Blog: Doing the Moneydance and saying goodbye to Quicken 2007 for Mac

Doing the Moneydance and saying goodbye to Quicken 2007 for Mac

Like so many other Mac users, I've used Quicken for many years and Quicken 2007 for Mac since it was released. I went looking to see how long it's been and I really can't tell. I have transactions going back to 1994, but I know I've not used it for that long. It has been a while, however.

As I mentioned in To upgrade or not to upgrade to MacOS X Lion? in August, Quicken's lack of a Lion-compatible version was something that has kept me on OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) on my home computer (I have made the move on my laptop, however).

In late October, I started seriously looking at Quicken 2007 alternatives. I looked at quite a few and after consideration, I thought I landed on Moneydance ($49.99) for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of it's ease of use and long-standing use. I didn't want to start mid-year, so I decided to hold off until mid-December to look at this change for real.

On Tuesday, Dec. 21, I downloaded the trial version of Moneydance, converted my Quicken file and started to double-enter transactions. Moneydance's trial version allows 100 entries to be entered before you have to pay for the full version. Luckily, importing data and connecting to financial institutions do not count toward the 100 entries. Within a few hours, I had all my information synced up with Moneydance and was ready to start using it in earnest starting January 1.

Then, on Dec. 22, Quicken Mac users got an e-mail from Aaron Forth, General Manager, Intuit Personal Finance Group, stating they are working on a solution to make Quicken 2007 for Mac "Lion-compatible" by early spring with a link to this Web page.

This made me stop and think about the change I was about to make. I could stay with a program I am very familiar with by staying with Quicken. It sure is attractive, but early spring!?!?! Didn't they get the message like the rest of us that Rosetta programs (including Quicken 2007) wouldn't work with Lion?

I guess it comes down to the thought if Intuit will follow through; if they will charge for the upgrade; and, if it's even an upgrade in the pipeline. I have a feeling they are just working on a way to simulate Rosetta on top of the same six-year-old program, which, as many before me have written, is way behind its Windows counterpart. It's just too little, too late.

So, with this in mind and after using Moneydance more Friday and today, I have decided to move forward with my initial plan, purchase Moneydance (with a discount if you LIKE Moneydance on Facebook).

Goodbye, Quicken 2007... I can't say it's been fun, but I am looking forward to a long dance with Moneydance.