Omgphoto

• Quickbooks For Mac 2019 System Requirements
• Quickbooks For Mac Reviews

Need a bookkeeper?
Try Bookkeeper360

Intuit has announced QuickBooks 2019 for the desktop, here’s my quick rundown of what is new, and changed, for this year. QuickBooks 2019 Customer Invoice History Tracker When you display an invoice on screen you will see a See History link, which opens a window that provides you with additional information about the invoice. QuickBooks for Mac 2019. This article is intended to serve as a summary of QuickBooks 2019 product features, it is not an in-depth review, nor has it been written to provide instruction in the proper use of the software.

Date Established

1983

Location

Mountain View, CA

Pros

• Well-designed UI
• Advanced features
• Ample accounting reports
• Double-entry accounting
• Mac-based
• Cash-basis and accrual accounting

Cons

• No integrations
• Poor support materials
• Limited users

Overview

QuickBooks Mac is back! In 2016, QuickBooks Mac was discontinued and users were forced to wait out their last three years of support or switch over to QuickBooks Online. Now, QuickBooks has released a brand new 2019 version of QuickBooks Mac. According to QuickBooks:

Feedback from loyal customer highlighted just how important QuickBooks is for them. We’re excited to offer our first new QuickBooks Desktop for Mac products in 3 years.

QuickBooks Mac is a locally-installed program designed specifically for Macs. The software combines the best of both worlds by joining together the feature set and accounting complexity of QuickBooks Pro with the ease of use and more modern UI of QuickBooks Online.

While many loyal Mac users are excited to see this software return, Intuit seems to have accomplished very little on the product during this three-year hiatus. The software is less buggy and runs more smoothly, but there are hardly any new features and there’s still not a single integration. These shortcomings paired with poor customer support, no payroll, and no payment processing put QuickBooks Mac out of the running for many small business owners.

Continue reading to see if the pros outweigh the cons for your business.

Tired of slow-paying customers? Looking for more consistent cash flow? With invoice financing, it’s possible to get cash for your invoices right away. Learn more about invoice financing in our Merchant’s Guide To Invoice Financingand/or check out two of our favorites: BlueVine and Fundbox.

Table of Contents

• User Reviews

Pricing

Rating: Fair

QuickBooks Mac is locally-installed software. You can purchase a QuickBooks Desktop for Mac license for $299.95 directly from Intuit. The software can also be bought from resellers like Staples, Best Buy, or Amazon.

When you purchase a QuickBooks Mac license, the license will last you three years. After three years, QuickBooks drop support for the software. This means you’ll be forced to constantly update and repurchase the software. Fortunately, QuickBooks Mac can often be found at a discounted price at the Intuit store.

Intuit does offer a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. If you are not pleased with the purchase, you can return the software for a full refund. Representatives usually point to this guarantee rather than offering a free trial of the software. Don’t let that pressure you into purchasing before you’re ready, though; deep within the depths of the QuickBooks Community, you’ll find access a free 30-day trial. No credit card information is required for the trial, and you can uninstall the software at any time. Warning: Use of free trials may inhibit users from being eligible for software discounts upon purchase.

QuickBooks Mac License

• $299.95
• Invoices and estimates
• Expense tracking
• Contact management
• Accounts payable
• Time tracking
• Project management
• Budgeting
• Inventory
• 100+ reports
• 1 user

Extra Costs

There are a few extra costs to be aware of before purchasing QuickBooks Mac.

