Today I’m happy to announce Banktivity 6, coming in Spring 2017. Banktivity 6 delivers our customers’ most requested features, like Tags and Quick Reports, and introduces some new innovative features like Workspaces. Customers will also love our new Portfolio, Report Groups, and Find features. Banktivity 6 is for macOS Sierra only.
Starting today, anyone buying Banktivity 5 directly from IGG Software will get a free code to unlock Banktivity 6. Existing Banktivity 5 customers can upgrade to Banktivity 6 for $29.99. Regular pricing will be $64.99. All prices in USD. Unfortunately, due to limitations with the Mac App Store, we cannot offer upgrade pricing to customers that want to continue to purchase there.
UPDATE (May 1, 2017): Some of our customers have pointed out that the terms specified above were somewhat vague. To clarify, a free Banktivity 6 code was provided to anyone who purchased the full version of Banktivity 5 during the offer period, which ended with the official release of Banktivity 6 on April 25, 2017. The offer did not apply to upgrades from iBank 4 to Banktivity 5, but purchasing both upgrades (4 to 5 and 5 to 6) results in the same savings as the offer ($59.98 for Banktivity 6 instead of $64.99). We apologize for any confusion resulting from the above phrasing and thank you for your understanding.
Here is the full press release…
IGG SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES NEW VERSION OF PERSONAL FINANCIAL MANAGER, BANKTIVITY 6
PUTNEY, VT, January 24, 2017 – IGG Software today announced a new version of its popular personal financial manager, Banktivity. The new version, Banktivity 6, has been designed from the ground up with customer productivity and enhanced features as the driving goals.
“Banktivity 6 is the biggest release in the history of the product,” said IGG President and founder Ian Gillespie. “The new version brings to the forefront your most important financial information, yet allows an amazing amount of customization so customers can see and organize their finances in a way that is helpful to them.”
Banktivity 6’s new features were driven by customer feedback, new technologies and a quest to provide the most comprehensive and easy to use financial manager for macOS.
Workspaces
Workspaces is a brand new feature that allows customers to put any account, budget, report or other view, side-by-side. This boosts productivity by allowing a customer to see several different parts of their finances next to each other. For example, users can put transactions for an account next to a budget to see how recent spending affects the budget.
“In particular I am struck by the extensive linking capabilities. The charts, the reports, the registers…it seems like everything is connected and available for drilling down or climbing up,” reported a Banktivity 6 beta tester.
The Workspaces feature is the first of its kind in a Mac personal finance software, offering the user an incredible amount of power and flexibility.
Tags
Tags allow users to see and analyze spending habits across categories. Now when a person goes on vacation and spends money on dining out, gas, air fare and hotels they can tag all those transactions as a “vacation.” Then later report on spending just for that vacation. This powerful new feature helps small business owners and individuals easily track any aspect of their income or spending.
Quick Reports
Quick Reports let users dive into their finances quickly and easily. Customers can select transactions and then quickly bring up a report based on the selection. Quick Reports will also allow users to drill down and get more details about their investments or more details on spending. For example, if a customer were wondering how much money was donated to a specific charity last year, a Banktivity 6 Quick Report answers that question with one click. Quick Reports can easily be saved for later with a quick drag to the sidebar.
Find
Find is a new, fast and powerful, document-wide search feature. With Find, customers can search almost any part of any transaction within an entire Banktivity document. The transactions that match the search criteria are grouped by account which keeps them in context. People can also edit and change transaction right from the Find screen.
Portfolio
Portfolio is a new feature in the sidebar that gives quick access to the performance of investments. Customers can customize it to show investments by account, type or risk factor. While the Portfolio view shows all of the high-level information needed like cost basis, value, gain/loss, security price and IRR, customers can get more detailed information by clicking on a security for a complete analysis of that holding. The new Portfolio features makes tracking the performance of investments effortless.
Additional Improvements
The entire user-interface was overhauled for Banktivity 6 to match the modern experience with macOS Sierra
“When we set out to work on Banktivity 6 we knew we had a great opportunity to redesign it, from the simplest list of transactions to introducing killer new features, like Workspace,” said Gillespie.
Banktivity 6 is the biggest release in the history of the product. Customers will find no pixel left unturned and will be treated to over 100 changes and enhancements, like a new transaction editor with improved keyboard support, new reconciliation process, a new summary view, improved transaction downloads, more flexible budgeting, easier in-app navigation, redesigned reports and more.
“In very simple terms, the app ticks all the boxes (and much more) PLUS with the ability to sync to the cloud, I am never far from my information via the iOS apps,” said J.W. a Banktivity 6 beta tester.
Banktivity also allows you to pay bills from within the app*, schedule transactions, setup budgets, track income, spending and savings rate and much more. Direct Access (purchased separately) and Direct Download allow customers to connect to over 10,000 different banks to download their financial data.
