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Quicken Mac V Quicken Win

susanmb

As a Quicken user for over 20 years, I’ve seen the product evolve, but I’m disappointed that some long‑standing issues remain unresolved. While the Windows version offers more detailed features—especially the paycheck breakdown and the Bills & Income section—I find myself forced to use the Mac version for one reason only: it allows me to add accounts in TTD (Trinidad and Tobago Dollar). The Windows version still lacks many international currencies, including TTD, which is surprising given how long the product has been on the market.

Because of this limitation, I now have to maintain two separate sets of files—one in Windows for the detailed features I rely on, and one in Mac for the accounts that require TTD. The fact that the two versions cannot share the same file format is another major drawback and adds unnecessary complexity to my financial management.

Considering the global user base and the fact that many customers need support for currencies outside the U.S., it’s astonishing and disappointing that this gap has not been addressed

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Comments

NotACPA

While it's true that QWin doesn't "come with" TTD enabled … why can't you simply use the NEW button?

jacobs

@susanmb A few comments in reply to your post…

Considering the global user base and the fact that many customers need support for currencies outside the U.S., it’s astonishing and disappointing that this gap has not been addressed

Quicken doesn't cultivate or support a "global user base". They only sell their products in the US and Canada. Of course, users have adopted it for use in other countries, but it's not Quicken's focus and they don't put development resources into it. Supporting currencies outside the US dollar, however, is something they recognize their users need, so they do provide some amount of multi-currency support.

While the Windows version offers more detailed features—especially the paycheck breakdown and the Bills & Income section

I'm just curious about this comment (as a Mac-only user). While Quicken Windows has its Paycheck Wizard, it really doesn't offer much more functionality than a scheduled transaction with splits for income and withholding in Quicken Mac, does it? And how does the Bills & Income section of Quicken Windows function better than the Bills & Income in Quicken Mac?

I find myself forced to use the Mac version for one reason only: it allows me to add accounts in TTD (Trinidad and Tobago Dollar).

Because Quicken Mac doesn't do any reports in combined currencies, I'm wondering how its limited support for different currencies benefits you. In Quicken Windows, there is live conversion between different currencies that doesn't exist in Quicken Mac. If you're running Quicken Mac just for account in TDD, would it be possible for you to have a separate data file in Quicken Windows for your TDD accounts. In Quicken, they'd be labeled in USD, but you'd know that files is all TDD, while your other file is USD accounts. It's two separate data files, whether you have them both in Quicken windows or one in Quicken Windows and one in Quicken Mac. So I'm just wondering if keeping them both on Quicken Windows would simplify things for you.

The fact that the two versions cannot share the same file format is another major drawback

Well, that's a long story with a complex history I won't delve into here.😂 Just know that it's unlikely to ever change. Unless you some day decide to move to the newer, online-only Quicken Simplifi, which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs because it's entirely web- browser-based with all data stored in the cloud. (Assuming they some day develop a way to migrate data from Quicken Mac or Windows to Simplifi, which currently can't be done.)

Chris_QPW

Quicken Windows Canadian is the most "foreign" version because it most of its Canadian features were actually created by a team in Canadian long ago before Intuit pulled Quicken out of the international market. I believe that Canada was the first foreign country added and probably the only one that was part of Intuit. Whereas ones like the one in UK and Australia were other companies licensing and extending the code base (2004 is the last UK version).

On the use of currencies in all the products Quicken Windows Canadian has the best support since it has a currency history, whereas Quicken Windows US only has the current exchange rate, and Quicken Mac US/Canadian has no exchange rate at all. As @NotACPA said you can create any currency you like in Quicken Windows US/Canadian, but you will have to enter the current exchange rate yourself. And I believe that the reason there aren't more currencies on the list is just because that is list of securities that their service provider provides. On the subject of what currencies are available in Quicken Mac, @jacobs is it that it just has more currencies on its list? Given that it isn't downloading any exchange rates I could see how they might use a much larger list than the one that Quicken Inc's service provider has, but it certainly wouldn't add much of a functionality over Quicken Window's manually created one except maybe being able to use a different currency symbol. Quicken Windows doesn't support Unicode so I'm sure it can't show just any currency symbol.

Quicken Windows US/Canadian both handle this in transfers between accounts like this:

Whereas they use the current currency exchange rate for the default destination value (which I bet is wrong 99.99% of the time), but the key is that it can be 100 on one side of the transfer and 75.96 on the other side (It is the account that decides the currency, the numbers in the account register are actually just numbers).

@jacobs Can Quicken Mac have different amounts in transfers between accounts with different currencies?

Where Quicken Windows US fails miserably is in any report involving multiple currencies over time. Given that has only the current exchange rate when it is converting all the past transactions into the report currency it is using it current exchange rate which certainly gives incorrect information. Frankly, I might even consider Quicken Mac's current approach of keeping currencies separate to be more correct. Note that Quicken Windows reports don't have an option to keep them separate.

Quicken Windows Canadian uses its current exchange history to get a much more accurate report. On the other hand, the "Home Currency" is lock to CAD, whereas the US version it isn't locked and can be set to any of the currencies. This matters in places like the budget other views where they use the home currency (and depending on the view it either blocks accounts from a different currency or does a currency conversion).

And then there is Quicken Mobile/Web which is a real mess. No support at all and different versions of Quicken doing different things.

Quicken Mobile/Web. With a US data file, the numbers are USD and Quicken Windows US block sending any other currency account from being synced to Quicken Web/Mobile. In Quicken Windows Canadian the currency is CAD, but from what I have been told you can sync USD accounts, but no conversion is being done. In the case of Quicken Mac, it allows you to sync any currency account but again no conversion or separation.

