Banktivity 5 (formerly iBank 5) App Reviews

I am using this software almost 2 years and all is fine, but will give 3 stars unless devs will fix one main bug, about which I am telling more than 1 year! I am talking about manual download of exchange rates in Show currencies window. I need to click 5-10-15 times to get all 4 currencies updated… And devs, maybe you should add agregator for online banks like SaltEdge? This way you will give access to banks not only for US customers. (EDIT): Exchange rates are fixed! Currencies now works great, changed my rating to 4 stars. Now waiting for cooperation with SaltEdge agregator ;)

I got this app to replace Quicken which isn’t very Mac-friendly. I use it just for my checking/savings registers and have transactions dating back to 1999. I contacted support and they have me a few suggestions which didn’t improve performance. My last hope is to remove (archive) old transactions. The problem is it is a time consuming task and not automated and no guarantees it will work either. The app is good for what I need but am very annoyed at the slow performance opening the app (I get the Mac beachball) and waiting for the future transaction windo to open. Also would like to see the "Create Scheduled Transaction from This Transaction” feature take you to the transaction in the “Schedule Transaction” list to verify that it is there and to be right there to modify it. Im on a 2009 mac mini running El Capitan and have been using this for approx 5 weeks.

iBank works well for the general user who doesn’t have too many financial complexities to deal with. I have particularly liked the ability to handle accounts in multiple currencies. Program updates, however, are a pain. Rather than simpy updating from within the program, you get an error message when you try to run iBank that says the program is damaged and must be downloaded again from the app store. That usually works OK - it’s like purchasing and installing a new program each time - but there are times when the new version simply will not download for hours at a time. Whether that’s an app store issue, a local internet connectivity issue, or a problem with IGGSoftware’s servers isn’t clear, but it doesn’t inspire confidence for one’s entire finanacial history to be inaccessible and precariously locked away in an older version that can no longer be opened.

So far, the most positive thing I can say about this app is that it isn’t Quicken. It’s so slow, it takes me back to the 80’s. I went to detete an account and it took almost three minutes, then a couple of more to update changes to Cloud Sync, although that account wasn’t synced to the cloud. (I have 32 GB RAM, with about 10 GB free.) Import from Quicken was worse than messy, and I’m spending a lot of time cleaning up, sometimes starting over. In the end, I deleted almost all the accounts carried over from Quicken (I’ll keep Quicken to access historical date.) and set each one up anew directly from my bank. Each time I add an account, it takes several minutes just to log into and search Chase. I also noticed that the totals shown in iBank do not reflect pending items in the bank’s account, so the figure is less accurate than simply logging onto my bank site. So far, I think it would be faster not to attempt to import from Quicken and simply start over. More details as I get time to work on this further. I think I’ll stick with iBank because Quicken for Mac has become so bad, but...

I used to track my finances in a custom spreadsheet that I designed to get detailed projections. I switched to Mint because entering transactions manually was tedious; recently I tried iBank 5 because I miss having those projections, and because I’m not sure I trust Mint’s security. On the whole, this app seems very good for version 0.5.0, not so much for version 5.6.4. It also seems pretty good for $5, not so much for $60. Every feature seems unpolished, every design decision ill-considered. iBank’s (ostensible) advantages: - Like any finance app, it brings data from all your accounts (except 401(k)s) into one place - Can define categories, sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories ad nauseam - Stores data locally; no need to enter banking passwords into some web app - Import data from various formats (sort of) - Can define budgets for particular categories and see how much you have left at any given time - Can schedule transactions (sort of) and create reminders (badly) - Can generate (ugly, limited) custom reports, including (useless) forecasts - Can edit multiple transactions at once (sort of) Disadvantages, bugs, other problems: - Automatic importing requires a paid subscription - No CSV export that I’ve been able to find - Forecasts only include scheduled transactions, not budgets - good luck estimating a future balance accurately if you can’t account for spending on things like groceries and gas - Once defined, a budget can’t be edited except for its name; if you change your spending habits, get ready to delete and recreate all your budgets from scratch - Multi-edit is only available for Category, Transaction Type, and Security, not, for example, Payee or Note - When importing from CSV, you have to create all categories first, or it will leave the Category field blank on imported transactions - When importing from CSV, there’s no way to specify a field as the Transaction Type; everything ends up as a withdrawal (apparently the default) - There’s no Transaction Type for Contribution, so importing data for my 401(k) (in QIF format) left me with a bunch of “Buy” transactions; iBank interpreted this as spending money I didn’t have, leaving my balance out of whack - Custom reports are extremely limited. For example: -- Report layout is designed for printing, with no way to present an unpaginated view - hilarious if a report is both too wide and too long for one page -- Lots of things that should be clickable aren’t, such as a supercategory if its subcategories are listed, or a category if any of its transactions are listed -- Nothing is collapsible/expandable; if something is clickable, it takes you to, essentially, a separate drilldown report -- Lots of things that are clickable in a report will open a new window rather than use the existing one - a nuisance in full-screen or El Capitan’s split-view mode - Scheduled transactions are also extremely limited. For example: -- You can’t schedule a transaction for a variable amount, such as paying off a credit card balance every month -- Editing any scheduled transaction recreates all the reminders, so if something is due today, editing any other scheduled transaction will cause the Reminders app to alert you -- Transactions are “due” on a date, not at a time… so Reminders will alert you at midnight. Better turn your volume down

