Canadian Pre-purchase: Premiere or H&B? Functions in Mac vs Win vs Web?

ChrisMacH&B · February 2020

Hi, sorry for the long question but couldn't find more than scattered tidbits in my search...

Wondering if Quicken will do what I need for:

Personal:
bank tracking w/ customized categories
investment tracking (no buy & sell, just monitoring)

Rental property:
Just one unit, but want to be able to categorize expenses & income & capital expense

Work expenses (employee, non-sales), including work from home

Small business income & expenses incl GST/HST prep

Integrated Mobile app for expense & receipt management would be handy, but not a deal breaker
_____________________________________________________________

Just curious if I need H&B version to accomplish this, as I've noticed tax software has a business version, but it's not needed. All the forms and inputs are available in the normal version. Is it similar for Quicken H&B?

Also, has anyone had any luck linking their mint.com account to the Canadian Quicken product? Got years of data and categorizing going on in there that would be a chore to replicate

Lastly, it looks like the H&B version is a windows-only product, but is all the functionality available in the web version? Not all that keen on setting up a VM just for month-to-month finances

Thanks in advance for the helpful replies

cheers,
c.

smayer97 · February 2020

First, QWeb is only a companion to the desktop app, providing about the same functionality as QMobile, but now includes reconciliation. That said, it still is a subset of features of the desktop and definitely has NO H&B features.

QMac vs QWin depends on what you want and are used to. For what you describe, Can should be adequate, even though it has no H&B features. I have 6 tenants and manage quite fine. But reporting functionality is weaker in QMac vs QWin.

QMobile is a mixed bag...works well for some, a pain and even data messes for others. You'd have to try it to see if it works for you.

And no, Mint data cannot be transferred over. You will need to start over unfortunately, unless you want to try export to CSV then try to convert to QIF then import to QWin only (QMac does not have QIF import).

The nice thing is that the subscription membership gives you access to BOTH QWin and QMac so you can try them both and see which works best for you. Note however that the data files are NOT compatible and conversion from QMac to QWin works far better (though not perfect) than the other way, which has many problems and limitations.

smayer97 · February 2020

ChrisMacH&B said:

...

Thanks for the info. Do you need to track business expenses for your properties and are you a GST registrant? Able to bust out taxes paid and charged?

I do not need to track GST BUT this is simply a matter of creating a GST paid vs collected categories. I would think it would not be too onerous to do but have no firsthand experience with this.

ChrisMacH&B said:

...

D'oh! Suppose I could keep both going so long as my bank doesn't pitch a fit over multiple queries. Wouldn't want to lose continuity in Mint if Quicken turns into a failed experiment

Can't see this as being a problem where a FI/bank would now get 2 pulls per account instead of just one.

ChrisMacH&B said:

...

> The nice thing is that the subscription membership gives you access
> to BOTH QWin and QMac so you can try them both and see which works best
> for you. Note however that the data files are NOT compatible and
> conversion from QMac to QWin works far better (though not perfect) than
> the other way, which has many problems and limitations.

Fair 'nough. Curious though.... If QWeb sits in between does it sync specific (limited) data between the 2 local versions or would you constantly be pushing local data files back and forth betwixt the 2 if you needed to use both Mac & Win?

The Quicken Cloud is the in-between that QWeb and QMobile push to and pull from. And the desktop then pushes to and pulls from the QCloud. But the current design is a one desktop file to many mobile connections and cannot be used to sync 2 desktop files together and it definitely cannot be used to sync cross platform (at least not yet).

(There was some leaked info and functionality in the QMac version at one point that attempted to sync 2 desktop files for a while...but it never went anywhere and no further documentation has been forthcoming on this for quite some time, so no idea what Quicken's intentions are going forward...as is, it was proven to be incomplete and only seemingly a work in progress...not sure it that rudimentary functionality is still there or not but definitely not something to depend on at this time).

ChrisMacH&B · February 2020

Forgot to add - Online bill paying isn't necessary; I can do that from my banking apps

smayer97 · February 2020

First, QWeb is only a companion to the desktop app, providing about the same functionality as QMobile, but now includes reconciliation. That said, it still is a subset of features of the desktop and definitely has NO H&B features.

QMac vs QWin depends on what you want and are used to. For what you describe, Can should be adequate, even though it has no H&B features. I have 6 tenants and manage quite fine. But reporting functionality is weaker in QMac vs QWin.

QMobile is a mixed bag...works well for some, a pain and even data messes for others. You'd have to try it to see if it works for you.

And no, Mint data cannot be transferred over. You will need to start over unfortunately, unless you want to try export to CSV then try to convert to QIF then import to QWin only (QMac does not have QIF import).

The nice thing is that the subscription membership gives you access to BOTH QWin and QMac so you can try them both and see which works best for you. Note however that the data files are NOT compatible and conversion from QMac to QWin works far better (though not perfect) than the other way, which has many problems and limitations.

ChrisMacH&B · February 2020

> @smayer97 said:
<snip>
> QMac vs QWin depends on what you want and are used to. For what you describe, Can should be adequate, even though it has no H&B features. I have 6 tenants and manage quite fine. But reporting functionality is weaker in QMac vs QWin.
>

Thanks for the info. Do you need to track business expenses for your properties and are you a GST registrant? Able to bust out taxes paid and charged?

> QMobile is a mixed bag...works well for some, a pain and even data messes for others. You'd have to try it to see if it works for you.
>
> And no, Mint data cannot be transferred over. You will need to start over unfortunately, unless you want to try export to CSV then try to convert to QIF then import to QWin only (QMac does not have QIF import).
>

D'oh! Suppose I could keep both going so long as my bank doesn't pitch a fit over multiple queries. Wouldn't want to lose continuity in Mint if Quicken turns into a failed experiment

> The nice thing is that the subscription membership gives you access
> to BOTH QWin and QMac so you can try them both and see which works best
> for you. Note however that the data files are NOT compatible and
> conversion from QMac to QWin works far better (though not perfect) than
> the other way, which has many problems and limitations.

Fair 'nough. Curious though.... If QWeb sits in between does it sync specific (limited) data between the 2 local versions or would you constantly be pushing local data files back and forth betwixt the 2 if you needed to use both Mac & Win?

Thanks, SMayer!
c.

smayer97 · February 2020