Pricing & Availability
Banktivity 6 will be released in spring of 2017 for $64.99 USD. Customers upgrading from version 5 purchased either directly from IGG Software or the Mac App Store will qualify for upgrade pricing of $29.99 USD. Banktivity 6 requires macOS 10.12 Sierra.
Customers who purchased Banktivity 5 from the IGG Store, after January 23, 2017 until the time of the release of Banktivity 6, will receive a free registration code to unlock Banktivity 6.
About IGG Software, Inc.
IGG Software, Inc. develops the Banktivity family of personal finance management solutions exclusively for macOS and iOS, including Banktivity for Mac, Banktivity for iPhone, and Banktivity for iPad. Founded in 2003, the Putney, Vt. based company is dedicated to creating intuitive, elegant and powerful applications, empowering users to budget better, save more, and invest to secure their financial future. To learn more, please visit www.iggsoftware.com or follow us on Twitter at @IGGsoftware.
*Bill Pay requires your bank to support Bill Pay via OFX/Direct Download. Banks may charge an additional fee for this.
- Banktivity 9.5 and Monthly Subscriptions - October 18, 2024
- Coming soon: Banktivity 9.5 - July 19, 2024
- Continuing Investments in Direct Access - February 26, 2024
When is the french version due?
I see by the file size and package contents that a backup of the data is no longer created in B6. What are the implications of this?
Data structure of the documents is much more modern now and we don’t need to do the internal backup. Of course, please use Time Machine and/or Cloud Sync for backups.
Excellent. Good to know. Thanks.
Being a bit picky here…..but I really miss the inline registry editing from bankitivity 5. It feels incredibly clumsy editing a transaction now. You have to double click, a form then opens then you need to locate the field you want to edit. In Banktivity 5, you clicked the field and edited. So much more streamlined. 🙁
I suspect it is the price paid for a better txn split process, the MacBook Touch Bar is an opportunity to improve txn editing. Very pleased to see we can now interact with Popclip within the register, that will come in very handy.
I like using the keyboard shortcuts for speedy entry/editing:
⌘-N for a new transaction
⌘-E to edit a highlighted transaction (using up/down arrows to select the transaction)
TAB to cycle through fields, SHIFT-TAB to cycle backwards
ESC to cancel editing & ENTER to save
Thanks. Will give that a go
Yes! yes! Please allow editing-in-place. The new display of the fields in the register is very nice, but having it completely re-arrange itself when you begin to edit is jarring and stressful on the user, and, I would politely suggest, not good UI or UX design.
Is there a way to ‘SHOW ORIGINAL IMPORT INFO’ as in B5. I find that a crucial command when troubleshooting txns. PLEASE bring that back.
Yes, it’s there… but you have to ‘edit’ a transaction. You’ll then see a small ( i ) to the left of the payee.
You can’t seem to access this with a ‘right click’ menu or when simply viewing the ledger. I think in the interest of keeping the look clean it’s OK.
Thanks Paul ! Happy to live with that setup.
Will the Banktivity 6 have a calendar
Banktivity 6 isn’t opening the document on launch like 5 used to. Is there a way to make it do so that I am missing?
Hmm… mine is opening the migrated document (ie created from B5) and I saved that in the DOWNLOAD folder. Try clicking on the document itself and it should remember the next time
Bingo, opening the document directly has fixed the issue. Thank you, I was getting annoyed.
The Tags feature is invaluable and great for reporting, however I am surprised that you can’t add a tag to a scheduled transaction. I would have thought that when you selected a txn for scheduling that it would carry the tag(s).
Five things I hope make final version of B6 :-
1. Space command in register opens Quicklook of an attachment.
2. Search facility for Payees , Scheduled Txn and Rules
3. A Find command to search data in reports.
4. Support for Tags in Scheduled Txns
5. Report layouts need a nicer UI , looks unfinished (I hope)
What are yours ???
I’d like:
– to be able to merge payees (I have several misspelled duplicates I’d love to merge!)
– any negative balances/transactions to have the numbers in RED for easy identification
I’m quite enjoying the new layout and I find going back to Banktivity 5 jarring.
I’ve made sure I’ve set View -> Sort Transactions -> Group Uncleared & New Transactions to ON. It was off by default.
I too have been trying to merge Payees and failed BUT any changes to the Payee list only affects new entries (I think) and as such you could delete all but one of your misspelled duplicates and make sure that the remaining one meets all of your requirements and save just that one.
I’ve just done a test and changes to the Payee list only affect new transactions. 🙂
I tried tiding up a Payee as follows :
1. Find (Global) Mcdonalds Auburn
2. Correct txn list of Payee found across all accounts
3. Selected ALL txns
4. Changed Payee to Mcdonalds Lidcombe (a new Payee)
5. All Payees in txns were successfully changed BUT…. if I look at my Payee list it does not show the updated payee NOR a new payee. Only McDonalds Auburn remains.
