I’m pleased to announce Banktivity 6 is now available! For those that haven’t been following this blog closely, you can check out the Banktivity 6 webpage to learn about some of the great new features we’ve added, like workspaces, tags, quick reports, find and portfolio. All in all, this new version has over 100 new features and improvements!
Minimum Requirements
You need a Mac running macOS Sierra (10.12) or above.
Pricing
Banktivity 6 is $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. You can download a free 30 day trial and we offer a 90-day money-back guarantee.
Download Banktivity 6 Now
CEO/Founder at IGG Software, Inc.
A California native, Ian's academic background was in biology, botany and environmental studies. He comes to the field of technology purely out of personal passion, and has been writing Mac software for over a decade. He's also an avid birdwatcher, a soccer player, fiddler and an organic gardener. He lives in Oregon with his wife and their two sons.
Latest posts by Ian Gillespie (see all)
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Let me the first one, to wish IGG a very successful launch of Banktivity 6. ……… Looking forward to a successful future…
I agree completely. Congrats on a terrific upgrade which, in my view, advances Banktivity well ahead of Quicken Mac 2017. Best $29 I’ve spent in a long time.
Last year I wrote a strongly critical comment here listing a number of deficiencies of iBank5 at the time of the transition to the new name Banktivity. I stand by all those points of criticism, but my frustration had not been quite strong enough to motivate transferring back to Quicken Mac. However, this last month because of extreme frustration with Banktivity 5 at tax time with the usual need for meaningful reports, I did in fact purchase and install the latest version of Quicken Mac 2017. The transfer of Banktivity data to Quicken Mac 2017 was a huge mess that would have taken many many hours to straighten out.
It was only then that I discovered that Banktivity 6 had just been released the previous day. The upgrade to Banktivity 6 was flawless, with all our accounts immediately syncing with all the financial institutions with zero errors. I found in version 6 that many of my complaints about version 5 had been corrected, and many new features added. I’m still discovering additional improvements, but the one’s I’ve found so far that are most welcome include the following:
– Split transaction screen has been fixed and upgraded: cursor movement is now logical, and there are now highly effective little button selections that allow splits (such as sales tax for income tax deduction in WA) to be entered easily with automatic correction of the transaction total.
– Reports can now be exported to CSV files for further sorting and formatting. This is a very helpful improvement for tax time. I would still like to see increased ability to customize report printouts from within Banktivity, but for now the CSV export capability is terrific. Plus, Banktivity report organization and function is definitely improved.
– There is a new capability to change payee names in bulk by highlighting and right clicking.
-Auto-save now actually works — every 5 seconds, I think, and this can be verified by watching the data file time stamp in Finder. For us, this never seemed to work in version 5, and we lost data several times when we forgot to save the file manually.
-Download from financial institutions seems even more reliable and dependable in version 6 than in version 5 where we would fairly often have “!” flags that required repeat download attempts. So far in version 6, download has been 100% successful every time. Quicken Mac 2017 was very buggy and ultimately failed in account setup and download with about 20% of our accounts. Amazing that Quicken hasn’t figured out this function after all these years.
– Noticed in the help files for Banktivity 6 a references to the “appearance” tab in system preferences. I can’t find that tab currently, but I’m guessing that it’s probably coming and that this will allow some options for colors, etc. This is a minor point, but it would be nice to have come color schemes from which to choose. Aside from color, the overall appearance is improved and cleaner, and the little green circles and rotating progress icons for each account are improvements over the goofy cloud icons. Overall it now just looks more refined.
-Apparently some users don’t care for the new transaction register screen, but I think it’s an improvement. I also like the addition of “notes” and the distinction from “memos.”
– Global search, accessible several ways, including Cmd-shift-F, is a big improvement over the functional but awkward need in version 5 to create a “smart account” just for search.
-Transaction templates (payees), import rules, scheduled transactions are now consolidated into one area. This seems to be a nice and logical improvement, though the jury is still out on whether this improves accuracy in renaming downloaded transactions. Also, it’s not yet clear to me whether we might now have the ability to “lock” transaction templates so that they always pop up with the same desired data, rather than pulling in data from the last usage, with the former much more useful in my opinion.