I’ve been using the app for more than 1.5 years and I like it. We have accounts in both euros and USD, and while the app does a good job of working with mulitple currencies it could do better. For instance, in budgeting it only recognizes the sum in USD (in my experience). For example, if I have my rent set to 1300 euros, it does not convert that amount to the USD equivalent, but instead projects the bill as 1300 USD. This makes budgeting (the main reason I purchased the app) not very relaible or useful. If the company could fix that, I’d probably give it 5 stars. Also, the account download feature works great with my banks. All in all, a very good alternative to Quicken or Money and I’m satisifed with the program.

It ben 2 years years for me. I get more and more frustreed with the system each day. Can i print out report on 1 page, no. Can i have a report by top category summing the sub category? Can avoid haveing to enter my password for my account each and every time? No. What the hell is error code 402? Why is it a code. Why can’t you tell me. I give the second star only becuase of the poor options out there.

I’ve stuck with this for a while now (2-3 versions), but it’s gotten too difficult to enter data. Starting a new transaction takes a second or two. Auto-fill takes who knows how long ( 2-3 seconds). Everything is just sluggish. I have a 16G MBP so it’s not hardware. I’ve tried changing auto save times, pruning transaction templates, etc., but it’s still so slow as to be barely functional. I have a decent size data file and maybe archiving it might improve the performance, but there’s no tool to support that and verifying it worked properly and transactions don’t get broken is going to be time prohibitive. Devs, please rethink how you’re doing the data entry. I don’t know it you need better hash algorithms or suppress UI updates while auto-filling or what, but you’ve got to fix the responsiveness and pause on some of the new features for a bit.

I recently upgraded to an over paid version 5. It is a new nightmare everyrtime I try to open the app. I wish they knew what they were doing, but this dog of an app is over…..

I have been a quicken customer for years. They did not support me on a recent change to 2016 version. I have since dropped them and use I bank 5. Turns out that I bank 5 is even better than i anticipated. Recommend it to anyone on a MAC.

I’ve used Quicken for Windows for years. It was wonderful. I switched over to the Mac version last year. Holy disappointment. No online reconciliation, you can’t download from a number of accounts, you can’t access your credit score and so, so many more limitations. Even when you could access your accounts, you’d get periodic interruptions. It was awful. I wasn’t aware of iBank at all before I switched. I downloaded the 30 day demo and ran in parallel for two weeks. I signed up for the annual Direct Access feature as well. You can use web download but once my direct access account was able to connect to some previously troublesome accounts (PNC Bank in particular) I was hooked. I was amazed at how I was able to access everyone one of my online accounts, with the one exception of T Rowe Price. Apparently they’re woefully behind in allowing any online access from any platform. I love the ability to organize my accounts in folders and hierarchy. I couldn’t do any of that in Quicken, regardless of the platform. iBank doesn’t have online reconciliation, something I literally cherished in Quicken for Windows. I do like the reconciliation view which shows what’s currently registered. iBank won’t show pending charges, but Quicken didn’t either. I update that account manually, something I was unable to do in Quicken for Mac. I haven’t found any slowness reported by other users. Although I didn’t bother converting my Quicken file. I started “clean” and it was remarkably easy. I don’t have the years of history from my Quicken usage but I’ve not really found a need to go back more than 90 days regardless. It’s not a five star app yet but it’s clear ICG is trying. I ponied up the $59.99 and am now comfortably managing my money on my Mac just fine thank you. I’m optimistic that online reconciliation and extended reporting are improvements we’ll see soon. Regardless, iBank is light years ahed of anything Intuit cobbled together for Quicken. There’s simply no comparison for reliability and ease of use.