• AdditionalUsers: You can add up to three users to QuickBooks Mac. The more users you buy, the larger a discount you get on the software. Contact Intuit directly to learn how large of a discount Intuit is offering for additional users.
• Payroll: Unlike QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Mac does not integrate with QuickBooks Payroll. You can still purchase QuickBooks Payroll and use it as a stand-alone product, but it will not connect directly with your QuickBooks Mac software.
• QuickBooks Payments: Much like payroll, QuickBooks Mac does not integrate directly with QuickBooks Payments. You can still use QuickBooks Payments as your merchant account provider, but there won’t be a “pay now” button or client portal for your invoices like there is in QuickBooks Online. Instead, users will have to click on a payment link you provide them with and go to a separate payment screen to pay their invoices.
• Bank Feeds: Some banks charge a fee for working with QuickBooks. This fee can range from $10 – $15/month depending on the bank. Unlike QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop for Windows, QuickBooks Mac does not have live bank feeds. You will have to refresh the bank feeds in order to add the most recent transactions.
• Upgrades: An annual upgrade costs $299.
• Phone Support: Users receive free installation support for the first 30 days of service. After that, users will need to purchase phone support. You can buy a single call or pay $89.50/three months.
• Hosting Service: QuickBooks partners with Right Network and provides online server hosting for companies in need of mobility (although this service may be mute now that you can share QB Mac files on iCloud). Contact QuickBooks directly for pricing details.

Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed

QuickBooks Mac is a locally-installed program, although internet is required for certain functions (like payroll, downloading the software, and product updates). QuickBooks Mac has also added a brand new feature where you can share data between computers using iCloud.

Hardware & Software Requirements

Rating: Good

QuickBooks Mac is compatible with macOS v10.12 (Sierra) or higher. Exporting data requires Apple Numbers (v3.5) or Microsoft Excel 2016 or later. Contact Intuit directly for more information on QuickBooks Mac’s computer requirements.

Specific Size Of Business

QuickBooks Mac is designed for small businesses that have no more than three users. The software has the in-depth accounting features required to run most small businesses. The sheer number of features and learning curve may be too much for micro-businesses, and the software is not ideal for larger businesses that require payroll, integrations, or more than three users.

QuickBooks Desktop for Mac does support multiple companies and there are users permissions available.

Accounting Method

Rating: Excellent

Both accrual and cash basis accounting.

Ease Of Use

Rating: Good

QuickBooks Desktop products generally have incredibly steep learning curves. While QuickBooks Mac can be difficult to navigate at times, the software is much easier to learn than QuickBooks Pro and has a much fresher, more attractive UI. It’s a sort of happy medium between QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Online if you will. As a Mac user for 10-years, I found this software easy to use and understand. My only complaint is that oftentimes certain features only appear as icons, leaving you guessing what on earth each button means.

Features

Rating: Good

QuickBooks Mac has an impressive number of features, although not all of these features are as fully developed as Intuits other accounting products. Here is a summary of the best QuickBooks Mac has to offer:

• Home: Like traditional QuickBooks Desktop products, QuickBooks Mac has a home page that is organized into sections for Vendor, Customer, Employee, Company, and Banking. Icons and arrows mark important features and guide you through the proper flow of the accounting cycle. Along the top of the screen, you’ll see icon buttons for key features. There is also a top menu bar that helps you navigate all of QuickBooks Mac’s features.

• Dashboard: If you want a more traditional dashboard, as you would find with cloud-based software, you can use the snapshot feature. This feature gives you a snapshot of your business’s financial state using various charts and graphs. The charts are labeled Income Tracker, Expense Tracker, Account Balances, Income And Expense Trends, Income Breakdown, Expense Breakdown, Customers Who Owe Money, Vendors To Pay, Reminders, Year Over Year Income, Year Over Year Expenses, Top Customers By Sales, Top Vendors By Expenses, Top Items By Sales, To-Dos, and Notes.

• Invoices: QuickBooks Mac offers 23 invoice templates and you can create custom templates as well. You can share invoices through email or print the invoices (and print envelopes to accompany them). You can batch-send invoices to customers and send progress invoices, but there are no recurring invoices and no way to accept customer payments straight from your invoices. My favorite part about the invoicing feature is that when you save or send an invoice, the software makes an awesome cha-ching! noise, which is very satisfying.

• Estimates: You can create estimates and easily convert estimates to invoices. There are 17 estimate templates in total.

