DAVIDKKIM_SEANET.COM  MoneyWell is a very well thought-out, supported, reliable, useful program. After trying Moneydance, iBank, and previously Quicken (several versions), we have chosen to use MoneyWell.

It doesn't do everything, but it does 90% of what a household needs and does it very, very well. Especially budgeting it does better than any other app, and far more painlessly and intuitively.

Highly recommended!! Some of the other bundled apps seem marginal but this is definitely worth the bundle price.   
(Version 1.4.8)

RADIXHOUND  I thought I'd take MoneyWell for a test drive. I enjoyed using it for a couple of hours and easily pulled in the transactions from my bank and started tossing them into buckets.

It's really simple but it's focussed on helping you budget for the future. As a result it's really not good at allowing you to look at your historical spending.

The thing to do is probably just punch in your opening balance and start budgeting for next month. Forget analyzing what went before because you really can't. There's only one view and you can't compare months side-by-side or even graph all the expenses for a given month.

So it provides simple budgeting but if you want or like to see numbers and the big picture, probably not for you.  
(Version 1.4.8)

KRIS BJORNSTAD  I think I like Moneywell. I have been using it for over a year. The developer has tried to be helpful. I appreciate it. But for the life of me, I cannot keep the balance figure matched to my bank statement. Does anyone else have this problem? right now my Moneywell balance is almost $2000 off from my bank statement. I double check everything and can't find where I have made THAT much of a mistake!  
(Version 1.4.8)

TIM27  While I do feel this is a very nice app and is great in terms of stability and Mac feel, I think it could improve in the way it works. I find the whole "bucket system" inherently flawed.

In this system (which at first is hard to get used to if you've never worked this way before) you place the amounts of money that would LIKE or HOPE to spend (or not spend over this amount) within buckets in MoneyWell. The idea is nice, but quickly falls apart when you realize that there are things that always pop up unexpectedly that you can't account for and even money that you've set aside for something else has to be moved and switched around in a whole bunch of different buckets that you have set up to make your budget work.

The idea of saying, "yeah I'm only going to spend this much" is great, but it's just not reality. Bills change every month, especially gas and electric and auto fuel and there's no way of telling how much you're going to have to spend on it from one month to the next if costs change.

It is much more valuable to know what you have SPENT instead of what you HOPE to spend, which might be a better way to use the buckets, IMO. In MoneyWell all of this allocation of monies must be done manually and gets very tedious after doing it several times.

I have been using Moneydance for several years now and I find it still has better features and is easier to use than this. In particular with investment and loan accounts. Since MoneyWell is more of a budgeting app, it doesn't really handle these accounts very well.

It is still a very nice app, though, and I give it a 4 overall.  
(Version 1.4.8)

ZENRAIN  I've been using MoneyWell for almost a year now. I originally switched from Cha-Ching, which I had been extremely frustrated with. It was actually the last finance software I tried, I had also worked with iBank, and Mdance.

The original switch was a bit of a shock. At the time I started using it, MoneyWell wasn't exactly the best looking financial application on the block. Also, getting started with the allocation and bucket system took me the better part of a day to figure it out, and then another day to undo my previous days mistakes. :) Honestly, the only reason I stuck with it at that time was the developers amazing responsiveness on the forums.

It took me a week to start appreciating it's design. To enter a transaction date for this month just enter the day. Or if it's not in the month, enter the month and the day. Any delimiter. This kind of attention to detail is throughout the application.

Well, it's 11 months later. The interface has had some significant changes to make it easier to use and read. Kevin has added direct connect for a lot of Banks. There are improvements to reports, you can link to receipts. All this is nice. Actually, compared to other apps in the same period of time, it's really impressive.

But the best part of this application is my finances are now in order. I now have money set aside in advance for bills. I'm not overspending. In fact, my spending habits have completely changed. There are very few applications that have changed my life. This is one of them.  
(Version 1.4.3)

TESZERACT  Finally after many years of searching, I've found the personal finance software that works. And a great, responsive developer to go with the software. Moneywell has both power and intuitiveness. I'v been through MSMoney, iBank, Checkbook (by Splasm, which is good), Liquid Ledger, ChaChing, etc etc.

It may not have everything for everyone, but for me it's got features that I've not enjoyed before in any other app. Like drag 'n dropping transactions into categories, memorising by the Memo field, instant month-by-month spend graphs... the list goes on.  
(Version 1.4.2)

DJSHACK  Finally, I am able to take Quicken off my computer. That's been my goal for quite a while, but other programs--including CheckBook, iBank, and MoneyDance--just did not do it for me.

MoneyWell does everything I used Quicken for. That is not to say it does everything Quicken does. I simply used Quicken--and now MoneyWell--to track my transactions, setup budgets, and forecast my balance (based on bills and paychecks, etc.). This program features a fine Mac interface, without the nonsense of iBank, and will all the stability iBank lacks.

Finally, the developer is very responsive to e-mails, and there is also a Google Group for support. Great job!  
(Version 1.4.2)

JM_BILL  After having Cha-ching crash and loose all of my financial data twice and waiting years for an update which still isn't ready for release, I decided to ditch Cha-ching and resort to an OpenOffice spreadsheet. That worked fine, but it's just not the same as using a 'real' accounting application...

I heard through Twitter that an application called Moneywell was available and decided to give it a test drive. I was expecting another over-hyped, buggy, clickity-click application, something with more eye-candy than functionality. I was very wrong though. Moneywell is quite simply the best finance application I've ever seen or used. I wouldn't say it is easy to use for a complete beginner, but it is very logical in the way you setup accounts and add transactions. So you quickly figure out how it all works. The Moneywell site and forums offer loads of useful information and tutorials.

After using it for two days in demo mode, I purchased a license for it without hesitation. Within a few hours I had imported all of my data, categorised it between 'buckets' and was well on my way to getting spending plans setup. I've now been using it for over a month and there is just nothing else that compares. Absolutely fantastic application and the developer is a really friendly chap. Moneywell ticks all the boxes for me.  
(Version 1.4.2)

OFFLINE  I really wanted to use this program: It imports Quicken for Mac 2007 QIF files nicely and it has a clean interface. It's theme is budget management, and that's what I was looking for.

Unfortunately, it doesn't handle investments yet; although support for this is planned in an upcoming release.

If you have only bank accounts and credit cards - this will work well. But it's not the Quicken Killer I was hoping (and looking) for. Not yet, anyway.  
(Version 1.4.2)

THEOTHERSIDE  One of the best pieces of mac software out there. I have been waiting for *years* to finally dump MS Money in favor of a mac personal finance program that has all the features that I need to track my bank accounts, cash accounts, multiple-currencies, etc. -- I tried all the rest, and each had its own strengths and weaknesses. MoneyWell 1.4 (which I've been using as a beta for 3 months) has everything that I need, and it does it well. Add unto that the great "envelope/bucket" metaphor, and a wonderful UI, and you have yourself one of the reasons prefer macs. For me, this program ranks up there with DEVONthink, Omni products, Bookends, and Papers as programs that best represent the excellence of Mac products. Congratulations to Kevin, the developer who never rests and always responds gracefully, for an update that anyone else would have made into a 1.5 if not a 2.0!  
(Version 1.4)