Any Mac users going to try Quicken Essentials?

Question

I've been using Quicken since 1990 and have been pretty satisfied with it. I've upgraded to every new version, the latest being Quicken 2007 more than three years ago.

Intuit has announced Quicken Essentials but it has fewer features than Quicken 2007. This text is taken from one of their web pages:

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.

Can I export my data to TurboTax? Quicken Essentials for Mac does not support that capability. If you'd like that functionality, we recommend trying Quicken Mac 2007.

While you cannot pay bills within the product itself ("direct bill pay"), you can track your bills and make sure you have enough cash to pay them when they're due. A few alternatives available include using Quicken Mac 2007 or using the bill pay functionality on Quicken Bill Pay.

The last one is the killer. I've always thought entering a bill payment once--in Quicken--is much easier than twice; for example, entering it once in my bank's bill payment system and again in my Quicken register.

The loss of TurboTax data and investment features are less important to me.

Are any other Mac users going to buy Quicken Essentials? Are there some wonderful new features that will offset the loss of a direct bill payment feature?

Paul

Lawrence Haber · Accepted Answer

In a word, no.

bjn · Answer

I have been waiting for a Mac version of Quicken that offers two simple items:

1) ability to import my Quicken for Windows data unaltered. 2) a feature set on par with Quicken for Windows.

Quicken Essentials (and Quicken for Mac 2007) do not meet those simple requirements.

I doubt if Quicken for Mac will ever improve to meet the requirements, especially now since we've been informed that the desktop version of Quicken will cease to be after five years or so.

Paul Anderson · Answer

And it will be replaced by what, a web-based application?  Sure, I'll use that.  Not.Paul

bgrinwis · Answer

bgrinwis had written this in response to

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: Do not buy this software if you want Direct bill pay. The other features are not worth losing it.

------------------------------------- Lawrence Haber wrote:

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bgrinwis · Answer

bgrinwis had written this in response to

formatting link

: Do not buy this software if you want Direct bill pay. The other features are not worth losing it.

------------------------------------- Lawrence Haber wrote:

##-----------------------------------------------## Newsgroup Access Courtesy

formatting link

Tax and Accounting Software ForumsWeb and RSS access to your favorite newsgroup - alt.comp.software.financial.quicken - 20966 messages and counting! ##-----------------------------------------------##

Ian McCall · Answer

BillPay is more of a US thing - I'm in the UK, everything's direct debit here anyway. It's not a feature that means anything to me. My use of Quicken is simplistic - given a pile of transactions, where did the money go, what's the figure going to look like at the end of the month, and how am I doing in terms of budget. That's it, and Essentials looked like it had all that. If it doesn't have the account graph in calendar mode though, then I'm probably not using it as that's what I look at.Would be nice if there was some kind of downloadable trial really, but I can't see one.Cheers,Ian

Ian McCall · Answer

:Do ...ah, oops - thread cross. Thought this was still my earlier thread about Quicken Essentials. Sorry.Cheers,Ian

Vigo · Answer

>> :I bought it and returned it for a refund the next day. It was so different from the Quicken I'm used to that I couldn't even figure out how to use it -- and I've been using Quicken Windows for about 16 years.

Dig · Answer

Same here, I downloaded it,didn't print check, one phone call and I got a full refund in a few days,no problem.John.

Ian McCall · Answer

See, that does actually make me tempted to try it. If I know I can get a refund without any problems, then there's little risk to me at all. It's just the whole financial calendar thing - I gear -lots- around this, and from the reviews I'm not even certain that Essentials has one.

Cheers, Ian

Any Mac users going to try Quicken Essentials?

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