Microsoft Money and a Mac

Saturday July 26, 2008

Money for the Mac Warning! Do not be fooled by what you might read anywhere on the Internet. If you have been using Microsoft Money and you switch to a Mac, you are screwed. There is nothing comparable for the Mac. No … Quicken is not an option. No, there is no version of Microsoft Money in development for the Mac. No, there are no other software programs available which are even remotely similar. No, none of the other potential financial software programs will allow you to successfully import your MSMoney data. No, you are not going to find another financial software application that is freeware or shareware or open source that comes close to Microsoft Money. No, you should not believe any website that attempts to explain how to convert your Microsoft Money file(s) for use in any Macintosh program.

And, no, you are not going to be able to return the $49.99 copy of the Mac version of Quicken 2007 once you’ve installed it and seen what a pathetic piece of crap it is.

No matter how in love you are with your new Mac, you are going to have to keep a Windows machine in your life so you can continue to use Microsoft Money. (Or, at the very least, you’re going to have to use Bootcamp, VMWare Fusion, or Parallels to use XP on your Mac.)

Just in case you think that this is a case of me simply not doing my homework, here is a quick, short list of other Mac users complaining about the same issue:

If you have just converted from Windows to Mac and are looking for a replacement for Microsoft Money, I’ve gone to the trouble of compiling a list of financial software applications that will not impress you. None of these will make you happy. Epic fail.

Tagged as: Apple, finances, Macintosh, Microsoft, money, rants, Software

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Personal Finance Apps : candidates « Journey into Game Audio: Sunday January 18, 2009 at 1:36 am

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← Previous Comments

1 Trace Sunday January 11, 2009 at 5:53 am: Has anybody tried ibank recently?? It reads as being really good – it’s features seem to have all the things I would want especially after the latest update ie import ms money, tax, budget etc – think I might try the trial – just wondered if any others had any experience with it?
2 Rodrigo Rebouças Friday January 23, 2009 at 11:13 am: I just tried iBank. It is really good! Finally I found a software to replace MS Money. One of the best things: it interacts with Yahoo Finance to get stock prices.
3 Taryn Monday February 9, 2009 at 1:48 pm: I have tried iBank, Fotora and a whole heap of other pathetic attempts. They are barely adequate, and in leui of running Fusion/Parallels will possibly work, but none are up to scratch. Watch this space. I am going to write a MS Money for Mac equivalent. I have had it to the back teeth with pathetic half a*****d attempts to deliver. If it looks good, it has no substance. If it has any substance it looks like rubbish. What are the 25 or so companies who are developing finance software for Mac doing? Have the never even seen MS Money. Here is a tip- go and buy yourself a copy!
4 dano Monday February 9, 2009 at 10:47 pm: I switched to the Mac two years ago and went from MS Money 2001 to Quicken for Mac 2007. I was appalled how pathetic the 2007 version of Quicken for Mac was compared to my 2001 Money. But I love my Mac in all other respects, so I settled for Quicken and just learned to make do. Personal finance SW is not that important that I would let it stop me from owning a Mac.

I was just out at the Quicken website reading about their new, Quicken Financial Life for Mac which comes out later this year. This is one of the things they say about it:

Yes, we are constantly working on adding more features to Quicken Financial Life for Mac. If you need more advanced investment, reporting and personal finance features now, check out Quicken Mac 2007.

So, their new product isn’t up to speed with their current product? WTF?

Sometimes I do think about installing a Windows partition on my iMac so I can go back to Money. I just haven’t go around to it. Seems like kind of a hassle.
5 Millie Sunday February 15, 2009 at 11:52 am: I just switched to Mac and am in the same boat as everyone else that has MsMoney. Thank goodness I read all these comments before loosing money with Quicken .

So then there is this comment from Dave – “No matter how in love you are with your new Mac, you are going to have to keep a Windows machine in your life so you can continue to use Microsoft Money. (Or, at the very least, you’re going to have to use Bootcamp, VMWare Fusion, or Parallels to use XP on your Mac.)” Since I’ve never used any of these solutions and I will only use MsMoney and one other Windows software not available for MAC, can anyone give me any advice ? Should I use Boot Camp, Fusion or Parallels?
6 Simon Sunday February 15, 2009 at 7:30 pm: We expect to release Quicken Financial Life for Mac in summer 2009. If you have an immediate need for a Quicken product for the Mac, we would encourage you to check out our current Mac offering, Quicken for Mac 2007.