6. If I look at the rules generated for McDonalds Auburn Payee I suspect a new occurrence of McDonalds Lidcombe will be changed to McDonalds Auburn, this is the reverse of what I wanted to achieve.
I suspect to change a payee totally you will need to change global and then update the payee list so that future transactions are matched. Is that how you guys see it ??
I agree on the RED for negatives , Ian pointed out they are supporting color blind users which is a reasonable thought. At least put it as a preference I would say.
How about red in parentheses then – for example (-$1,000) in red? That would be a pseudo-accounting style and it would be visually distinct for colour-blinded users as well.
Having options for various Accessibility requirements is all well and good, but not at the expense of usability for everybody else.
Besides, MacOS has a whole SUITE of visual settings in System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display. If every App creator has their own ‘Accessibility’ features it turns into a real mess. They should leverage the built-in system-wide Accessibility features.
Just saying…
In Envelope budgeting, is there a reason why the Move Cash posts to the currently viewed month but Fill envelopes is hard coded to the current day? I’d really like to have Fill envelopes honour the current budget view. I made some changes to historical data the other day and also removed an account from my budget and did a couple of other things, which blew up my envelope amounts. It would be nice to be able to go through the historical data and fix up the amounts using the fill envelopes rather than having to do the move cash. Other than that, I’m really liking the update.
Oh also, can there be a checkbox for the monthly top-up of envelopes? When I edited my budget, I think it reset the internal flag for this month. So the next time I used fill envelopes it tried to add that months allowance again, which isn’t what I wanted. It would be nice to be able to tell the system whether I wanted to allocate that month’s budget or just zero out any negative envelopes.
Having a filter on the drop-downs for Move Cash is much improved with one issue. If the envelope is not showing in the current window, then it is excluded. I had an envelope for Miscellaneous expenses that had $600 in it. Which I didn’t know about until I did a Fill envelopes and noticed it. I also wanted to move money between sub-categories which weren’t showing in the current view, so I had to cancel out, expand the category and try again. Why not in the From have a filter for any envelopes with money in them and in the To a type-ahead search for the category?
Also, it would be nice to be able to toggle the behaviour of Fill envelopes on a per envelope basis. I have two categories of envelopes, ones with a max monthly amount, and others that are designed to cumulative. The use case for a max monthly envelope would be bills, or automobile gas. In most cases the amount expected will always match or be less than the amount spent in the month, so there is no need to ever have that envelope go above the expected amount. On envelopes with a max amount, I’d like it if Fill envelopes never went above the expected amount. The use case for a cumulative envelope would be things like clothes, I put away $x every month to go to clothes, when I have enough in the envelope then I can go shopping. On envelopes that are cumulative, I’d like it if would always add the expected monthly amount to the current total. As it stands now I have to manually fiddle with the envelopes to get the behaviour I desire, which can be tedious.
Each time the Banktivity 6 beta version is updated it would be nice if a summary of the changes that have been made could be published.
Version Changes can be found here: https://www.iggsoftware.com/banktivity6/version_changes_6.html
Thanks
I use I bank on my iMac. I do not have to pay for downloads. I just click on a button and it downloads. With the new version for iPad do you have to go with the automatic downloads you have to pay for?
I can’t see support for Smart Accounts in B6 , I found that useful to isolate Uncleared transactions across the file (ie all accounts). There should be a selection criteria for transactions in reports that isolate UNCLEARED across all accounts or for the Global Find command to identify them.
Anyone figured a way to do this ?
Smart Accounts now appear to be merged with the standard reports – which seems fair enough to me. You can show (and sort by) uncleared transactions in a ‘Transaction Report’ but they’ll be grouped by Account.
Go to the VIEW menu and then select SORT TRANSACTIONS BY and select CLEARED.
Selecting it again will change the direction of the sort (ascending/descending).
Thanks Paul , good lateral thinking but when you have 4 years of txns sorted by Account it is like finding a needle in a haystack. In B5 filtering on Uncleared is the perfect audit tool within the ‘catch all txns’ Smart Account register.
I hope IGG consider adding Cleared/Uncleared as a filter in reports if Smart Accounts are now obsolete.
I suspect they will. Now that reporting is more powerful it should be easy enough for them to expand the list of items that you can use as filters… well, I hope so! 🙂
Is anyone aware of a way to delete a transaction in Banktivity 6 other than highlighting the transaction one wants to delete, going to Edit and selecting “Delete”?
I used to be able to do this by right-clicking my mouse/trackpad in B5.