Jon

Quicken Mac does download exchange rates, but only for currencies that you either currently use in your data file or have used in the past. For example, at one time I must have created an account in Canadian dollars because my Currency window shows the current USD/CAD exchange rate. When I added an account in pesos just now the USD/MXN exchange rate was added to the list.

It is true that there's no history of exchange rates in Quicken Mac, just the current rate. And there doesn't seem to be any way to remove an exchange rate from the list when you no longer need it.

Chris_QPW

Thanks for the correction @Jon. What Quicken Windows US does is this:

Jon

That's more substantial than on the Mac:

jacobs

@Chris_QPW To answer your question about what currencies Quicken Mac allows a user to select, here's the list (I couldn't copy and paste it, so I took multiple screenshots):

jacobs

@Chris_QPW One of the multi-currency limitations in Quicken Mac is that when you have it do a currency conversion in a transfer transaction, it's a one time conversion at the current (or user-overridden rate), but it does not create a linked transaction. Here's what I see when I enter a transfer of €100 from an account set to Euros to an account in US dollars:

The conversion rate is not stored with the transaction; it's simple a stand-alone transfer of money into or out of the respective accounts.

Chris_QPW

Thanks for the information @jacobs. That is quite an extensive currency list. Quicken Windows does have a lot more than what I showed, but Quicken Mac seems to have the more complete list. For the record, even though Quicken Windows US does create a linked transfer it doesn't store the exchange rate. Quicken Windows Canadian does store the exchange rate, but I'm not sure if it is stored in the transaction of just in the daily history that it keeps.

Austin@

I'm just curious about this comment (as a Mac-only user). While Quicken Windows has its Paycheck Wizard, it really doesn't offer much more functionality than a scheduled transaction with splits for income and withholding in Quicken Mac, does it? And how does the Bills & Income section of Quicken Windows function better than the Bills & Income in Quicken Mac?

@jacobs I think that's a fair point. You're right that a lot of the functionality of the Windows Paycheck Wizard can be replicated in Quicken Mac with a scheduled transaction and splits. Where I think the Paycheck Wizard has some advantages, though, is in a few of the details.

One big one is employer contributions. For example, if my employer contributes $X to my 401(k) or HSA, that money isn't coming out of my gross paycheck, so it isn't really a linked transfer from one of the paycheck splits. The Paycheck Wizard lets you enter those employer contributions and automatically creates the corresponding income transactions in those accounts. That's something that isn't as straightforward to replicate with a scheduled paycheck transaction in Quicken Mac.

The other advantage I find particularly useful is budgeting based on net pay. The Paycheck Wizard allows you to track all of the individual components of your paycheck—federal/state taxes, Social Security, Medicare, insurance, retirement contributions, etc.—while still treating the net amount that actually lands in your checking account as the income available for budgeting. I think that's a really nice combination for someone who wants detailed paycheck tracking without having their budget based on gross income.

In Quicken Mac, you can certainly accomplish something similar, but it gets considerably more cumbersome. You either have to account for every deduction/line item of the paycheck in your budget, or use some workarounds.

For example, I've set up a dummy account called "Gross Paychecks." I enter the paycheck there with an amount of zero and use splits to record all of the individual paycheck items, with the resulting net pay amount set up as a linked transfer to another dummy account called "Net Paychecks." I then transfer the net amount from Net Paychecks into my actual checking account, where the direct deposit occurs. That lets me categorize the transfer FROM Net Paychecks into checking as income for budgeting purposes.

It works, but it's definitely more hoops to jump through than simply using the Paycheck Wizard in Windows. Hope that makes sense.

Chris_QPW

The more I think about it, Quicken Windows US does "embed" the exchange rate in the transaction by the very fact that it is a linked transfer and as such you have the amount on both sides and so the exchange rate is easily calculated.

My thoughts were more like how security prices are handled. Given a price history for each security, then when you buy a security that price is saved in the security price list. Quicken Windows Canadian has an exchange history so potentially it can treat it the same. Quicken Windows US only has the current exchange rate and as such can't store it in that way.

jacobs

@Austin@ Thanks. Those are examples of two good features of the Quicken Windows Paycheck Wizard which don't exist in Quicken Mac.

Recording an employer contribution is fairly easy to accomplish in Quicken Mac, but it requires knowing to use a "hack" (record the contribution on one split line, then record the negative of that amount on the next split line using category=Adjustment); there should be a better way to do that.

Having net pay in a report or a budget is a useful feature which doesn't exist at all in Quicken Mac, and here any workaround (like the one you describe) is considerably more complex and awkward. That would be a good addition to Quicken Mac.

Chris_QPW

Whereas doing the employer match isn't too hard, there is one thing that is hidden in the Quicken paycheck wizard that most people aren't aware of. We like to point out many times that a transfer isn't an expense or income, but in truth there are a couple of times where Quicken Windows allows an exception to this, and the employee contribution to a 401K is an example. Quicken Windows has a hidden tax account. For each of these transfers Quicken Windows records them in this tax account. Its purpose is to allow that information to feed into the tax planner. I really hate hidden accounts like this because when there is a problem with them, they are hard to fix, but it does help with this kind of complexity. The other case is that you can assign a category/tax line to either the contribution or withdraw to these retirement accounts, and again for the purpose of keeping track of taxes.

I have a love/hate relationship with Quicken Windows' "wizards". For instance, the one for ESOs, RSUs, … What these do it enter a lot of transactions for you when you get the grant. But they are a nightmare if down the road you need to change something.