Quicken is the personal finance software of choice for Windows users, but what if you’re a Mac person? Quicken 2018 for Mac should be the easy answer, but it’s completely different from the Windows version, and many users have found it to be a nonstarter. Quicken® Deluxe, 2018, For PC/Mac, Traditional Disc/Download is rated 4.2 out of 5 by 50. Rated 5 out of 5 by Bookkeeper from Easy to use I have used Quicken for many years and find it easy to use. 2018/2019 Release of Quicken for Mac (Subscription Product) Release Notes. Product Version. FIXED - Income investment transactions such as dividends and interest income will now appear in the All Transactions income view. Thanks to s2kdriver from the forums for reporting this. Summary and transaction report as a custom report.
We shut down the other 5.5.x Release Forum Post because it was getting too long. Please put any new 5.5.x issues here in this new post.Today we're releasing 5.5.4. There are a host of bug fixes in this release. Here are the release notes:
- FIXED - Fixed a Quicken 2007 import issue. Linked transfers with a class to investment accounts created orphaned transfers in Quicken 2018. Thanks to JustinS for his great detective work in narrowing down the problem.
- FIXED - Fixed a problem when importing investment transactions via web connect.
- FIXED - Increased the timeout for adding eBills. Some financial institutions like USAA take a bit longer to download bill information so this change allows these bills to complete. Thanks to MikeW who worked tirelessly with us to figure out the right amount of time to wait.
- FIXED - Added Canadian Tax line items to investment categories.
- FIXED - Fixed QIF file import for those moving from other software products.
- FIXED - Fixed an issue where transaction downloads would stop working after a customer received a multi-factor authentication screen. Thanks to KristinD, one of our beloved product managers, for finding and reporting this issue.
- FIXED Fixed an issue where sweep accounts were storing Dividend and Reinvested Dividend transactions as Interest. Thanks to RichardK who reported this in the forums.
We expect there to be a 5.5.5 release in the next couple of weeks with more stability and bug fixes. We'll update this post when it's ready.
UPDATES
2/26 - Releasing 5.5.4 to customers.
3/8 - Releasing 5.5.5. This release has fixes for missing lots in the portfolio view, performance issues in the investment transaction view and issues with lots not appearing in the Specify Lots dialog.
3/21 - Releasing 5.5.6. This release fixes the issue where people keep getting asked to enter in their Quicken ID every time they try to do an update.
4/11 - Releasing 5.5.7. This fixes an issue some customers have run into where Quicken appears to freeze on launch.
Comments
- edited March 2018Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
- edited February 2018Marcus, sorry- new update seems to fail to update investment prices after update.
- edited August 2018Marcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
- edited February 2018Received 5.5.4 update notice and installed/upgraded it without issue.
- edited February 2018
Schwab recently started using two-factor authentication. Try logging into your Schwab account with your browser and check the 'Remember this Computer' option. I just downloaded Schwab with the 5.5.4 release without any issues other than the fact that it zero'd out today's gains (still investigating).Marcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
- edited February 2018
I am able to log into my Schwab accounts without any issue from my computer. I must have a good cookie. Not having todays prices is a bummer. They were there before todays update.Marcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
- edited February 2018
I just added my Schwab accounts to my test file without issue so I don't think there's a general problem with Schwab. Are you saying you're seeing the Mac keychain dialog asking for a password? Make sure the password you're entering is your keychain/Mac password and not your Schwab password. That's a macOS dialog and not something Quicken does. It's asking for your permission to allow Quicken access to your keychain to get the password to sync your accounts.Marcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
- edited February 2018
Marcus,Marcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
Things might be working although current stock prices are still not being updated. I am still being asked for my Schwab credentials when I want to dowmload my accounts. I think I might have fixed the issue by going to my mac keychain and locking and unlocking the password access. - edited February 2018
I am able to update security prices in 5.5.4 this morning (2/27 6:30am EST). Perhaps it was a temporary server issue.Marcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s - edited February 2018
Same here, no issues updating Security pricesMarcus and the Mac guys-- I am not able to enter passwords to my Schwab accounts supposedly to the keychain and update any transactions or prices. I reenter the passwords and transactions and prices still do not update. I have done 2 reboots with the same result.
