Banktivity 5 (formerly iBank 5) App Reviews

I’ve had iBank for a couple years now. It imported all my data from Quicken beautifully when I got my new Mac. Have not used it to connect directly to my bank though. I just use it to keep my records and do reports, etc. I agree with some other reviews that it could use a little more flexibility in report creating but otherwise it works just fine. Banktivity update through me for a second, but all you need to do is drag the old icon off the dock. Go to launchpad and find the updated Banktivity and drag that to the dock. That’s it, back in business!

I just upgraged from iBank 4 and am very happy. I was worried that I would be roped into a month-to-month subscription to link my bank accounts - but this is not the case. Good piece of software and many improvements from iBank 4.

App started out ok. Connected to my bank, uploaded all the data and kept accounts up to date. That was until Jan 29, 2016. No longer updates two of my accounts with two separate banks. All data lost and now shows zero balance. No I can’t stop getting error messages long enough to log off of it. Was working so well at first I subscribed for a year of service. That too says it will expire in a couple days, not a year from now. Again, do not waste your time and money.

I imported from Quicken a few years ago, and now i find myself wanting to revert back to Quicken. On the plus side, Banktivitys basic features work nicely - including the reports it can create based on criteria you select - this along with several other basic features works just as you would expect. However, I’ve opted to pay an extra annual fee of $40 for their Direct Access functionality in app purchase - this allows you to directly download or link an account in Banktivity with the actual account’s website - it has rarely worked and constantly gives error messages and alerts. Banktivitys tech support is very very slow to respond (a month later still waiting on email support - no phone support option, just email and chat - both ineffective) and when they do they are of no help. FAIL. and they don’t give refunds. FAIL. definitely NOT repeating the direct access option until there are guarantees for refunds or functionality. Also note that most banks I’ve talked to do not recognize Banktivity - they tend to only support Quicken, which is a shame - but if that is the truth, then why offer this falslely advertised $40 "Direct Access" feature in the first place and then NOT offer refunds or effective and timely support?

I’ve been using this app for a little over a year. I’m happy with it overall, but it could use a little tweaking. I hate having to enter transaction dates manually. Why not have the little popup calendar that I can click? Accounts don’t always update….have to click the cloud next to the account to be sure all has been updated. Since the switch from ibank to banktivity, I’ll get a message that the file can’t be opened, please delete program and reinstall from the appstore. Freaked me out the first time, since I thought all data would be lost. Luckily, the reinstalled version was current, but I shouldn’t have to keep reinstalling the app once or twice a week. Minor bugs for sure…overall a useful app.

I was happily using it until it just did not start anymore. The error message told me to delete and reinstall which I did. Still no result. It’s now been a week that I contacted support and still no response other than an automated email that my ticket has been created. Definitely not ok if you look at the price tag! I mean, why do we all spend money on these kind of apps? Certainly not to take longer breaks from life (and banking), so these guys really need to get their act together with regards to service. Other than that, I was pretty happy. I personally do not like the GUI very much, but I was ok with it as long as it was still working.

Just started using the app and am happy so far. I am using it as a backup to Quicken for MAC. Quicken has been very unreliable lately and I will probably switch over permanently soon.

Syncs across two computers, an iPhone and iPad without issue. Once you learn now to use it, Banktivity does indeed show what’s in each account down to the penny. Support has been excellent, too. Direct Access feature is limited by institutions’ third party participation. I look forward to continued improvements.

I have used this for a year and have just switched back to Quicken. The a problem with Direct Access failing to work and while I could get some support every thing suggested did not work when they developed a I don’t care if the problem was resolved or not. So I switched back to Quicken. Would not recommend it at this time.

Had used Quicken for Mac until OSX upgrade made it defunct. Newer Quicken versions are expensive and have poor reviews. I used iBank 4 for a few years until recently it just would not launch. Contacted IGG tech support. The ONLY support options are e-mail and live-chat (both ineffective, as stated by other reviewers). They gave me two options to regain access to my financial data. 1) downgrade my operating system so that iBank 4 would work (not!), or 2) purchase/upgrade to Banktivity 5. I chose the purchase over upgrade because I wanted to be able to do future upgrades through the Apple App store. Importing the existing iBank 4 datafile was not as simple as they would lead you to believe. I had 46 pages of Banktivity 5 update import logging text to look through and spent several hours trying to correct existing balances in multiple accounts. I do not do on-line banking and I use Banktivity as a tracking tool, so I will not comment on Direct Access optional payment options (the basic software is already expensive). Got things working in Banktivity 5 and then made the mistake of entering 2 scheduled transactions. Be warned (it’s in the manual) that it will automatically add these items to your existing budget. (An odd way to handle this, in my opinion). When I tried to maintain/revert to my original budget total by subtracting the amount of the scheduled transactions from their budget category totals (in order to keep my original budget total what it was when I began), the software would not allow this. After deleting the scheduled transactions (Note that, due to a bug in the software, you can only remove them by deleting all scheduled transactions, thereby also losing the transaction templates), the only way I could return the category budget to the original annual total was to enter the annual number as a monthly one. If yearly was checked it (roughly) divided the number by 12?! E-mailed tech support about this issue and also about not getting WYSIWYG when printing the budget. Ineffective again. After several e-mails they acknowledged bugs in the software that they are working on. When I suggested (in e-mail) that IGG should have tech phone support for things beyond the simplest issues, they suggested (in e-mail) that I should go to live-chat, after expounding on the virtues of live-chat versus phone support (According to IGG advantages are: generates a permanent record, and any tech person can “jump in”. They ignored the real reason, it’s cheap). Bottom line. If you are staring from scratch on your financial database and use it for simple features, Banktivity is OK. Otherwise, be wary. One must have confidence that software will work and not just cease to launch, or function erratically. This is especially true for financial software. Finally, don’t expect much in the way of technical support.

