Exact differences between Mac and Windows version

markusbohu · July 14

Is there a complete list of the exact differences between the Mac and Windows versions of Quicken? Is there a discussion on any other concerns about using Quicken on MAC?
When looking for online tutorials and videos, I find that no one seems to be using Quicken (Premier) on Mac, and some are even running it on Parrallels, instead of using the native Mac version, which makes me think the native Mac version has some serious limitations. Is that true?
The Quicken website is almost completely silent on that issue as well, making me feel like there must be some problems?
I am trying to figure out if I have to purchase a new Windows laptop just to run this one application, which of course would tremendously increase the costs.

I am looking to use Quicken to prepare for retirement, track personal expenses by custom categories for a couple pre-retirement years, track investments, make sure bank imports work for dozens of accounts and once certain vendors/transactions are associated with a category, they can automatically apply (but also be custom edited, if necessary—for example "Amazon" purchases may be associated with many different categories). Some retirement planning would be good (Monte Carlo, etc.) but not absolutely necessary since I have dedicated software for that, some serious tax planning would be awesome (including SS tax, etc.—but I'm almost not expecting that since it seems the software that can really do that is quite complex and usually only available for CPAs and CFPs)
I also have 2 businesses and may keep one into retirement. Since that business is the simpler/passive one, I may forgo the business accounting software at that point and see if I can also use Quicken for the business aspect at that point—so I would like to make sure I can upgrade later and not loose any of the personal finance features, or any of my data.

While Quicken isn't that expensive to try, I'd rather not spend the tremendous effort required to get all my data into it and set it up right, if it turns out the specific version I got wasn't going to work long-term or is missing some essential feature.

Jon · July 14

Quicken Mac doesn’t have the retirement planner module that Windows has, but they have added business support to the Mac version over the last couple years. Quicken Mac doesn’t really do any tax planning; I don’t know if QWin is any better in that area.

A subscription covers both Windows and Mac so it doesn’t cost anything extra if you decide to switch from one to the other.

markusbohu · July 14

Thanks. That's helpful. Sounds like the conversion from Mac to Windows is not quite straighforward though, right?

Also: That's quite a big difference, if an entire module is missing (again: may be ok for me, as there are dedicated tools for retirement)—but, are there any other complete modules/large features missing?

jacobs · July 14

@markusbohu No, there is no list of every difference between Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows. And I think people would describe what are important/large differences differently, depending on how they use Quicken and what features they use. It's probably easier to answer questions about "does Quicken Mac have xxx?" than trying to answer "what's different between them".

Does Quicken Mac have "serious limitations"? Again, asking different Quicken users, you would get different answers from different people. There are hundreds of thousands of satisfied Quicken Mac users; I'm one. But if there's something specific you lean heavily on in Quicken Windows, you might be in the smaller camp of people who find Quicken Mac doesn't meet their needs.

I am looking to use Quicken to prepare for retirement, track personal expenses by custom categories for a couple pre-retirement years, track investments, make sure bank imports work for dozens of accounts and once certain vendors/transactions are associated with a category, they can automatically apply (but also be custom edited, if necessary—for example "Amazon" purchases may be associated with many different categories).

In Quicken Mac, you can create custom categories for income and expenses. You can track your investments; there are less robust investment reports than Quicken Windows, but most users find the reporting that's available to be adequate. Bank imports is always a dicey issue with Quicken, not so much because of limitations in the software, but because of never-ending bank software/server changes which cause interruptions in Quicken connectivity; Quicken Mac is typically no better or worse than Quicken Windows in this regard. You can create "QuickFill Rules" to automatically apply a specified category to transactions from that payee; you can edit the category for any transaction which needs to be categorized differently.

Some retirement planning would be good (Monte Carlo, etc.) but not absolutely necessary since I have dedicated software for that, some serious tax planning would be awesome

Quicken Mac doesn't have any special tools for retirement planning or tax planning, although user requests for both have been marked as "Planned" by the Quicken Mac development team. Quicken never announces any details of planned features, so we don't know whether what they will implement will be identical, similar to, or different from what exists in Quicken Windows. They also don't give any indication of when such new features are expected to be delivered; it could be within a few months, or more than a year off.

In terms of Deluxe versus Premier, for a long time there were very minimal differences in Quicken Mac. In the past few years, there have been a few features released which require Premier, and I think we'll see more of that over time.

As has been noted above, if you have a Mac and an existing Quicken subscription, you can download and try Quicken Mac at no cost.

