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iBank Personal Financial Manager

Near great! Huge relief to finally leave Quicken.

Written by EW from Cincinnati

Sep 26, 2008

I tried iBank recently, after many years of using Quicken. My impression so far is almost totally positive. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Quicken or Money offer, but it's definitely a solid program that does most of what I need.
I have quite a few different investment accounts and bank accounts, all at several different banks and brokerages, so I have a lot of data to keep track of. So far, I've found iBank to be completely solid. Never crashes, calculations are perfect, and the formats are very useful.

My only complaint as a new user is that some of the user interface is not at all intuitive, so I couldn't figure out how to do many things. But on the positive side, the online help is so good that I was easily able to look up anything I couldn't figure out on my own. In fact, I found some things that were totally unexpected but very helpful. It would be nice to have a more comprehensive tutorial, but if you don't mind looking things up in the help, you can get up to speed with this app very quickly.

Overall, I'm very happy with iBank, and I don't expect to ever go back to Quicken or Money. I expect future versions of iBank to just keep getting better. We finally have a real Mac application that does nearly all you need for your financial record keeping.

437 of 448 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Simple, elegant and does what I want it to...

Written by AP from Seattle

Oct 23, 2008

Ok. Perhaps not for those who wish to buy or sell stock - as some seem to be looking for. However, to manage multiple accounts, and for those of us who look for well designed interfaces and ease of use, this is a refreshing alternative to other - bloated, overly complex with hideous backup methodology - programs. I found Quicken to be complex and way more than I needed. I do use iBank to keep tabs on my portfolio, debt, checking account etc. I also use it when tax time rolls around as it will categorize entries. I have to say I am a bit perplexed by all the negative reviews.

351 of 362 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

iBank not Quicken

Written by PC from Triangle

Feb 28, 2009

I have been a Quicken user for many years prior to my recent purchase of an iMac. I read all your reviews for Quicken for Mac and IBank. I decided to take the plunge and stay with the apple application. I have been using iBank for a month and find that it meets my need for home finance. It manages my accounts very well. It doesn't have all the features of Quicken, then again, it's not Quicken. Online set up and downloads are much easier in iBank. I'm finding new features each day. I enjoy my break from my PC and look to use apple applications whenever possible. It's a good program, just different.

119 of 122 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Disappointing. Look elsewhere for a Quicken replacement

Written by JY from Riverside

Dec 9, 2008

I wanted to write a glaring review of this product and at first, that's what I expected to do. I'm a life long Quicken user who just went Mac at home and I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to dump Quicken.

Here goes...the import from Quicken worked well. A few old items came over so it took a few minutes to clean up my data and delete some old accounts. Overall, I was very pleased with the export/import process. Setting up my accounts for online download was a snap and I liked the look and feel of this true Mac program. This is where the “love affair” ended.

As the day progressed I came a cross a few things that ruled this program out as my Quicken replacement. First, it crashed twice and I needed to restart the program two additional times. That’s pretty bad. Second, even though you can download data from your bank, it does not have online bill pay functionality built into the program. You must use your bank's online bill paying services (if available) on their web site. Finally, the reports are quirky and have bugs. With tax season coming up I need to have accurate numbers on easy to read, configurable reports. iBank offers none of these. This is probably the worst part of the program. I wish I could recommend this program, but I can’t.

I will hold onto the program for now, but will look elsewhere for my long term solution. I downloaded a demo of another program last night and so far it looks very promising.

115 of 122 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Wonderful---because it's not Quicken

Written by RM from Maple Grove

Dec 30, 2008

I really enjoy iBank, because it's its own program---it's not trying to replace Quicken or MS Money or any other program. It truly is a finance program built for the mac-user. I felt frustrated the first 20 minutes of set-up because I have been so used to Quicken's difficult set-ups, and approached this with the same, archaic expectations of set-up. As it turns out, this was much easier to approach and understand. Just like a mac, everything is intuitive about the program. SOO simple, both as it's application and usability. It's not fancy-pancy, but it definitely does what it should do: tracks your spending, works with your iPhone, and helps you budget. I'm a convert!

111 of 121 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Disappointing

Written by EP from New York

Feb 18, 2008

I've been using MS Money for several years and iBank can't do 98% of what Money can. Very disappointed at wasting money to buy this program, but no other financial management software for Mac is any good either.

180 of 281 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Complete and solid product

Written by PM from Ithaca

Apr 24, 2008

I was looking for a long time (several months) for a decent banking software to manage my credit cards, my bank accounts, my budgets, ... I had tried several solutions: GNU Cash, Quicken, mvelopes.com, Moneydance, ...

iBank3 is the definitively the best one. As you may read in other comments, it may have less functionalities compared to Quicken (Quicken for Windows, not Quicken for Mac, which has less functionalities) and MSMoney but it has 90% of the basic functionalities you will need for you day-to-day money management, so that's enough, is well integrated in the Mac (the UI is awesome) and is solid.

The team is really proactive regarding bug fixes, improvements, ... (lots of upgrades)

In a nutshell: give it a try, it is definitively worth it.

90 of 107 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Buy from iBank not Apple

Written by TL from Dunwoody

Aug 23, 2009

It is better than Quicken for Mac, but not nearly as good as Quicken for Windows. If you buy from Apple or anyone else and don't like it you're out $60. If you buy from iBank online you can try for 30 days and if you don't like it you can get a full refund. I wish I could get my $60 back.

