I just converted from Quicken 2006 for Mac to Quicken Essentials for Mac.

I am having a lot of trouble using the “reports” feature in my new Quicken Essentials.

The reports which I could make on the old program I cannot make on Essentials. The “reports” feature was very helpful. For example, I could search for a word within in a category such as “TAXES.” and I could see all taxes I paid; State taxes, Federal taxes, property taxes etc. I could even search the memos for a specific word. This is not possible with Essentials. 

I do some property management. When I make deposits, of course I put all the checks on one deposit slip, and I catalog each check in the Quicken 2006 program as to which property it was from.This was perfect. I could make reports by name of payee, by any category or sub category or by memo. Now, when I request the income on a property, I see only my deposits as splits. There is no way to get totals by property or by memo. I have to open each split deposit and get a pencil and paper to add them up. This is NOT progress.

Every year at tax time, my tenants need me to verify how much rent they have paid. Do I have to add up every deposit for each tenant for the whole year? The 2006 version allowed me to find exactly who had paid what, in seconds.The Essentials program doesn’t work for me at all without these features. I won’t be able to do my taxes. I can’t even make a proper year end summary.

I understand that these features are in the Windows version. What is that all about? Do you think Mac users don’t do their taxes?  don’t have small businesses? lose track of a bill and need to find it by name or memo? I have a Mac and don’t know how to use a PC. 

I will have to continue to use the 2006 version of Quicken. Please continue to maintain this program and let me know when this problem has been fixed.

I had been holding out hopes for the QE for Mac 2010 version thinking my biggest challenges would be in the conversion of my large data file. But having now read the latest entries from users and Intuit reps alike both here and on Intuit’s site, I find the “new” Mac product taking a giant step backward for serious home finance users like myself. Quicken is my #1 “killer app,” and within the program my “killer features” are investment tracking (mutual funds, 401k’s, IRAs) including detailed pricing history, integrated on-line bill pay, check printing, and loan amortization schedules (how do you really know your financial situation if you aren’t tracking your current balances on your mortgage or car loans?). From what I read QE 2010 will have NONE of those features, and it appears the program is in a quick race to the bottom of the software features list to be little more than a slick looking checkbook register (as termed by others). Sorry, but I may have come too far over the past 15 years tracking our family’s financial details.

From “Eddy’s” (at Intuit) comments here it is clear Intuit has made what they see as a business decision to go “drop-dead easy to use” and leave behind a good chunk of Mac users by:

“…trying to strike a balance between providing new features that are useful and make it easier to manage your financial life, vs bloating the product to the point where it is unusable – after all, there is a reason people have been switching to Mac, right?”

Boy, that speaks volumes…since when did complete and thorough get equated to “bloated” and “unusable”? I guess Intuit feels the Mac crowd is just too simple to have detailed financial needs—like personal investments with trading details! Thankfully Adobe (Photoshop, Premier) and apparently now even Microsoft (Office for Mac 2010 this fall)—my other killer apps—aren’t thinking the same way in their approaches to the Mac platform.

Many thanks to Rob for keeping this blog going. If I could put in a request to this group, I would personally look forward to a more involved discussion over Quicken alternatives, particularly the pending iBank review Rob refers to. I will not wait for Intuit any longer and see no value in badgering them about what they already see as their future in the Mac community. I will sever ties with them when I change my desktop in the next 6 months or so. I only want to go through the conversion one time, so I will appreciate whatever alternatives can be discussed here.

And before someone reminds me about the ability to use Parallels (or the equivalent) and run Windows on the Intel Mac—I know all about that. But there’s something about buying a new Mac, then buying additional software to run Windows, then buying Windows 7, then buying Windows security software, all to keep buying Intuit’s Windows version of Quicken, that just seems all backwards. Plus it reinforces Intuit’s continuing design and marketing behavior! Time for a change if I can find one. Thanks.

Also, It was reported above that Moneydance won’t import files from Quicken. Apparently, the newest release will import QIF files, but you have to do it one account at a time. I’m evaluating it now. More later.

Also, if you don’t trust putting your financial data into Mint.com, American Express is debuting a similar service. I think I’d trust Amex before I’d trust Intuit to keep my data secure. if you have an American Express card, check it out.

Good news that there may be light at the end of the tunnel, Rob. Let’s hope it comes before Apple comes out with OS X 10.7 or whatever and yanks Rosetta. Until then, I’m sticking with Quicken for Mac 2007 despite all the file corruptions.

I believe you left out one truly annoying factor about Quicken I’ve discovered through several upgrades. Two or three releases after a particular version, Intuit effectively disables bank and credit transaction downloads in that version. I had to buy Q2007 after Q2004 informed me of this, for example. Further, I found no added convenience from "Web Connect’s" clumsy modal window that I hadn’t already been happy with using simple .qif files.

I have never paid bills through Quicken, simply because I never trusted the software’s clunky online setup procedures to perform transactions. I pay bills online through my bank’s site, which is convenient and functional. I’ll need any replacement for Quicken to import/track/reconcile bank, credit, loans, investments, and reports to the same level of detail that Q2007 does. Ideally, its interface will not impose someone’s new, simplistic metaphor on a scheme I’ve come to think of as a logical, if cluttered, electronic extension of paper bookkeeping.

Do I care that Quicken 2007 is a PowerPC application that runs under Rosetta? No, it is transparent to me.

Would it be nice to have a new full featured version of Quicken for the Mac? Yes, I like shinny, new software but I don’t need it.

Will I buy Quicken Essentials? No, I monitor my investments in Quicken.

My only real concern is that sometime in the future Quicken will cease to run on my Mac and I’ll be forced to look for an alternative. None of the other programs I’ve looked at for the Mac do what I need them to do so I don’t have a current solution except virtualization. I’m not real optimistic on this last poit.