# Quicken Essentials For Mac Released



## Izzy (Apr 14, 2008)

> MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif – Feb. 25, 2010 – For those who manage their money on a Mac, Quicken Essentials for Mac now available from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU). Built from the ground up with the look and feel Mac users expect from their products, QEM, as it's known, provides a simple and easy way to handle the essentials of money management.


My understanding is that Quicken Essentials For Mac is U.S. based and is not supported in Canada. I imagine it will probably work here, but some features may be unavailable. 

Walt Mossberg has reviewed it and has found it underwhelming. 

On surface, I'm disappointed that we had to wait a couple of years for a limited version that costs $69.99, but I'd love to hear from someone who has bought it.


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## Oakbridge (Mar 8, 2005)

Izzy said:


> My understanding is that Quicken Essentials For Mac is U.S. based and is not supported in Canada. I imagine it will probably work here, but some features may be unavailable.
> 
> Walt Mossberg has reviewed it and has found it underwhelming.
> 
> On surface, I'm disappointed that we had to wait a couple of years for a limited version that costs $69.99, but I'd love to hear from someone who has bought it.


Unfortunately I wouldn't hold your breath about seeing it north of the border. Intuit Canada has been horrible to the Mac platform for the past 5 or more years. 

I've read some of the reviews and there are actually features that were in Quicken 2007 that aren't in this version. Intuit is now saying that the product is more for new users of personal finance software. They hope to have more features in a future release but this version was originally scheduled for 2008. 

Some of you may remember that in the 90's, the relationship between Apple and Intuit was very strong, there was even talk of a merger. I believe that there were members of each company on the other companies' boards of directors, etc.


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

This is from the Quicken web site:



> Our Quicken Mac 2007 and earlier users should note that this is a brand new product, so some of the features you’ve grown used to may not be included. Because we want to make sure we’re providing you with the solution that best meets your needs, we’ve answered a few questions that can help you determine whether or not Quicken Essentials for Mac is right for you.
> 
> 1. Can I track my investments?
> Yes, Quicken Essentials for Mac allows you to track the overall value of your investment accounts and the value of your specific holdings. It will not, however, track investment buys and sells, nor will it provide some advanced investment performance reports. If you need more more advanced investment features, try Quicken Mac 2007.
> ...


Um...I'd love to know exactly what it IS good for (and not sure what works in Canada anyway). Very lame. It's sad that there isn't a clearly superior solution for Mac users. Years ago I used Quicken - but that was when it did everything, including online banking. Then the US bank I was dealing with dropped Quicken for Mac - I complained, but to no avail. Since then, I've not used any financial software and am now considering using MS Money on my Fusion install of Win7. Other options were mentioned here: http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/61150-personal-finance.html but nobody seemed overly enthusiastic about any of the software options.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

Intuit will just blame the lack of success on the Mac market being weak. 

No, it has nothing to do with them putting out a crappy product. 

If these guys would ever grab a clue and put the resources into making a great product for the Mac in both US in Canada, they'd sell a ton. 

Instead, they make an inferior product that is way behind the PC version and expect us to be grateful.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

This release can be easily summed up as "too little, too late"

And I agree with ehMax's comments completely. Intuit's best example of poor planning is when they last released QuickTax in Canada - they released it with the RRSP planner feature *after* the RRSP contribution deadline. The next year they said "we're not doing a Mac version because of poor sales." The Mac market just isn't big enough to support us."

As a software developer I can say with absolute certainty that it's trivial to create file formats and banking protocols that are identical on the Mac and Windows platforms. They could have had feature parity with native UI at the same time if they planned properly. They didn't and expect us to pay for their incompetence. They used that as an excuse to withhold features from the Mac product. Intuit's product planning is some of the most incompetent that I've ever seen. I'll bet there are a few Mac developers in that company that are extremely frustrated with their bosses because of this. I feel sorry for them, but not sorry enough to send their company any of my money.

I use iBank right now. It is missing some reporting and budget features, but I'll put up with it now until something better comes along. Quicken certainly isn't.


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## Aurora (Sep 25, 2001)

I am still using Quicken 2002 and it does a good job of keeping track of my finances. I don't use it to bank directly, ( I bank online with the bank itself) but it keeps track of my accounts, budgeting etc. I agree that they haven't come out with anything worthwhile since. Luckily, my needs are not that great.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

You would think they would have at some point created a platform independent quicken, where the underlying engine could be used for both macs and windows, wrapping this engine with a platform specific GUI.

I was hoping this was going to replace my quicken 2007 for windows, but i guess not.

I have tried most of the big software for mac personal finance, and while I like many of the mac user interface designs, all of the products do little more than my current Cash Manager quicken. I also find that my current PFM is a little easier to use than most mac platforms and are a little less cluttered, and my windows quicken isn't all that great. Generally transaction entry is easier with the quicken register, atleast on windows.

I have tried
ibank
Moneydance
Moneywell 
Money3


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## enliten9 (Mar 27, 2010)

*worth a try*

after reading forums like this I, like so many others, had almost given up on finding any adequate personal finance app. And sadly for the past four years since switching from a PC my personal finances have been in shambles, complete dissarray in terms of record keeping (use to be a die hard microsoft money user). Everything I have tried since royally SUCKED, just fell woefully short of a decent equivalent to MS Money (including the usual suspects MoneyDance, iwallet, ibank, moneywell, quicken for mac). 