RIGHT
7 Millie Monday February 16, 2009 at 7:17 am: With Quicken 2007 will I be able to import QIF files from my bank and credit cards? I read from others complaints that this is not possible. I need to do this routinely.
8 liz Monday February 16, 2009 at 7:22 am: Millie,
you can do that with fortora fresh finance but you cannot enter your own transactions as well. i called the company and they claim to be working on the function.
9 Jessy Monday February 23, 2009 at 12:19 pm: His entire criteria on the best money program is wether it can import MS Money format. Thats it. Only if it can import the one format of another program. Who the hell works with those files anymore anyways. The rest of the world use QIF or CSV… and CSV is imported by everything.
I’m not hating – I am a Mac user, and I loved MS Money while I had a PC. But I have never seen a more useless review.
10 liz Monday February 23, 2009 at 12:55 pm: jesse- i am looking for a program that will allow for manual entry of debits and credits and then also the ability to download and cross-check bank statements….do you currently use a money program on a mac? can it do this?
11 mari Tuesday February 24, 2009 at 1:17 am: http://www.mthbuilt.com/ has anyone looked into this?
12 dvg Tuesday February 24, 2009 at 1:43 am: Yes, I gave that one a shot a week or two ago. I really didn’t like the interface for adding new transactions; I didn’t bother to see if it would properly import MS Money data because I felt like the interface was just really clunky. (No offense to the designers…)
13 Jonathan Friday February 27, 2009 at 2:57 pm: This article is just not true. Now if you are in love with a particular piece of software then no you will never find a replacement that will satisfy you. I used Microsoft Money Business to manage my small home business and i switched to a mac for several reasons that i will not go into here. I got Quickbooks for mac which does everything i need business wise so i am sure that quicken would too alhtough i have not used it. As with everything, when you first switch to a mac there is a detox period to get windows out of your system but once you learn the interface you will be fine. Oh i also develop web sites so i had to find web editors, image editors and a slew of other software and have managed to find what i need and still love my mac.
14 Sean Sunday March 1, 2009 at 9:02 pm: WOW – After four pointless months of being unable to balance my checkbook using Quicken 2007, I stumbled upon this link… It’s the truth people. I had the most recent edition of MS Money on my Vista and it worked great. Here’s why I couldn’t balance my checkbook on MacQuicken:
https://quickenonline.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quickenonline.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=7161&p_created=1224289347
This was updated less than three weeks ago, and I swear I am not making this up:
“Some Quicken Online customers may find that some Account Activity transactions are missing. We have identified the issue and are working on a release to resolve this soon.”
GIMME A G.D. Break already. My Chase bank updates worked A-OK on Money from over five years ago up until the most recent version. It’s PATHETIC that Intuit can release, let alone charge, for this atrocity. Anyone had any luck with the online version?
15 Carol Tuesday March 3, 2009 at 3:07 am: Has anyone tried My Money for Mac OS X 2.0.40?

Any info would be appreciated.

Carol
Sydney, Australia
16 Don Tuesday March 10, 2009 at 5:03 pm: I’m sure I’m not the only person out here who uses automatic linking of account balances between Money and Excel (UltraSoft Moneylink: excellent product: free). I’m with the author on this one; there is absolutely NO replacement available. Quicken has stopped supporting OLE in all of its products and Numbers has no support that I can find for OLE. I have some experience in being able to expose Quickens inner-format. In the early 90s, I wrote a small utility that extracted account balances from Quicken for automatic updating in Excel. To date, I have not been able to find any such facilities in the latest Quicken or Numbers products. I tried keeping Windows in a VM just for Money and Excel. It’s so much a pain, I’ve decided to keep a Windows machine handy. It just isn’t worth the grief.
17 Millie Wednesday March 11, 2009 at 7:58 pm: Don,
Have you tried Quick Books? There was a comment that this would be a solution. Have you or anyone out there installed Parallels and run MS Money from there?
Millie
18 Trace Thursday March 12, 2009 at 2:26 am: I too have now decided to call it quits and give in – I am going out today to buy a copy of Windows Vista, (I have already downloaded VMWare fusion) so that I can run MS money, Publisher and a few others that I miss. I had hoped with all the pc’s I have bought over the years that one of the recovery disks would work – but unfortunately not – good ol’ microsoft strikes again – it seems I have got to go and purchase a stand alone retail copy
But after having my mac for over 3 months, hopying and praying for alternatives to come out and be good enough – I’m afraid it’s the only way to go for me and our business. I feel like I’ll be infecting my mac but I have to trust that all will be well.

