Comments on: Intuit Responds – Quicken Essentials 2010 for Mac http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9 a rough whimper of insanity Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:24:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: kayaker1 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-245 kayaker1 Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:53:00 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-245 Rob, have you updated your iBank story lately? I've been using it for 11 months now and find myself feeling quite mixed about it. I like it's speed, design overall and how it handles downloading transactions. I don't like the many user interface design flaws, the report feature, the budget feature (if you can even call it that), the known bugs that irritate so many users (like me) and IGG's slowness at dealing with these issues. The best alternatives to Quicken, at this time seem, to be iBank and SEE Finance. Both are quite comparable in features and capabilities. They differ somewhat on layout, design, user friendliness, ease of entering data, reports & graphs, creating budgets, reconciling, tech support, etc. Both are  fast and thorough at downloading transactions. SEE does everything iBank can do and, in some ways, does it better and easier. SEE has a lot more pref options which give the user more control over look and feel. SEE's Report and Budget features are much stronger than iBank's. Transferring years of data from Quicken to iBank or SEE Finance was not flawless for me. It took days to sort out the errors in account balances. iBank handles transactions that involve transfers between accounts better than SEE. SEE simply ignores imported transfer data... you lose all of it. SEE is a true double entry system. You must be very conscious about entering transfers between accounts. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. After using iBank for 11 months, I can say I am confident about my data, but I don't like all the feature weaknesses (reports, budget, etc.) and time wasting design issues. I am dissatisfied enough to be tesing SEE Finance now. I'm now running both in parallel. I hope to make a final decision by the end of the year. Rob, have you updated your iBank story lately? I’ve been using it for 11 months now and find myself feeling quite mixed about it. I like it’s speed, design overall and how it handles downloading transactions. I don’t like the many user interface design flaws, the report feature, the budget feature (if you can even call it that), the known bugs that irritate so many users (like me) and IGG’s slowness at dealing with these issues.

The best alternatives to Quicken, at this time seem, to be iBank and SEE Finance. Both are quite comparable in features and capabilities. They differ somewhat on layout, design, user friendliness, ease of entering data, reports & graphs, creating budgets, reconciling, tech support, etc. Both are  fast and thorough at downloading transactions. SEE does everything iBank can do and, in some ways, does it better and easier. SEE has a lot more pref options which give the user more control over look and feel. SEE’s Report and Budget features are much stronger than iBank’s.

Transferring years of data from Quicken to iBank or SEE Finance was not flawless for me. It took days to sort out the errors in account balances. iBank handles transactions that involve transfers between accounts
better than SEE. SEE simply ignores imported transfer data… you lose
all of it. SEE is a true double entry system. You must be very
conscious about entering transfers between accounts. I’m not sure if
that is good or bad.

After using iBank for 11 months, I can say I am confident about my data, but I don’t like all the feature weaknesses (reports, budget, etc.) and time wasting design issues. I am dissatisfied enough to be tesing SEE Finance now. I’m now running both in parallel. I hope to make a final decision by the end of the year.

]]> By: Rob Pickering http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-#comment-214 Rob Pickering Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:34:00 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-214 Thank you very much, comments like that will keep me writing. Thank you very much, comments like that will keep me writing.

]]> By: DavidB http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-60 DavidB Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:45:36 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-60 <p>Not sure who here has seen the review today, but Walter Mossberg of Wall Street Journal pretty much panned QEM. The title of his review is "Mac Quicken Gets Deductions for Iffy Upgrade" The article is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575085681830533518.html</p> Not sure who here has seen the review today, but Walter Mossberg of Wall Street Journal pretty much panned QEM. The title of his review is "Mac Quicken Gets Deductions for Iffy Upgrade" The article is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575085681830533518.html

]]> By: Richard Day http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-59 Richard Day Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:28:29 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-59 <p>Thanks for your great blog. I've read lots of stuff about current Quicken developments, and I'm hoping that things will develop in a positive manner. You know, I've gotten more answers to unanswered questions from your blog and from TUAW.com's interview with Aaron Patzer than anything Intuit has put out out through normal channels! Intuit's customer relations and publicity people are doing an appalling job of conveying vital information that at this point every Mac Quicken user wants to have. </p><p>Aaron Patzer seems like something of a force of nature, and I'm hoping that he will galvanize his Quicken developers to develop feature parity ASAP. It seems like he felt an urgent need to get a product out that, for what it does, it does well. Then we know at least some quality software if possible from these people! If he hadn't put out a product, then Intuit's credibility would lessen so badly that by the time a full-featured product came out, there wouldn't be any customers left. So maybe many of the "20%" might abandon Quicken, but at least the 80% would have something they are happy with. My impression from the Patzer interview is that his staff is going flat out to catch up and eventually release a full-featured product.</p><p>I am proceeding on this assumption. I'm going to try out QEM, running it in parallel with Quicken 2007 -- which I will continue to use because I want to track stock transactions. It would be nice to be able to export a QIF file of only the investments and import that into the future full-featured Quicken, but it appears QIF is not supported. But because I only have a couple of years' worth of investments to track, I am considering entering them manually when the Deluxe version is released. (The fact that my Quicken 2007 windows do not remember their size, and that exporting to QIF and importing into a clean and empty Quicken data file results in errors and skewed balances is the other reason I want to get into Essentials. It's a bit of an insurance policy in case my Quicken 2007 data file gets REALLY seriously damaged...)</p><p>IF Patzer follows through, then in the end we'll all be happy. I'm hoping for and looking forward to that day.</p> Thanks for your great blog. I’ve read lots of stuff about current Quicken developments, and I’m hoping that things will develop in a positive manner. You know, I’ve gotten more answers to unanswered questions from your blog and from TUAW.com’s interview with Aaron Patzer than anything Intuit has put out out through normal channels! Intuit’s customer relations and publicity people are doing an appalling job of conveying vital information that at this point every Mac Quicken user wants to have.