- edited March 2018@Marcus, has anyone given any thought to a one line separation in the PV when using Group by Type option?
- edited February 2018I use the spending wheel to monitor monthly expenses , I am now observing accrued interest for bond activity & dividend income for stocks in the security wheel , under a pie section called Investments. Is this normal operation under V5.5.4?
- edited February 2018Just retreated to the confines of V5.5.3. Confirmed this is an issue brought on as a result of V5.5.4
- edited March 2018This has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited August 2018Is anything being done to speed up the slow loading issue?
- edited February 2018
You might want to clarify exactly which pie chart you are referring to. There are several. On the Home tab? In the Spending or Income view of a register?This has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s - edited February 2018
On the home tab, spending by categoryThis has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited February 2018
Just tried to open an older file (incase the existing file got corrupted in the conversion.. Same issueThis has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited February 2018
V5.5.3This has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited February 2018
Spoke to the folks at Quicken Support, they were able to simulate my situation & put in a reportThis has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited February 2018
When we added Canadian tax line items to investment categories we also did other clean up like added income/expense types to some investment categories that didn't have them before. Accrued Interest became an Expense and Reinvested Dividends became Income. We basically matched the types defined in Quicken Windows. The reason we did this is so that these items can show up in reports. Concordman, does this seem like a bug to you because you don't want to see any investment items in that pie chart or is accrued interest not an expense for you? When I tried this I saw accrued interest which theorectically should appear there now that we made it an expense but I also saw reinvested dividends and interest income which shouldn't because they are income items. Anyway, I realize it's different than before but we did this for improved reporting on investment items. It would be great to better understand your particular situation. Thanks.This has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited February 2018
Hi Jim, when you say the 'slow loading issue' can you be more explicit about where you're seeing slowness. For example, I don't know if you're talking about launching the app, going to the investment portfolio view or downloading transactions?Is anything being done to speed up the slow loading issue?
- edited February 2018
I'm not sure I know what you mean. Where is the line separation? Is the separator between each type so it's a line that appears below the last security for each group? I've heard people ask about seeing totals below each group vs at the top but haven't really heard anything about line separators between groups. Can you provide a little more background about why you're suggesting this? For example, is this because you're primarily looking at the right side with all of the numbers and on that side it's hard to see where the groups start and end or is it because of another reason. Anyway, knowing the full background helps us think through solutions.@Marcus, has anyone given any thought to a one line separation in the PV when using Group by Type option?
- edited February 2018
Marcus, in the home tab situation I think about the spending wheel as a quick snapshot into the monthly expense situation. Seeing accrued interest from bonds and dividends from stocks in this view doesn’t seem to fit. I don’t look at accrued interest on a bond purchase as an expense since it’s recouped when the bond pays it back with interest income. As it relates to stock dividends It’s a net zero income since the dividends is reinvested to purchase more shares.This has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
To summarize, I am all in for improvements in reporting on investments but don’t want to see it as a contributions on the monthly spending wheel - edited February 2018
Another thought if I may, if Quicken has to have this in the spending wheel for investment reporting perhaps off the option to view the wheel without investment contributions, I see the option in the pull down menus but it’s not active in the home tab viewThis has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited February 2018
Marcus everything there seems so compressed, if one has just stocks or a Mutual fund in a particular account its not an issue, but if your dealing with stocks , bonds, mutual funds, etc..its very tight between the types. I agree as well that the total for each type s/b below which is what most folks are accustomed to.@Marcus, has anyone given any thought to a one line separation in the PV when using Group by Type option?
- edited February 2018
Hi Marcus - From my perspective, labeling more investment categories as income and expense really improves the Net Income chart and reports (and hopefully the Income view in the future). This change properly includes all sources of income and expense, which becomes especially important for self-employment and/or during retirement when cash flow increasingly comes from investments. Thank you.This has been reported under new release V5.5.4 .Will add here for further emphasis. After uploading V5.5.4 I now observe an investment section in the pie chart. The investment pie section contains bond accrued interest & stock dividends.
