If you mention the words 'Quicken for Mac' around financially savvy consumers, chances are you'll hear a lot of groans. That's been the consensus for this program over the years. While it might not stack up to the Windows version quite yet, there are improvements you may want to see.

Quicken set out to create a program that was at least comparable to its sibling, Quicken for Windows. Did it accomplish that goal? Many users don't think so, but they do recognize the improvements made in the program. Some of the most important improvements made include:

Quicken for Mac supports any Mac product, including Mac products built on the new Apple Silicon architecture. Quicken released a universal app that allows it to run natively on Apple Silicon, taking advantage of the power of Apple's new M1 chip and providing a much faster and more seamless user experience. Amazon.com: quicken essentials for mac. QuickBooks Online for Mac 2018 Small Business Accounting Mac Disc OLD VERSION Sep 18, 2017 by Intuit.

1. Quicken for Mac imports data from Quicken for Windows 2010 or newer, Quicken for Mac 2015 or newer, Quicken for Mac 2007, Quicken Essentials for Mac, Banktivity. 30-day money back guarantee: If you’re not satisfied, return this product to Quicken within 30 days of purchase with your dated receipt for a full refund of the purchase price less.
2. Quicken Home & Business and QuickBooks Simple Start both address small business accounting needs, but QuickBooks Simple Start is a dedicated small business accounting software application, and it will better serve a growing small business.

• A more user-friendly interface
  
• More cohesiveness between mobile app and Quicken for Mac
  
• More reporting options

Did Quicken accomplish what they set out to do? Keep reading to find out.

How Does Quicken for Mac Work?

One thing you should understand about Quicken for Mac: just likes its Windows counterpart, you must subscribe to the service. The subscriptions are available in one and two-year increments. This means every year (or two years), you must renew your subscription. Quicken offers three versions for Mac users:

• Starter: As the name suggests, it's a starter program, good for those who have never officially budgeted their finances. Don't expect any bells and whistles with this option.
• Deluxe: If you are ready for more, the Deluxe program helps you customize your budget, track your debt, manage your debt, and monitor your investments.
• Premiere: The top tier program includes everything in Deluxe, plus online bill pay service (free of charge) and quicker access to customer service.

• Phone support is available Monday - Friday, 5 AM to 5 PM Pacific Time
  
• Live chat is available 24/7; you can see the wait time for an agent right on the website

What Are the Fees?

As we discussed above, Quicken is a subscription-based service. You will pay anywhere from $34.99 to $74.99 per year for the service. If you neglect to renew your subscription, you can still access your information, but you cannot use the program's services any longer.

Reasons We Like Quicken for Mac

• You can sync your financial data between the desktop app and the mobile app. The Quicken mobile app is free and syncs with your desktop app. This way you can add, edit, or delete transactions on either device and they will synchronize the information so you are always looking at the most up-to-date data.
• You can easily reconcile your accounts. If you don't reconcile your accounts, you may be using incorrect information. Reconciling is a feature in Quicken for Mac that is simple to use. It's like a system of checks and balances that lets you know the information you put into Quicken for Mac matches the information the bank provides.
• Quicken for Mac provides visually appealing graphs and charts. Quicken for Mac is easier to navigate and read for users. You can view ledgers, graphs, or charts—whichever is the most appealing to you and will help you stay on track with your budget.
• You can pay bills via Quicken for Mac. Quicken for Mac has access to more than 11,000 vendors. You can view all of your bills on the dashboard and/or you can download your bills in PDF format if you prefer to have a copy of the bill yourself.
• You can manage your investments. A new key feature of Quicken for Mac is the investments feature. You can track your portfolio, get updated quotes, and track your profits. You can also see your cost basis, determine your capital gains, and prepare yourself for tax time.
• You can track your principal and interest on loans. If you are trying to get ahead of your loans, you will like the loan feature in Quicken for Mac. You can see how your payments affect principal and interest. You can also run 'what if' scenarios to see how different payments and scenarios would help you pay off your debt.
• You can use Dropbox for backups. Even though Quicken for Mac is on your local computer, you get access to 5 GB of online backup from Dropbox. This gives you a 'backup' of your financial information to ensure that you don't lose anything.
• You always have the latest updates. Because Quicken for Mac is subscription-based, you don't have to upgrade the product when new versions are released. You'll automatically receive updates, which means you'll always have the latest features available to you.
• You don't lose access to your financial data even after your subscription ends. If you don't want to renew your subscription, you still have access to your financial data. You can view it, edit it, or export it. While you can't use Quicken's features, you won't lose the information you collected while you did pay for the program.
• Quicken supports more than 14,000 financial institutions for automatic update of your financial information. This is the same number of financial institutions Quicken works with for the Windows version, so Mac users are on the same wavelength as Window users in that regard.

