iBank manages your money, in a familiar Mac interface.
It’s easy to read a David and Goliath story into the competition between IGG Software and Intuit to become your chosen financial software. Quicken has been around forever, updates the software every year, sports tentacle-like online integration, and is the de facto standard when it comes to bean-counting apps. But if you appreciate—or demand—the Mac experience, iBank is worth a look.
Users new to iBank will appreciate the easy importing of existing data via CVS and Quicken QIF and QFX documents, and the app lets you preview how the data will look before committing to the import. Updates to your bank accounts are automatic after you register iBank’s permission to access your accounts. Once you get all your categories and split transactions sorted out—an inevitably tedious, though crucial requirement for taking full advantage of the software’s graphs, forecasting, and budgeting features—iBank’s capabilities are substantial.
The software plays well with both the iPhone and MobileMe, helping you keep your financial picture updated from home and on the road. You can enter or edit transactions from your iPhone, and drag and drop transactions in a built-for-Mac environment that lets you create detailed representations of your status and trends, adjust budgets and forecasts, and back it all up to MobileMe, so you can access your data from multiple computers. iBank helps keep your affairs in order from anywhere. You can add searchable notes to groups of items, and iBank transaction and budget widgets—available as free downloads—allow you to enter transactions and monitor accounts from the comfort of your Dashboard.
iBank lets you keep track of the full range of financial accounts. Smart preferences allowed us to dynamically view transactions according to account, payee, memo, amount, or category information, and work in multiple currencies. iBank’s comprehensive, built-in Help section covers all the basics and common anomalies, and an active online user forum makes it easy to take advantage of the experience of fellow iBank users.
iBank doesn’t have the same tight online integration that Quicken offers, but this drawback could also be an asset. Storing your data locally means that you’re in control of your own private data. You can password-protect individual files, and with syncing via MobileMe, you know exactly where your data lives, although users should note that MobileMe syncing is not secure in and of itself. We’d recommend taking advantage of iBank’s security features before transmitting any of your data over the Internet.
iBank is full-featured financial software with extensive data-crunching and sorting features, and built-in analytical tools to give you powerful insight and control over your personal finances.
Mac-friendly GUI. Smart account functionality. iphone integration. Automated data import.
Setting up categories can be time-consuming. Less online integration than competing products. 
myk3
April 16, 2010 at 6:21am
This is a great little application for small businesses. Our IT Support Business use this program and using it requires very little IT support and experience.
