Hello,

I've been using Quicken 2005 for Mac and putting up with various glitches and annoyances over the years. Quicken finally released its new product last week and I immediately bought it. It looked great at first, and felt like finally my financial software had caught up with the rest of the software on my Mac. However, it didn't take long to start running into its seriously limitations, particularly with budgeting and reporting.

After a few Google searches on these issues, I ran across a recommendation for Moneydance and downloaded the free trial. My experience here was the opposite ... it didn't seem like anything special on the surface, but as I've gone deeper I've found more to like. I would have been happy with a modern, bug-free version of the Quicken 2005 feature set, but I'm happy to have found some extra features and capabilities here. It's cheaper, too! I bought my license and am busy organizing my accounts (some of which didn't import correctly, but I can deal with that) and setting up my budget.

Here are a few of the smaller features that helped win me over:

• Moneydance uses a normal file / save paradigm, versus Quicken's system of using a data file somewhere on my computer (I never did find it) and saving automatically. I prefer to have the control of knowing where my file is, and being able to back it up or duplicate it manually if I wish.

• The 1-line / 2-line view options, with a keyboard shortcut, are great. A 1-line view is easier to scan, but I can quickly switch to a 2-line view for more detail.

• And I like the easy access to reports and graphs. This took a lot of clicking to access in Quicken.

I'm looking forward to learning more with real-world use.

Cheers,
-Arlo