Quicken may have declared the Mac a bad investment, but your financial future looks bright—even in Lion.
With news about the economy still as grim as Apple's prospects in the 1990s, it's a smart time to use your Mac to keep track of your finances. Unfortunately, that job just got harder. Quicken for Mac, the venerable personal-finance manager, was last updated when the economic meltdown was but a gleam in Wall Street's eye. And it doesn't even run at all on Lion (though it's fine on Snow Leopard, thanks to Rosetta). But fear not. Change can be a good thing, and lucky for you, there are plenty of options for keeping track of all of yours.
We compared five applications, starting with IGG Software's iBank, the heir apparent to Quicken's crown and a top seller in the Mac App Store. Newcomer SEE Finance, from Scimonoce Software, offers similar features at a lower price. Moneydance and iFinance offer alternatives to both options, and the popular web-based Mint boasts features usually associated with desktop software.
Everyone's financial needs are different, and each solution we looked at offers some more advanced features not covered here, such as investment and loan tracking. But we investigated how easily Mac users can import and categorize their transactions, create budgets, and keep an eye on the bottom line with reports and charts. Oh, and we wanted to know how well all this can be done in iOS on the go, where so much casual spending happens. Let's see how the apps add up.
Test One: Ease of Use
You won't use a finance app that gets in your way.
Despite being the least Mac-like of the services we looked at, Mint's simple web interface makes it easy to jump right in and start managing your money. It was the only service that worked with all our accounts -- from global credit cards to a small-town bank—online without a hitch. And since Mint is owned by financial juggernaut Intuit, it offers extras smaller Mac developers can't match, like email and SMS alerts when your balances are low.
Of the native OS X applications, iBank feels most like a long-lost member of the iWork suite, and setting up new accounts is a snap. Its built-in browser lets you quickly jump to your institution's website if you need to export account histories to a file, then import them manually. Creating accounts in SEE Finance is similarly easy, and this app also sports its own browser, but its toolbar-free interface takes a little getting used to.
Moneydance syncs to an iOS client, but exactly when is a little mysterious.
iFinance looks more like a traditional Mac app, but its busy design feels old-fashioned, and some basic functions, like transaction searches, require needless extra clicks to get to. iFinance also doesn't support direct downloading of account data. Moneydance displays important information like budgets and balances in a single window, and it supports account downloads. But setting up and viewing those accounts is easier in other applications, and too many operations require clicking through multiple dialogs.
Test Two: Editing Transactions
When it comes to managing your finances, raw data alone won't cut it.
Even the easiest data import is going to require some TLC. Cleaning up imported transactions and assigning categories like Salary, Rent, or Utilities is crucial to making your financial data more than just a list of numbers. Otherwise you're stuck with no way to meaningfully monitor budgets or track spending patterns. All the applications let you edit transactions and apply those changes to future transactions with the same payee, but Mint beats the competition with its accurate categories right off the bat. You can even make changes to every instance of a particular transaction and create templates for future imports, by editing a single entry.
Moneydance and iFinance also automatically assign categories to your transactions, but their accuracy leaves something to be desired -- and fixing stuff manually is far from ideal. Applying categories and creating your own requires too many steps in pull-down menus, and while iFinance can easily edit multiple transactions simultaneously, Moneydance only handles one transaction at a time.
SEE Finance's autocomplete takes the pain out of editing transactions.
In iBank, entering the category and payee you want is a matter of filling in the blanks. Autocomplete matches with existing entries, or you can type in your own on the fly. But poor support for editing multiple transactions -- and the dialog to confirm each edit -- can slow you down. SEE Finance combines autocomplete text entry with solid batch-editing features that, unfortunately, can edit just 10 transactions at a time. But both SEE Finance and iBank let you create filters and templates to automatically edit current and future transactions to fit your needs.
Test Three: Creating Budgets
Master your spending before it masters you.
Every application we looked at can monitor expenses in one or more categories over a set timespan -- usually between weekly and annually, as well as custom ranges -- then alert you when you're approaching your spending limit. Creating budgets in iBank means scrolling through cramped lists of income sources and expenses, but the results are polished and very flexible. A unique Envelope View goes beyond listing how much money you've spent to let you easily drag and drop budgeted cash between multiple expenses when unexpected spending throws off your budget. If you're like us, that's usually after new product announcements from Apple.
iBank's virtual envelopes make budgets about as fun as they can get.