Sounds like the conversion from Mac to Windows is not quite straighforward though, right?

No, generally the conversion is actually quite straightforward and pretty solid. But some users run into problems with some aspect of their Quicken Windows data. The best way to find out if you'll have problems converting from Quicken Windows to Quicken Mac is to try it. This won't affect your existing Quicken Windows file, which h you can continue to use. In fact, if you can run both programs in parallel for a few weeks or a month to see if you find discrepancies and, hopefully, track them down.

markusbohu · July 14

"It's probably easier to answer questions about "does Quicken Mac have xxx?" than trying to answer "what's different between them".

Since I haven't used Quicken for possibly a couple decades (on either Mac or Windows), I know too little to properly ask the question, but maybe a simpler way to ask my question is:

Given that all tutorials and feature descriptions I can find on YouTube are for the Windows version (even if running on a virtual environment on Mac), Will I get a good impression of the software by watching them. So, essentially does everything look and work the same, but every now and then there is a small thing that is slightly different,
OR: Are they two completely different pieces of software, both from look and feel, as well as functionality—So will I be terribly disappointed if I make my purchase decision based on what I am seeing in the Windows version? (I guess if there is no tax planning but Windows has it that would pretty much do it for me—unless the Windows tax planning is so rudimentary as not to be useful.)

Retirement investing, tax and success planning seems to be so unbelievably complex in the US, that I was hoping to find a tool for that. Most dedicated retirement planning software is only good for creating the initial plan, and I was extremely surprised when a large number of people in one of the retirement software user groups suggested Quicken for investment tracking, budgeting, taxes and ongoing planning (because I remember Quicken as a very simple expense tracker back in the days)—so I was hoping to see if it can become my ongoing planning tool, once I am retired and have to stretch a fixed amount of money for the rest of my life.
But it seems a bit, that the most powerful features are limited to only the Windows version?

(It's been a while since I was a serious developer, but wouldn't it be easier to port a tool with all the back-end logic unchanged and only change the UI, when porting from one platform to another?)

jacobs · July 15

wouldn't it be easier to port a tool with all the back-end logic unchanged and only change the UI, when porting from one platform to another?

It might depend on the nature of the program, but in this case, no. Quicken Windows is very tightly tied to the Windows operating system, using tools and frameworks which don’t exist in the Mac operating system. And when Quicken for Mac was re-written, starting back in 2007, they wanted to create a program which felt like a native Mac program and not just a port of a Windows program. They wanted to take advantage of a newer and more robust database. And they wanted to re-think what a next-generation Quicken product might look like and operate. But the former parent company didn’t allocate much money to the effort, so there was only a tiny development team, and development of features was slow. Today, things are somewhat better, but the development team is still fairly small and there are many features which remain on the to-do list.

But it seems a bit, that the most powerful features are limited to only the Windows version?

I wouldn’t characterize it that way. There are certainly some features which exist in Quicken Windows which don’t exist in Quicken Mac. But the core functionality of the programs is pretty comparable. If you determine that something like the Tax Planner feature of Quicken Windows, which doesn’t yet exist in Quicken Mac, is crucial to you, then Quicken Mac might not meet your needs.

So, essentially does everything look and work the same, but every now and then there is a small thing that is slightly different

No. There are differences in the user interface and how certain functionality is implemented. Current or former Quicken Windows users will tell you that the Mac version is better in some areas, and worse in others.

I was hoping to see if it can become my ongoing planning tool, once I am retired and have to stretch a fixed amount of money for the rest of my life

I’m not a Quicken Windows user, but my impression is that the Retirement Planner can be useful but is not robust in the way a financial planner would design your retirement plan. Quicken lets you test some “what if” scenarios, but it is not going to guide you as to how to structure your investments or which accounts to draw from in what order.

all tutorials and feature descriptions I can find on YouTube are for the Windows version

There are some tutorials and videos for Quicken Mac out there. (I’m typing on my phone and away from my Mac so I can’t find URLs for you right now; hopefully someone else will jump in to do so, or you can find resources with a little searching.)

Jim_Harman · July 15

I guess if there is no tax planning but Windows has it that would pretty much do it for me—unless the Windows tax planning is so rudimentary as not to be useful.

I find the Windows Tax Planner to be very useful, but like any tool, you must put some time into setting it up and learning how to use it. It is definitely not full-fledged tax software like TurboTax. For example it does not address state taxes, except to the extent that your state and local payments affect your federal deductions. Also it does not automatically calculate how much of your Social Security income will be taxable, you must compute and enter an adjustment for that.

