#Quicken essentials for mac tutorials update
#Quicken essentials for mac tutorials upgrade

(We donвЂ™t use the tax or bill pay features, so I donвЂ™t miss those in my use of Quicken.) When I interviewed Patzer, he implied that Essentials would be able to track investments, but not handle some вЂњmore complexвЂќ transactions. That limitation? The investments section of the program is quite a letdown in this version.

Unfortunately, once I got beyond the look and the few cool new features, one key limitation in Essentials means that IвЂ™ll be keeping Quicken 2006 at least until the promised Quicken Deluxe comes out next year. In Essentials, I just enter a filter term, and I see all matches in all accounts in one window-this is a huge advantage over the old program. In Quicken 2006, I have to run a search across all accounts, and it then pops up results as it finds them. I also liked the visual reporting, the overview pages, and the filters, which are particularly useful for drilling back through large files. Quicken Essentials is the first Intuit product IвЂ™ve used that truly feels and acts like a typical OS X application, and thatвЂ™s a good thing. The visual effects are smooth and well done, and rely on Core Animation. When double-clicking an entry in a register, Essentials brings it to the foreground and dims the background, making it clear which record youвЂ™re working on:Д®ssentials calls out the entry youвЂ™re working on in a register The Cocoa rewrite brings tangible benefits-being able to use Services, for instance, and the standard text area keyboard shortcuts are most welcomed.

#Quicken essentials for mac tutorials upgrade

But compared to past data upgrade scenarios, this one was smooth and simple.

#Quicken essentials for mac tutorials update

You do have to then manually update your investment accounts, and re-enter passwords, but that worked well enough. My test import worked quite well-it took about 30 minutes, and brought over every single transaction without any obvious failures. Those who found Quicken overly complex for their basic needs will probably find Essentials perfectly satisfying. Those who utilize most of the features of Quicken 2006/2007 (especially related to investments, taxes, and paying bills within the program) will find Essentials disappointing. I think Quicken Essentials will get different responses from different people, based on their own backgrounds. Accounts Summary presents a summary by account, though you canвЂ™t drill down into it. The Category Explorer makes it really easy to see a summary of spending by category and drill down into a given category to see exactly where your money went.

Type something in there, and Essentials filters the display to show only entries that match your search terms. At the top right of the Transactions window (and all registers) is a Spotlight-like search box. There are some useful tools, too-Transactions presents what is essentially a global account register you can use this to enter transactions in any account. Quicken Essentials overview window gives you a summary look at your financesThe new interface is undeniably nicer looking than the old nobody who has used Quicken would ever describe its interface as elegant. To the right is a summary of your recent spending (we had a tax bill due in January, which explains the large percentage to one item), along with a preview of upcoming bills and an overview of your spending against your budget (not yet set up in my screen shot). Accounts are grouped by category, each identified by a unique icon. Down the left hand side is a list of your accounts, along with some standardized tools at the top and reports at the bottom. In Essentials, the program opens to an Overview window that could easily be described as such.