The DELETE key on your keyboard
Thanks – sometimes we’re blind to the obvious. Anyway, it works.
You know that old saying “I cannot see the forest because of all trees in front 🙂
How do you delete a Scheduled Transaction that appears in the list of forthcoming Scheduled Transactions BUT, oddly, does not appear in the list of Scheduled Transactions shown on the Payee, Schedules & Rules page?
Can’t you just ‘Skip’ it like in B5? I see the button there. If it is a one-off instance it should then go away forever, no?
It was a transaction without end that had the wrong schedule. If skipped it would reappear later and it could not be fully amended.
The solution eventually was ‘Time Machine’ to a time/date earlier than the arrival of the miscreant entry!
Is there a way to manually match transactions? I have a loan payment that keeps downloading as a withdrawal when it should be a deposit to that account.
Yes, just like in Banktivity 5, drag the imported transaction on top of the one it is supposed to be and they will merge. Then make any fine adjustments to payee/category/Amos not as required.
‘Amos not’ was some weird predictive text nonsense – it’s meant to be ‘amount’, ?
That worked like a charm! Thanks.
Search and replace on any field of transactions is on going on 6?
Searching most definitely and better as it is now Global or per account (in register) as was the case before (yes text in all fields are searched).
I can’t see options to replace other than a global change to PAYEE which is a new feature.
I have got everything fully imported and working just the way I want it and I’m really pleased.
My query is that when the final version is marketed will my data from the beta version be acceptable to it. I’d hate to have to re import it from B5 and set it up the way I want it again.
I second this question..I’ve pretty much abandoned keeping Banktivity5 up to date so
will our Banktivity6 Beta files move right into the Released Version w/o hiccup?
Need to know this asap as I don’t want to let 5 get too stale if I’m going to need it..Thanx in advance
Has anyone noticed that, on the “Summary” tab for loan accounts, the balances shown in the report are incorrect? The current month’s balance is correctly shown at the top of the report, but projected payments are one month behind in terms of the correct balance.
I’ve mentioned this to IGG and was told it was a “known error”. Hopefully, we’ll see it addressed soon.
Any way to ‘unmatch’ a transaction? I find some of the choices made to be fairly erratic. E.g. Ignoring a £10 unmatched transaction on the same date and matching to £10 future transaction two weeks away. This is an old gripe to be fair but was hoping 6 would fix it.
I don’t think this is possible (at the moment) but it’s a good suggestion.
In addition, the ability to delete a newly imported transaction and flag it to be ignored on future syncing would be great, rather than having to delete it every day as it reappears in the ledger!
I’d like to see some visuals for payee reports (ie. a bar graph for week/month/quarter) rather than simply transactions lists which are hard to visualise temporally when you have a lot of them.
Hoping the current Overview page is a ‘work in progress’. I miss B5 ‘s more extensive upcoming transactions (ie transfers and bills) and the Top 5 Spending Categories and Investment moves. Ideally this page should be customisable and users and configure as they suit.
Hi Guys, I’m using the beta version and my first impression have been great. Excellent upgrade! congratulations ! I Have just one doubt…. where I can see the return of my portfolio in the month ou year? I can see easily this in v5 with the ROI Summary.
Why is it when you enter a number of shares with 8.492 or 0.07 in a investment account it adds a bunch of zeroes and a 1 and the end of the shares when you hit save (8.492000000001)? I’ve duplicated this on a fresh account and get the same result. It creates an ugly mess and throws off your share count. I assume it does this with other numbers as well, but those are the ones that I have noticed so far.
If this is a bug, make sure you report it via email using the menu in Banktivity.
We have this fixed for the next release.
Great, thanks. I like the new version.
The reconciliation layout of B6 seems a downgrade from B5 or hopefully a work in progress. I require a summary of the reconciliation as the first line item rather than have to go to edit to see what the input dates and amounts were. The old reconciliation icon on the register was much nicer visual to a double tick.
I agree. Since last month was only 28 days, when I went to reconcile it defaulted to the 28th. When I changed the date it didn’t update the corresponding balance. Which meant I had to cancel find the ending balance and try again. Since the reconcile is now a sheet rather than a page, it blocks the interface. To update the balances after pressing next you need to press the edit button which then hides the transactions. It also doesn’t show the balance like the old version did. Very frustrating UI.
I agree with you both about the new reconciliation layout. I don’t understand the thinking behind making it a small pop-over box (albeit adjustable in size but by default very small) obscuring the transaction register below it. I much preferred the previous way of doing things because you could see all of the details of the transactions you were trying to match. Now you don’t even get the memo/notes fields shown (presumably because they’d take up too much room in the new small box…surely a good enough reason not to use this layout?). Without memos, you’re faced with potentially a long (and largely invisible) list of transactions to the same payee and the same amount. When it comes to reconciling these it’s impossible to tell one from another. It’s a backwards step, as I cannot see any improvement from the previous way of doing this, just a different and inferior way. Acres of unused screen estate below and all out of reach because the reconcile window pops over it. Bizarre and unhelpful. Is this change for change’s sake ‘cos I can see any other reason why.