Any others already doing this having any problems at all???
19 liz Thursday March 12, 2009 at 5:20 am: Don’t buy vista!!!! I would just try to find a copy of XP…vista is terrible and i would hate to see it on a wonderful MAC!!!
20 Jessy Thursday March 12, 2009 at 2:13 pm: to Liz:
Since moving to a Mac I have not found a suitable replacement for MS Money. There’s none. Period. I started looking for the “basics” and now I just keep a straight up checkbook on my iphone. I don’t have the nifty bells and whistles but I know how much $ I have at all times . I cross-check my iphone checkbook (app called Balance) and my bank account online and make “notes” in the iphone checkbook just in case (like the check number), it’s not “cool”, no. But it’s very accurate and very simple. Yes, I miss my budgets, and my categories and my backups , and my pie charts, and the bad-ass recurring bill option. All I can do is hope that Microsoft feels like making MS Money for MAC.
21 liz Thursday March 12, 2009 at 2:18 pm: thanks Jesse.
I have been using fortora fresh finance and it seems to be working. They claim they are working on the ability to cross check automatically. I think they do charts and all but I haven’t gotten that far. Thanks!
22 Jessy Thursday March 12, 2009 at 2:45 pm: to Liz:
That looks pretty promising! Thanks!
23 Don Thursday March 12, 2009 at 2:52 pm: Millie – I have not tried QuickBooks on the MAC. I used QuickBooks a couple of years ago and just wasn’t impressed with it. As for Parallels, yes, I did try it with Money and Excel. It works and is straight-forward to install and set up. I just prefer VMWare; probably just because I have more experience with it. It seemed to be more compatible with the Linux OS VMs as well. If all you plan to run is a Windows virtual machine on the MAC, Parallels is a good choice. Keep in mind you also have the option of installing Windows in Bootcamp. Bootcamp will give you the best performance since you won’t have all the overhead of the virtual machine.
Liz suggested not putting Vista on a MAC. I’m not a huge fan of Vista, but I’m actually impressed with it’s performance on the iMAC (however, having 4Gb memory in the machine helps). I have run XP on the iMAC, but find myself using mostly Vista. Like everything else, it comes down to personal taste and application.
24 Trace Thursday March 12, 2009 at 4:14 pm: Well I have vista on my iMac now (I was used to vista on my old pc so no prob there) in bootcamp (installed fine, put norton on and it crahed out with blue screen arrgghh typical microsoft) and VM fusion (much quicker install and am trying macafee as it came with fusion) ok so far. I will put ms money on it and see how we go. I didn’t realize it like having two separate vista machines! So I think I will put the business apps and money etc on VM one and leave the bootcamp version for games only – makes sense?
25 Don Thursday March 12, 2009 at 6:20 pm: Trace – be careful. If you are thinking the Vista VM showing up in Fusion is different from the Bootcamp install of Vista, that’s not the case. Any changes you make in Bootcamp will show up in the Fusion VM. It’s just VMs way of letting you run Bootcamp without actually launching into Bootcamp. I’ve run Symantec Antivirus in Bootcamp without any issues.
26 Mark Thursday March 12, 2009 at 9:03 pm: For those of you interested, it appears that Quicken has listened to at least some of the concerns from its Mac following and plans on releasing a complete overhaul of Quicken for Mac late 2009.

Here’s a link that provides more info:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83337
27 Trace Friday March 13, 2009 at 4:25 am: Yay!!!! I now have ms money working again – horrah. I’ve got 3 months of statements to catch up on and balance but hey I’m sooo pleased. VMWare Fusion works absolutely incredibly.
I have msn messenger working too but not with video my logitech cam works thru vista no problem but for some reason msn wont see it.
28 John Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 5:40 am: Microsoft Money 2004 Small Business works with Codeweavers Crossover for Mac 7.1.0 if you install Internet Explorer 6 SP1 first and then the Software from the CD to the same Bottle (installation)

Working 100% for me, on Leopard

Hope this helps the rest of you
29 John Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 5:43 am: This would be Crossover Pro 7.1.0 for Mac.

The tip to install Internet Explorer 6 SP1 I got it from a Wine support forum.

