Quicken was traditionally known as one of the best personal finance software options for desktop users. However, the Mac version had traditionally lacked the features found in the PC version, and that was disappointing to many users. While last year's version was a big improvement, it still wasn't there for everyone.
After using Quicken for Mac 2019 for several weeks, we're happy to see that Quicken has continued the improvements over prior years. It's not as robust as we'd like to see yet, but it's definitely been moving in the right direction. So, how did Quicken for Mac 2019 do? Honestly, it's an incremental improvement over 2018.
But we like the direction it's going, and if you can get a great deal on pricing (which you typically can on or when they have a sale), it could be worth it. Key Features Of Quicken For Mac 2019 Quicken For Mac continues to build on the many traditional features that Quicken users expect. As always, it comes with great spending tracking (compared to other online options like and ), it has investment tracking, and budgeting. For 2019, they have improved the usability of the platform, but the navigation is still a little challenging. Even after using Quicken for about a week, I still find it hard to get to different reports. It's not intuitive. They also improved the web interface for Quicken.
If you don't want to use the desktop software, and prefer a web version (like what you get with Mint), you can have that now. But I prefer the app over the web version. Here's what the home screen looks like. The pricing for Quicken For Mac 2019 continues to be a focus point for most users.
How to Split Transactions in Quicken 2015. Related Book. Quicken 2015 For Dummies. By Stephen L. Suppose that you have a check that pays more than one kind of expense. To categorize a transaction like this, you use a split category.
Quicken changed their pricing model last year to a subscription-based model, instead of a one-time fee. I see this as both good and bad. It's bad, because many Quicken users kept their software for years, and never upgraded. For users, this was fine - because you could avoid bad rollouts like Quicken for Mac 2017. However, to continue to receive updates and banking information, you had to update every few years anyway or Quicken would cut you off. It's good, because my hope is with more recurring revenue, Quicken can continue to improve their software and ensure banking connectivity. Quicken For Mac 2019 has three price points this year.
I think 90% of users would benefit simply using the Deluxe version, which is $49.99/yr at full price. Here's what the pricing looks like. It's hard to say if Premier is worth the huge additional price. I think Deluxe is the best value, for the added features of investment and loan tracking.
But I've never used BillPay, and I highly recommend that most people don't use a service like BillPay because not only does Quicken charge more, but many banks charge for the service as well. Note: For Windows, there is also a Home and Business version. However, we think most consumers with a small business would benefit more from using a tool like, versus using Quicken Home and Business.
Special Promotional Pricing As you probably already know, Quicken is notorious for running promotional pricing all the time. Recently, they were offering 40% off their prices - which I think is a fair price for the product. I would have a hard time paying $49.99 per year for Deluxe, but paying $29.99 per year makes much more sense - especially considering that I would typically upgrade every 2-3 years, this aligns much better with the pricing I'd expect. However, in our search for deals, we found that Amazon.com is offering a 14-month subscription of the Deluxe version for $38.49 (which is 30% off full price). Given the $49.99 price is $4.17 per month, Amazon's deal is $2.75 per month. Still not as good as Quicken's own sale, but the second best deal we've found. Quicken World Mastercard Another interesting product/feature that Quicken launched this year is the Quicken World Mastercard.
The Quicken credit card provides real-time transaction notifications in the Quicken mobile app, and offers integration with Quicken for Mac desktop. This card also gives you a free year of Quicken Deluxe when you spend at least $500 in the first 90 days. If you already have a subscription, you'll get a 1 year extension. The card offers 2x rewards points on all your qualified spending, and has no annual fees. Given that this card is really about integration with Quicken, we're surprised that you don't get Quicken free every year as long as you spend at least $500 per year. Otherwise, all the rewards are on par or below the other. 27 Shares Filed Under: Tagged With: Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, or other advertiser and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
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About Robert Farrington. Robert Farrington is America's Millennial Money Expert, and the founder of, a personal finance site dedicated to helping millennials escape student loan debt to start investing and building wealth for the future. You can learn more about him One of his favorite tools is, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. Best of all - it's free! He is also diversifying his investment portfolio by adding a little bit of real estate. But not rental homes, because he doesn't want a second job, it's diversified small investments in a mix of properties through.
Worth a look if you're looking for a low dollar way to invest in real estate. You’re totally right on that long term value – that’s why I’m not sure at full price.
However, at $29.99, now we’re talking $300 over 10 years – which is on par with what Quicken users have been paying for the last 10-15 years anyway with required upgrades. You have to remember, Quicken pays to have access to that bank connectivity. I’ve heard it costs about $1 per account per year for a service like Quicken. When you think that the average user probably has 5-10 accounts linked, their ongoing data expense alone is $5-10 per each user. It makes sense that on that cost alone they can’t offer bank connectivity forever at a single one time fee.