SEE Finance can't match iBank's flexibility, but most of its budget-creation tools are easier to use (however, you have to enter dates manually to specify an upcoming budget's timespan). iFinance's interface is cramped, but it provides plenty of options and the resulting budgets are easy to read. Making budgets in Moneydance is similarly straightforward, and it's easy to see at a glance where you are in your spending. And if you're stuck for a place to start saving, it can calculate budgets for you based on your spending history. Mint can also create automatic budgets based on your top expense categories, but they offer limited timespan options and only basic customization choices. But Mint's Goals feature is an easy way to keep track of rainy day savings for vacations and other long-term plans.
Test Four: Reports and Graphs
Your money's a big deal. Get the big picture.
If you think you can't stick to budgets to save your life, seeing where your money comes from -- and where it's going -- might change your mind. Since Mint automatically categorizes transactions in your accounts, its Trends view is the quickest way to get a sense of your finances in simple text reports and attractive graphs. Clicking categories in those graphs will take you to list views of the relevant transactions in your accounts, where you can edit them on the fly.
If you're looking for flashy graphs, iFinance has 'em.
iFinance lets you create vanilla 2D graphs or Keynote-like 3D graphs, and the data in either style can be turned into reports with a click. Moneydance comes with plenty of editable default reports and graphs that auto-populate with your data, but they're a little drab and they don't let you click to access your transactions. That's also an issue in SEE Finance, but its report-creation tools are easier to use, and the results are easier on the eyes.
Like SEE Finance, iBank combines reports and graphs in a single window, and it also offers numerous presets to get you started. But the results -- scrollable, interactive documents that let you view and edit individual transactions, just like Mint -- are much more attractive and useful. But unlike Mint, it's much easier to fine-tune the accounts, timespans, and transaction data you're interested in viewing.
Test Five: iOS Integration
You can take it with you.
Only SEE Finance lacks an iOS counterpart. The other applications we looked at let you sync accounts to your iDevice over local Wi-Fi to view balances, add or edit transactions, apply categories, and password protect your data on the go. Mint.com Personal Finance (free, iPhone) takes a lot of tapping to navigate, but otherwise it's easy to use quickly, just like the main site. It's also the lone app in the bunch that syncs budgets from its parent application.
Moneydance syncs to an iOS client, but exactly when is a little mysterious.
iFinance Mobile ($1.99, universal) lets you extensively edit accounts and transaction categories, and its simple chart view provides a quick picture of trends in your finances. Moneydance (free, universal) is basic compared to other offerings and lacks a dedicated sync button and progress bar. We were never quite sure when its sync-on-launch feature was working.
iBank Mobile ($4.99, iPhone) offers several perks along with account and transaction basics. Its main screen puts charts, account totals, and per-category spending totals in easy reach. You can even customize, export, and email a QIF file containing your account info. Like Mint's app, iBank could use some extra navigation buttons, but also like Mint it lets you sync when you're away from your home network: Mint because of being in the cloud, and iBank by allowing you to sync your data through MobileMe (until Apple pulls the plug) or any WebDAV server.
The Winner: IGG Software's iBank
Managing your money is difficult enough and is generally more than a little scary, so ease of use was a major factor in our decision. That knocked out iFinance and Moneydance early in the running. Despite some handy features, both applications proved too complicated and fussy to recommend for everyday use.
SEE Finance offers a wide range of features, strong transaction-editing support, and a clean design, all for a good price ($30). But a nonstandard interface, some missing features, and lack of iOS support keep it from being a top contender in the Mac finance market—yet. Meanwhile, Mint is a serious contender today. Its ease of use can't be beat, especially for getting a quick picture of where your money's going. Its budgeting and report options may be limited, but if you want to start getting your financial house in order without much work, Mint is a compelling option. And its free price tag is tough to beat in any economy.
But despite a comparatively hefty price ($60), iBank is our pick for those looking to go beyond the basics, especially when combined with its strong mobile app. Setting up accounts is painless, and though editing transactions requires a little more work than we'd like, the results are worth it. iBank's reports and charts deliver greater depth than Mint's with just a little more effort, and its flexible budgeting features were the best in our test group.
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