Aaron Patzer seems like something of a force of nature, and I’m hoping that he will galvanize his Quicken developers to develop feature parity ASAP. It seems like he felt an urgent need to get a product out that, for what it does, it does well. Then we know at least some quality software if possible from these people! If he hadn’t put out a product, then Intuit’s credibility would lessen so badly that by the time a full-featured product came out, there wouldn’t be any customers left. So maybe many of the "20%" might abandon Quicken, but at least the 80% would have something they are happy with. My impression from the Patzer interview is that his staff is going flat out to catch up and eventually release a full-featured product.

I am proceeding on this assumption. I’m going to try out QEM, running it in parallel with Quicken 2007 — which I will continue to use because I want to track stock transactions. It would be nice to be able to export a QIF file of only the investments and import that into the future full-featured Quicken, but it appears QIF is not supported. But because I only have a couple of years’ worth of investments to track, I am considering entering them manually when the Deluxe version is released. (The fact that my Quicken 2007 windows do not remember their size, and that exporting to QIF and importing into a clean and empty Quicken data file results in errors and skewed balances is the other reason I want to get into Essentials. It’s a bit of an insurance policy in case my Quicken 2007 data file gets REALLY seriously damaged…)

IF Patzer follows through, then in the end we’ll all be happy. I’m hoping for and looking forward to that day.

]]> By: DavidB http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-58 DavidB Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:26:49 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-58 <p>Wow - talk about brain-dead product management. Let's hope this new guy brings some actual thought to the process of what collection of features the new suite really needs. But I have my doubts since Mint (where he came from) doesn't support bill pay.</p> Wow – talk about brain-dead product management. Let’s hope this new guy brings some actual thought to the process of what collection of features the new suite really needs. But I have my doubts since Mint (where he came from) doesn’t support bill pay.

]]> By: Rob Pickering http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-57 Rob Pickering Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:57:10 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-57 <p>@Jeff S: Yes, Check Writing is gone. I mentioned this in my review of iBank under "The Good". It's unfortunate, but even though Intuit states that "fewer than X% of users used Y feature", it seems that everyone used at least one of the features that they've removed. It should have been looked at in aggregate and perhaps those features wouldn't have been eliminated.</p> @Jeff S: Yes, Check Writing is gone. I mentioned this in my review of iBank under "The Good". It’s unfortunate, but even though Intuit states that "fewer than X% of users used Y feature", it seems that everyone used at least one of the features that they’ve removed. It should have been looked at in aggregate and perhaps those features wouldn’t have been eliminated.

]]> By: Jeff S http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-56 Jeff S Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:40:32 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-56 <p>To say features are missing from Quicken Essentials for Mac is a gross understatement. Received the program yesterday and I am returning it today. I was aware of most of its limitations up front (through way of Intuit's web site and other articles) but I was not aware that you can no longer write or print checks with the program. What were they thinking? </p><p>Basically the program is a glorified check register that allows you to download your accounts in one step. Pretty much worthless!</p> To say features are missing from Quicken Essentials for Mac is a gross understatement. Received the program yesterday and I am returning it today. I was aware of most of its limitations up front (through way of Intuit’s web site and other articles) but I was not aware that you can no longer write or print checks with the program. What were they thinking?

Basically the program is a glorified check register that allows you to download your accounts in one step. Pretty much worthless!

