Quicken Windows to Mac Conversion - Update on Comparison & Thoughts
I once posted a Quicken to Mac conversion comparison, to be found here:
This was in 2022, and that thread is closed. Since then, many of the Cons I listed have been addressed. I thought it might be a interesting to revisit. Also, Quicken for Mac has evolved for the better and I've adapted pretty quickly.
Here is the original list of cons. If they've been resolved they will be edited. The original link has a lot of Pros not listed here, and I'm pretty much a fan and never going back. Everytime I try to use Quicken on my Windows machine I'm reminded why I don't enjoy it.
* Calendar Limitations - No bar graph (I love this feature in Windows for a quick visualization of my cashflow). Also, no Notes. There's no way to annotate the calendar that I can find. Lastly, navigation going back in time has no "go to date" function - you have to do it manually, but clicking thought the months is instantaneous no matter how far you have to go
* Banking - Can't void transactions in the register. In Windows you can still see the check number that was voided, and the payee. Sometimes useful when you're trying to figure out a mistake. In Mac you just delete it. » 1/25/25 It's turned out to be a non-issue now that I've been doing it this way
* No comparison of "On Line Balance" vs local balance in the register view - FIXED!
* Can't explode categories on a graph. For instance, when looking at an expenditure graph by category, you can't click on a high level category to see how it splits out. Fixed! Actually, QM looks better than the way I remembered it - maybe because presentation and UI is just fresher than the Windows look
* Expenses over "Last 12 Months" graphs are also showing forecasted expenses until the end of this month - Windows uses the exact day, so "last 12 months" would mean 11/25/2021 - 11/24/2022 as an example. I'd like to see more convenient YOY spending by category
* No (specialized) Mututal Fund View in the portfolio views. I get a few canned views, but mutual funds and their ratings and attributes is not one of them. I'd love to see a filtered ETF and Mutual Fund view with star ratings and other relevant metrics
* No customized portfolio views can be set up and saved - This was false. I don't know about CMD-Click filtering. There's plenty of customizing of headings and "View By" (asset class, security, type, holding period)
* No Allocation By Account (only equity or asset class) - I left out it does breakout account groups pretty well, and you can see aggregate dashboards for groups - such as all "Investing," all "Brokerage," and all "Retirement." You can also customize which accounts are viewed in a dashboard with a CMD-Click, and you can look at a consolidated Portfolio View of any of those 3 groups
* No ability to compare a target asset allocation to existing.
* Banking Dashboard is sparse - Just "Spending" or "Income" and you can't customize the dashboard. One view love in Windows is multiple "Expense by Category" graphs - one for YTD, one for Current Month, and one for Same Month Last Year. So, in the Windows Version I can see visually at a glance what I've spent YTD, or a specific month this year vs last year (YOY), all in the same window. As a recent retiree, I'm looking for cues on how I'm doing vs last year. These YOY graphs by category side by side show instant comparisons that I can't set up in the Mac version. You can see a spending graph and mod the date range or accounts viewed, but no YOY graphically
* Spending by Category Graphs can't be customized. This was a problem because brokerage fees were being counted in my spending, but this problem is no longer present
* No Calculator. There were always calculators in the registers. Using the Mac calculator has been just as convenient
* No Morningstar data - even if I didn't expect the Portfolio X-Ray provided in Windows, at least it would be nice to see the Morningstar ***** rating in the portfolio view
* Consolidated equity views (one equity in multiple acts) feels more cumbersome to use and find. Quicken added a great security detail screen with a much nicer graph than Windows of the stock price, but there's no toggle present for showing position value over time
Reporting is still not as robust. I don't see a way to embed a graph in a report like Windows does. You can export pretty much anything to CSV, which I do with Excel and Numbers. A really cool feature would be to export directly into Numbers with the built in Yahoo equity updates (stock price, PE, etc. - I think there's 15 or 20 different metrics built into Numbers). They have made a lot of improvements in spending and budgeting, like adding rollup subtotals (categories, etc.).
There's many new features since I wrote this, including monthly Zillow updates for property and many other things which I'm not going to get into.