74 of 80 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Quite Poor

Written by DH from Cambridge

Feb 5, 2008

I thought this would be a simpler more effective alternative to quicken but I was very wrong. I tried to set this up on my Mac but finally gave up! $59.00 is sitting in the box in my desk drawer and I've gone back to quicken. Very disappointed

160 of 254 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Horrible and no recourse if you purchase in store

Written by AZ from Brooklyn

May 3, 2009

I foolishly disregarded the negative reviews here and purchased iBank from the Apple Store. I have a spanking new MAC and this application froze my computer. I am a veteran Quicken for PC user of 15 years so I consider myself somewhat savvy with online banking and the use of a financial application, but this one is impossible. Neither BofA nor Citibank support it and there is no number to call at IGG. I have deleted the program and lament the sixty bucks I spent as it is not refundable. If you must try it, DOWNLOAD it as then you have a 30 day money back guarantee; but don't purchase it in the store or you'll be stuck with it as a lot of reviewers here have been.

65 of 71 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

money well wasted

Written by AR from Omaha

Jan 30, 2008

It is a very poorly written piece of software: crashes regularly, does not display data properly (on occasions some items appear to be zero, after restarting go back to the originally introduced values) etc. On the top of that iBank has very limited possibilities when compared to MS Money or Quicken. Maybe version 3 will be better, but 2.3.12 is just pure headache and nonsense. (I am new to Mac OS and I am having second thoughts about my decision to switch: if all software written for Mac OS is of that quality I should think about taking my iMac back to the store.)

133 of 209 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

The best of what's out there

Written by MK from Simpsonville

Jul 9, 2009

iBank is a work-in-progress. The one star reviews are a bit unfair. I'm still using MS Money via VMFusion, but wanted to see what was available as MS Money sunsets in a year. Have tried MoneyDance, MoneyWell, MyMoney, Money 3.3.3, and iBank is the best.

It has about 75% of the functionality that MS Money or Quicken has. Good functionality for OFX "Direct Connect" banks (most banks), isn't able to handle "WebConnect" banks like HSBC.

At $59.99 it is too expensive (considering that they are still adding what some would consider to be fundamental features). The last time I bought MS Money is was $39.99 and that was for a mature and extremely robust product. Would suggest that iBank "rightsize" the price to $29.99 - 34.99.

55 of 56 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Still too many shortcomings

Written by TY from Alexandria

Jul 2, 2008

I've tried really hard to like this app but I continually found frustration in using even the most basic functions, so annoying in fact that I've given up and am going back to Quicken. I might add that this is my 2nd attempt to migrate to iBank so I've given it a serious go. The app looks great and the iPhone functionality is fantastic, in fact it was the driving factor in me giving the software another go, but the assorted bugs, flaky widget, forced mouse input, horrible reconciliation method and lack of the ability to do even some basic functions make it's use too much of a compromise for my needs. At version 3 I would expect better. I hope that it improves & will take another look at v4 or 5.

54 of 61 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Needs a lot of work, crashes are routine, several bugs noted

Written by RS from PRESCOTT VALLEY

Jul 21, 2009

I purchased this application directly through the developers website. I was impressed, for a few minutes. There is a lot of eye candy in this application, but it really falls short as a financial manager. I loaded all my accounts and grouped all my transactions into categories, relatively easy process in ibank. Soon thereafter, ibank started to crash on a routine bases; most the time while entering/editing a transaction. Another shortfall is that credit cards are handled like a bank account. No credit limit remaining and balances show as positive cash rather than negative amount owed. After entering all my data and using the application for about a month, my amex transactions can no longer be seen, even though the balance is shown in the account tree. Way to many bugs to list. I recommend you go to the forum and look at the problems encountered by others before purchasing. I think there is potential in the long haul for ibank, but will take a lot of work to get there.

52 of 59 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Finally, a personal finance product that works with iPhone!

Written by JL from Amherst

Jun 13, 2008

Currently this is the only non-web based banking software to work with iPhone. It requires .mac (soon to be MobileMe) to get working, but once set up you can use it like a check register on your iPhone and reconcile your accounts on your computer with lots of charts and other great ways of examining your spending. While there are some UI quirks and rough edges on the product it is by far the best personal finance manager for the Mac and iPhone. As an added bonus emails to their tech support team have received very quick responses and the forums on their website are very lively with lots of users helping each other out.

54 of 64 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Needs Work

Written by MT from Mendota

Feb 19, 2009

I am an Apple fan and I wanted to write a glowing review on iBank. Problem is I can't.
I too got aggravated using older versions of Quicken and I had hoped that iBank would
have at the very least strong checking and savings management attributes. I am not
one for many bells and whistles yet I would like to see better Reconcile features and
even a warning about duplicate checks would be nice. It is a good start but it needs work.

55 of 67 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Better that Quicken!!!

Written by JV from AVENTURA

Nov 26, 2008

I was a user of Quicken for Windows, and when I switched to Mac OS, I tried Quicken for Mac like alternative. The fact is that Quicken for Mac lack a lots of functionality that the application for Windows have. After that, I tried this application and when I compared it with Quicken, I really love it. Yes, maybe the application don't have the same functionality like MS Money and Quicken for Windows, but I think that right now is the best option for Mac OS.

48 of 54 people found this useful

iBank Personal Financial Manager

Disappointed

Written by DO from Waynesville

Dec 9, 2008

I was hoping iBank could replace Quicken, but unfortunately it needs more work. For example, generating a report (rather than a graph) is difficult, calculating daily gains and losses on securities is impossible, and scheduling recurring transactions is limited to a few choices. There are many features that are appealing, but without what I consider to be basic capabilities, it will not work for me.

50 of 60 people found this useful