For the love of god, have pity on your users and create a CHECK ALL/UNCHECK ALL button on those stupid report options! I have 10 accounts and every time I want to create a report for a single account, I have to manually, one-by-one uncheck 9 boxes. It’s a simple request, and I can’t believe I’m the first to make it. BTW, the Report function of this program is ridiculous. There’s no way to create a simple register report for a single account that stipulates From/To dates. The only simple register report is one you can create by clicking Print > Save to PDF that uses all dates or a single month (selected on the register).

The program set up easily and showed promise as a Windows Quicken replacement despite the high-schoolish graphics in the reports. It worked for about a day and then my balances started going off-kilter. Accounts were off by thousands of dollars. In a separate issue, when I tried to delete a redundant transaction I had entered through the reminders which did not match to the actual transaction when it downloaded, I got a warning that deleting the transaction would also delete all transfers to the account. When i turned in a trouble ticket through the e-mail only help line I did get an initial response asking for more information two days later which I answered. Two days after that they asked for the same information again and I have received no other correspondence. The issues with the program far outweigh its usefulness.

I have been using Quicken for more years then I like to remember but the people at Intuit simply made Quicken impossible to use. I thoght I would give iBank a try and so far so good. Takes a little adjusting and re learning to use a different program but I am catching on rather quickly. Still not as good as Quicken was 10 years ago. Some basic functions seem to be a mystery to me such as scheduled transactions. Another nice feature would be to be able to transfer transactions. Sometimes one enters data into the wrong account so it would be nice to be abel to just transfer the transaction.

The app was working fine until my annual subscription to direct access (in-app purchase) ended a couple of weeks ago. Since then the app is a brick. I’ve been unable to extend the subscription and the program support has been unhelpful. Their only suggestion was to uninstall and reinstall but sorry, that didn’t do it. After repeated attempts, I’m ready to throw in the towel.

“Not ready for Prime Time”, echos true from another review. It reconciled monthly statements okay, but the account totals often don’t add up, and are sometime wildly off. Often crashes, and syncing between devices is often inaccurate, sometimes resulting in one entry repeated three times. Some downloads put credits in the debit column, throwing off previously reconciled statements. It can spent large amounts of time updating, syncing, or bringing up scheduled transaction, then crashing. There must be something better out there for Mac users.

No, thank you. My bank charges $3 per month to use Quicken, which is getting better for Mac all the time.

I’m so grateful I found this. This gave me a break from quicken in seamless fashion. I now have updated financial data with me on my iPhone, iPad and 2 different Mac Computers. The customer support is excellent. I have probably 30 different accounts I track from bank, credit cards, investment accounts, car loan, house loan, etc. It works great. Very mac-like which is nice for someone who switched from PC to Mac and wanted to make the jump to accounting on a Mac computer.

I continue to have issues with this app crashing and having to delete and reinstall the app. Not sure why and this has increased in its regularity over the past 6 months????

Ihave used two other applications so I believe this is the best to date.

This is truly an excellent program for Apple devices. Being a long-time Quicken user I was appalled when Intuit let Quicken for Mac die a slow (almost-)death after Quicken 2007. The subsequent updates to that program have been pretty half-hearted efforts to win back disgruntled Mac users. Meanwhile, in steps IGG Software with an excellent, user friendly, Mac friendly program that cloud-syncs seamlessly with my desktop iMac, my 2015 MacBook and my iPhone. So I always haves up-to-date information / backup on all three devices. It also downloads directly from my bank and my investment accounts so I have a complete financial picture at all times. On the few occasions when I have had technical difficulties the customer support has been superb and my issues have always been resolved quickly and painlessly. Yes, there is an annual fee for direct access but it is worth it to me to have a complete updated financial picture in one location with so little effort. Keep it up!