and only learned this situation was the case by reading posts in this forum, such as this one. I am kind of okay with the hoodwinking, because I was prepared to pay extra for some paying bill features as an add-on to the next lower price plan. By getting Qmac BP, I get the paying bill features without needing to pay for the add-on. It is about what I would have been paying with add-ons.

I have no interest in running Qwin BP in parallel (although my day job is on Windows and I have access to virtual machines), mainly because the Quicken data files are not fully compatible for sneakernet sharing (noticed folks do not recommend cloud storage for data files) between Qmac and Qwin,and I am not entering and reconciling transactions twice. I do not use the web or mobile app.

I do expect invoicing to be available in some months and would be surprised it is not added in 2024, because Quicken is adding features to Qmac BP frequently. In the meantime, one might consider Zoho Invoice, which is free and good.