GEODUCK  I tried Moneydance when it first came out a few years ago. It was to slow to use and I went back to begrudgingly using Quicken for Mac.

Now that Quicken for Mac has totally degenerated, I am testing out Mac alternatives.

This latest version of Moneydance is an improvement on the original, but it has a long ways to go for serving as a usable application. I don't recommend it.

Personal finance applications should not be so difficult to design. The basic application model, Quicken, has been around for decades. Yet nobody can pull off anything functional and easy to use. Moneydance fails because its interface fails to accommodate typical working scenarios. The idea of these tools is to speed up the drudgery of maintaining all this data. Moneydance makes it harder.

A few examples, I have a few credit card accounts, a checking account, a savings account, some investment accounts--pretty typical stuff for a middle aged middle class American. Yet Moneydance cannot remember categories and predictive data for transactions from one account to another. So the user has to go through too many redundant behaviors for each account.

Even worse, making changes to a transaction item is remarkably difficult. I download checking account data, but have to manually assign categories. In Quicken I would just have to click in the category field and type in the first few letters and the predictive text completes the field. Easy and old technology.

Moneydance requires you to right click and find some obscure tech command called batch changes, and then further select the type of change you desire--category. Then a separate window pops up, but all you see are two opposing scroll arrows which you have to press and then choose the category from a long list. To do this for each transaction is nuts. Quicken solved this around 1992.

Another problem: Moneydance could not properly assign a translated data file from the bank to the proper credit card account. The choice was not in the picklist. I had to create a whole new account. That's

too much hassle.

This application is not ready for prime time.  
(Version 2008r3)

EMEL TRAW  I'm another happy switcher from iBank. iBank started great but got slower and slower over time and before long was completely unusable for editing a file on a shared drive over my wireless network. Moneydance imported all the accounts from iBank with little trouble, and is super fast with the same data.

The only downside is that the UI is not very Mac-like but the speed and reliability make up for it. Data entry is much easier than in iBank too with much less switching between mouse and keyboard needed and nice shortcuts like "t" to set the date to today.

Even if you would not usually use an app that isn't 100% "Mac" Moneydance is very worth trying out.  
(Version 2008r3)

TIM27  I, too, think this app is the best on the Mac. I tried several others, including iBank, iCash, Money and Quicken, and Moneydance was the best. Stable with all the features I need and the price is right. Great work!  
(Version 2008r3)

FEMIGH  Fast and stable, clearly mapped - the best money management software. I have tried a lot of Mac finance apps, used Quicken for years, finally (and slowly) migrating to Moneydance over this last year. No glitches whatever. The search features are brilliant and speedy, as are the graphic budget displays. Upgrades have been regular and free - I may voluntarily donate soon, thinking that it is about time that responsive Reilly Technologies be paid for the upgrades I have gotten since paying for the initial 2007 version.  
(Version 2008r3)

CREATIVE ARTS & TECHNOLOGIES  After checking a lot of Mac based options, many that don't even work on Tiger any more I came across this program written in Java (you barely notice it;-) and for this reason very much like mini$ which I used before.

I was extremely delighted that it is not just Multi-Currency capable (even a History of rates!) but fairly well translated into several languages, too.

I will test it a little further, but see no reason not to buy it.

Everybody who used mini$ should love this and find it easy to use, too. The Home page with "widgets" and a clean simple interface make them very much alike.  
(Version 2008)

BABYFETT  Tested it out for a day and bought it. Everyone knows Quicken for Mac sucks and this was the answer...for me. Doesn't have some of the features of Quicken, but it's real close. If you want an extremely simple to use program to manage your checkbook, savings accounts, investments and credit cards, this is the program for you. It allows for online banking and the switch from Quicken is pretty flawless. I love that I can download statements directly into the program as opposed to downloading a QIF or a QFX and then opening them and importing them. Also, they have extensions/plugins you can download to sync stock prices with your portfolio. I'm really liking this program and I hesitate to mention any of my quibbles because each time I think the program is lacking something, someone in the forums explains what I'm doing wrong. Finally, some people have complained that the interface isn't very "Mac." And to those people I say, "Who cares?" It's refreshing to use a program that doesn't look like iTunes. Definitely try this program out. It's worth every penny and then some.   
(Version 2008)

