Budget vs Actual Report
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I know of only 2 personal finance programs that feature a Budget vs Actual Report feature: Quicken Classic for Windows and YNAB. This is one of the most useful financial tools available to financial planners and it's not available in Quicken for Mac. Users have been asking for this feature for years but their requests have been ignored.
This is my guess about why this is so:
1. The so-called 'development team' consists of 1 or 2 coders that lack financial planning skills and/or coding knowledge. Perhaps they should consult with their Windows colleagues, but I don't think that will happen because the Windows coders might as well be working for another company. Mac coding is a completely different language than Windows coding.
2. The development team simultaneously work on other priorities with the purpose of selling new subscriptions for their company. Budget Report requests are coming from users who have already paid for their subscriptions, so there's no financial gain from spending valuable time to try to satisty their needs.
To me there's only one solution to the report problem: Money talks, so cut your loses and move on. Don't renew your subscription when it expires. Either switch to a Web-based financial tool such as YNAB or buy a Windows computer and switch to Quicken Classic for Windows.
Comments
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@Al_K Well, I'd disagree with your two guesses. The actual reason Quicken Mac doesn't have this report yet is simply that the developers haven't gotten to it yet in the long process of building a new Quicken Mac which began a decade ago. It is sometimes hard to understand how the development team has prioritized some features over other features, but the reality is that they are constantly picking and choosing from a long list of requested features.
I feel the lack of the Budget versus Actual report for a user-specified date range is one of the biggest omissions in the Quicken Mac feature set currently. But I also know that 10 other Quicken Mac users might have 10 other things they consider more-urgent needs.
The good news is that the Quicken Mac developers stated in August that this feature is now on their "Planned" list, so it's likely we'll see it sometime in 2024.
If you want to "move on" to another product or platform rather than wait for the developers to deliver, that's fine. But I don't see any reason to urge other users to do the same. We all use Quicken differently, have different priorities, and different abilities to tolerate/work around features which are missing.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19932 -
Jacobs,
Thanks for your comments. You can tell the frustration that AI_K has, which we all share. It is good to hear that Quicken will be developing this feature as it would be a welcomed addition.
I do like your workaround which you provided in an earlier post. I will give it a shot. Thank you.
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