• Contact Management: Much like QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Mac has an extensive contact management feature. Not only can you add general contact information, but you can also add credit limits, to-do lists, assigned representatives, default sales tax, customer credits, and even maps and directions. Each contact also gets their own dashboard complete with current bills and past history. You can also create contact groups and easily invoice the entire group at once. QuickBooks Mac has the unique ability to sync directly with your Mac contacts. You can manage vendors as well.

• Expense Tracking: You can track expenses using bank feeds or by manually entering or importing transactions. If you opt for bank feeds, they aren’t live bank feeds, so instead of your bank transactions automatically updating, you’ll have to manually refresh the transactions in QB Mac. QuickBooks Desktop for Mac automatically matches transactions and you can create matching rules as well. QuickBooks Mac also has a nice Transaction Center where you can view and manage all of your transactions in one spot.
• Bank Reconciliation: You can reconcile your bank accounts in QuickBooks Mac and can run several reconciliation reports.
• Chart Of Accounts: You select your chart of accounts when you initially set up the software. You can select each account from a pre-generated list of accounts, or you can opt for a default cart of accounts. You can also add and edit accounts as needed later on.
• Accounts Payable: You can easily create bills in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac.

• Checks: You can write and print checks directly from QuickBooks Mac.
• Inventory: In QuickBooks Mac, you can record items, services, inventory parts, and more. You can add detailed descriptions of items as well as rates, item numbers, and custom fields. You can set inventory reorder points as well as default sales tax items and sales tax groups. You can add sub-items in order to create inventory bundles.

• Project Management: You can create projects in QuickBooks Mac, although you have to connect them to a customer. You can set a job status, start date, projected end date, description, and more. QuickBooks Mac also has job costing reports.

• Time Management: You and your employees can track time and create timesheets. You can also attach billable time to invoices and use progressive invoicing, which is a way to invoice projects as each step is completed rather than all at once.
• Reports: QuickBooks Mac provides over 110 reports. QuickBooks Mac has important accounting reports as well as insightful sales reports and even some graphs and charts.

• Budgeting: You can create a yearly budget in QuickBooks Mac. You can enter your budget goals manually or use the previous year’s data to create your budget. You can also run insightful budgeting reports to help you stay on track.

• Journal Entries: You can create general journal entries.
• Purchase Orders: QuickBooks Mac supports purchase orders. You can easily convert estimates into purchase orders.
• Credit Memos: You can credit memos in QuickBooks Mac.
• Receipts: You can create and send sales receipts.
• Class Tracking: You can sort transactions by class to give you added detail and insight into your business. Some companies use classes to track locations, departments, inventory types, etc. You can create sub-classes as well.
• Default Email Templates: You can save time by creating default email templates.
• To–DoLists: Like in QuickBooks Pro, you can create to-do lists and run to-do list reports to stay on top of all your business tasks. You can also set reminders; QB Mac can send you automatic reminders for things like overdue invoices, bills to pay, money to deposit, and more.
• Sales Tax: You can set as many sales tax items and groups as you would like. You can also assign a default sales tax to contacts and items.
• Tax Forms & Support: QuickBooks Mac supports 1099s and 1096s.
• Deductions: You can track and record mileage deductions in QuickBooks Mac. You can also assign mileage to jobs and mark the mileage as billable or non-billable.

• Importing & Exporting: You can import just about anything into QuickBooks Mac. Exporting is more limited. You can create an all-encompassing company file or you can exports lists to an IFF file and addresses to a text file.

Customer Service & Support

Rating: Poor

QuickBooks is notorious for poor customer support. Unfortunately, QuickBooks Mac is no exception. While phone support wait times are quite short for a QB product, it’s clear that Intuit’s focus is on its other software. There is no email support and other support resources are limited. Plus, you have to pay an extra $89.95 every three months for phone support.

QuickBooks Mac has made it easier to find customer support since the 2016 version, and the help center is better organized with dozens of how-to articles. The saving grace for QuickBooks Mac is that the help center can be accessed directly from within the software — and the Little Square resource provides tons of support resources and business tips.

