March 4, 2007 at 3:49 pm | blabbing.

After countless curses uttered in the name of Quicken for MAC, I finally found a nice program for finances on the MAC. Moneydance is where it’s at.

They have a nice long trial period, pretty easy setup and import functions, a sweet homepage customization where you can put all the things that matter to you on your screen when you first open the software.

I used to use MS Money when I was on a PC, but since Alanna turned me from the dark side of the force back in 2003, I have had a pain in the ass time with Quicken (Because I couldn’t find anything else that worked on a MAC). Quicken works, don’t get me wrong, but I always found the UI really crappy to deal with and lots of weird bugs that never seemed to get fixed. I even thought of getting Virtual PC so I could go back to MS Money, but I remembered how I hated all the “I’m a browser”, “no I’m a news aggregator”, “no I’m a stock quote widget” crap that MS would bloat that software with.

So if you are in the same boat try Moneydance.

Good Stuff:
1. Key commands that actually work!!! (How about that one…)
2. Kick ass software UI, with logical layout
3. Customization of homepage
4. Cross platform (for all you linux geeks in need of financial software)
5. Nice real-time search in each account window (except Investment)
6. Nice backup functionality

Some weirdness: Ok, so there are a couple of things that are weird to get used to.

1. You need to install a couple of plugins to get the investment prices to update on a regular basis. I think this functionality should be built in and easily turned on in the preferences but it is only a minor distraction.

2. It remembers previous transaction catagories in the main accounts (bank and credit card) but it doesn’t seem to have this function in the investment accounts. (could be a weird glitch)

3. Reporting is kinda so-so. Could be better implemented with in-page functions instead of as a pop up. It took me a little while to figure out how to track down the total amount that I transfered from one account to another last year.

4. Should have the same search functions in the investment side as it does in the regular side. But it doesn’t