As I said, we are still discovering and exploring new features, but Banktivity now feels like a serious, stable, and carefully designed program that will hopefully continue for many years, likely with ongoing improvements based on user feedback.
I am running iBank 4 and could never get monthly transactions from Fidelity to download into iBank. Does anyone know if this has been fixed in version 5 or 6?
This works in 6.
It is with heavy heart that I reply as we are now forced to leave the Banktivity fold. Minimum OS 10.12? Seriously??
Not everyone can or does rush out to get the latest hardware, especially when their existing hardware works fine. That would, ironically, be fiscally irresponsible. We are maxed at 10.11 so we must bid a sad adieu.
Best wishes,
Bob.
I would think if your hardware can run 10.11 it can run 10.12. You can keep using Banktivity 5 if you want.
I am in the same situation. Pre-2009 iMac will not run 10.12, so I can’t use your new version. I certainly cannot justify purchasing a new iMac. I am considering just running the software on my Macbook, but I will miss having the large monitor and regular keyboard. Why will v6 not run on 10.11?
lotsa drama
I have a 2011 iMac running Sierra. Updated to Banktivity 6 yesterday, and it is amazing! Runs much faster than Banktivity 5 did. I don’t get the hated spinning ball anymore. I have been using iBank/Banktivity since I got the computer in October 2011, and this is the fastest it’s ever run for me. I highly recommend trying it if you can. Well worth the $29.99 upgrade fee.
I also upgraded to v6 this week, running Sierra. But I’m finding the reverse. Using v5 I was able to set the autosave to the maximum 10 min. interval to reduce the times I had to endure the spinning beach ball. Now in v6 the option to adjust the save interval is gone, and the ball spins nearly constantly! I’m hoping for a Banktivity 6.01 very soon to correct that. I love the program, but I may have to go back to version 5. 🙁
We will be bringing back the autosave timer preference
I’ve been requesting the timer preference feature since the update came out. It is so frustrating to use Banktivity 6 when you are sitting twiddling your thumbs while the beach ball spins for 20 to 30 seconds every couple of minutes or if you happen to activate, deactivate Banktivity 6.
I despise the images in the transaction view look but need it activated to see if I have an attachment for the transaction, Wish you would bring back the paperclip. Honestly how difficult would that be? Considering you already have Banktivity setup to present an image, just make some minor changes and bring back the image of the paperclip.
Once these features are resolved I will have a near perfect financial application.
I just discovered I can’t adjust the timer and I have to go back to 5… so annoying. I want a refund if it isn’t fixed.
I never quite understand this attitude.
If you want to always be up-to-date with anything computer related (hardware or software) you *have* to commit to an upgrade cycle of some sort – and usually it’s good to do it while you still have an upgrade path available. Too many people leave it too late and then are stranded with files they cannot open.
There is nothing stopping you from using v5 until the end of (your) time on a machine that runs it… so long as that machine never fails.
Saying you are ‘forced to leave the Banktivity fold’ is a silly statement.
Unlike subscription-based software which forces you to upgrade or simply ‘cuts you off’, you can continue to use older versions of Banktivity for as long as you like on hardware that supports it – just don’t expect any new features and support forever.
From a Software Development point of view – and having some experience in this space – this is the only sensible option for IGG.
The alternative is to use pen, paper & a calculator – they never need upgrading but good luck doing much with the data!
Great Work Folks! Congratulations !
Will the iOS app show Overview and Summary now?
Congratulations. I upgraded immediately. I have been running the Beta for a few weeks and the last few releases have run perfectly for me. Great app – great new features. Particularly love the Portfolio.
I’ve got my copy already.
Congratulations! Looking forward to update.
You guys have done a great job, but I’ll still be “that guy” and ask…
When is banktivity 6 for iOS coming?
I would like to see tags support and a new entry UI that makes it quicker way to enter transactions.
After about 20 years with Quicken I have finally made the break to Banktivity.
What a breath of fresh air! It is so controllable, customisable, intuitive and reliable.
A brilliant product. Well done!
Great news – before I purchase and download could you please confirm if ibank 6 is compatable with your ios apps. Many thanks
Yes, it is compatible with the current versions of our iOS apps.