Here are all of the support options QuickBooks Mac offers:

• Phone Support: You can call a sales rep at any time, but you have to pay extra for phone support.
• Live Chat: There is a live chat feature on the QuickBooks Mac website, though representatives are there for sales questions and often try to force you to switch to QuickBooks Online.
• Help Center: There is a QuickBooks Mac help center where you’ll find dozens of how to articles and guides, FAQs, and questions from other customers. You can also access the help center from the Home screen on QuickBooks Mac
• Little Square: Little Square is an online magazine for QuickBooks Mac users. It features tips and tricks for getting the most out of your software, much-needed video tutorials, and a complete user guide that covers everything you need to know about QuickBooks Mac. There’s also helpful advice on how to successfully run a business.
• QuickBooks Blog: QuickBooks has a blog, but most articles are focused on QuickBooks Online.
• Social Media: Intuit has a combined Facebook and Twitter page for all its QuickBooks products.

User Reviews

Rating: Fair

Negative Reviews & Complaints

The issue with finding QuickBooks Mac reviews is that all QuickBooks products tend to be lumped together — Pro, Online, Mac, Payroll, etc. For example, ConsumerAffairs features the biggest collection of negative Intuit reviews with the company receiving only 1/5 stars. However, most reviews are not about Quickbooks Mac and revolve around Intuit’s other products (like Turbo Tax and Mint).

From customer reviews that are specific to QuickBooks Mac, user experiences seem split fairly evenly between negative and positive, with a slight lean toward the positive. Here are some of the most common criticisms:

• Forced Updates: Many users are frustrated because they are forced to upgrade after support ends for their version of QuickBooks Mac. Between paying for updates, phone support, and extra users, people are not happy with how quickly the costs add up.
• Far Behind QuickBooks Pro: One of the most common complaints is that QuickBooks Mac does not compare to the capabilities of QuickBooks Pro for Windows, especially in terms of integrations.
• 2019 Version Issues: A couple of users had issues downloading and installing the 2019 version of QuickBooks Mac properly.
• Poor Customer Support: Several users complain that is it difficult to reach customer support. This becomes an even bigger issue considering many users also complain that the software has a steep learning curve and is difficult to navigate without help.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

QuickBooks Mac receives 7.8/10 stars on Trust Radius (based on 63 ratings), 4/5 stars on SoftwareAdvice (based on 313 reviews), and 3.3/5 stars on Amazon (based on 109 reviews). Not all of the reviews making up these ratings are specific to QuickBooks Mac, but there are enough obvious QuickBooks Mac reviews to glean that users usually like the software and many are happy the software has been revived. Here is what users like best about QuickBooks Mac:

• Easy To Use: Users are surprised and pleased by how easy QuickBooks Mac is to use (especially given the reputation of other QuickBooks Mac products). Users also enjoy the UI and organization of QuickBooks Mac.
• Built For Macs: Many loyal Apple-users praise the software for being designed specifically for Macs. Quite a few users say its difficult to find good accounting software that functions correctly on Macs, so this software is a breath of fresh air.
• Good Feature Selection: There is a lot of positive feedback about the features available with QuickBooks Mac, especially things like invoicing, budgeting, and reports.

Here is what a few users are saying about the software:

I use QuickBooks for Mac to manage all of my finances for my consulting company. It’s incredibly helpful to organize receipts and invoices with the multiple clients I work alongside.

It’s QuickBooks, it runs on a Mac, now my life is complete.

Best of all the bookkeeping and accounting programs I have used, they have thought of everything. I continued to use Quickbooks even after I sold my business. It works great for your home accounting. I couldn’t balance my checkbook without it.

The Apple Platform is not known for its user-friendliness with many of the accounting softwares out there so QuickBooks coming to Mac was very welcome. The user interface is intuitive, simple to use, and the exportable data is exactly what you would need.

Integrations & Add-Ons

Rating: Poor

One of the biggest downfalls of QuickBooks Mac is that there are no integrations, not even to QuickBooks Payments. While the company focuses the majority of their integrations effort on QuickBooks Online (which has over 400 integrations), even QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise all have upwards of 200 integrations. So it is incredibly disappointing that QuickBooks Mac doesn’t have a single integration.