A big advantage of the Tax Planner is that its inputs are linked to your taxable income and expenses as recorded in Quicken. To take full advantage of this, you will want to set up Reminders for your taxable income and expenses. That way, the Planner can look ahead to see what these are likely to be for the rest of the year. As the year goes by, the Reminder amounts are replaced by the actuals, and the plan results more accurately reflect your actual tax situation.

Also Quicken comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try out both the Windows and Mac versions and see if one of them fits your needs.

Chris_QPW · July 15

In my opinion (as a Quicken Windows user) Quicken Windows "power features" are a double edge sword.

Tax Planner, if your income is uniform (not like a teacher or contractor) and you are really careful with it, it can be quite good. Fall out of that scope and you can get quite fooled by it (as I have in the past, and why I use my tax program to make a guess at next year's taxes instead).

Lifetime Planner (what use to be called Retirement Planner). In my opinion is only good for a "ballpark estimate". Its real advantage over online programs is that it has access to your data. But has some really crippling shortcomings. One of those shortcomings is the one that I alluded to above, lots of "old features" in Quicken Windows are poorly maintained. More focus is put on adding new stuff to try to sell Quicken to more people.

They haven't updated the RMD date in many years for instance. Also, from a design point of view, you can't control the order of withdraws from your accounts. There is only a few rate of "rate of return" settings, non taxable and tax deferred accounts and before and after retirement expected returns on investments.

One that I think no one talks about is the fact that it is always "forward looking", no history. Are asked give guesses like inflation percentage, investment returns and such. Then it plots that out. So, say you do that, and it looks fine, but you unrealistically pick 1% for inflation. Now you go another year, all you are going to see is that 1% still makes your plan work into the future. Nothing will tell you that your 1% was wrong in the past. You would have to save a copy of the prediction and check it periodically.

And if you are looking for a plan that includes something like Monte Carlo Simulations, Quicken doesn't have that.

But let me address your first question about a complete list. No such thing exists for Quicken. And one of the main reasons for that is because there are way too many features in to list them all. That is the double edge sword. Lots of feature, not enough time to implement them in a new version (takes many, many years as shown in the Quicken Mac rewrite) and it is also very hard to maintain them.

As such, you most likely have to try and see if it will serve your needs unless you are going with Quicken Mac and the lack of a Tax Planner/Retirement planner is a no go.

Bob. · July 16

I'm running both. There are threads and questions and arguments about my transition here on the forums.

Windows is more feature rich. Mac more stable and perhaps I can say easier to repair.
Terminology is different between the two.
Accepting and editing new transactions is very different between the two.
Online billers does not work consistently on either. Breaks less dramatically in Mac.
MUCH smaller files in MAC.
Much better restore process in Mac.
Some tools like DSTART which have saved my investment accounts missing in Mac. Maybe not needed?
Easier to see new bill due in Windows.
Credit score, though only every 90 days in Windows. Better One Step Update in Mac.
OSU password not required in Mac.

And that just off the top of my head.

mgkahn · July 16

For extensive retirement planning and simulations, I subscribe to MaxiFi Planner. Extends Quickens personal finance focus well beyond Quickens capabilities. It has a learning curve but the company now has biweekly online live sessions. In my opinion, the two programs compliment each other for the near- and in-retirement household. YMMV.

MauryJ · July 16

I used Quicken Premier Windows from 1995 to 2021. From then on it was Premier Mac on Apple silicon, so I never used parallels or any other virtual machine. I ran them side by side for a while, but with managed brokerage accounts the volume of investment transactions was too much labor to keep up in Windows. I still have the Windows machine it was running on, but my only motive to keeping it running in Windows was just a safety factor in case I ever got the desire to move back. It took me a while to lose my Windows mentality as I was a bit of a neophyte using MacOS, so some features I thought weren't there were just revealed differently..

The Mac UI is different and much cleaner. Certain things that were laborious in Windows are done with fewer clicks and my my M1 Pro is way faster than the i7 quad core I built with 64 GB of RAM. It's not even close for certain things where Windows takes a big gulp before accepting a transaction or scrolling large lists. The presentation is more aesthetically pleasing and many simple tasks are done on the Mac much more easily. In spite of some of the Windows version advantages, I just could not go back.