Reasons You May Want to Look Elsewhere

• There is little difference between the Premier and Deluxe versions. The only differences are the online bill pay (free of charge) and faster priority for customer service. For many users, that may not be worth the extra $30 per year, especially when most banks offer free bill pay.
• Investment reporting still lacks features offered in Quicken for Windows. While Quicken for Mac 2018 has dramatically better investment features, it still pales in comparison to Quicken for Windows' features. The main features that lag are in terms of reporting, which is the one feature many users want when looking at their investments.
• You have to pay for it every year. Quicken for Mac used to be a native program that you downloaded to your computer and used for as long as you wanted. If you wanted to use an old program, that was your prerogative. Now you don't have that choice—you have to pay the subscription fee or you can't use Quicken for Mac.

How It Compares

QuickBooks for Mac: QuickBooks for Mac offers similar features to Quicken for Mac, but QuickBooks also caters to small businesses. Quicken is more for personal finance use. If you don't manage payroll or your business has simple financing needs, Quicken may suffice. Businesses that need more robust financing options, though, may do better with QuickBooks for Mac.

Quicken for PC/Windows: While Quicken for Mac made many improvements for 2018, it's still not the mirror image of Quicken for Windows that many users want. The navigation in the Windows version is still easier. Also, the reporting options in the Windows version are more robust.

Bottom Line

If you can overlook the subscription fees for Quicken for Mac, it does pack quite a punch being a native program for Mac users. While it does lack certain features, it's a major improvement over the previous versions.

With the subscription-based service, you do have the benefit of quick fixes when issues arise and always having the latest version at your fingertips.

Write to Kim P at feedback@creditdonkey.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for our latest posts.

Read Next:

Quicken is a personal finance management tool developed by Quicken Inc. (formerly part of Intuit, Inc.). On March 3, 2016, Intuit announced plans to sell Quicken to H.I.G. Capital; terms of the sale were not disclosed.^[1]

Different (and incompatible) versions of Quicken run on Windows and Macintosh systems. Previous versions ran on DOS^[2] and the Apple II.^[3] There are several versions of Quicken for Windows, including Quicken Starter, Quicken Deluxe, Quicken Rental Property Manager, Quicken Premier, and Quicken Home & Business, as well as Quicken for Mac.^[4] Since 2008, each version has tended to have the release year in the product name (e.g., Quicken Basic 2008); before then, versions were numbered (e.g., Quicken 8 for DOS).

Quicken's major marketplace is North America, and most of the software sold is specialized for the United States and Canadian marketplace and user base. But the core functions can often be used more widely, regardless of country; and versions have been tailored for a variety of marketplaces, including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Singapore.^[5] Development of the UK-specific version of Quicken was stopped in January 2005, with sales and support ending shortly afterwards. There were also versions for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, and Venezuela.^[5]

Product description[edit]

The Quicken name typically refers to the core product offering of personal financial management software. The software includes financial planning activities that, historically, people may have done on paper – recording banking transactions, planning a budget and measuring progress against it, tracking investments and their prices and performance. Quicken has offered various editions, with varying prices – such as Basic which includes only those typical activities for someone with simple banking accounts, to Small Business for someone who also runs a business out of their home.

Quicken includes online services that allow users to retrieve transactions from various providers – such as their bank or credit card company. In most cases, online services and technical support are now supported for up to three years after the product's labeled version. e.g. Quicken 2018 will be supported until 2021.^[6]

Related products[edit]

The Quicken brand has been extended to other personal and household areas, including healthcare. Quicken Health Expense Tracker is a free online tool for healthcare consumers enrolled in participating health plans. Users can 'manage and direct their health care finances, view and organize medical expenses, payments and service histories, and download and organize personal health claims data.'^[7] The Quicken Medical Expense Manager is a desktop software tool for managing healthcare paperwork, tracking claims and payments, and consolidating related information.