I have to say that the display of transactions is a big step backwards compared to banktivity 5. it is much more difficult to scan…why not leave transaction type as its own column? and why did you stop bold facing the payee?
I second this – almost everything about Banktivity 6 is better than Banktivity 5, except the register. It’s rough on the eyes, just a sea of white. The difference between confirmed and reconciled is also very subtle.
Otherwise nice release. I’m looking forward to the spending summary bug being fixed.
I third that, although adding data via the transaction view is better.
I agree, I liked the old display of transactions better.
I fifth that! As I posted before. I agree the ‘sea of white’ is really confusing and tough to navigate. Please put back the ability to select background colors for categories in the settings section. Thanks a bunch.
Definitely agree. A couple of bugs of previous banktivity had me considering awful process of going back to quicken. 2 features that kept me were transaction icons AND background colors.
What happened to auto-save? I cannot find it. Banktivity 5 had this feature.
@The Team, first of all, congrats with the new version 6 of banktivity.
The look and feel made me decide to buy the software. (v6).
Some months ago, I’ve been playing around with version 5.
I still am missing some nice features. Allow me to share them, maybe you’ll find the interesting as well?
While adding a new transaction in an account, at the category level, in case one uses “main category”:”sub category”, in the transaction field, at the “category” input field, it does NOT autocomplete if you type the “sub caterogy” (only).
So, one need to know the main category as well. For some SUB-CATERGORIES, I don’t know the main category by heart.
So, that brings me to a way to search for categories AND sub-catergories:
At the “CATEGORIES” tab. You can search for main- or subcatergories.
I can’t collapse/expand some or all of the main categories.
Another thing which I’m missing:
Imaging me syncing met accounts/budget/envelopes/… with my iphone.
In case I’m in the store buyting stuff AND I would like to know the actual envelope totals of a certain category, I believe I can’t find that on my mobile devices? I do take into account the ENVELOPE totals in orde to decide for purchases.
I hope this is interesting information for you?
Many thanks !
I agree with the sub-category search. I too don’t remember every single category and it’s subcategory off the top of my head. Being able to search for either part would be a great boost in productivity. Thanks!
+1000 on the sub-category search.
One feature I’ve been waiting for is the ability to do job costing or project management. For example, I buy materials for the “smith” job and the “jones” project and pay for them with the same CC. In version 5 I have to enter multiple transactions for the same CC statement in order to accomplish this. I used to use categories & sub-catergories and classes & sub-classes in Quicken but the only way I can get the reports I need in iBank is using Smart accts. Is this feature now somehow doable in V6?
With tags, surely?
Paul,
Are you saying you can accomplish this with tags, for sure, or are you suggesting that it might be possible?
No, I’m asking the question, ‘Surely you could achieve that with tags?’
If I’m reading your issue correctly, you are purchasing several items for different projects in a single transaction but they technically have the same ‘category’ (e.g. ‘materials’), yes?
So, for a hypothetical transaction for ‘Smith’ & ‘Jones’ projects where you have spent $100 on ‘materials’, but say $50 each, I’d use a split transaction:
Total – $100
Split One: Category “Materials” and add the ‘Smith’ tag
Split Two: Category “Materials” and add the ‘Jones’ tag
…or better yet, make the tags the ‘project number’ or some other unique identifier. That way you can avoid having several subcategories (ie. Materials: Smith; Materials: Jones).
That would achieve your aims, yes?
I am trying the beta and so far am very impressed. A vastly improved user experience compared to iBank 4. Kudos to the team. My question is when will Banktivity be available for purchase on the Mac App store?
Yes, our plan is to release it there soon (working with Apple now)
I tested every Beta release of Banktivity 6 and have been very impressed and pleased with how quickly problems (very few, by the way) were addressed and new functionality implemented. This is certainly the most full-functioned, comprehensive and useable finance program available for Mac OS.
Please keep up the good work and I hope you’ll have an full-featured update of Banktivity for iPhone in the near future.
I agree on missing the “expense timeline” report. It’s quite shocking that it’s missing in version 6; let’s hope it shows up soon in an update.
