Update: Quicken 2018 for Mac has now been released and Quicken 2016 is no longer available. Check out our review of Quicken 2018 for Mac for more.
Quicken For Mac 2016 has been released today despite it taking 7 years for Intuit to release the last big update to Quicken last year. And this is probably the last ever version we’ll see from Intuit because In March 2016, the company announced that it has sold Quicken to private investment firm HIG Capital. The big question is, does this final throw of the dice by Intuit disappoint as much Quicken 2015 or has Intuit finally made peace with Mac users? We took a closer look and reviewed Quicken 2016 on Mac although the results were quite disappointing and we’re recommending switching to one of these alternatives to Quicken on Mac.
You might have guessed it from the headline but the big addition to Quicken For Mac 2016 is finally – yes finally – Bill Pay online payments. 8 years after it first appeared in Quicken 2007 for Mac only for Intuit to bizarrely Kill Bill (Pay) in Quicken 2015 last year, Quicken 2016 now supports Direct Connect Bill Pay from over 450 banks and it also allows you to transfer funds between accounts at the same financial institution. Of course, this is still limited to banks that support Direct Connect Bill Pay and as many Quicken users will tell you on Mac, it doesn’t sometimes work as well as it should.
Intuit don’t seem to have provided any official list of banks that work with Direct Connect on Mac so you have to contact your bank in order to check whether it’s supported or not. Note that confusingly, Quicken 2016 for Mac does not support Quicken Bill Pay for direct bill payments from your account. Direct Connect Bill Pay is a completely different service to Quicken Bill Pay which only works in Quicken 2007 for Mac and the Windows version of Quicken. If you’re thinking that you’ll just buy Quicken 2007 instead then, you’re out of luck. Quicken 2007 for Mac does not officially support anything higher than OS X Lion and Intuit don’t even sell it anymore although you can buy it from resellers on Amazon still. Quite why Intuit decided to not include this essential feature in Quicken 2016 is a mystery but a good example of why Mac users are continually frustrated with the way Intuit does business on OS X. This is extremely confusing for customers and our advice is make sure that your bank supports Direct Connect Bill Pay before upgrading because Quicken Bill Pay simply won’t work with it. The reasons why Intuit still hasn’t produced a version of Quicken that’s on a par with the Windows version are long and winding but if you’re interested in the technical and financial rationale behind it, you can read more here.
If you’re one of the lucky ones and Direct Connect Bill Pay is supported by your bank, Quicken 2016 makes things a bit easier with a useful calendar for tracking and reviewing transactions by Bill Pay as well as scheduling future payments. 
The problem with Quicken 2016, as with Quicken 2015, is that Bill Pay and Direct Connect sometimes simply do not work giving you “temporary error” messages such as the one below.
It very much depends on what system your bank supports because Quicken uses three different ways to connect to your bank account – Quicken Connect, Direct Connect and Web Connect. We strongly recommend you verify which of these your bank supports but you can see on overview of the differences between the 3 different ways of connecting here. Direct Connect is the most important feature to check for because it offers the most complete service and is included in Quicken 2016 for Mac.
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New Features
But are there really any new Quicken for Mac 2016 features other than Bill Pay? Well there are two but one of them isn’t actually “new” anymore:
- Free Phone Support: Free phone support is now available to Quicken 2016 for Mac customers between 5AM to 5PM PST. However, this has already been introduced in Quicken 2007 and 2015 since earlier this year. Whether this is any better than the painful Live Chat online support remains to be seen although early experiences from some users already are that it’s not much better.
- Transfer Money Between Accounts: You can now transfer money between bank accounts at the same bank that are connected to Quicken via Direct Connect.
So apart from Bill Pay, Quicken 2016 is a small upgrade from 2015. However, there have been some subtle changes to features and the interface compared to Quicken 2015 for Mac. For example, Scheduled Transactions has now changed name to Bill & Income Reminders and now allows you to have a better overview of the impact of upcoming paychecks and bills on your account balance to avoid overdrafts or slipping into the red. However, there’s no calendar view of these transactions so you can’t get an overview of what’s coming up over the year ahead which is a bit frustrating.
In addition, Quicken 2016 for Mac can automatically download transactions from more financial institutions – around 14,500 according to Intuit. Note that this can be extremely unreliable however. We experienced various duplicated transactions which are a nightmare to remove manually if you have years of accounts. We also found that Quicken For Mac doesn’t always categorize them correctly and you may find you have to spend a lot of time manually categorizing transactions yourself. Quicken 2016 for Mac at least supports manual bill reconciliation so you can reconcile transactions against your bank statements.