Quicken Kids & Money was a Web-based program that aimed to help parents teach five- to eight-year-old children how to earn, spend, save, and share money. It is defunct.^[8]

Other products are aimed at home business and seem to fit in a space for a less formal business than would be using QuickBooks. Quicken Rental Property Manager is a desktop software tool for managing rental properties; tracking tenants, expenses, and payments; and producing tax reports.

Software as a service[edit]

Quicken Online was a free, hosted solution (see software as a service) by Intuit. Intuit hosted all of the user's data, and provided patches and regularly upgraded the software automatically. Initially this was launched as a monthly paid subscription, and was a free service for over a year.

Intuit completed the acquisition of competitor Mint.com on November 2, 2009.^[9] Quicken Online was discontinued on August 29, 2010, and users were encouraged to transition to Mint.com.

Beginning with Quicken 2018, Quicken is now a subscription service. Annual memberships can be purchased directly from Quicken.com and two-year subscriptions can be purchased through several retailers.^[10]

Editions[edit]

Quicken Mac Software

The following are current (selling and supported) and retired (discontinued in both sales and support) versions of Quicken.

Current[edit]

Selling[edit]

• Quicken (Starter, Deluxe, Premier) 2019 for Windows^[11]
• Quicken (Starter, Deluxe, Premier) 2019 for Mac^[11]
• Quicken Home & Business 2019 for Windows^[11]

Quicken Software For Mac Computers

Supported[edit]

(Dates support ends are shown.) ^[12]

• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2017 - expires April 30, 2020
• Quicken 2017 for Mac - expires April 30, 2020

Retired[edit]

Quicken For Home & Business For Mac

(Dates retired are shown.) ^[12]

• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2016 - April 30, 2019
• Quicken 2016 for Mac - April 30, 2019
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2015 - April 30, 2018
• Quicken 2015 for Mac - April 30, 2018
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2014 - April 30, 2017
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2013 - April 30, 2016
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2012 - April 30, 2015
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business Edition 2011 - April 30, 2014
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, Rental Property Manager 2010 - April 30, 2013
• Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business 2009 - April 30, 2012
• Basic, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business 2008 - April 27, 2011
• Basic, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business 2007 - April 30, 2010
• 2006 (Win) – April 30, 2009
• 2005 (Win) – April 30, 2008
• 2004 – April 30, 2007
• 2003 – April 25, 2006
• 2002 – April 19, 2005
• 2001 – April 19, 2005
• 2000 – May 18, 2004
• 98 and 99 – April 20, 2004
• Version 6 for Windows. 'Designed for Windows 95. Release 6.0. (c) 1996'
• Version 3 for Windows 3.1
• Quicken Essentials for Mac - April 30, 2015
• Quicken for Mac 2007 - retired October 2016^[12]
• Quicken Mac 2007 OS X Lion compatible - retired October 2016^[12]
• Quicken for Mac 2006
• Quicken for Mac 2005 - retired April 30, 2015

Problems[edit]

Intuit stopped supporting its Quicken software in the United Kingdom in 2005, leaving many thousands of users with only partly functional software.^[13]

In 2008 and 2009, Quicken users reported an unusually large number of software bugs for a commercial product.^[14][15][16] A review of Quicken 2010 suggests that quality and user interface in that product year is dramatically improved.^[17]

Existing Quicken Online users' data is not transferable/importable into Mint.com. This is in direct contrast to VP Aaron Patzer's promise, made on April 27, 2010: '[Until the merger with Mint.com is complete], you can continue to use Quicken Online just like you have. Once we have completed integrating all features to Mint, you will be able to easily transfer your information and data to ensure the smoothest transition possible.'^[18]

In December 2019, Quicken software abruptly disabled bill-pay services through its Quicken Billpay affiliate, leaving all Quicken users without a fundamental feature of the software. Inquiries of the company were provided a form response that the disabling was a 'known issue' and 'This issue has been escalated to our Product Teams who are currently investigating the root cause of this behavior. At this time there isn't an ETA available.' Quicken bill paying continues to be inoperative as of December 27, 2019.^[19]

History of Quicken and the absence of a common cross-platform file format[edit]

Quicken was originally written for MS-DOS and the Apple II back in 1983 and first released in 1984. The substantial differences between the Mac and these two platforms meant the later Macintosh version was written from the ground up. This led to incompatibilities between the file formats for the earlier versions and the Macintosh version. The Windows version was designed to be compatible with the earlier DOS version's files.