- edited March 2018I am having this problem loading brokerage accounts mostly. VERY SLOW. Never happened with Quicken 2017. You have a whole thread on this slowness in the Community page. What is UP??? Please get this fixed. Makes me pretty uphappy with Quicken at this point.
- edited March 2018Hi Marcus, I believe there is still a bug in the Specify Lots feature. I mentioned this in a previous thread, but now have some grabs from 5.5.4 to better illustrate the problem. Future transactions somehow influence the shares 'Available to Sell' in previous transactions. See attached screen shots. In addition, I am putting in a plug for an 'ACB' Specify Lots preset for Canadian users...
- edited February 2018Maura, Have you tried hiding the graph in the portfolio view? (Drag the little dot at the bottom of the graph up to the top.) It's a known issue that the portfolio graph slows things down a bunch.Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
I've been thinking a lot about budgeting tools.
When I first starting working, I kept a “Budget Bible” that tracked my spending down to the penny. It was easy because I was single, had few financial obligations, and plenty of time.
Today, budgeting is harder and with less time for mundane tasks, I rely on automated tools.
When it comes to best free budgeting apps, I think Mint and Personal Capital are the clear leaders in the field. I wanted a head to head to head comparison to include one of the older entrants to the field, Quicken, which celebrates its 34th (!!!) birthday this year, because while free is the best price, it doesn't automatically make it the best service.
If you're most interested in seeing a head to head of Personal Capital vs. Mint, click here (let's be honest, Quicken isn't really in the running… is it?).
Investing Tools
Quicken and Personal Capital are the stars in this category, largely because Mint isn't an investment app, and therefore offers only incidental investment services.
Quicken. Quicken's Starter Edition does not include investing, but it's Premier Edition does. That edition provides features like their Portfolio X-Ray, showing performance vs. the market of your investments, and help with with buy/sell decisions. It also provides up-to-date portfolio values, and tracks cost basis and capital gains.
Quicken also helps minimize taxes on your investments. The have a tool called the Capital Gains Estimator, that can help you optimize security sales to realize the greatest after-tax yield.
Mint. Mint is the weakest of the three platforms in the investing category, mostly since it is primarily a budgeting app. They do track your portfolio value, as they do with other accounts, but they don't provide specific tools to help you in your investing activities.
Personal Capital. Investing is what Personal Capital does best. The free version has a wealth of investment tools, including a Net Worth calculator and Cash Flow analyzer. The app will track your portfolio, balance your portfolio allocations, key holdings, and list your top gainers and losers.
They also offer unique tools, such as their Fee Analyzer. You can use it to analyze your investment accounts to see what fees you're really paying for the account. This can include broker fees, as well as the fees charged by mutual funds, that may be reducing your net investment return.
Personal Capital also offers professional investment management for a fee. You can have a portfolio created, maintained and managed for less than what it would cost to have your portfolio managed by a traditional investment advisor.
Winner:Personal Capital because it does more than offer a tracking tool, you can use it's free analytical tools for a relatively deep dive into your investments. They will pitch you their investment advisory service, that's how the bills get paid, but you don't ever need to use them. Quicken performs admirably, especially given its tax reduction tools, but just hasn't kept pace.
Budgeting Tools
All three services offer budgeting features and while there are similarities between each, there are plenty of differences worth noting.
Quicken: Quicken provides a full budgeting suite. You can see, track and pay bills, all from the app. It shows both bank and credit card balances, and imports bank transactions securely. The app organizes your spending in categories, then projects income and expenses, helping you to create a budget. Like the other services, Quicken also reminds you when your bills are due.
Mint: Mint feels like it was designed for Millennials. Rather than simply track, it'll help with budgeting and debt management. It provides a breakdown of spending by category and allows you to put limits on your spending in each. Mint then gives recommendations to help you save money. These offers, which you can think of really as advertisements, help pay for the service but also can save you money. This can include deals on insurance, credit cards, bank interest rates and credit cards too.
The app can link up with literally thousands of financial institutions, including banks, credit cards, various lenders and investment brokerages. This provides you with automatic tracking of your financial activity, and all in one app. It will also provide alerts to remind you of upcoming bill due dates to help you avoid missing deadlines.