Not to seem impatient, when might we see an update for Banktivity for iPhone/iPad?
Will the iPad version work with the new version 6. I am afraid to spend the 20 on the iTunes Store and then they not Work together.
Yes, they work together.
Guys great job on version 6. I am running the Beta version and I noticed that on the Last Year Expenses report when selecting comparison to previous period the system automatic selects the period of 12/31/** to 12/31/*** when it should be from 1/1/** to 12/31/** the same range of the current period.
Not sure this was answered above…but will the ios app that I presently use for Banktivity5
be updated for Banktivity6..and if so when can we expect the release or beta
testing of that product?
Decided to take a leap with the ios product on my ipod touch..worked just fine with
synce both directions..just not very intuitive that the ios app would be compatible
with such a radical redo of the MAC OS product..but it does seem to work ok..
this is a relief to me because I rely quite heavily on the ios product with my
financial trackings
BTW, Banktivity6 beta has exceeded all my expectations..workspaces and the
new UI for splitting transactions by themselves is worth the upgrade..super
job and kudos to the developers..BTW, I’m previously a 20+ yr user of Quicken before
moving to iBank4 in 2011
Reaching out to other B6 Beta users to see if they have encountered issues with downloading thru the B6 internal browser ? I have an issue with one Bank not downloading thru the internal browser although their txns are loaded correctly if I download the file separately thru Safari and import it via B6 (or even if I put those accounts under Direct Access).
I prefer to manually download for that Bank (St George Bank AU) because of volume and frequency needs and sure enough it is the only one that does not work thru internal browser download , at this point I need to download the file separately and import it. When I use the internal browser (be it Safari or Banktivity setting) nothing happens, as if the file gets lost.
I have reported the issue which was acknowledged as a problem but beta4 has not resolved it. Wondering how spread this issue is as it is a show stopper for me to migrate to B6.
Hi! I’ve tried to find some infos about the compatibility of banktivity 6 et the bantivity for iPhone… but couldn’t find any… 🙁
Any feedback on that? 😉
Thanks
Marc
Syncing just fine for me since the first beta.
Took a look at Banktivity 6 this morning and first looked at the cash flow report. My views are generally positive. I was able to configure it to capture movements into and out of accounts to create an accurate report. Thinks I wanted but didn’t see how to do –
List the items in alphabetical order rather than a pareto style high to low
See all monthly data as a single table rather than having to click one month at a time on the bar chart.
Ian asked earlier what a cash flow report means to users. The one in Banktivity 6 aligns well with my views. Thank you for that.
I cannot import my Banking Data using the B6 internal Browser. It does not give me enough time to select what I need !!!! It goes where it needs to go but it only gives me a second or so, then returns to previous page.. It does not give me the time I need to select…
I should also add that I was successful in “Importing” the file….
Thanks Ron, sounds like there is an underlaying issue there with some banking websites and the internal browser. You are spot on, I can import the file if I download it outside B6 and import thru the menu. Also I place the accounts under Direct Access and they also download.
The site that fails for me has always been 100% reliable and shows no issues with B5, unfortunately 80% of my banking goes thru that site so B6 is a show stopper for me until it is resolved.
I encourage you to raise a ticket with IGG.
Hi Mario
I have created a ticket and hopefully created awareness !
Ron
Hi All
Having a brain fart here !!!!!! I have made a decision to run B6 exclusively, beta or not !!! I am having problems with the iphone app. Do I need to completely delete B5 ?
Ron
Got it !!!! Jezzzzz I hate getting old !!!
Ron, I’m running Versions 5 and 6 together and have also pretty much
abondoned Version5 for Beta6 myself; make sure that the cloud sync
documents are separate for each version..I created a new document (B6)
on my Ipod Touch syncing my B6 data derived from my desktop document
for B6..I have NOT and will not delete Version5 until this Beta process is complete
but I’m not updating Version 5 at the moment..call it “belief in the future”
I am still running 5 & 6 side by side and considering abandoning 5.
Has anybody tried the backwards compatibility of 6 data to see if it will run on 5?
Yeah..I have those senior moments myself!!
I have been using B6 beta with not sync problems. I have noticed some auto fill problems with the check register, but that are reproducible one I fix the text/data. I have seen multiple fill entries for the same payment and tab forward erases the category field. Sometime the entry is a expense and shows up as a debit with wrong amount from one of the duplicated entries. Other that, I have had not other issues with B6.