Then when Mac OS X came out in 1999 (server) and 2001 (desktop), a new platform emerged. Apple developed backward compatibility for OS 9 (and predecessors), so Quicken for Mac development continued in an older platform database structure (PowerPC-based). Apple continued to support PowerPC-based apps (via Rosetta) on their Intel-based Macs in August 2009 (via Mac OS X 10.6). Rosetta was a temporary measure to support the eventual transition to exclusively Intel-based software (achieved in March 2011 with the release of OS X 10.7 (Lion)).

Quicken App For Mac

In 2009, faced with the eventual retirement of the PowerPC, it was deemed that the structure for Quicken for Mac (2007) was not suited for the direction of the Mac (intel) and OS X.^{[citation needed]} Though they got Quicken for Mac 2007 to run on Intel in 2012,^[20] Intuit decided to start from scratch and Quicken Essentials for Mac (QEM) was created in 2010.^[21] Quicken 2015 for Mac, released in August 2014, and later versions for Mac are built on the Quicken Essentials for Mac foundation. These newer versions of Quicken for Mac use an SQLite database.^[22]

References[edit]

Quicken For Mac

1. ^John Rebeiro (March 3, 2016). 'Intuit selling Quicken to private equity firm HIG Capital'. pcworld.com. IDG Consumer & SMB. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
2. ^'Quicken for DOS'. Intuit, Inc. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011.
3. ^Field, Cynthia E. (March 17, 1986). 'Quicken Offers Check Writing, Budget Analysis for Apple IIs'. InfoWorld. March 17, 1986: 35–36 – via Google Books.
4. ^'All Quicken Products'. Intuit.
5. ^ ^ab'International Versions of Quicken'. Intuit. June 20, 2011. Archived from the original on January 26, 2013.
6. ^'Retirement of online services for older versions of Quicken'. Intuit/Quicken. Retrieved June 13, 2007.
7. ^An April 2007 article in the San Jose Business Journal.
8. ^'Quicken Kids & Money Help'. Intuit Inc. Archived from the original on June 21, 2008.
9. ^'Intuit Press Release - Intuit Completes Acquisition of Mint.com'. about.intuit.com. November 2, 2009.
10. ^'Quicken 2018 Subscription Membership Pricing Explained'. Top Financial Tools. October 27, 2017. Retrieved November 9, 2017.
11. ^ ^abc'Quicken 2018 - Which Version Do You Need? | Compare Quicken Products'. Top Financial Tools. Retrieved November 9, 2017.
12. ^ ^abcd'Currently Supported Quicken Products (Discontinuation Policy)'. Quicken. February 9, 2016. Retrieved November 9, 2017.
13. ^Oates, John (January 17, 2005). 'Intuit UK kills Quicken and TaxCalc'. The Register. Retrieved April 6, 2009.
14. ^nathanau (January 27, 2008). 'Quicken Community - Quicken 2008 Bug List'. Quicken Community. Archived from the original on February 9, 2009. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
15. ^thecreator (August 28, 2008). 'Quicken Community - Quicken 2009 Bug List'. Quicken Community. Archived from the original on April 8, 2009. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
16. ^Elmblad, Shelley (January 14, 2009). 'The Best and Worst Features in Quicken'. About.com. Archived from the original on February 6, 2009. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
17. ^Arar, Yardena (October 29, 2009). 'Intuit Quicken Premier 2010'. Quicken Premier. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
18. ^'Quicken Support - Quicken Community'. Intuit. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
19. ^'Online center won't 'Update send' bills/Quicken Bill Pay missing from OSU (updated title)'. community.quicken.com.
20. ^'Intuit releases Lion-compatible Quicken 2007'. CNET. March 8, 2012. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
21. ^Snell, Jason (February 24, 2010). 'After delays and criticism, Intuit releases Quicken Essentials for Mac'. Macworld. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
22. ^'qquery'. PyPi.

External links[edit]