For those with a Mac looking for software, Banktivity is an excellent choice. Much like Quicken, you can connect bank accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and even investment accounts.
Mac users who’ve felt locked into the much-maligned Quicken Essentials now have another alternative: On Tuesday, developer IGG Software announced that the latest update to its Mac-only app iBank app can import documents from Intuit’s software.
It’s a popular request, according to IGG. “For nearly three years, Quicken Essentials for Mac has frustrated anyone hoping to switch to iBank 4,” IGG President Ian Gillespie said in the company’s announcement, “particularly because of its inability to export customers’ personal finance data to a standard format.”
While Quicken Essentials does allow users to export their data into a comma-separated values file (CSV), the results can be less than useful when it comes to importing that data into another application. Otherwise, the program exports only into Quicken’s own QXF format, which is used for moving files between different versions of Quicken.
Intuit has gotten a lot of flak over the years for its poor support for the Mac platform. Since Apple removed Rosetta—the part of the OS that enabled you to run PowerPC apps—in Lion, the older version of Quicken no longer worked with current releases of Mac OS X. Quicken Essentials was the company’s attempt to release an updated version of the software, but it met with much criticism over its reduced feature set.
Intuit has tried to make amends in subsequent versions, dropping the price significantly and adding features. However, those updates have still left users wanting, and—more importantly—left them with little recourse should they wish to depart Quicken Essentials for another application. iBank 4.7 seems to finally offer that alternative for Mac users.
The following post is a customer story submitted to our Advocacy program by Mike B. We are incredibly thankful to Mike for sharing his story with us and allowing us to share it with you. Read on for Mike’s experience choosing and using Parallels Desktop.
This week, Parallels Desktop user Mike B. explains how he started using Parallels Desktop. Mike is a stay-at-home dad who does all his at-home finances using Quicken. Last year, he bought an iMac and realized that he couldn’t use the Quicken program that housed years of his personal data.
“I’d wanted to get an iMac for a long time. I was tired of the near constant viruses that our PC seemed to be afflicted by, so we finally pulled trigger and made the switch from PC. The cost of our new machine was a hefty price tag that we had to save for in order to be able to afford—so after I purchased it and discovered that Quicken was not supported, I needed to find a cost efficient fix.
For those who are not familiar with this program, Quicken is a personal finance management tool developed by Intuit, Inc. I have used it for a long time and have years of our household budgets and spending data tracked meticulously. I was shocked when I realized that I couldn’t move it over. Anyways, I searched around on Amazon to find a solution, which led me to all of the positive reviews of Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac. I bought it and had it installed within a few days. There is now Quicken for Mac software, but I already owned Quicken and didn’t want to have to re-purchase and risk moving my data. I figured that if I bought Quicken—I would only get Quicken…but if I bought Parallels, I would be able to run the Quicken I’ve used forever and be able to run anything else that I run into down the road that is not supported by a Mac OS X. It seemed to me to be a 2-in-1 solution, which translates to me as a smart financial decision.”
Mike B. lives in Fairfax, Virginia and uses the Mac side of his computer almost exclusively; but he is grateful for Parallels when he’s doing his finances once a month! Many thanks to Mike for sharing this experience with us and for giving us the opportunity to share it with you.
Converting Quicken For Pc To Mac
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