It is a bit pricey, but it works well. I have been using for about 3 months now without any hiccups. Rather than attempt a import from Quicken I started fresh, which was probbly a plus. This is not a bust towards this product, just the inherent difficulty in getting data out of Quicken. No sync issues. Of all my financial insititutions I only had a problem syncing one, my kid’s 529 plan. Compare that to Quicken, where I could sync half my accounts every other day. A bit of a downer that you have to pay a bunch extra for the mobile app, but that does work pretty well too. Reports are a work in progress, but not too bad. I think a next step in development would be the ability to create some customization in the reporting. So far no crashes in 3 months, unlike Quicken, which crashed constantly.

The name has been updated, but the software remains inadequately inaccurate. Their schtick of charging for online access must keep them afloat. There is STILL no way to actually click through the account screens! This thing still shows promise, but how long do you have to wait for it? It’s too many years now! Calls to support are useless. If this were a first attempt it would be laudible, but after so long, there is no vision of an actual competant product in sight. Every time i try to use the program, it demands that I login to iCloud!? (yes every program launch). Sadly, it’s still among the best around. ___ The overview screens are entirely non-interactive. If you see a stock symbol or account you’d like to click on, that’s not possible. I do actually mean that links do not exist so you can not click on AAPL or anything else on screen to see more. The scheduled transactions ‘manage’ screen doesn’t allow you to record or skip scheduled transactions. That would be under the tools menu. “Update Everything,” nor “Download Quotes” actually does what it says. I have securities which are considerably up, while the “updated” quote shows them being considerably down - while the last updated taunts that the update is complete as of now. Downloads from my brokerage account recording a stock purchase insist that I’m buying at -$price per share and have to be manually corrected. “Help” suggests that reinvested dividends be categorized as “reinvest” - which does not exist. The general help system seems to be geared to some other software. Other accounts under their paid download subscription service report that the login information is incorrect, offering a link to the institution to verify. When the exact information is copied into the provided link everything works. Support asks for logs which are not created because the login doesn’t get far enough for that before giving an error message. No further response for that quandry. This could (and likely will) be great given more time. For now I’m running it in conjunction with other similar apps to make sure the accounting is correct.

If you have Yosemite, do not upgrade from iBank 5 to Banktivity. I just did the update and the program doesn’t work now!

I updated the app and the icon in the Dock has a Question mark superimposed on it. It won’t open. Useless.

Once again, they “update” the application and then the application doesn’t work. I have a BIG questionmark through the icon this morning. Can’t launch it, can’t fix it. Everytime they “update” it, it doesn’t work. How about just getting the one you have to work before youn update it? If I could find another banking app that would work on El Capitan, Id trash this piece of junk!! The only reason I gave it one star is it wouldn’t let me give it none!!

To those that have issues with Banktivity NOT opening after the update. Go to your dock, drag the iBank icon to the desktop to delete it. Open ‘Finder’ click on Apps, find the Banktivity program and drag it to your dock. I bet a dollar to a donut hole you’ll be back in business just fine. IGG is a good company and has a good product!

I’ve been using iBank, now Banktivity since late 2014. It is a very solid app and does exactly what is advertised. Are there things they could do to improve it? Sure. But that doesn’t take away from it’s functionality or is cause for a negative review. I gave it 4 stars and held out not giving it a 5th star is because I would like to see some expansion on the reports. I’d like more customization, duplicating, etc. But again, it’s a very good and solid app.

Took 3 launches to allow me to do anything in the register. That was after they renamed it of course and I had to go find what would open my bank file. A great app it is not.

I am a Mac user and am reviewing this product from that perspective. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy Banktivity 5 (formerly iBank) was to setup and use and how logical it was designed. Banktivity 5 imported my data from a leading competitors format without a hitch. If you are used to using an old fashioned paper checkbook ledger, the learning curve for Banktivity 5 is very small. The financial language used and terms within this app are extremely consistent with the financial world and understanding how to use this app, becomes quite easy because of that. The budget feature is extremely easy to setup as well. It’s very forgiving and very customizable. The “Direct Access” feature allows for direct connections to your accounts in the “Real world” and is a must. (Annual fee). I have found the reports offered to be adequate and useful for what I would consider a typical household. I have no need for the automatic bill paying feature and have not used it. I can’t comment on its use. Most important but almost ALWAYS neglected these days is the User Manual, again very consistent use of language and financial terms plus clear definitions where necessary. I found the manual to be very well written, up to date and easy to use (pdf format and easy to search). The few times I contacted online (IGGSoftware) support result in the right answers quickly from knowledgable people. I would recommend this app as a very competitive alternative for your home financial needs.