I’m a longtime Quicken user and I’m currently using the 2015 product with my High Sierra machine. However, I see a new machine in my future and I’m guessing 2015 isn’t going to make the jump.
I’m looking for alternatives that are:
NOT subscription based;
NOT in the cloud.
I don’t need much - -this is for my personal use. I need to record and balance my checkbook and run some basic reports to see how much I spent in different categories.
It does not need to connect to my bank account - in fact I don’t want it to do that.
I don’t need to import my existing data. That would be a nice feature, but it’s not critical.
I started with Electric Checkbook in 1985, moved on to Quicken at some point, and during the pandemic, when looking for a non-subscription model.
It’s inexpensive, reliable, imports Quicken files, and just works. No stocks or investments, just a checkbook. I track 4 accounts from 2 banks with no issues.
Several years ago, I converted to Moneydance. Unless you want to download data through the app (it sounds like you don’t), no subscription is involved. It’s available for purchase from their own website or the App Store. I think the App Store may be more expensive.
You can download the app as a trial and load in your Quicken data. I believe you can input 100 new transactions into your registers before paying. So you can check out if it works for you at no cost.
I use Quicken and I’m OK to pay the yearly subscription, they really are supporting the product, it’s much better than when Intuit owned it. They update it frequently to fix bugs and add new features.
That said, if you are a Setapp subscriber, I saw that they recently added a new financial application, MoneyWiz. You can give that a try for free before investing in something else.
After some (it was over 20 years ago, so I don’t recall details) “upgrade” from Intuit, I lost a significant amount of data–I was beside myself and swore that that would not happen again. So I “wrote” a very basic finance program in FileMaker that I’ve used ever since. It wasn’t hard to do as I have carried no debt for decades, even purchasing my last car (from the car vending machine dealer) for cash so if you’re in a similar position, you might consider doing something similar (if not FM, then perhaps Excel). The younger you are (I’m pretty old) or the more complex your financial position, the less this advice applies. I have nothing more complex than annual insurance and property tax payments to make. It’s unlikely I’ll ever get a loan again, or need anything other than IRA CDs as investments.
Randy’s recommendations are very highly endorsed for consideration. He has been maintaining lists like this for years and years at www.macattorney.com.
Actually, no subscription is required at all, even to download data through the app, so long as your bank supports Open Financial Exchange (OFX) format.
The subscription comes into play if your bank does not support that format; it involves a third party, Plaid, which had some privacy problems a while back, though they may have learned their lesson. They say that they support some 10,000 banks (are there that many?!), including some foreign banks.
I’ve used Moneydance since Quicken abandoned Mac users some years ago. It’s a little quirky, possibly because of its Java roots, but it works, and it uses iCloud to sync both ways with its iPhone counterpart. It also uses DropBox in an interesting way that doesn’t take up a client slot, so if you have a free DropBox account using both clients, you can still use Moneydance to sync with either Android or iOS.
After issues with lack of support for Quicken both for Macs and for Australian users, I switched to MoneyDance after some investigation. It works for me so much that I haven’t bothered to look at other products. Don’t have the same issues as I did with Quicken.
Sorry, Randy, I primarily knew about PocketMoney because Hardy Macia asked me to be the SPAM Moderator of the Catamount Forums. I still use the last version of PocketMoney Desktop for Mac as my primary financial software.
Oh, a word of warning: there is an iOS app named PocketMoney on the App Store but it is NOT what Hardy developed. A Swiss-Italian bought the name and uses it for a licensed copy of the iCompta iOS app. The only difference between his app and the true iCompta app is the name. Even though I use iCompta as one of my backup apps, I still like Hardy’s software better.