Interested in accepting online payments from your customers? Read our comprehensive merchant account reviews to learn the pros and cons of popular providers and see which payment processing option is best for your business.

Security

Rating: Poor

With locally-installed software, data security is primarily up to you; this is even more so the case for QuickBooks Mac users. QuickBooks Pro provides automated back-ups and data encryption to Windows users at an extra cost. Unfortunately, this service is unavailable for Mac users. QuickBooks does offer good online resources for learning about protecting your computer.

Read our article How to Keep Your Locally Installed Accounting Software Securefor more information on protecting your data.

Final Verdict

QuickBooks Mac is a full-featured accounting solution with ample capabilities and a well-organized, modern design. Job costing, class tracking, contact management, to-do lists, reports, and expense tracking are only a few of the many features this software has to offer. QuickBooks Mac is also one of the few programs designed specifically for Mac users.

However, the software is not without its faults. There are no integrations, no payroll, no multi-currency support, and live bank feeds aren’t live (you have to manually refresh them every time you want to see updated banking information).

It seems to me that Intuit puts very little care into their QuickBooks Mac product. After three years, the company has hardly made any improvements to the software. They have very limited customer support options and every time you talk to a customer support representative they try to force you to switch to QuickBooks Online. It seems to me that businesses shouldn’t hold their breath for QB Mac to fix issues like lack of payroll and integrations because Intuit is just going to point users to QBO rather than updating their QuickBooks Desktop for Mac product.

Because of this, I recommend shopping around before you commit to QB Mac. Take a look at our other Best Accounting Software For Macs alternatives, and don’t forget to use the free trial of the software before purchasing.

• Easy Accounting Software For Small Businesses - August 23, 2019
• The Best Quickbooks Online Alternatives - July 5, 2019
• The Best Accounting Programs For International Businesses - July 3, 2019
• CPA VS Accountant: Which Do You Need For Your Business? - June 19, 2019
• What Is ERP Software And Do I Need It? - June 18, 2019

Note: Graphic adapted from Intuit source documents.

qb_mac_2019_(4x4)

Yes, Mac lovers, that is what I said. Intuit has re-released ‘QuickBooks for Mac’ for 2019 with enhancements to boot.

Even though the last updates to QuickBooks for Mac were back in 2016, and we didn’t even see a ‘2017 or 2018 version’ of the Mac product, you now have a new and improved version for 2019.

This isn’t a ‘fool you with a box’ and only give you the Mac App for QuickBooks Online… this is the real thing to run locally on your Mac computer under the Apple-Mac-OS.

Speaking of the OS, the requirements for this version are at least Mac OS X v10.12 (Sierra), but also supported are Mac OS X v10.13 (High Sierra), and Mac OS X v10.14 (Mojave). You will need a Mac with an Intel Core 2 Duo (or higher) Processor, a minimum of 2GB of RAM available to the application (4GB is recommended), at least 250 MB of available disk space for the application, and a CD/DVD drive or Internet connection for installation. You must use a 100% Macintosh-compatible printer if you plan to print invoices, check, deposit slips, lists, purchase orders, mailing labels, reports or graphs. You will need Intuit (QuickBooks-for-Mac-formatted) checks if you plan to print checks.

As you can see in the image below, when the QuickBooksMac2019.dmg file is downloaded it opens to allow you to simply copy the QuickBooks for Mac program into you Mac 'Applications' folder. It takes only moments to then activate the software, register your license and be set and ready to go with the QuickBooks for Mac you always loved, plus more.

Note: Graphic created using an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

Now not being a QuickBooks for Mac (regular) user and not having anything but a 'sample file' provided with QuickBooks for Mac to play around with, there wasn't really any data supporting the new features... but I did my best to capture some meaningful images that will show you the variety of new and/or enhanced features in this 2019 version including:

• Bank/Credit-card Reconcile Discrepancy Report which identifies changes made to reconciled transactions since the last reconciliation. But note, this will only impact transactions created in this version, it won’t track transactions entered into older versions of the software. (Might be a reason to think about starting a new file when you transition to this newest version of QuickBooks for Mac.)