I’m concerned about the inability to track “Transfers” to loan accounts in the Budgeting function. Our family was setting up a budget that involved 13 loans including 11 student loans that have to be paid for out of our checking accounts every month. This obligation is a substantial portion of our family budget, yet cannot be tracked with the latest version of the Quicken Deluxe for the Mac platform.
Many other users in the Users Forum complain about this deficiency and Quicken promises that they are aware of it and plan to make changes. Is this a fatal flaw for families that need to budget loan payments, or are you aware of a workaround that will address this problem. So I’m confused. Is it because when you setup the loan, it only counts the interest as the expense and not the full amount (since part of it was a transfer)? What I’ve found to work is renaming the split (I had to do this in prior versions of Quicken as well, and early versions with Credit Card Payments even) – “Student Loan Payment”. You could even get specific by loan type.
It looks like this: Then, when you go into your spending and budgeting, you can see it here – just look at the line for both Student Loan Payment and Loans (which is interest and I could also rename). I have been using Quicken Mac 2007 for all this time because my stock data has multiple lots with different purchase dates. I bought the 2018 edition because they claimed it will handle multiple lots — and it does, though the import had a few glitches which I was able to work around.
But I’m sorry I spent the time doing that, as the 2018 version is severely crippled. It won’t even let you print or export a simple “portfolio value report”: about the most basic function I can imagine; all you can do is look at it onscreen.
Custom reports are all about transactions, not current holdings and values. It claims to generate exportable files for transfer to Q Mac 2007 and for Q Windows, but neither of them worked. So your data goes in, but you can’t get it out, which doesn’t satisfy their “data guarantee.” I discovered this a few days after the 30-day money back period, but was able (after hours unsuccessfully trying to reach a chat agent, and half an hour of phone hold) to get them to refund my purchase price, but I’ll never get back the time I spent fixing the data importing or trying to make it do what it ought to do. I would advise everyone to avoid this product. Quicken Mac 2018 is a glorious flaming waste of time if you want a semblance of tracking investments. I have been using Quicken Mac since 2004.
I have diligently been forced into upgrading purely because mac has improved with time and no longer can run older versions of Quicken. I am now on the 3rd round of customer service calls. (I installed Mac 2018 this morning.) I am an expert Quicken user and know my way around my mac. Importing my data file was a breeze. Thanks for that. My issue – when I sell shares of a security, it doesn’t update in the portfolio or cash. Three rounds of customer service and I am now asked to enter a transaction to sell shares.
And a transaction to remove shares. And a transaction to add a ghost “placeholder.” And if its a full moon maybe your shares will actually appear correctly. The other option is to go into your account and delete every possible transaction relating to the security you just sold.
Compliance and data integrity nightmare. The graphics are fun and pretty just don’t actually use the data generated.
Back to the drawing board quicken. $50 annual fee? Thats laughable! I have been using Quicken 2007 for 11 years. I pay my bills with Quicken, and reconcile my checkbook by downloading bank transactions with Quicken. I believe that at one time, I paid my bank a monthly fee for this privilege, but as far as I can tell, I pay nothing now.
How is Quicken 2018 different in this regard? Once upon a time, I reconciled my credit cards by downloading transactions from my credit card companies.
I stopped doing that some time ago, but should I wish to start up again, does Quicken 2018 support that, and is there a charge for that? I would just continue to use Quicken 2007, but I am concerned about the upcoming abandonment of 32 bit applications by Apple. Quicken 2019 has a dreadful user interface. GONE is the ability to run simple reports for this year, last year, date-to-date, etc. With any ease, if at all. GONE is the simple accounts window that you are used to. GONE is the empty register line at the bottom of your account window waiting for you to fill in the newest transaction (you have to use a “+” “New Transaction” clumsy interface now).
I could go on. The people who revamped this app appear to have done ZERO research with real world users. The investment firm who bought Quicken? They’re doing nothing good here.
I am one of thousands or millions stuck in Quicken 2007 and LIKE the interfaces in that version. Why can’t Quicken LISTEN to all the people screaming how unhappy they are with this product? I could care less about the online features. It’s just not there yet and I would never use it anyway. I have my stuff in the cloud, it’s fine.
I use Quicken on a desktop or laptop so the phone app is of no use for me. It’s fine to build that in for those who like it.
But you have to perfect, as best as you can, the actual application first and foremost. Quicken has become bloated and unintuitive over the last few versions. They’ve lost sight of the original idea and purpose. This is simple bookkeeping. And simpler, is BETTER, when it comes to accounting software. Graphs, charts, and icons are fine, but can we please have the ability to turn them off.
