What is a Mac alternative to the full version of Quicken in Windows?

[Stinky The Clown]

Quicken Essentials won't do - we need to use the package to do small business accounting.

It must be able to import from Quicken and export to both Quicken and TurboTax.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. My hunt has turned up iBank. I like it. We are also looking at Moneydance

I only lacks Quicken's online billpay and something about "tags." I have no idea what tags are. Our bank offers billpay. Once paid, just import your bank data and it is done.

I downloaded the 30 day free trial. I like it a lot. It is native Mac code. There is no Windows version.

I have already converted our Quicken data and imported it. Worked perfectly. From Quicken, you "export" to a single QIF file. Put that on your Mac desktop and open it in iBank. The program does all the heavy lifting. The import was correct and completely faithful to the data in Quicken. It took all of 30 seconds to accomplish. Wow.

I then wiped out that test and imported the same data direct from our bank. That, too, worked perfectly, but lacks categories, of course.

The program's interface is slick. I think this may the one We will be using. Our company may also be adopting this and their iBiz app.

http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/

All that praise aside, there is also MoneyDance

http://www.moneydance.com/

This is a bit more buttoned down in look and feel, but has the online billpay that iBank lacks. We're just starting to evaluate this one . . . .

It is available for Mac, PC, and Linux. I am not sure of its origin, however. I am hoping it is a Mac program ported elsewhere, not a PC program cobbled to work on the Mac.

[onehandle]

2. As much of a MacHead as I am, I am not really up on finance apps. However...

Macworld published an article just today on the subject, so maybe you're in luck:

http://www.macworld.com/article/161401/2011/08/lion_personal_finance_quicken_alternatives.html

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Thanks for that! It seems to favor iBank.

Most similar articles I have found do the same thing - iBank.

[Ezlivin]

4. I bought and tried iBank

I really, really wanted to ditch my Quicken 2005 and move to something more contemporary and better suited to the Mac.

It takes four steps to do something that takes only one step in Quicken. Entering checks is not nearly as straightforward and the interface, while Mac-lovely, is very inefficient and requires too many clicks.

If you are used to Quicken you should set aside quite a bit of time to get used to the iBank way of doing things. Others have reported the same frustration over the interface, but others like it. Take it for a test drive and see for yourself.

Some people have installed Parallels or VMFusion to run Windows on their Mac so they can use that version of Quicken.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. We've been using iBank for a while now.

Yes, its a little inefficient compared to Quicken, but, for our very modest needs, not a deal breaker.

I'm tied to Windows on one of my Macs to use AutoCAD LT. They now have AutoCAD for Mac, but it is a fortune and I don't use the LT for anything than an occasional check of the CAD files we export from our Mac CAD software. I don't want to keep it around for Quicken, too.