Investment Tracking has been slightly improved in Quicken For Mac 2016 showing you realized and unrealized gains, continuous updates, Schedule D tax reports for capital gains and tax deduction tracking for when you have to file taxes. However some investment reports and views are missing such as performance (IRR) and allocation by investment. Of course, Quicken can’t actually manage investments such as stocks and shares but there’s plenty of excellent stock trading software for Mac which we looked at in depth here. Investment tracking in Quicken for Mac in general is still behind Quicken for Windows as it provides far less detail on how investments are performing. You’ll also find that if you import investment data, you’ll end up having to manually correct quite a lot of it. You can also just add investment data manually too. In general, Quicken for Mac isn’t like Quicken For Business i.e. it’s not suitable for small business management but for that we’d recommend reading our article on The Best Accounting Software For Mac.
There’s a redesigned account register which makes it easier to manage transactions. This includes quicker searches, more filters and customizable columns and row heights. Things like categories, splits, tags, attachments, check printing remain the same. Rather bizarrely though, Quicken 2016 does not track paychecks – a feature that used to be available in Quicken 2007 but has disapeared down the Intuit memory hole.
The reporting interface has been streamlined slightly and allows more customization including a cash flow graph to show you income and outgoings, bill reminders and net worth over time to help plan your future.
There’s also a few other useful reports in Quicken 2016 such as a category summary and tax schedule.
Quicken 2016 For Mac vs Other Versions Of Quicken
This is all very nice but the question for all those that shelled out for Quicken 2015 little more than a year ago is is it really worth upgrading to Quicken 2016 For Mac just for Bill Pay? As we’ve seen, Intuit are trying to tempt users with a few “extra” goodies and enhancements but the truth is Bill Pay remains the only compelling feature worth upgrading for. If you do rely on Bill Pay, upgrading is a no-brainer – it’s definitely worth upgrading for the convenience of it. However if you don’t need Bill Pay, there aren’t really many compelling reasons to upgrade from Quicken 2015. This comparison chart shows you at a glance what you’re missing out on (or not) including how Quicken 2015, Quicken 2007 for Mac and Quicken Premier on Windows compared to Quicken 2016 and as you can see, it’s hard to make an argument in favor of upgrading:
You can view the full Quicken 2016 for Mac comparison list here but the most important differences are at the top of the chart above i.e. Bill Pay, the ability to transfer money between accounts and free phone support. If you’re wondering what that little mysterious bonus “Free feature improvements until April 2019” box is all about, it’s basically an olive branch to Mac users. To its credit, Intuit has been allowing Mac users to provide feedback and also vote on features they want to see in new versions of Quicken since the release of Quicken 2015 and the idea is that until 2019, the most requested features will be added for free. It’s hard to discern whether this means whether Mac users will or won’t have to upgrade to another version of Quicken until 2019 but if it’s free updates for the next 4 years, then it’s definitely progress. Considering that Intuit are in the process of selling Quicken, it’s hard to see how they can commit the new owners to offering free updates to Mac users until 2019 so it remains to be seen.
Quicken For Mac vs Quicken For Windows
When it comes to Windows, whichever way you look at it, Quicken for Mac is still miles behind Quicken for Windows and if you need the Windows version, you’re better off installing Windows on your Mac than buying the Mac version. There are several important features missing from the Windows version which you can see in the comparison chart but one of the most critical for many people is the failure to support multiple foreign currencies. Quicken for Mac still cannot download currency exchange rates and you can’t transfer money between accounts in different currencies. Budgeting is also sorely lacking in Quicken for Mac compared to windows. The best you can get is a 3 month trend but trying to create a 12 month budget is simply not possible which seems like a major oversight in a personal accounting application (Update: Quicken has now updated Quicken 2016 for Mac to include 12 month budgeting). Other notable missing features in the Mac version are the Debt Reduction Planner, a Customizable Portfolio View and Portfolio X-Ray. The ability to automatically link online bills to Quicken to see the due date and amount due that has just been introduced into Quicken 2016 for Windows is also missing.
Migrating To Quicken 2016 From Another Version Of Quicken
If you’re moving from Quicken 2015 for Mac to Quicken 2016 then you should have no problems. If you’re a Windows user using Quicken 2010 and have switched to Mac, you can transfer all of your data to Quicken 2016 except budget and transaction attachments. Note that you must first install the conversion utility on your PC to convert into a file that Quicken for Mac can read. We found that there were several errors during this transfer but in general, migrating data from Quicken for Windows to Quicken for Mac worked relatively well.
Moving from Quicken 2007 For Mac or an earlier version of Quicken on Windows to Quicken 2016 For Mac is another story though. Accounts, Transactions, Categories, Tags (classes) and scheduled transactions and bill pay transactions should transfer successfully. However, budgets, transaction attachments and passwords will not transfer. In addition, loan amortization schedules, home inventory and emergency records data, explicit lot assignments and securities watch lists features that were in Quicken 2007 are not in Quicken 2016 For Mac – so be very careful about deciding to upgrade if you have a lot of data stored in them. Note as well that you’ll also have to go through and reestablish all of your online banking Bill Pay connections again by going to Accounts > Setup transaction download.