I don’t want to look at all the clutter constantly. Give me an accounts window (without the unnecessary folders for cash, cc, investments), individual account windows when I open them, keep the legacy register format that has been used for many decades (it just plain works and makes sense, newest on the bottom, empty one at bottom ready to be filled in), a way to run reports the way it’s done in 2007 (again, simple, makes sense, easy to get what you want out of it). STOP the incessant altering and revamping. It does not work as well for the end users. Capital, sell this software to someone who gets it and will rework with some thoughtful acumen and intelligence.
Forget the subscription plan too. It’s insulting. People upgrade as needed every couple years or so without be forced into it.
Subscription methods set a bad tone between the company and it’s users. Allow users the respect to upgrade when they choose rather than strong-arming them into it from the get go.
Note: For those who aren’t aware, Quicken is; they were bought by an investment bank. That’s both good and bad. It’s good that they’re out from under Intuit’s lack of interest in the Mac app, but it’s possibly bad in that an investment group only buys a company for one reason: To later sell it at a big profit. However, to profit, you need to provide things people want, so New Quicken should be focused on providing excellent apps. In a modern software subscription plan, as with Microsoft’s Office 365 or Adobe’s Creative Cloud, you only have rights to use the software while your subscription is active. Stop subscribing, and you can’t use the apps any more. (Though I believe Office will run in view-only mode.) But that’s not how Quicken’s subscription works.
Quicken’s subscription is backed by something they call the, which insures you’ll always be able to access your financial data. From that page, with my emphasis added: whether you renew your subscription or not, you’ll always have full access to and ownership of your data. You can view, edit, export, and manually enter transactions and accounts, even after your subscription ends.
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Access to online services, such as transaction download, quotes, and mobile sync, along with access to Quicken Support, will end if your subscription does. Even if I stop subscribing, I’ll be able to continue using Quicken 2018 (or 2019 or whatever) much the same way I use Quicken 2007 today: As a standalone app without access to online services or Quicken’s support services. (Note that this doesn’t apply to the Starter edition, just Deluxe and Premier. But Starter is very limited; I imagine most users will have at least Deluxe.) This policy allays my fears about the subscription: If I decide I don’t need the online services, I can stop subscribing and still use the app manually. If they had communicated this more clearly up front, I wouldn’t have had any qualms with supporting their new approach, nor would I have vented on Twitter. The ability to continue using the app after my subscription ends allays my main fear with subscriptions: Once you start, you’re locked in because you lose the software if you ever stop paying. Thanks, Quicken, for taking this approach.
Eager to read your research on a Quicken 2007 replacement. I’ve searched for years after a forced “upgrade” from Quicken 2005, which I stuck with for ten years.
Converting my huge data file from ’05 to ’07 (which was required before going to ’11) resulted in massive corruption, with duplicate and dropped transactions. So many functions are missing or awkward in these later versions. I won’t consider a web app, don’t want mobile, and hate the idea of subscription.
So far, as far as I know, imperfect Quicken is the only option. I hope you’ve discovered an alternative! I moved from Quicken 2007 to Quicken 2017 and was so disappointed, that after 18 months using it, I’m in the process of moving data back to quicken 2007. It had so many reports and other functions they simply did not bring to ’17 — I can’t pull simple information for my CPA based on category reports, that show a total spend by category. I was printing out the report and adding the numbers up with a calculator!!!!
And then I find the numbers are not even correct — if an item was part of a VISA bill, it brought the entire VISA amount onto the report (not the categorized item). Also gone — QuickReport. Clearly the folks who did it just scraped the surface and did a very light version. Also annyoying, they try to sell you something every time you open the file. With NO WAY to turn it off. Sherry: I never tried Quicken 2017, but it sounds nothing like Quicken 2018.
I can create a Transaction Report hat summarizes by category, which you can then customize and save as a custom report (and customer reports appear directly in the Reports menu). It’s definitely not pulling entire credit cards into reports either—as we do most of our buying on credit cards, i’d notice that immediately. You should probably give the 2018 version a trial: I find it much better than the 2007 version, especially in terms of interface and usability. They have a full money back guarantee, so there’s not much to lose.
Import your data file, spend a few minutes with it, and see if it’s solved the issues you saw with 2017. Also: It has never tried to sell me anything at all on launch (or at any other time). Quicken is dead to me.
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I’ve used it since 1998. One reason for using it was taken away when the government required brokers to keep up with cost data.
But Quicken added the transaction download which was cool. Having to buy it every 3 years was not a big deal, and justified because they had to keep developing to track changes in the account interfaces. But the last two years the transaction download has caused more time to be spent chasing problems than it has saved. The match is really going bad. Especially transfers from one account to another. These almost never match the way financial institutions report data.
So I’ve decided never to buy another copy. I resent that they have the password deal, which is checked online, because I could lose access to my data (regardless of what their guarantee says), and I’m thinking of looking for a way around that. Anybody know a way?