Quicken for Mac 2017
A personal finance manager worth investing in
To say Quicken has a checkered past on the Mac is an understatement. It took Intuit nearly three years to make the software compatible with Intel processors after Apple made the switch in 2009, at which point the company started over with the stripped-down Quicken Essentials.
Things have improved since. Quicken 2017 still doesn’t have complete feature parity with the Windows edition, but this is easily the best Mac release to date.
For starters, Quicken for Mac 2017 has a refreshed user interface that’s easier to navigate, thanks to the blue header menu across the top for quickly refreshing data, adding new accounts, or jumping directly to Reports, Budgets, Bills, Calendars, or Alerts. The sidebar now displays a blue dot next to connected accounts to indicate when they’ve been updated with new transactions.
If you haven’t kept tabs on Quicken since the troubled 2007 edition, the software now automatically downloads transactions from more than 14,500 banks, includes 12-month
budgeting, and there’s a free, quite good iOS companion app for entering transactions or keeping tabs on your money from anywhere. Managing investment accounts remains a work in progress compared to Windows, and a few 2007-era features such as loan amortization schedules and automatic reconciliation are still MIA. The good news is, Quicken is now listening to what Mac users need and working quickly to fill
any remaining gaps in functionality. The full-fledged Quicken Bill Pay makes a triumphant return here (although a $9.99 per month subscription is required to use it), and aside from answering a few security questions when adding certain new bank accounts, syncing was a breeze. Only a few secondary accounts gave us any grief, mostly store-branded cards issued by Synchrony Bank, which required downloading and importing a QIF file rather than maintaining an active connection.
Upgrades from older Mac or Windows versions can be bumpy, but thankfully Quicken 2017 now includes US-based telephone support in addition to the previous live chat option. the bottom line. Quicken is back in fine form, and the 2017 edition opens a promising new chapter.