Las but not least, you’ll also need to be running OS X 10.10 Yosemite or OS X 10.11 El Capitan or higher to use Quicken 2016. Quicken 2015 worked on OS X 10.7+ but Quicken 2016 no longer supports anything earlier than Yosemite. Note that there’s no free trial of Quicken 2016 for Mac but you can get it for $49.99 from Amazon, from the Mac App Store for $74.99 or $74.99 directly from Intuit who also offer a 60 day money back guarantee. You can see Quicken for Mac 2016 in action here:
And if you’d like to hear why Intuit has decided to sell Quicken before you decide whether to buy Quicken 2016, here’s the full and rather emotional statement by Intuit CEO Brad Smith.
In March 2016, Intuit announced that it had found a buyer for Quicken, HIG Capital. The good news for Mac users is that the Head of Quicken Eric Dunn, claims that many of the complaints made by Mac users have been noted and that Intuit has brought in Marcus Aiu as the a new product manager for Quicken for Mac:
Aiu previously worked as Senior Product Manager for Quicken before leaving the company but has now rejoined it to focus on improving the Mac product. Intuit has also pledged that the engineering team will be doubled with the aim of bringing the Mac version “closer to the feature set of Windows over the next Quarter and Years”. You can see Dunn talking about the takeover and plans for Quicken for Mac here:
Initial evidence is that Quicken is making good on its promise and is rapidly updating Quicken 2016 for Mac based on customer feedback. In May 2016 Quicken released a version 3.4 update for Quicken 2016 for Mac which finally included full 12 month budgeting. This includes a new Stacked view which stacks actual values above budgeted ones, a detailed pop-up on total values in the summary column and ability to export and copy budgets to Excel or Numbers.
On Quicken’s feature comparison page, one foot note has me concerned, namely “data download from participating financial institutions or other parties are available until April 2019”. This seems to imply that QM2016 turns off major functionality after 3 years.
Also the page on transferring from QM2007 to QM2016 mentions logging in with your Intuit account. Why? Has 2016 become tethered to an Intuit cloud?
Two items that are leaving me cold.
It’s a good point. It’s hard to see how Quicken can guarantee any features until 2019 considering it’s up for sale and will have new owners soon
There have been a few security concerns raised including yours regarding needing an Intuit account. If you go to Preferences, you’ll see there’s an option to send “anonymous data” to Quicken. You should uncheck this if you’re concerned about privacy.
I’ve been using Quicken since version 1.0, a LONG time ago, and have been “stuck” on Quicken for Mac 2007 since, well, 2007 I guess. I bought Quicken for Mac 2015 but was disappointed by its poor feature set, and especially its lack of bill pay support, so I never switched over to using it for me actual finances.
But Quicken 2007 is getting pretty long in the tooth, it crashes often and has lots of annoying UI bugs as well as some other bugs that are even more troublesome. So I was so excited when I saw that Quicken 2016 had been released and that it included Bill Pay support, I went and bought it from Amazon before really doing my homework.
Come to find out that “supports bill pay” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. I’ve used Quicken’s own bill pay service (Quicken Bill Pay) for many years, and I assumed that this is what the new Quicken release would support. I am shocked to find that it does not. The bill payment that IS supported is of no use to me. So now I’m not sure what I’m going to do… because if I make the jump, I’ll have to manually enter every bill payment twice: once in Quicken, and once on quickenbillpay.com, since Quicken 2016 doesn’t support their own service. I have a LOT of bill payments every month so this isn’t trivial. Anyway, you might want to call out this problem in your review, as I’m sure I’m not the only one who would assume that bill pay support would include support for their own bill pay service, and anyone making that assumption would be dead wrong.
As far as I’m concerned, Intuit’s decision to sell Quicken is good news. Intuit clearly hasn’t cared about Quicken for years — I’d say it’s been more than a decade since the product has received sufficient resources and attention to keep it viable. Hopefully its new owner will be willing to invest in the product and turn it into the comprehensive and modern application it ought to be. They certainly couldn’t do worse than Intuit has done, it’s only up from here.
David, Thanks very much for sharing your experiences and highlighting that point which we’ve now made clear in the review. No doubt there are many customer that have been duped by thinking Quicken Bill Pay is supported in Quicken 2016 for Mac when in fact it is not. A lot of disappointed users feel the same as you about Quicken for Mac – the Windows version has rather more satisfied customers because more resources are clearly put into it.
Also, one note of correction….It is a misunderstanding that Quicken BIll Pay only works with the Windows versions. It ALSO works with Quicken 2007 for MAC (This is why so many Mac users are disappointed, because it is not clear that 2016 version does not support the full feature set). This should be corrected in the article.