DAVID SCUBADIVER  Been using Quicken for decades on my p.c., and when I decided to buy a Mac I wanted a program that would let me work on both my PCs (work/laptop). So I tried Moneydance 2008 since its file will work on the PC version or the OS X version and their license covers the lesser of the number of users or the number of computers (regardless of platform). Translation - 1 fee, 2 operating systems and one set of data that works seamlessly between computers.

The other option would be to install windows on my Mac and run my quicken program through it.

But frankly, I did not wish to do that and was happy to try and break free of Quicken.

The importing was a bit of a chore, but only with respect to my investment accounts. It took me a good number of hours to figure out how to make it work (short sales created most of the problems and after editing/deleting related duplicate transactions, it works very well).

Once it was all set up, the only complaint I have is the reporting features are not as robust as with Quicken, and the capital gains report is buggy - it can't be restricted by date and always generates a report for all sales from the earliest sale in your data. It does not "subtotal" correctly, meaning each security totals to "zero" if there are multiple lots sold. I've reported bug, as have others, and hopefully it will be fixed.

What I LOVE about the program is how fast the downloads occur. Its a fairly simple interface with no "flash" but it does the job. I keep track of my Mortgage, a dozen bank accounts 3 brokerage accounts, several mutual fund accounts and 8 credit card accounts.

It'd be nice if it automatically downloaded from everybody (like yodlee.moneycenter can do!), but its not the end of the world doing one account at a time, even for someone with as any accounts as I have.  
(Version 2008)

DANIO  As a past user (and owner) of iBank I was hopeful that version 3 would be an answer to all the issues I personally had with it. Sadly, having participated in the Beta for the product it became clear that wasn't going to be the case.

I decided to look at alternatives and found Moneydance, at that point at '2007' version. Very quickly I decided Moneydance had what I wanted, despite my initial reservation with Java applications - powerful account tracking, simplicity, dependability and a no-frills approach to money management.

Since using Moneydance for the first time it hasn't stalled, crashed or lost any data, an improvement over iBank (in my experience).

Data entry is easy, especially with the new entry system deployed in version 2008; which also includes a full 'undo' feature. Allocation of funds against any number of categories to help drill down and find just exactly where all that money disappears each month.

This category information can then be accessed through the clever new expenses/income graph on the Home Screen; this for me is a killer feature, I use every day!

If you are looking for simplistic yet powerful software which allows you to control your finances day to day Moneydance is for you!  
(Version 2008)

ALANBBR  I've got a few years of data in Quicken that I'd like to have in something else. Importing a QIF to Moneydance is horrible. It treats an initial import like a partial account update that needs to be synced with potentially already entered data. This results in, for me, thousands of transactions that I would have to click Record on, and the overwhelming majority of those I'd first have to select New Transaction (No Match) to keep Moneydance from dropping the transaction. It also doesn't import the transaction category. Without a useful import, I won't even bother looking at any other features.  
(Version 2008b602)

MEMPHISBIRD  I have been using Moneydance for more than 3 years (currently with Leopard on an Intel Mac). I don't begin to use all the bells and whistles, I know that, but for my needs -- keeping track of credit card transactions, checking accounts, savings accounts, etc., and creating end of year reports for income tax purposes -- it has been almost perfect. I had a technical issue one time and I received an email response quickly that solved the problem. Before switching to Moneydance, I had been using Quicken -- buggy and expensive: $70 plus frequent upgrade pricing. I could have bought Moneydance several times over with what I paid for Quicken for upgrades. Once I made the switch, and all files imported perfectly, I have never looked back. They have had fairly regular updates and have yet to charge an upgrade fee. Maybe they are getting ready to do that with this beta, but after more than three years? I sure don't have a problem with that.   
(Version 2008b602)