My motivation for using Quicken was to track spending so I could understand it better, and to help me track my investments as I decided to get more focused on an over the horizon retirement. I have 3 brokerage houses, one is a combo of self directed and managed investments, and the other 2 are legacy self directed shops that I'm maintaining a relationship with for various reasons. I use a different bank for checking / savings, plus I track a few non connected accounts manually like an insurance policy, some property, a small savings account, etc. I have a habit of categorizing everything, and also occasional key word notations in the memo field for a significant spending item, like a gift or an appliance - etc. Something I might want to look up later. Key word searches in the registers on both platforms are fantastic.

I am a partner a small LLC and I use Q-Mac in a separate file to generate expense reports for our business accountant. I've thought about getting the business version but my needs are so simple on that score I don't see how it would benefit.

Converting to Mac was a simple process. A small anecdote. When I transitioned from a legacy broker to my primary investment financial institution the new institution had a weird way of generating Quicken transactions for migrations of accounts in kind. Some would just note "Shares Added" and some would note "Shares Added" with lots (purchases, dividend reinvestments, etc.) and many of my older investments had wrong average costs because some shares were added at $0, and therefore gains were all messed up. A lot of this was in 2 IRAs, so I didn't worry about it from a tax perspective, but it really bothered me from an analysis perspective. This had been done in Windows. The fault was on the broker, not Quicken. After porting to Mac, it came over, mistakes and all. After about 2 years of this I couldn't take it anymore and I had an idea. I edited the Add Shares transactions to be "Transfer Shares" and all the missing lot data came back as if it were the original account. So, basically, I had bad transaction types in a few Windows accounts, used that for about a year and a half, migrated the Quicken file to Mac, then used that for about 2 more years, and then did a few simple edits and all that data just reappeared, average costs got back to normal, the whole 9 yards. That impressed me very much.

Windows advantages for me are reporting is stronger, and more flexible in what you can do to customize a report. The Mac version is 80% there reports wise on spending, and maybe 20% on investing using canned reports. You can do much of what you need in exporting the portfolio views to CSV, so that 20% is a bit of a misnomer, but Windows does offer more data categories and canned views, such as a portfolio wide mutual fund view, even with Morningstar stars, plus Q-W includes a high level Morningstar X-Ray which is not available in the Mac version. I was just going to complain about one glaring difference that bothers me in Mac that Windows does better and I just tried that report and the Mac team redesigned it, so never mind. I find the Mac team is very active fixing things or making them better, which is reason for optimism, but some things are taking a long time to address.

On the flip side, the Mac software is cleaner UI, noticeably faster and more efficient in some tasks - less clicks, simpler visual presentation and software more responsive feels like it takes a lot less effort doing housekeeping and I spend more time with the data itself. Q-Mac does most of what I want (after 25 years on the Windows version). X-Y graphing on the Mac is much easier to read. Dashboards are very useful for at a glance, but I wish I could customize certain things, which Windows imperfectly allows me to do. One would be having 2 or 3 spending category cards on the same dashboard. One for YTD, and one for Last Year YTD so you can easily do side by side comparisons of your spending and which categories have the most change. Or the same set up for month over month. Compare this month to last month, and also this month last year. Mac spending dashboards don't allow you to add cards, much less 2 cards of the same type.

Windows files were more prone to errors and corruptions. It wasn't coming but it was helpful to do a file repay every so often, whereas on Mac I haven't had an issue for 4 years. The Mac Quicken file is definitely more stable, but that wouldn't keep me from using windows if I prefered it.

MauryJ · July 20

That last paragraph makes no sense. Here's what it should have said (&^%$ spelling correction):

Windows files were more prone to errors and corruptions. It wasn't common but it was helpful to do a file maintenance / repair every so often. It would catch errors and weird things like phantom transactions or transaction dates in the year 1900. Whereas on Mac, I haven't had an issue for 4 years. The Mac Quicken file is definitely more stable, but that wouldn't keep me from using windows if I preferred it that strongly. Repairs were not a chore but there was always a risk with Windows.

Adding to say: Sometimes I'd put the computer to sleep to come back to, because the login process and the startup process for Quicken could take some time with Windows, and then forget I hadn't shut the machine down. Then Microsoft would update overnight me and files could come back with anomalies. The M1 is way faster on boot and even a Quicken program update only takes about 30 seconds from download to install to reboot and log back in with a fingerprint. Likewise one step updates are much faster with large numbers of accounts.

Exact differences between Mac and Windows version

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