I'm looking for a basic checkbook program for macOS. I've used ibank for the last decade. It did what I wanted but I'm getting ready to move to a new MBA and want a clean install. iBank is now Banktivity and is a subscription model at $49/yr. It does a bunch of stuff that I really don't care about and surely don't want to pay for every year. I'll buy it one time, but not every month.

So, any suggestions for a banking program that will handle half a dozen accounts without needing to go online? I don't want iOS connected, don't need live stock quotes, budgeting I can do on my own, etc.. just something simple and straightforward.

Any suggestions?

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

Ombligo,

Any of them can handle your checkbooks. I'm still using Moneydance. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Basic handling of financial accounts doesn't require an Internet connection. Moneydance isn't perfect but it works well. It doesn't require a subscription. I'd definitely give it a looksie.

As crazy as it sounds, I'm still using Quicken 2007 for a few accounts and it's only because I've yet to find another app for the Mac that has a "reconciliation" report. Lots of others - mostly useless - but not a reconciliation report. It's one of the only reasons I'm stay on Mojave for my machines. Once I find an alternative to Quicken that has this report, I'm jumping over to it.

Robert

I am using Quicken Mac, and paid for the 2 year Sub a while ago. It is working better and better every day. I will be purchasing a sub every year. It is a no brainer for me.

My checkbook has been a spreadsheet from back in the Appeworks days. I am now using Excel. It summarizes sub accounts (housing, insurance, taxes, etc) differentiating between amounts that are new, amounts that have cleared but are not yet reported on the end of month report, and those that have been included on that report. It even writes checks (though my HP printer makes that much harder to do than my old Cannon).

I probably could migrate that over to one of the free spreadsheets, but Excel 2011 is working just fine and other than stopping me from moving past High Sierra, there is no (obvious) reason to stop using it.

Depending upon what you need (you said basic) a spreadsheet file may fit your needs. Probably lots of templates out there for you to review to see if any fit your needs. Excel, Google sheets, or Libreoffice are some app options for the file.

No bells and whistles means Numbers.app to me.
What would you want to accomplish?

MoneyDance here. It does what I need it to do.

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Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

Who needs checkbook software nowadays? How many checks are you writing?

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Ombligo
I'm looking for a basic checkbook program for macOS. I've used ibank for the last decade. It did what I wanted but I'm getting ready to move to a new MBA and want a clean install. iBank is now Banktivity and is a subscription model at $49/yr. It does a bunch of stuff that I really don't care about and surely don't want to pay for every year. I'll buy it one time, but not every month.

So, any suggestions for a banking program that will handle half a dozen accounts without needing to go online? I don't want iOS connected, don't need live stock quotes, budgeting I can do on my own, etc.. just something simple and straightforward.

Any suggestions?

Are you able to just bring the iBank app over after the clean install? Or is is 32 bit?

I left Quicken several years ago and moved to MoneyDance. It is not as polished as some software, but it does the job for me.

JPK

Matt,

It isn't about checks. it's about managing one's finances which includes tracking how much money you have coming in and going out, how you're actually spending the money, managing paying bills, reconciling accounts, budgeting, generating income and expense reports for yourself (and, if necessary, your accountant), and a slew of other tasks. I couldn't imagine doing all of this kind of stuff without a financial app these days.

Robert

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mattkime
Who needs checkbook software nowadays? How many checks are you writing?

One still needs a way to track banking transactions. I actually still use a check register and it's from that I enter transactions manually into Moneydance at the end of each month. Credit card transactions are downloaded into Moneydance from their respective sites.

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If you want to fix our country, work with us in the states. statesproject.org

"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

So it’s for budgeting.

Personally I don’t feel the need to categorize my expenses. For me personally, I don’t think it would change how we spend money. I think we’re pretty aware of our cash flow, I know not everyone is like that.

I’ve been using personal capital to track where we are on a monthly basis.

I’m probably an odd duck.

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MoneyDance. The good and the bad.
One pet peeve about the developers, I don't think they listen to anything users ask for. They seem to be more our way or ...
And just simple stuff, command keys "report" organization.

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!#$@@$#!

proofraed by OwEn the c@t.

Another Moneydance user here. I migrated to it after Quicken abandoned the Mac platform. It was not an easy migration and I've never liked Moneydance quite as much as I liked Quicken 2007. However, Moneydance gets the job done and has good support, while subsequent versions of Quicken have mostly sucked and I still feel betrayed by them so will likely never go back.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Matt,

You're jumping to a conclusion. Some people use a personal finance app for budgeting but I suspect most people don't. They use one for other tasks. I don't use MoneyDance for budgeting. I use it for tracking income and expenses, reporting (which is necessary for myself and for my accountant) and several other tasks. Your use of Personal Capital mirrors one of my uses of MoneyDance. I checked out Personal Capital and decided to stay with MoneyDance.

Robert

I reluctantly went from Quicken 2007 to Quicken for Mac. Works well for me. I have categories for all inflows and outflows and enter everything manually. Tax time, it is easy to print everything the accountants need very quickly.

Wife has 7 accounts, Checking, Money Market, Savings, Mortgage, etc... I have 8 Accounts, and all 15 are synced automatically to my banking institution. I don't write checks. Maybe 2 a year, when needed for that situation.

My data goes all the way back to 1993.

I can see what a cable bill was back in 1993.

I can search for anything to remind me, what year I did so and so....

I have enough trouble with spreadsheets just to calculate what the wife and I owe each for our Citi Costco Visa card, each month. Not a major deal, but thats was far as I want to get into spreadsheets. Cant imagine doing record keeping that would go on for any length of time

And Quicken has all of our loans, assists, and there is a Mobile App, that mirrors what I see on the Mac
Desktop.

I know this is not a barebones answer to the OP, but this would be "Quicken" the answer to what is the "best" Mac Software for doing Home Family Finance Account Keeping...

and 403b, and IRA, and Ameritrade (Don't forget that Apple Stock)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2021 08:14PM by Microman.

+1 for Moneydance. It's not perfect, but it does the job.

As said above - I would never go back to Quicken after they betrayed long time Mac Users.

JPK

JPK,

You realize your anger about Quicken betraying Mac users is misplaced, right? Intuit betrayed Mac users, not the current owners of the application. Quicken is owned by Quicken, Inc, an entirely different company. It has nothing to do with Intuit other than licensing the Quicken trademark. The only reason I haven't switched to Quicken for a couple of accounts is because it still doesn't have a "reconciliation" report like Quicken 2007. That and I'm not a fan of subscription models.

I actually had to purchase a stand-alone copy of a recent version of Quicken (2017, if I remember correctly) in order to ensure Moneydance worked with several banks. Quicken is still the de facto standard for online banking services and some banks require it for activating them. I faced that issue when Moneydance lost access to several banks. I had to buy and use a copy of Quicken to restore my online access. Once I did that, I was able to use Moneydance to connect again.

Robert



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2021 11:04AM by Robert M.

After doing some digging around, I think I'm just going to stay with iBank 5. It may be from 2016, but is still 64bit and does what I want.

I found the developers download and hopefully my registration code will work to bring in data going back to 1998. If that bombs, then I will give Checkbook a try from the App Store.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

Quicken 2007 here.

If we can ever get x86 emulation for M1 I will just run Snow Leopard Server (I have the DVD) for that and Filemaker Pro 6.

Otherwise stuck on High Sierra.