Personal Capital: This service has a more limited budgeting capacity, since it's set up primarily as an investment management platform, with some budgeting services. The app will link to your bank accounts, credit accounts and investment accounts. It will provide account balances and transactions, spending by account and expense category, income and spending reports. Like the other services, Personal Capital will alert you on upcoming bills.
It will also enable you to set a monthly spending target and easily view where you are trending over or under your plan.
Winner:Mint is the clear winner. Mint is as powerful as Quicken but without the cost. Personal Capital performs admirably but their budgeting tool is relatively new and doesn't have as many features as either Mint or Quicken.
(one good alternative for budgeting is EveryDollar, it won't do any of the other things mentioned on this list but it's a good basic budgeting tool)
Retirement Planning
Retirement planning is an extension of investment activity, so once again, Quicken and Personal Capital come out on top here as well.
Custom Reports For Sccm
Quicken: Quicken helps you plan for retirement by helping you to set up your retirement goals. It uses planning assumptions from other investment goals, like planning for college, or investing for special purposes. This enables you to switch over to retirement planning without having to add additional information.
They offer a Lifetime Planner feature, that incorporates expected retirement benefits and other income, as well as expectations for inflation, savings, investments, rate of return, current homes and assets and future homes and assets.
Mint: Not applicable, Mint doesn't have a retirement planning feature.
Personal Capital: With its robust investment capability, it should follow that Personal Capital would also be strong with retirement planning and it is. It has a Retirement Planning feature, that will help you determine how much you need to save for retirement and does so for free. It'll also tell you if you're on track towards your retirement goals and you can even run “what if” scenarios.
Personal Capital also offers a 401(k) Fee Analyzer. That will help you to determine which funds in your retirement plan are costing you the most and help you lower your fees using other options.
Winner: Quicken and Personal Capital are too close to call in this category, though Personal Capital does offer advisory services that are an added fee. It's not fair to compare that to a software package you pay for just once, but both will help you in the retirement planning department.
Security
One big concern about putting all this financial data out into the world is security.
Quicken: Quicken stores the data locally and is the only one of the three that does this. While it will connect with your bank to collect information, none of it is stored elsewhere. This means that you still have to be careful with the device Quicken is installed, like your laptop, but you won't have to worry about a third party server or service being hacked and your information stolen.
Mint: Mint is now owned by Intuit, who own TurboTax, QuickBooks, and were the former owners of Quicken; and are familiar with security. Mint uses encryption for data transfer and they offer multi-factor authentication, which is a must for any sensitive log in. On your mobile, there is a 4-digit PIN and/or Touch ID to access your data.
Personal Capital: Personal Capital encrypts all communications with their servers (this is standard) and encrypts your data with AES-256 with multi-layer key management, including rotating user-specific keys and salts. There are also internal access controls so no one at Personal Capital can access your information.
Winner: Quicken, by virtue of storing data locally, is the winner here as long as sticky fingers don't walk off with your device. Mint and Personal Capital are on equal footing, though Personal Capital makes a bigger point to enumerate all the security features they offer. Personal Capital relies on Yodlee, as does much of the financial aggregation industry, and their security for maintaining your data.
Overall
If you are strictly thinking budgeting app, Mint really is the clear winner in this category. With budgets, alerts, and other tools, Mint has cornered the budget tracking space like no other. A very close competitor is You Need a Budget, which is extremely powerful for changing your spending behavior. If you are spending more than you save and want help, YNAB is a service you should consider (it's not free though).
Custom Reports In Healthcare
If you want expense tracking and a better suite of tools to look at investments, Personal Capital is the tool for you. That's why I switched from Mint to Personal Capital, after briefly “dating” SigFig for investment tracking, and I've never looked back.
Quicken, sadly, is being left behind by these newer companies (Mint is 11 years old!). You can't blame it though, it hasn't gotten the same level of technical support as these newer, arguably “sexier” companies to invest in. We maintain a list of Quicken alternatives that outperform them.
What's your favorite of the three?