[Edited - Fixed Link]
Quicken Premier Mac Classic (since 2022), Quicken Premiere Windows (1995 - current, but not actively using since Mac conversion)
Comments
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Quicken Kristina
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Thanks for this update and summary. I just converted to a MacBook Pro in the last month so definitely an adjustment after years of using windows. I converted my Quicken as well. That wasn't too bad but still took days to iron out the glitches (I have been using Quicken since the early 90's so my file was LARGE!). There definitely some things that I miss and believe are significant items the Quicken for Mac team should address:
- No custom Portfolio Groups. I really miss this feature! I have quite a few investment accounts (a few I handle on my own and then about 15 handled by my advisors) because of different IRAs for myself and my spouse, then additional variations for different investment strategies run by them. Most of these are individual securities and I track at the detailed trade level. I have found the ability to use the pull down menu of accounts and click each one on but that takes quite a few repetitive times to get 12 accounts grouped together. I do miss having access to the Portfolio X-Ray — it's a nice independent assessment tool.
- No ability to rearrange the order of accounts (side bar or Portfolio views). It's all alphabetical which is annoying and having to rename these with a leading letter or number is ridiculous. Not sure why this is so difficult to add in.
- Budget features are definitely lacking compared to windows. I miss the dropdown menu that let you toggle instantly between "Details, budget only and actuals only" I realize you can build a custom report to just show actuals but it's not really a great user experience or how one uses budgets/actuals. I also missed the separate budget categories where you could define budget groupings differently from category groupings. I've now gone through and redefined my categories to make up for the shortfall so it's not a big deal (but again another time consuming conversion process).
- I also agree that a year over year spending report would be terrific.
In general, I am gradually getting more used to the Mac version and like it and my Mac. I hope the team continues to add some of these more advanced user features!
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Hello @BillMonteSereno,
Thank you for coming to the Community to share your experience! You may find these Idea posts interesting:
If you haven't already done so, you may want to add your vote and a comment. Ideas that get enough votes may be implemented in the future!
Thank you!
Quicken Kristina
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We are in the same boat, I'm just a little ahead of you in the timeline. Multiple accounts, multiple account types, in my case more than one broker, etc. So consolidating views is important, but so is parsing views in new ways. I wouldn't mind seeing multiple portfolio views based on custom filters (Windows has a ton of canned "Portfolio Views" under a drop down, plus a lot of custom presets users can define, and custom filters deigned just for mutual funds (does it include ETF star ratings? I don't remember. Meanwhile, I would suggest checking out this idea by another user and voting for it:
Here's some encouraging words… There's a lot of hidden capabilities in QMac that are embedded in the file you converted from Windows. I see a lot of potential to recover some of the features you might think are lost in future Quicken updates. For instance, I had a ton of equities that I had transferred over to a different broker into various accounts - some were IRA, Roth, Individual accounts, and some lots went back to 2007. The first transfer in-kind took place in 2019 (recorded in Quicken Windows) - from one broker to another. The new broker reported the transfer in Quicken W as "Sharers Added." When this happened I lost much valuable lot data - cost of purchases, cost of reinvested shares, etc. and when my new reinvestments took place, my "average cost" of the position was divided among all shares, so I had $400 shares with an average cost of something like $9 as an example of one.
Then in 2022, from within the new broker (now 2 years later, had already moved the Quicken Windows file in 2021 to Mac), I transferred some of my positions to self managed trading accounts. Again, all lots were listed as "Add Shares." This drove me nuts, and one day I couldn't take it anymore. In desperation I edited the "Add Shares" to "Transfer Shares" designating the original closed account, and all of a sudden, everything changed with full metrics - correct purchase or reinvestment dates, correct costs from the original purchase or reinvestment, etc. And all was good.
So, the chain of custody went from Broker 1 in QW to Broker 2 in QW, to transfer/translate the entire data file to Quicken Mac 2 years later, and then a year after that, editing the transactions from Add Shares to Transfer Shares (denoting the original account), and the current Quicken Mac file apparently had retained all the data surrounding the original transactions and fixed everything. My newly "refurbished" positions had the correct lots and average cost went from the whacky, way under represented prices to the correct ones, and the performance graphing reflected the true performance of the positions. So, the moral of the story is - to borrow a phrase, "The Truth is Out There."
Quicken Premier Mac Classic (since 2022), Quicken Premiere Windows (1995 - current, but not actively using since Mac conversion)
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