I’ve been trying out the Banktivity 6 Beta for a few days. I generally like the way it works compared to Banktivity 5 but see a few issues:
1. I’m extremely disappointed to lose the ability to show IRR per account/security for a specified period like I have in Banktivity 5. I see IRR is on the Overview —> Portfolio view but apparently is only since the earliest date to the “as of” date chosen, not for an arbitrary period I choose. I hope this is a bug/oversight or work-in-progress.
2. The US Tax Report is somewhat improved in appearance except that the Capital Gains sections are a big step backwards in that they show only the detailed gains by security with no summary total. Those sections should show the total of each type as a line with a disclosure triangle to show the details by security the way most similar displays work in 6. I use this report to make sure my quarterly tax payments are on track. In the current form I’ll have to manually add up all those gains by security. Last year, the report did not actually match the 1098s (I guess because of assumptions about lots/cost basis) so that detail isn’t really helpful anyway.
3. The US Tax Report continues to be a little bit confusing. The “Dividends and Interest in Taxable Accounts” seems to be subset of the items in “Activity in Taxable Accounts” but it’s not at all clear where or why. Worse, clicking most of my income subcategories in the “Activity” section doesn’t show any transaction detail at all.
4. Obviously a bug, clicking around in the Tax Report’s “Activity” section eventually corrupts that display, resulting in various lines getting repeated throughout the report. (I’ve sent an email with screenshots to show this.)
Then a few relatively minor quibbles:
1. I don’t like the excessive “whitespace” between lines on the sidebar and within registry lines.
2. I don’t like the placement of transaction type on the second line of the register item instead of between date and payee as before.
3. I don’t like that Note and Tags are concatenated onto the second line with transaction type and check number. I’d prefer they were differentiated in their own fields but I can see how this is more efficient use of the space, given those are variable-length strings.
4. The Memo field is not shown in the register, only when editing the details. I don’t see the logic in that; is it a bug?
One feature that I would hope is included in b6 is the ability to see a running total on account groups. This is to allow a view of ones financial position across a group of selected accounts on any given day, not just the current date. Any idea whether this will be included or not – even if it is simply the ability to toggle between source account and running total (to save introducing an extra column) this would still be exceptionally useful and a minimal effort to implement I would suggest. Thanks!
I think if you close/collapse the account group folder with the hide/reveal chevron, it does this already.
I suspect it’s not visible when expanded simply to reduce visual clutter.
…and the totals ARE there even when expanded, they’re just in grey text, not black. I didn’t have Banktivity near me when I posted the last two replies, sorry.
Thanks for this guys, however, that isn’t quite what I meant – I am talking about is a running total against each transaction (just as happens with an individual account). This is useful as it will allow an understanding of financial position across the selected accounts belonging to the group at any date in the past, not just the latest total of the last import date. It is not possible to do my financial analysis on the same day every month, but with this it would be possible, I’ve looked at reports but none seem to offer this running balance across groups either,
Any ideas or thoughts welcomed.
Rich
Ah, sorry. That makes sense.
Hi there again. Does anyone know if this running balance against each transaction in an account group registry view is feasible? Is there a script or modification anyone more technically minded could suggest as without this I’m struggling to make the workflow work. It seems such a simple thing that is already implemented in the transaction registry for individual accounts and the current running balance is already calculated for account groups as Paul has pointed out, so the calculation itself can’t be too much of an overhead. Screen real estate/clutter is likely the reason it’s not there I guess, but an option to add this extra column to the registry (perhaps toggled at the expense of another column if necessary) would make b6 a viable solution for me. Any help/suggestions gratefully received – there may yet be hope, not to sound desperate, but I am !! Many thanks.
With the death of Smart Accounts I think that the new FIND command needs to step up a bit and allow more complex filtering. Two items I require as part of my regular auditing of txns are Cleared/Uncleared and Uncategorized.
It would be nice to see this new component evolve into a smart query engine, it does a good job of finding strings but I believe we require filtering beyond amounts.
I downloaded a competitive product today to have a quick look and one thing that left me envious is the use of color on the ledger and sidebar, so much easier to follow txns and balances with a red and black theme on the numbers. Please Please consider it as an option.
+1000000000000
Yes, negative balances & withdrawal amounts really need to be red.
I have a question for Ian or some of the beta testers. Will the new version allow more flexibility for the scheduled transactions? Some payments are tied to a day of the week rather than a date (Soc Sec pmts for instance, 2nd Wed. or 3rd Thurs). Quicken used to do this and it would be nice if Banktivity could handle it.
Wouldn’t that be catered for by using the Weekly Payments schedule and setting it for one, two or three weeks?
I think Donna’s referring to the ‘second Wednesday of the month’ rather than ‘every second Wednesday’. They’re not quite the same as occasionally the ap will be three weeks, not two.