Good point and thanks for the clarifications. It really is bizarre the way they stripped away all of the most essential features from Quicken 2007 for Mac in Quicken 2015 & 2016. Intuit really couldn’t have made the Bill Pay situation on Mac more confusing!
I agree with the confusion. To clarify ANOTHER point of confusion — Features were NOT ever taken out of Quicken for Mac. Instead, Quicken 2016 for Mac is a brand new product built from the ground up (starting in 2010) and is NOT a continuation from Quicken 2007 for Mac but rather from Quicken Essentials, so there are some features that still have NOT BEEN ADDED back or are not as fully developed yet.
In the process of upgrading the Mac product, Intuit is prioritizing which features to add or further develop, based on user demand. That is why if anyone is truly wanting to influence the direction of the product, a feedback page has been created where one can add their vote for features to help guide the priorities by the developers. As per the directions of intuit Admin, you can submit your request for bugs/features for Quicken 2016 for Mac by entering into the field “Something not listed? Tell us:” here: http://www.quicken.com/mac/feedback
This is the surest way for them to see your request. The field may appear small but you can type in quite a bit.
Take the time to also vote on any of the listed features that Intuit is considering.
True – Quicken 2016 for Mac is indeed a continuation of Quicken Essentials for Mac which came after Quicken 2007 and already had Bill Pay removed for some reason. We did mention the feedback page in the review although it seems there are two – this one on the comparison page which we referred to: http://www.quicken.com/mac/compare and there’s also the one you’ve provided: http://www.quicken.com/mac/feedback. Let’s hope Intuit listen!
I see the links but the article does not seem to point out that you can submit feedback there. I am aware of both links (I am a volunteer support person on QLC, the community-based forum). Not sure why Inuit has chose to have both…
But your use of the word “removed” is inaccurate. True Bill Pay was a feature available in a previous version of Quicken….but when they started all over, features not present simply have not been added back in. It has been a slow process.
Hopefully many of these missing features will be added back in, some sooner than later I hope, as I am still stuck with QM2007 for that very reason…QM2016 still lacks key features I need. But at least Intuit does have a committed team on the Mac product, something they have only had in the last couple of years.
Revised slightly to add that users can give feedback as well as vote 🙂
Just for clarification, BillPay in QM2016 is only currently supporting a subset of the full BillPay feature in other versions of Quicken. It only uses the BillPay capabilities that may be offered by your bank. Also, to use it requires the use of Direct Connect.
Therefore, to use BillPay in QM2016 requires that your bank use Direct Connect and it can be used with their BillPay service.
That being said, whether Intuit plans to expand the BillPay feature to include all the functionality other versions have is yet to be seen. Time will tell. But as it stands, that is the scope of the feature set of BillPay.
Of course, it would be nice if Intuit made their product info more clear to avoid disappointment.
QM2016 bank reconciliation process is broken for me regarding credit card accounts. There appears to be a bug related to the use of the “-” sign in the starting balance and/or ending balance fields which prevents you from correctly reconciling. Intuit told me they have similar problems with Mac 2015 as well and that they currently have no idea about a patch release for 2016. This has been broken for me since I bought QM2016 about 2 months ago.
Symptoms:
From your credit card account’s register, click the Reconcile icon. The starting balance should be pre-populated based upon your last reconciliation. The ending balance will be pre-populated based upon your ending date and/or selected cleared items. The difference between start and end balances should be 0.00 but you cannot achieve it due to this bug.
Other Notes or Observations:
a) Problem appears to be isolated to credit card accounts and not affecting other account types.
b) Other users are reporting the issue though I don’t know how widespread the problem might be.
c) Not sure if it is a bug for only converted data file use cases or if it includes users who started a new data file within QM2016.
d) Workaround might be to tinker with the “-” in the start/end balance fields of the reconcile window to see if you can get to a Difference of 0.00
Intuit Support:
Support provided by Intuit is useless and I have spent nearly 4 hours (total) on the phone trying to review, resolve, understand, counsel, etc. to no avail.
Refund Fail:
What’s worse is that I gave up and submitted a request for a refund. To date, no one has confirmed receipt of my request and I have not received a refund even though I followed the refund request guidelines exactly as outlined on the Quicken Moneyback Guarantee pages of their Website.
Thanks for sharing and sorry to hear about your issues with Quicken 2016. The problem you’re having getting a refund is particularly concerning. Intuit supposedly offer a 60 day refund if you’re not satisfied. It would be interesting to hear if other Mac users are having the same problem getting a refund for Quicken 2016.
From what I have seen, most users get refunds very easily, though admittedly, some fall through. yet on a second attempt it gets cleared up. I have yet to see a complaint that someone did not get their refund at all.
I suggest you try again to contact support directly or if you have the original order details (assuming your purchase was directly from Intuit), I’m sure they will take care of you.