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Fortunately, there are alternatives that are less expensive than Quicken, and there are even some good free choices out there. If you’ve been on the hunt for an alternative program for both personal and small business finance tracking rather than paying for and using Quicken, there’s plenty of good news for you. The 3 Best Alternatives to Quicken Software. Updated October 5, 2018 — 5:07 PM EDT. Is touted as a superior alternative to Quicken for Mac users. IBank, which debuted in 2004 [3. @Mitch Javelin. I have worked with both Quicken 2017 and 2018. I'm very Quicken savvy. I promise you that you will kick yourself in the butt, 8-) if you spend the $ for Quicken 2018. There is very very very little difference between Quicken 2017 and 2018.

Mint is one of the best programs like Quicken and it has topped my list of Quicken alternatives. It is a feature rich finance management tool, which makes accounting seamless. Mint was initially developed by Aaron Patzer.
Quicken for Mac has lagged behind the Windows version for years and even though Quicken 2018 (and the recently released Quicken 2019) were an improvement, the decision to make it subscription only was the final straw for many faithful users.

Rating:

Summary:

With Mobile App, Alerts and A+ Functionality - Quicken is the best known personal finance software.

Quicken is the best known personal finance software. But is it the best? We put it to the test in our Quicken 2019 Review.

Quicken 2019

Pros

Bank synching is optional
Easy-to-use visuals
Control over both budgeting and investment data
Debt reduction tools built in
Bill tracking and reminders

Cons

Fairly expensive
Doesn’t sync with all banks easily
Can be overwhelming
Not as smooth as some interfaces

Table of Contents

Here, we’ll walk through the general pros and cons of Quicken, who it’s best for, costs, new features, add-ons and a walk-through of features for Quicken 2019.

Quicken is one of the big names in the world of personal finance, partially because it’s been around for so long. Quicken was released in 1983. Its first version ran on DOS! So it’s something of a dinosaur among budgeting apps. With that said, Quicken still has a lot going for it, though it’s not the right financial management tool for everyone.

What is Quicken?

If you’ve never heard of Quicken, you may be new to the world of budgeting. As we noted above, Quicken is one of the oldest budgeting products around. And it has seriously evolved over the years. It can still be an overwhelming platform for some, but it’s become more intuitive and user-friendly, meaning it can meet the needs of detailed budgeters and basic budgeters alike.

These days, you can access Quicken through its traditional downloadable software, which is updated manually. But you can also use the product completely online.

Quicken 2019 Features

Quicken comes out with a new version each year. In 2018, the biggest new features were expanded options for Mac users, for instance. You can upgrade your older version, or you can just get started with the latest version. Here’s what you’ll find with Quicken 2019.

New Features and Costs for 2019

For 2019, Quicken’s biggest new feature is web access from any browser. This is great news for those who want to be able to manage their finances from multiple computers, since before you could only access Quicken on the computer where you actually downloaded the desktop software.

The web version of Quicken doesn’t have all of the features, but it does give you the ability to view balances and transactions, look at budgets and accounts, and check out your current investments and spending trends online. You can also navigate through the streamlined web dashboard, which includes much of the same information as the desktop version but is easier to navigate.

Other fixes and additions include:

Multiple customer-requested bug fixes and enhancements, specifically focusing on reliability
Faster start-up and load times for Quicken for Mac
A better and faster user experience for managing investments
Monthly releases that include bug fixes, so that the platform can evolve more quickly
The ability to email reports directly from Quicken

These are Quicken’s newer features, but here’s a rundown of the basics you can expect from this well-known platform:

Home

The first tab on your Quicken interface is the Home tab. This gives you a quick summary of your current financial situation. The good news is that you can customize this screen. You can show your spending first or prioritize your investments. It’s completely up to you.

When you start up Quicken, the home screen will give you different quick-start options, as you’ll see below. You can see that Quicken wants me to set up my bills in the system. And as you’re getting started, you can use the built-in wizards to walk through these processes step by step.

The Customize button lets you choose exactly what appears on your home screen and in what order:

From the Home screen and every other screen, you’ll see the navigation bar on the top and one on the left. The bar on the left includes your current net worth at the bottom.

Spending

The second tab is where you’ll go to track your spending. Quicken will automatically break down imported transactions into categories. But you can always recategorize transactions. You can also change the categories here, depending on how your budget breaks down.

One of the nice things about this screen is that you can look at spending in different chunks. The drop-down menus at the top let you look at spending only from certain accounts, or from certain periods of time. So you can see what categories you spend on from your checking account versus your credit card, for instance.

Keep in mind that this data could be totally inaccurate as it comes in. Quicken will alert you when there are uncategorized transactions. But you may want to double-check the categories of every transaction as it imports. Sometimes Quicken just guesses wrong, which can throw your percentages way off.

Bills and Income

This is probably the feature I like best about Quicken versus other budgeting options. You can sync it up with your billers, such as Verizon or AT&T. It takes some time to sync up with all your bills. But once you do, Quicken will put them into a calendar view. Then it’ll tell you what your account balances should be based on your upcoming bills.

You can do the same thing with planned income. If you have a salaried job with regular paychecks, tell the system when you’ll get paid and how much. Again, it uses this data to project out your account balances.

If you’d rather, or if your bill provider isn’t available, you can put in your bills manually. I can, for instance, put in how much we need to pay for daycare and when that’s due each month. Again, these future bills will show up on your calendar, and you’ll get a projected account balance based on your bills.

I had to fiddle around with this interface for a bit before I could figure out how to use it properly. But once you have it, syncing up your bills shouldn’t take all that long. It’s just a matter of making sure you put them all in so that your projected balance isn’t too far off.

Once you put the bills in, you can mark them as they get paid off. This will happen automatically if you’re synced to the biller.

Financial Planning

Quicken’s robust financial planning tool includes several options, such as budgeting, tax planning, and long-term planning.

I dug into the budgeting tool with Quicken. As with the rest of the software, this wasn’t the most intuitive budget builder I’ve ever used. You have to first create the budget and then use the “Budget Actions” tab to decide which categories to add. But they offer a bunch of categories, so you can create quite a detailed budget.

Once you add the categories, you have to edit them individually to change their amounts. It’s really kind of a pain.

But here’s something I do like: you can decide at the beginning of the year how much to budget each month for each category. If you like plann

Quicken Alternatives For Mac 2018