It’s an annoying schedule really but many companies use it.
Paul
Ahh I see. I’m from the UK and a couple of my scheduled transactions are weekly every Monday or four weekly every fourth Monday, which is ok but that schedule is a real problem.
It is a shame that you will be excluding Mac App Store purchases as others have figured out how to offer upgrades from the Mac App Store.
Please let us know who has done this!
I am with you Chuck, a search facility within Payees, Rules and Scheduled Txns is essential and a downgrade from B5. Payees and Templates have a lot of content for long term users and scrolling is not acceptable.
Ian,
Some vendors have offered the new version at a discounted rate for a limited period of time within the App Store as a mechanism to sell ‘an upgrade’. I personally bought a PDFPen Pro version upgrade that way (smilesoftware.com).
I am not sure that is the business model you want to encourage given that you will effectively sell new copies at the $30 mark, it may be a trade of market growth and appeasing Mac Store clients but you will only be exacerbating the issue in future upgrades.
Other vendors have offered a trade out of the Macstore version to an vendor key version at zero cost and then that would allow those customers to buy the upgrade from IGG at the $30 mark. In fact I converted my PDFPen Pro copy to a vendor copy and now enjoy cost effective upgrades.
Catch 22 for the software vendor, i have long stopped buying from the Appstore for products that I have long term use for and will support upgrades.
Here is a blog post about how the OmniGroup was able to offer upgrade pricing.
https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/providing-the-best-possible-app-store-experience
Hello,
The internal Banktivity browser seems to have taken a big step backwards in terms of usability from B5 to B6. For one bank I have 6 accounts. After picking the account and configuring the download the B6 browser turns to a blank page. I can no longer see which account I had selected on my bank site. Then I’m presented with a sheet containing a drop down to select the destination account. I like to visually confirm that the account I pick in the dropdown is the same as what is on the web page before clicking to download but now I can’t because I only have a blank screen.
When the download completes the screen remains blank. I know in Safari/Chrome/Firefox that a confirmation screen is displayed. In B6 I’m left to click the back arrow.
Is this comment thread really the preferred channel for submitting feedback which is not a bug? If so then perhaps I’ll split out by section for feedback to each reply…
I have just downloaded the latest beta [Version 6.0b6 (30)] and have the following comments on the Statements View:
* What dictates new statements/reconciliations using the “March 2017” name vs the “MM/DD/YY – MM/DD/YY” format?
* Perhaps the answer to the previous is an off by one error. All of my previous statements are showing as one day less than the days in the month. So the one that I would expect might say “February 2017” shows as “2/1/17 – 2/27/17”. When I look in B5 I see the statement end date as 2/28/17.
* What is the big “+” at the top next to the account name for? It seems to always be dimmed. I had thought that it would let me start a new reconciliation. However, that seems like it can only be done via the very FLAT button labeled RECONCILE. Why is that one black and not blue like the others? It presents as just being a label. You have to hover to know it is a button.
* Changing an account on a reconciled transaction causes the Unlink/Delete dialog to appear at least 3 times. If you escape out it happens three times. If you choose Unlink it then appears another three times.
Feedback on the Transactions View
* If you know a transaction has a Check # (via the attribute in the OFX file) why not choose Check automatically as the transaction type?
* Can the Check # be better distinguished in the register view? It is made more confusing by the previous point that it says Withdrawal, but not having any visual separator to indicate the check number is a separate field is confusing. “Withdrawal 5 -” is not intuitive. “Check 5 -” isn’t much better. “Check #5 -” (or even “Withdrawal #5” if for some reason you can’t consistently detect it is a check) would be more approachable.
* I like the addition of the Note field. If there isn’t a Note, and it is not a split can you display the Memo in the register view? We never had Note previously and so all kinds of good info previously stored in Memo is buried and having to edit to see it is a pain.
My Direct Access and Direct Download (OFX) accounts are properly marking checks as such.
On the Payees, Schedules & Rules view I’ll second the comments of many people earlier in the thread about giving more control of whether it is global or on a specific account or potentially ignoring a rule entirely. I also find the overwriting of good data when I am updating payee info to be annoying. But specific feedback to this screen…
* Is there not a way to search the Import Rules? Cmd-F just gives me the error noise. I do not see a way to access Search/Find from the menu on that screen. All Payees is probably 20 screens long and sure it can be sorted by Payee but scanning that list sucks.
I’ve saved the doozy for last, the Reconciliation View. I took all I could to force myself to reconcile 9 accounts tonight and try to get used to the new system instead of sending this feedback after the first one. The general feeling stayed with me throughout each reconciliation with more details on what I found to be irksome.