Anyway, in desperation I thought I would buy and try Quicken Essentials for Mac (US version), even while many screens propted me along the buying path giving me warnings it was intended for US customers. Very much to my surprise, each and every account I wanted to add from various Canadian banks added seemlessly. I use RBC and with one connection Quicken found ALL of my accounts, and with one click gathered all their information, downloaded all their transactions and very intuitively categorized everything. 

I am so impressed thus far that I give this a rating that far surpasses even my accalades back in the day for MS Money. No program I have ever used has interacted this seemlessly and reliably with my Canadian bank accounts. 

So sure there may be some features missing, but maybe out of ignorance I don't even know what they are or if I would use them. For the past four years all I really wanted was a software that could at the least import manually downloaded data (which the old incarnations of Quicken never could even accomplish properly for me). iBank and all the others NEVER could connect like this with RBC and, with the click of a single 'update all' button, check for and download all new data.

This aside (though to me this sold me hands down), the rest of the program is extremely intuitive, straitforward, and complete with everything I've ever wanted in a personal finance program (was this SO hard, and did we have to wait SOOO long, why couldn't any other Mac app companies create this??!!). It is also the most elegant personal finance app I've seen or used.

ONLY thing I would appreciate is a few more settings to tweak the interface a bit and a few more options for the reports it offers.

IN SUMMARY:
for most of us Canadian MAC users, I challenge you: try it (its got a 60day no questions asked refund policy), and see if it does what you need before 'writing it off' and going back to one of the other duds.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

Just paid for and downloaded it to try out. Not too bad. I've never used Quicken online, so I wouldn't miss anything. Mainly use it to keep track of finances. Seems to shine in that area. Right now I have Quicken 2007, Quicken Essentials for Mac and Moneywell. I'll eventually have to shift over to one as it can be a pain entering duplicate transactions for 3 apps until I decide. Had to adjust a few transactions to get my account balances correct after the conversion.


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## VNJ85 (Feb 24, 2006)

So for those of us that want to go the PC route via windows emulation. Which emulator should we use?


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## TheBat (Feb 11, 2005)

VNJ85 said:


> So for those of us that want to go the PC route via windows emulation. Which emulator should we use?


The free Virtual Box form Sun runs Quicken XG 2007 just fine.

There are many threads devoted to this subject. VM ware seems to be the overall winner if you want to run many different Windows applications.


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## JustAMacUser (Oct 21, 2007)

TheBat said:


> The free Virtual Box form Sun runs Quicken XG 2007 just fine.


Here's another vote for VirtualBox. If you're not interested in gaming, it works very well for running applications like Quicken, Word, etc. Plus, how can you beat free?


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## JustAMacUser (Oct 21, 2007)

enliten9 said:


> Very much to my surprise, each and every account I wanted to add from various Canadian banks added seemlessly. I use RBC and with one connection Quicken found ALL of my accounts, and with one click gathered all their information, downloaded all their transactions and very intuitively categorized everything.


Intuit's (US) web site does state (footnote 1 at the time of this post) that some Canadian banks are supported. I would hazard a guess that most major ones are included. I'm still using Quicken 2006 but I do plan to upgrade to Quicken Essentials for Mac in the next month or so.


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

No guessing required - they have a list which includes Canadian banks. I checked CIBC, Royal, Scotia, Bank of Montreal and TD Canada Trust and they're all included.

(just start typing your bank name - it's a LOT faster than scanning the lists!)

https://quickenonline.intuit.com/quickenweb/external/fi-select.jsf


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## JustAMacUser (Oct 21, 2007)

Paddy said:


> No guessing required - they have a list which includes Canadian banks. I checked CIBC, Royal, Scotia, Bank of Montreal and TD Canada Trust and they're all included.


That search seems to be for their Quicken Online service. I found an FAQ on their web site that lists supported banks but it was dated from December 2009, before Quicken Essentials was released.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

csonni said:


> Just paid for and downloaded it to try out. Not too bad. I've never used Quicken online, so I wouldn't miss anything. Mainly use it to keep track of finances. Seems to shine in that area. Right now I have Quicken 2007, Quicken Essentials for Mac and Moneywell. I'll eventually have to shift over to one as it can be a pain entering duplicate transactions for 3 apps until I decide. Had to adjust a few transactions to get my account balances correct after the conversion.


So... If you do not mind, how would you rate this compared to Quicken 2007? Or even they other 3? I would be interested in how good or bad this product is.



I just wish they had an actual trial instead of this money back crap.

Since living in Canada, digital is pretty much the only way to go, and this becomes a much more difficult issue Quicken makes these returns much more hassle based.


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

> That search seems to be for their Quicken Online service. I found an FAQ on their web site that lists supported banks but it was dated from December 2009, before Quicken Essentials was released.


It is indeed, and I didn't notice the difference. Sorry about that. Quickenonline now seems to be "Mint" though it's obviously still got some pages at quickenonline.com instead of wwws.mint.com.


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