Quicken Essentials has a conversion feature for data from Quicken for Windows, Microsoft Money, and older Quicken Mac versions. The conversions work reliably and require that you export data first from the previously-used software.
Quicken’s history with the Mac is long and spotted. It’s been ages since there was feature parity with the Windows version of Quicken.
Will continue that time-honored tradition. I’ve been using Quicken to manage money on my Mac since before OS X, way back in the last century. I stopped using Quicken a few years ago when it became obvious that Intuit didn’t care much about Mac users.
What about the new version? Is The New Quicken The Old Quicken? The latest Quicken for Mac hasn’t been all that quick in coming. The last Quicken update was in 2007. The newest Quicken may be the best ever, though it’s missing a few features from the older versions.
Intuit calls it Essentials for Mac, and for good reason. Essentially, Mac users still don’t get the same value or features as Quicken users on Windows. Despite years in the making, there’s still a few things missing for Mac Quicken users who venture into Essentials. For example, can you track investments in the new version? You can track investment totals and values, but not buys and sells, and forget advanced investment reports. That’s reserved for Quicken 2007. Can you import data from TurboTax?
Keep your Quicken 2007, Mac users. How about using Quicken Essentials to pay bills? Use the bill pay functionality in Quicken Bill Pay from 2007. Will the new Quicken Essentials for Mac transfer data from older versions of Quicken, or convert data from Quicken Windows? Essentials is a new update to a product with a somewhat tarnished history among many Mac users. Intuit is setting the stage for the future (for Mac users) with a completely new product.
Quicken Essentials New Course I’m going out on a limb here and predicting that Quicken’s new offering is Intuit’s first step toward reclaiming lost customers from the Mac glory years. It’s not a giant step. But there’s far more good news than bad news. Most of those aforementioned features that didn’t make it into Quicken Essentials for Mac are probably not features that get used much by most Mac users.
Even if Quicken Windows owners used those features only to the same percentage as Mac users, there would still be 10 times as many Windows PC customers using said features, making it worthwhile for Intuit to continue development on advanced features—but only for for PC users. That means is a start over project, an attempt to provide Mac users with a solid, dependable, worthy money management app that handles the basic features that most of us need. And, importantly, Quicken Essentials gives Intuit a new Cocoa code base upon which to develop additional features, enhancements, and improvements in the future. In other words, Quicken wants their Mac customers back, and they’re starting from scratch. So, how good is Quicken Essentials for Mac?
Page 2 tomorrow.