Started trying cha-ching. So far nice, synchs, but can’t seem to find an easy report feature. I don’t need graphs, just reports, monthly, yearly, income, expenses, etc. Nothing wrong with Quicken (tho it’s not pretty) but it doesn’t synch with iphone. Need something to put in expenses on the run.

I used to do spreadsheets business and personal. I work freelance and have my own business. I had set up accounts as business, personal and credit card, but I realize I can do by bank account, cash, cc then just get category reports for business tax deductions. Need program that can do this.

Need to play more with cha-ching, but don’t think it can do it. Ibank may be the trick, will check it out. Whatever it is, IT NEEDS TO SYNCH with Iphone!!!!!

It costs only $5 to register.

The developer Kevin Hoctor above me just posted a link to their beta which i signed up for. If Moneywell plans to allow for direct downloads (which is the one thing that I felt was lacking) then I really may go ahead and stick with moneywell.

The sad part is quicken technically does everything we are requesting but it looks terrible and the support for it is terrible also.

Would like the ability to customize charts and automatically download transactions like quicken used to do, but can sacrifice these for a better budget manager

One feature i’d love to see is the ability for moneywell to take my bank account info and log into the account for me to bring in new transactions and compare final balances automatically… and securely, of course.

I’m taking a wait and see attitude with MoneyWell, but I am leaning in that direction.

Nice review, too. Clear and concise. Cheers!

So I tried ChaChing first… but transferring money from one Account to another was painful. (Transactions not linked) iBank made me feel better, however I didn’t like it. Last try, MoneyWell – at first: bah. now: wuhu! The Buckets are great and it’s basic functionality seems to be mature. Like all the other apps it’s still lacking a feature to quickly enter many transactions in a row. Still it’s the best for me and I hope I can use it past the 200 transaction limit!

Thanks for the great comparison

Maybe I will try that soon! Right now however I am sticking with iBank.

Ohh the drawing is on my birthday

iBank is winning so far for two fundamental reasons:

Transfers and Scheduled transactions

Transfers between accounts (e.g. Current account to Credit card) which work properly from both ends (Cha-Ching doesn’t really link them, so if you change one, the other remains as it was when first entered – how is that a transfer?)

And Scheduled transactions – I know I’m paying rent, bills, loan repayments every month, and the scheduling works really well. Cha-Ching does this as well, but tends to lump everything into your normal view of the account – iBank lets you create Forecasts for your accounts, so you can see how the balance will behave over time, given either your scheduled transactions, an average of the past, or both – very useful if you’re like me and need to figure out what’s going to happen if you move money between accounts differently!

Currently iBank doesn’t seem to work with my main bank online (browser identity or something) but importing from a saved OFX or CSV is a snap, but for me – forecasting is the way – I’m much more interested in where I’m going than where I’ve been!

So… going for an iBank license I think!

I have to say that what does it for me is the automatic downloading capabilities from my accounts. it also has a decent – better than quicken – portfolio and investment feature.

Cha-Ching – no offense – was too simple and basic. Personally, coming from quicken (Windows) ibank is fantastic and simple to use.

Thanks.

I reviewed MoneyWell and it does have the interface that I would prefer and I don’t really like the envelope concept.

I saved iBank until last because it seems to do most everything I want and in the way that I want it.

I would like iBank to add support for more Financial Institutions as the two I use are not listed.

1) As a .Mac member, I have access to iBank on my iPhone and am able to browse the last few transactions, as well as enter new transactions that sync back to iBank when I get to my computer.

2) iBank offers a quick entry widget. So I can enter my transactions into iBank without launching the application.

This combination of extras largely keeps me out of the main iBank window, and streamlines my use of the app even more so than Cha-ching’s main interface did.

And the icon at the toolbar can be changed with ones that will give a more Leopard/iTuneish look and feel

I aimed for MoneyWell, Kevin (the dev) and David, please pick me

I see my iPhone as a sidekick to my iMac, My desktop apps playing nice with my iPhone is exactly what I want. Although I would prefer this to be an option for those of us without .Mac/MobileMe

Thanks for the review- this has been something I’ve been mulling over. I have to disagree with you on your conclusion but hopefully the competition will make them all better!

Good, review, I think my comment just summaries your review. keep up the good job. hope this gets me a copy of MoneyWell. Thanks

JuST RaFy

So what is my budgeting style? Forget envelopes. I’ve taken to setting reminders for future income/expenses then running a balance predictor to make sure I don’t go negative. I used to have an Excel sheet for this, now I do it all in Moneydance.

http://moneydance.com/

Moneydance is not as ‘Mac-like’ – but it’s designed to be cross-platform (meaning my husband’s Dell can open the same file I create and maintain on my MacBook Pro). It does everything I’ve ever wanted to do with my finances, and it only costs $39.99. The licensing even lets me run the app on all 3 of our computers for no additional cost!

http://www.splasm.com/checkbookpro/

It easy and Really Full of features.

I was initially drawn to cha-ching and was close to getting a license when i saw moneywell. Cha-ching has the most “unified” interface and that is an attractive feature since it doesnt feel like a chore to sit down in front of it… until you need pictures or icons (and we all want pics!). If it had the internal icon/pic management like iBank then I might fall over to cha-ching.

But moneywell really gets it right for how i manager my money. I really like buckets, thats my metaphor, thats how i track my money and progress through the month. really a combination of all 3 programs would be best but my vote has to go to the one that models my finances the best and not necessarily the most beatiful… MoneyWell is the one. The upfront investment is worth it, I think I am ready to give up on Access!

However, iBank wasn’t intuitive enough for me. I need simple, and fast. However, iPhone integration is awesome. I wish Moneywell could do the same.

For me, it came down to the ‘enveloping’ – this is how I traditionally did my finances, and quite honestly, it’s the only way to prevent bleeding of cash (i.e. Hey, I’ve got $80 bucks extra, Of course I can use it for such and such). I haven’t enveloped for a while – it didn’t seem practical to me. However, this software allows me to keep everything in one bank, but use virtual envelopes. AWESOME!

The enveloping prevents me from bleeding one budget into another – perhaps that’s the biggest thing for me – MoneyWell allows me to stay on budget – extra cash does not necessarily mean money to spend – especially since I need to save money for lump car insurance premiums (for me it works out to 1 month free if I pay up front for the year, so why not! I’ve just always had to struggle to make sure I was saving enough money in that bucket!).

Overall, I think that this particular package suits my need – it’s unfortunate that youneedabudget.com was unable to produce their OSX product in May as they had committed – I can no longer wait for an application from them to use to manage my finances.

David, for me and how I think and work, Moneywell is my winner.

–aciniglio