I think that was the needed item.
30 Josh Monday March 23, 2009 at 4:25 pm: Warning… do not sink your quicken with Wells Fargo on a mac. Even if you call and talk to someone at Wells Fargo support for over an hour, what they will say is, “it sounds like you’re experiencing a software problem.” Which is crap. It just doesn’t work.
31 Jeff Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 11:17 am: I bought VMWare Fusion for the sole purpose of being able to run MS Money on my Mac
32 Millie Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 3:35 pm: I also bought VMWare Fusion to run Money. I don’t have time to experiment and I have to much historical data which I need for my expense reports and taxes. Someday perhaps there will be an MsMoney version for Mac which would be great since everything is so much quicker in the Mac.
33 Al Koller Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 5:19 pm: After a number of years of running Parallels for MS Money and FrontPage, I’ve given up (too slow, too much trouble) and moved my money management to the local credit union FREE bill pay. I can see all my assets and manage my payments essentially the same way, and it will integrate with my tax software as well. When I finally migrate all my web sites to Mac-based programming, it will be Goodbye Microsoft!
34 Lisa Sunday May 3, 2009 at 10:29 am: Thanks. I guess I’ll quit looking for comparable software and keep my PC limping along so I can use MS Money.
35 Trace Saturday May 16, 2009 at 3:10 am: Well I too have given up with fusion and bootcamp – its ok for some things and for a start you think its great that you have windows on your mac to do the must-do windows things but the memory that windows takes is incredible and so I have undone the partion for bootcamp and gave it back to my mac – and I have resurrected my old vista pc tower!!! So I am back to my iMac with 1 monitor ( I really liked having 2) and now have a windows and mac machine on my desk
Is there really no decent money progs been brought out for the mac yet!!! What is going on!!!
36 Ants Sunday May 24, 2009 at 4:56 pm: I found the IBank listed to be a good alternative for ms money. Everything i use ms money for ive found in Ibank.
That said ive also go ms money working on crossover for mac which doesnt require you to have a windows cd and and thus makes it a quite cheap way of getting it working for those that cant live without it.
37 Terry Saturday May 30, 2009 at 8:22 pm: well .. needless to say. Until today, I am still unsuccessfully finding an mac replacement for my aging ms money 2005! (maybe ms money 2008?) Who would think ms money would boost ms and parallel/fusion’s sales .. fellow mac-lover please keep this post alive with latest update.
38 Michelle Saturday June 6, 2009 at 1:54 pm: Have had the iMac for 9 months and love it, but unfortunately we still have to keep the PC in the next room for MS Money. It’s annoying and hard to believe there really isn’t a program for macs!
39 Millie Saturday June 6, 2009 at 5:46 pm: I took the advise of some other users that communicate on this site. I have MS Money on my Mac using VM Fusion. Personally this works fine for me. Actually my Virtual Machine runs Windows XP faster than my old PC. Of course the only thing I run is Ms Money.
40 Dennis Monday June 8, 2009 at 9:53 am: I would have to agree with this perspective. I too have been looking for an alternative, but alas there isn’t a viable, usable, complete program to can match MS Money. Say what you will about MS, they have this niche sewn up.
41 Norm Tuesday June 9, 2009 at 2:05 am: I too am disappointed that a MS Money equivalent is not available for Mac.
I have found that the freeware Mini$ is one application that provides some of the benefits & I have been able to import & retain and manage all my MS Money files that date back to 1993
42 db Thursday June 11, 2009 at 5:01 pm: Well, now that MS Money is going away we can all stop ranting about no good options to MS Money on the Mac.
43 John Friday June 12, 2009 at 2:32 am: Sad news indeed – Microsoft to discontinue making Money. If it wasn’t such an amusing headline in itself, I’d cry.
44 John Friday June 12, 2009 at 2:38 am: Bah – All my hopes dashed in about 2 mins.

Quicken® Financial Life™ for Mac – Coming Summer 2009
http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance/mac-personal-finance.jsp

From the FAQ:
Q: How do I update my data from a prior version of Quicken like Quicken Mac 2007?
A: After installing Quicken Financial Life for Mac, you can import your old Quicken Mac file to Quicken Financial Life for Mac using a simple conversion utility provided with the software. Please note that this utility is currently in beta, and unsupported.

Q: Can I convert my Quicken for Windows data to Quicken Financial Life for Mac?
A: At this time, we do not support conversion from Quicken for Windows to Quicken Financial Life for Mac.

Q: Can I convert my data from Microsoft Money to use with Quicken Financial Life for Mac?
A: No. At this time, only Quicken Mac files can be imported into Quicken Financial Life for Mac.
45 Wes Saturday June 13, 2009 at 9:21 am: Wow, this is a bummer. I’ve been a Money user since it was free when Win95 came out. I switched to a Mac 1.5 years ago but never really saw anything on the mac that I could or wanted to migrate to. I currently use Money, an Excel workbook, and a custom .NET web app to manage my finances. I’ve been wanting to port my web app and Excel worksheets into a native mac application but never had the motivation. Now with Money being discontinued, I have even more reason to do so. And, I might as well add in the features of Money that I used as well.
46 db Tuesday June 16, 2009 at 5:33 pm: Well, now check out that quicken link again for “Financial Life” for Mac. http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance/mac-personal-finance.jsp

Quicken Financial Life for Mac DELAYED to FALL 2009!

Looks like “Financial Life” is in cardiac arrest and is for the 3rd time now delayed!
47 db Thursday July 2, 2009 at 2:50 pm: Can you believe it, now Quicken has moved Financial Life off their website totally!!! No mention of it and no links to it!!!!