]]> By: DavidB http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-55 DavidB Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:16:52 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-55 <p>Rob, thanks so much for all your work here. I'm one of those stranded MS Money users trying to figure out where to point myself. I tired Mint, Yodlee, several other "cloud" solutions, and was hoping Quicken Essentials for the Mac would be the answer to my needs. Alas, none of them support direct bill pay (which I think is really really basic need) or detailed tracking of brokerage transactions. Jeez, am I crazy, or isn't this stuff important to most people who have multiple accounts? What am I missing here.</p><p>So, realizing there wasn't going to be a native Mac solution anytime soon, I downloaded the trial version of Quicken 2010 and set about converting my money file. The good news is that the conversion went pretty well and I was amazed how it just sucked in my data and created all the right accounts, categories and transactions. Sure, there were some hacks, but it went fine. Then I started to try to actually use Quicken 2010. Now I'm as good a Microsoft basher as anyone, but I gotta say, Money just has it all over Quicken 2010 in terms of user interface and usability. In comparison to Money, Quicken looks and acts positively stone age. Then I discovered some really disappoint hacks. If you download transactions from your bank, then delete them accidentally and do another download, the transactions don't come down again. I mean WTF? And for one account it only downloaded the last 9 months of transactions so I thought I'd just import the previous stuff from a QIF file. Think again - no QIF import - WFT again? So, I've decided to run Money and Quicken in parallel the next 3 months and see how it goes. </p><p>This relates to this blog how? Well, I'm glad to see that the new guy plans to start from scratch and build something new that works seamlessly across all platforms. Hopefully when they implement this, they'll hire a user interface designer that didn't come from the DOS world.</p><p>David</p> Rob, thanks so much for all your work here. I’m one of those stranded MS Money users trying to figure out where to point myself. I tired Mint, Yodlee, several other "cloud" solutions, and was hoping Quicken Essentials for the Mac would be the answer to my needs. Alas, none of them support direct bill pay (which I think is really really basic need) or detailed tracking of brokerage transactions. Jeez, am I crazy, or isn’t this stuff important to most people who have multiple accounts? What am I missing here.

So, realizing there wasn’t going to be a native Mac solution anytime soon, I downloaded the trial version of Quicken 2010 and set about converting my money file. The good news is that the conversion went pretty well and I was amazed how it just sucked in my data and created all the right accounts, categories and transactions. Sure, there were some hacks, but it went fine. Then I started to try to actually use Quicken 2010. Now I’m as good a Microsoft basher as anyone, but I gotta say, Money just has it all over Quicken 2010 in terms of user interface and usability. In comparison to Money, Quicken looks and acts positively stone age. Then I discovered some really disappoint hacks. If you download transactions from your bank, then delete them accidentally and do another download, the transactions don’t come down again. I mean WTF? And for one account it only downloaded the last 9 months of transactions so I thought I’d just import the previous stuff from a QIF file. Think again – no QIF import – WFT again? So, I’ve decided to run Money and Quicken in parallel the next 3 months and see how it goes.

This relates to this blog how? Well, I’m glad to see that the new guy plans to start from scratch and build something new that works seamlessly across all platforms. Hopefully when they implement this, they’ll hire a user interface designer that didn’t come from the DOS world.

David

]]> By: Lisa http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-54 Lisa Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:37:49 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-54 <p>Rob, thanks for all of your time and effort on behalf off all of us.<br/>I've been waiting to switch from Q2009 windows via WMware to Quicken Mac. It looks like I can ditch VMware, but I'll have to give up a lot of features. I think NOT!!! Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider using Quicken Bill Pay through Quicken, pushing data into Turbo Tax and tracking investments advanced (or bloated) features. In fact, they are features I would expect to find in a $60 program from Intuit. So, I'll keep looking because I'm determined to get this VMware off my precious iMac.<br/>I know there are a lot of disappointed Mac users out there. Surely there is a smart company that will remedy the situation.</p> Rob, thanks for all of your time and effort on behalf off all of us.
I’ve been waiting to switch from Q2009 windows via WMware to Quicken Mac. It looks like I can ditch VMware, but I’ll have to give up a lot of features. I think NOT!!! Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider using Quicken Bill Pay through Quicken, pushing data into Turbo Tax and tracking investments advanced (or bloated) features. In fact, they are features I would expect to find in a $60 program from Intuit. So, I’ll keep looking because I’m determined to get this VMware off my precious iMac.
I know there are a lot of disappointed Mac users out there. Surely there is a smart company that will remedy the situation.

]]> By: Ron http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac-9/comment-page-1#comment-53 Ron Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:05:06 +0000 http://robpickering.com/2010/02/intuit-responds-quicken-essentials-2010-for-mac/#comment-53 <p>Finally a few answers on the basic questions. If someone at Intuit would realize what a release date is, a lot of the "bad customer service" or<br/>"they do not care about Mac users" would not be what you read about. <br/>I for one, will not believe anything until it is actually in my hands. This "release" has been promised too many times to be believed anymore.<br/>The fact that they encourage you to pre-order the software, and then make it available to you last is just another example of what Intuit thinks of anyone who might even consider being a loyal customer. Whoever dreamed up this release schedule should be shown the door.<br/>Time will tell, but I believe Intuit has firmly established how it feels about Mac customers. 2nd rate, and not worthy of thier consideration, time or investment. I hope they prove me wrong.</p> Finally a few answers on the basic questions. If someone at Intuit would realize what a release date is, a lot of the "bad customer service" or
"they do not care about Mac users" would not be what you read about.
I for one, will not believe anything until it is actually in my hands. This "release" has been promised too many times to be believed anymore.
The fact that they encourage you to pre-order the software, and then make it available to you last is just another example of what Intuit thinks of anyone who might even consider being a loyal customer. Whoever dreamed up this release schedule should be shown the door.
Time will tell, but I believe Intuit has firmly established how it feels about Mac customers. 2nd rate, and not worthy of thier consideration, time or investment. I hope they prove me wrong.

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