Import from iBank 5 terrible

First - I had high hopes for this from Synium. I have been using their MacFamilyTree 7 since last year and it is excellent - 5 stars. If you are starting from scratch and not importing from Quicken or iBank then I would have rated this 4-5 stars. Either iBank 5 or iFinance 4 is much better than Quicken 2015 for Mac. I had previously converted from Quicken 2015 to iBank 5 because I wanted a better alternative to Quicken. iBank 5 has been a 4 start program and working pretty good. The export from Quicken 2015 for Mac and import into iBank 5 was much better than this experience. iBank 5 only allows you to export to TXF or QIF. I used QIF because iFinance 4 supports that. It would not directly open the QIF file so I had to finally drop it from the Finder to the “Demo” icon on the first window you get when opeining iFinance4. I have over 9K transctions spread across bank accounts, asset, CC, etc.. I do not import anything directly from banks but rather input all transactions manually.

What did I end up with:
1. Nothing had correct balances.
2. Reconciled transactions were not carried forward - probably part of the problem and I was not about to go through 9K transactions to clear the non-reconciled items.
3. iFinance has a few built in demo/test accounts which you will need to delete (I would have hoped for a blank database).
4. To be fair, it may be partly an issue with iBank5 and others that they do not export all items…i.e. reconciled transactions.

Since I bought this on the Mac App Store there is no refund so I will just have to eat the $19.99.

Recommendation: If you are starting from pure scratch then either iFinance 4 or iBank 5 are very good otherwise use iBank 5.

To all Finance software developers - Please take the time to ensure you all export “Everything” to an industry standard format (if there is one) - Why - We all have a lot of transactions colleted over the years and who knows which one of you will still be in business down the road. We need to be able to depend on exporting/importing so we can, if needed, move to a different finance app. A very good example is the recent announcement about Quicken possibly selling their software. It is insane. Just be aware.

FKSWK about iFinance 4