Intuit recently added online bill pay to Quicken for the Mac. Finally! I bought Quicken for the Mac 2016 without hesitation, as I can now avoid the daily chore of running Quicken for Windows in a virtual machine. There are several detailed reviews of the Mac 2016 product on the web, so I’ll just give you the highlights:
- Migration from the Windows version of Quicken isn’t seamless if you use online accounts. I needed to redo the online connections for my banks and brokerages. Here’s an important tip. Don’t miss the Options button on the bank’s connection setup window. On the Options screen, you’ll be able to select the connection type to your bank. The choices include Quicken Connect, Direct Connect, and Web Connect. Quicken Connect is needed for online bill pay and intrabank funds transfer. Not all banks support this protocol.
- Quicken is generally sluggish on the Mac. It takes about five seconds to display my investments screen. On Windows, similar content is displayed almost instantly. This disparity is unfortunate. Hopefully the developers at Intuit can work on optimizing the calculations in future updates. [7/26/16 update: There is a massive performance improvement as of version 3.5.0.]
- There are vast differences in the user interface between Windows and Mac Quicken. It took me a few days to get comfortable using the Mac version.
- The online bill pay process is somewhat unintuitive on the Mac. To make an online payment, you highlight a scheduled transaction, and press the Paid button. (Yes, you press Paid before you actually pay.) You can then edit the payment amount and payment date. (Make sure Online Payment is checked in the Edit screen!) The last step is to connect to your bank to send the payment request.
The Windows version of Quicken is a superior product. Regardless, I’ve made the switch to the Mac version and I’m not looking back.