* Transaction in my OFX file is missing. I imported the account through the built-in B6 web browser. It was a mid-month transaction and I had transactions before and after. I downloaded the .ofx and saw it in there. Imported the ofx and the file was there. I doubt the bank generated a different ofx file when I requested it through the B6 browser. I had it happen for a second account and this time I imported it again using the B6 built-in browser. The single missing transaction appeared. I’ll continue looking for exact steps to reproduce.
* Starting a reconciliation picks default dates but they aren’t even the beginning and ending of the month. It is the last day of the previous month even though you know that day was included in the previous rec. The last day seems to be off even further as it thinks March 27th is a good ending day. I though this was related to the off by one error in the statements view until the end date was off by so much more.
* The use of a sheet and the available options makes it scary when you’re in a bad place because you aren’t quite sure what is going to happen. When the transaction mentioned above was missing I could have done “Add Transaction” but that is manual and I wanted to see if I could figure out what was wrong and try to import again which of course means the sheet needs to be closed whereas previously in B5 I could navigate away and leave the current rec in a partially completed state. Now to close the sheet I have to choose “Cancel” and “Save”. Will I lose my hard earned work of some transactions reconciled if I Cancel? If I Save have I just knowingly committed garbage to my ledger when I know this rec is not yet complete? I went with the Save and then saw the statement appear in the statement view with the orange exclamation point icon. Luckily no data was lost. Perhaps it would’ve been had I chosen cancel. Bank Rec is so damn tedious to begin with. Putting me in that kind of state with those options makes the experience even worse.
* While we’re talking sheets, I don’t think it is unusual to have 10+ transactions in a monthly bank statement or perhaps 50+ in a credit card. Having such a small sheet appear that would force me to scroll a lot and therefore constantly having to resize it to be bigger is a pain and I think speaks to a potential breakdown in choosing the sheet widget for this task which is best performed with lots of space and is unwittingly constrained by the sheet.
* Clicking a transaction on the sheet to get to the details doesn’t have it open up inline, instead another sheet comes up. I don’t know if the HIG has anything to say about “Sheets on Sheets” but I think it would fall into line with the prevailing thought of “Modals on Modals” being a no-no. This is just a really weird user interaction.
* After I had imported and found my missing transaction the flow of having to go to the Statements and click Edit… vs clicking RECONCILE (which is another bizarre thing about that black button, why is it ALL CAPS when the others are Title Case?). I had figured RECONCILE would get me back to my current reconciliation or at least give me a path to get there but instead it started a new one.
* The wizard feel of the sheet with the balances and the Next button is awkward on an edit. After having checked my bank statement when I created the statement I was now worried that the numbers had potentially changed. I needed to go look up dates and balances against the statement again. When I’m editing I’m more than likely trying to reconcile individual transactions. Can you push me straight to that view and then allow me to click the “Edit…” button which takes me back to that Step 1 of the sheet view?
* I really siss the option to not auto-reconcile. When it doesn’t all line up (and how does B6 decide what to check and what not to check in the transactions as it feels a bit random) I need to bookline against my statement which is not necessarily in the same order. It is easier to just start from the beginning of the statement and I want to clear all checkboxes first in my rec and then go line by line in the order of the statement. In the old days I might have gone in B6 order and put a mark on the statement by I’m dealing with a PDF open on my second monitor so there isn’t an easy way to mark it up. I’d rather have the option in B6 to Uncheck All transactions instead of having to manually uncheck 20+ and then start a tedious rec.
* B5 had the issue of not allowing you to save a rec without any transactions. I was sad to see this persists today. At one bank I have an account for a foreign currency. The account does not get a ton of use but I still like to reconcile each month to be thorough. I have to create a null transaction with the comment “$0 txn to facilitate bank rec” and that makes me sad.
Great post Chuck, concur with your detailed summary. B6 Rec looks like something thrown in to fit in with the look of new reports etc. rather than an enhancement to the B5 process (which I prefer). At the very least the first report line should have the input values (ie a summary) rather than have to go into EDIT mode to see what they were.
In addition using yahoo finance to import prices is there any change you could use the Bloomberg too?
I’m frustrated by the overall view of Banktivity documents resetting every time I open the files.
My standard practice is to have 3 documents open, in separate tabs, running fullscreen. Within each document I have:
– resized the side bar so I can see everything
– expanded/collapsed groups of accounts/reports on the side for clarity & relevance
– set two internal ‘spaces’, one with the summary page permanently on display
– resized the two ‘spaces’ so that they’re roughly a 50:50 split
Every time I open Banktivity it does the following:
– opens each document in a separate (and small window)
– collapses all groups in the side bar
– shrinks the side bar so account names are truncated
– removes my second view ‘space’ so now only one is visible
Having to rejig everything each time I open my documents is starting to wear a bit thin. I’ve reported this as a ‘bug’ because really, apps should be remembering their previous run view state!