Microsoft Word is the undisputed king of text-editing apps on the Mac, and similarly, Quicken is virtually without competition when it comes to personal-finance software. Just as Microsoft has resorted to adding extraneous functions to entice users to upgrade periodically, Intuit has also succumbed to releasing new versions that sometimes contribute more to feature bloat than to significantly enhancing users’ productivity. Intuit claims that Quicken for Mac 2006 contains more than 50 improvements based upon user suggestions, but there are only four major new features—Smart Payee, .Mac backup, greater scheduling flexibility, and simplified downloading of multiple accounts. Meanwhile, many long-time annoyances remain.
Four helpful features
Smart Payee, the flagship new feature, offers the ability to batch-rename payees. For example, if a store name in a downloaded transaction appears in all capital letters followed by a cryptic merchant code, such as “WILLIAMSSONOMA01002369,” you can manually change it to “Williams-Sonoma.” Quicken then applies that change to all past and future transactions from the same payee. Everyone benefits—not just the anal-retentive crowd—because this reduces the total number of payees, resulting in more-accurate reports. Unfortunately, creating Smart Payees works differently when downloading transactions from a financial institution (just retype the name of the payee) than it does when browsing a register (click the arrow icon at the right of the payee field and select from the pop-up menu). And I defy anyone to figure out how to tweak the renaming rules without consulting Quicken’s 445-page PDF documentation.
Built exclusively for the Mac OS X operating system, the new Quicken for Mac 2006 lets you see your complete financial picture in minutes. Manage your money on your Mac. Quicken for Mac 2006 is comprehensive personal finance software for the Mac platform. It's been designed for-and by-Mac users and offers special Mac exclusives. Quicken Premier contains everything in Quicken Basic and Deluxe plus tools to monitor your net worth, optimize your investments, and save time on taxes. Quicken Premier 2006 lets you track your accounts and investments (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, IRAs and more) all in one place. Download your credit card, banking and brokerage transactions. Intuit Quicken 2006 free download - Payroll Mate 2019, Quicken Premier 2019, Quicken Home & Business 2018, and many more programs.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I really appreciate the added ability to automatically back up an encrypted version of my Quicken data file to my iDisk’s Documents folder whenever I close the file (you must subscribe separately to .Mac, of course). Keeping a current offsite backup couldn’t be easier. In this same vein, Intuit’s data recovery service is now free, no longer $200. The upgrade will pay for itself if you ever need to restore or recover a data file, but employing good backup practices with Mac OS X’s existing tools can accomplish the same thing without having to spring for the new version.
Quicken 2006 also features more choices in scheduled transaction frequencies to address common occurrences such as quarterly estimated taxes, biannual property taxes, and Social Security payments that arrive on specific days of each month. If you make heavy use of scheduled transactions, you’ll appreciate how Intuit has revamped this formerly confusing interface to reduce confusion.
The last major new feature is the ability to download data for multiple accounts from a single financial institution, such as separate personal and business checking accounts, or two spouses’ credit card transactions. Downloading all your data in one fell swoop is a definite time-saver, but hardly something to get excited about unless you have lots of accounts.
Most of the other improvements are so minor you probably won’t even notice them, and Intuit didn’t bother enumerating them. For example, a colored line in account registers delineates past and future transactions; the check number field now can display as many as eight digits; there’s support for the Check 21 ANSI format; and you can customize or rename transaction types as needed.
Still far from perfect
Despite these small improvements, many long-time quirks remain unaddressed, many of which Intuit says are not problems, but are by design. For example, you can’t allocate transactions to hidden accounts without first showing them; balances aren’t displayed when transferring funds between accounts; the Portfolio window lacks annualized rate of return; you must enter splits for every account in which you hold a company’s shares; entering investment actions is tedious because the default account isn’t the last one used; and you still can’t resize many of the dialogs to take advantage of large screens. One exception is my complaint that stock-price graphs don’t accurately reflect splits, which Intuit confirms, saying it is “actively looking at this,” though it has not promised a fix yet.
Macworld’s buying advice
If you’re still keeping track of your finances with paper registers or Microsoft Excel, Quicken 2006 is a vast improvement and well worth the retail price. You can’t beat its integration with over 1,800 banks, brokerages, and credit card providers. However, if you’re already using last year’s release, only you can tell if the few new features are compelling enough to justify the $60 investment.
[ Owen W. Linzmayer is a San Francisco-based freelance writer who has recently written two Apple Training Series books: Desktop and Portable Systems, 2nd Edition (Peachpit Press, 2005) and Mac OS X Support Essentials, 2nd Edition (Peachpit Press, 2005).]
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Quicken Software For Mac Computers
If you have ever used Quicken for PC or are currently using it, you'll find Quicken Essentials very limited in what it can do. If you're just looking (as stated above) for a checkbook program to keep track of accounts and are not using Quicken for PC, you'll probably find it adequate but I think the online program Mint gets better reviews than Quicken Essentials for Mac. Personal Capital (Free) Personal Capital is the best personal finance software for Mac and best of all, unlike Quicken it’s actually free to use. If you already use Intuit’s other budgeting tool Mint (see review later), you’ll really like Personal Capital because it’s got the same feel but with far more powerful investment tracking. After the upgrade to Sierra, my quicken essentials was a brick. It looked like I had a few options. Revert back to my old operating system ( i didn't want to), Download a financial app from the app store to replace quicken essentials (i downloaded and tried a couple, didn't like them) or upgrade to quicken 2016. Quicken Essentials for Mac is the successor to Quicken 2007 and has been a long time in coming. Many may be surprised by how bloated it has become. Quicken Essentials for Mac certainly tries to fit a lot in - it allows you to view all of your bank accounts in one place within a heavily revamped interface that aims to make things clearer.
Easily import data - Easily import data from Quicken Essentials for Mac, Quicken Mac 2007, and Quicken 2010 for Windows or newer versions. Easy to get started and keep going - Step-by-step guidance helps you get up and running fast. Gives you the big picture in minutes. Special tool for upgraders, too! Easy setup tool for automatic downloads.
Related:Quicken Mac Free Trial - Free Trial Quicken For Mac - Quicken For Mac Free Trial - Quicken For Mac Trial - Mac Quicken Trial VersionDownload Quicken Essentials For Mac Trial 90 Days
Download Quicken Essentials For Mac Trial Version
I know that there was some noise when the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released and Quicken 2007 for Mac was reported by Intuit to be incompatible with any computer running the new operation system. Next, they release Quicken Essentials for Mac which was a neutered version of Quicken which quickly angered long-time customers even more. So they promised they would rewrite it to work on OS X Lion. Well, it has finally arrived. Cost is $15. Thanks to reader Paul for the tip.
Download Quicken For Mac 2007
Update Quicken For Mac
Data migration. According to their FAQ, users can import data from Quicken 2005, 2006 or 2007 for Mac, as well as from Quicken Essentials for Mac. File conversion is not possible for Quicken 2004 for Mac and prior versions.
Quicken Essentials For Mac Upgrade
Quicken 2006 Mac Download
So now you can pay more to use their 5-year old software, hurray! I still think it’s pretty clear that Intuit isn’t going to spend too much more effort improving Quicken, instead they are spending more money on Mint.com which is online and free to users (ad-supported). Has anyone tried it out yet?