Note: Graphic produced from an early-release copy of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

• Email Tracking from the new Email tab in both the Customer and Vendor Centers allows you to track the dates when emails (including emailed transactions) are sent to either your vendors or customers.

Note: Graphic produced from an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

As you can see, this new tab gives you the ability to not only see who (your customers) you send the emails to, but also any CC and Bcc recipients. It also provides details of the Date, Subject, type of transmittal (Invoice, Sales Receipt, etc.), the number of each item along with the amount and the QuickBooks User who sent the Email.

Similar information is available within the Vendor Email tab, as shown below.

Quickbooks For Mac 2019 System Requirements

Note: Graphic produced using an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

• iCloud Document Sharing provides a way for sharing your QuickBooks for Mac file using the iCloud sync feature. You can work on your file while at home, sync via iCloud, and then continue working on your Mac computer at work.

Note: Graphic adapted from an Intuit QuickBooks for Mac 2019 source document .

Please note that this feature is not intended for multiple users to be working on the same file by syncing copies simultaneously while other users are still in the file.

For more details about ‘file-sharing’ using iCloud, consult the official Apple website regarding iCloud Drive and file-sharing functionality.

• Passwords will now be required if your file contains any sensitive information. All such information including social security, tax identification, bank account, and other identifying information is now encrypted by QuickBooks. Complex passwords with a 90-day reset requirement will be required for access to such files for each user account. (Note: I was required to create a complex password (even in this sample file) the moment I started to open it initially.)

Quickbooks For Mac Reviews

Note: Graphic created from an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

• Report Windows have been re-sized for improved readability and enhanced spacing. I could be mistaken, but in spending a short time with this feature, it seems closer to the way that sizing works in ‘QuickBooks for Windows’ versions than in prior ‘QuickBooks for Mac’ versions. I wonder if QuickBooks for Mac users will really like that?

Note: Graphic created from an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

[By the way, I do realize that this isn't the entire Balance Sheet (or even the entire first page)... but you get the idea.]

• Square Import feature allows users to incorporate their sales data from Square by means of a .csv file import. Since I don't have a Square account I didn't have a way to test this feature, but it seems pretty straight forward. When you click on the little 'Square' icon at the top of an import transaction window (like the one for Sales Receipts as shown below), you are presented with a dialog box from which to select the .csv file for import. Pretty straight forward stuff.

Note: Graphic created from an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019.

To me this seems like the 'good old Mac' product that most QuickBooks for Mac users liked so well. It offers these, and perhaps a few more enhancements and improvements we were not made aware of. Without spending a lot more time with the product it would be hard for me to say what else users of the Mac version may find to their liking.

Undoubtedly, the thing the Mac users will find most appealing is that what they thought was an 'abandoned product' back in 2016, with notice that it would not be supported as of 2019, is now 'back' with a new version.

So, from all of us here at Insightful Accountant, 'welcome back, Mac!'

Notes & Disclosures:

Graphics or other illustrations used in this article have either been prepared using an early-release version of QuickBooks for Mac 2019 software, or were furnished and/or adapted from Intuit source content. Be aware that certain aspects of features described or illustrated herein may have changed between the pre-release software version we used and the release of QuickBooks for Mac 2019 desktop products scheduled for September 11, 2018.

This article is intended to serve as a summary of QuickBooks for Mac 2019 product feature reported to us by Intuit as being new to the software. This article is not an in-depth review of QuickBooks for Mac 2019, nor has it been written to provide instruction in the proper use of the software, or any of the specific 'new' features within the software.

While the writer or editor may express a personal opinion within this article regarding this feature and/or the software as a whole, such personal opinion does not constitute a formal endorsement by Insightful Accountant or the publisher regardless of any phrasing used by the author.