Has anyone figured out how to recreate the “expense timeline report”? I quite liked being able to compare month by month expenses in a single exhibit.
I agree!!! Did a LiveChat to see how to do this. Alas there is no way at the present time. The best that could be offered boiled down to a cut and paste approach. Was presented with different reports that might help. The best was the Tax Report. There is no way to aggregate by month, and no dates provided. The best I can figure out is to run the Tax report for each month, then import the data into Excel (and possible align the rows) and review / print from there.
Timeline Expense (or Income) are such a common report that I am surprise there is no option to produce such a report. My only thought is the product is focusing on mobile devices.
Timeline was a must!
This is a key report – completely ridiculous to leave it out.
Bruno, I have a way to get the data. I used the expense timeline report but put the data into Numbers. Now I run an Income and Expense Report, click on the month I am examining on the bar chart, and a table of data appears which I can input into Numbers. I can even export the table as a tab delimited text file and import it into Numbers though I don’t do that since the data sequence in the table is odd.
This workaround is only of use to those like me who use the reports in Banktivity to provide the data to enter into another reporting tool.
I really miss Expense Timeline reports too. I use this type of report extensively to track my spending over the last 10 years, and to project forward to retirement. It was a great report format. I depend on these reports heavily to manage my finances.
I’ve tried replicating the information using the Income & Expense report. I have to generate 10 reports to get 10 years worth of data. Then I have to align the output, since a category with $0 spending on some years won’t be in the reports for those years. This is extremely tedious and error prone.
For now, I’m staying with Banktivity 5 while I figure out what to do. I’ve been using Banktivity/iBank since 2013, and this is the first time I’ve run into a problem.
IGG Software – PLEASE bring back Expense Timeline reports.
Great Work on investments and Portfolio view, but now I can’t see the return of my portfolio per month. I don’t know what’s happening , but it’s not realible the return in the investment summary.
Just upgraded to the GA version after 9 betas and the more I use it the more I like it. I am still using V5 until the end of the AU Fiscal year on June 30 and hope some of the ‘missing’ items come back in a dot release.
From a daily usability point of view I really miss :-
1. Quicklook invoke using space bar in register to view attachments.
2. Search facility on Payees, Schedules and Rules
3. Ability to global find Uncleared and Unreconciled transactions (so easy with Smart Acc’s)
4. Top Investment moves in Overview/Summary
Like John Strong mentioned earlier, I have way too much beach ball activity so looking forward to the reintroduction of Autosave and there is a good post in the support page about the new way the internal browser behaves, it is a time saver.
Never updated to 5 because database or save changes introduced in 5 made using it unbearable (min 30 second hang on every save). I actually did purchase but had to return because of this. This was acknowledge as a known regression relatively early on in the life of iBank 5 (I think 5.1) but never addressed…and I checked with every update. Noticed a previous commenter mentioning beachballs when saving, not a great sign. Worse yet I’ve just tried every Banktivity file I have and each one crashes during conversion trying to load it in the demo. I did file a crash report, but I’m concerned the answer will be what I was told previously, “Don’t have such a large file with long history”. Really!? The recommendation was split up your 10 years of transitions into multiple files. What’s the point when if I want to be using the reporting tools for analysis over long periods?
Is anyone successfully using large (>700mb) files the includes at least 10 years of transitions and receipt attachments (one of the main reasons i switched to iBank from Quicken)?
My current concerns are:
1. It’s the same problem as 5 only worse in 6.
2. There will be the same lack of action.
3. The wait for 6 will confirm my worst fear that I’m stuck with 4.x and it’s time to start looking for a different software.
I’d love to use the new version, it looks like it has some great features and I will play with the demo a bit, but if I can’t convert my existing iBank 4 database (which it says I should be able to), saving still induces hangs (never happens in 4), or the only solution is breaking up my database I’m definitely done using and recommending Banktivity.
Banktivity team…you have my e-mail from this post (I assume). You know how to reach me.
We are re-introducing the autosave timer in an upcoming build of Banktivity 6. But I would think with a data file approaching 1 GB, save time will be slow 🙁 We talked about potential ways to handle these huge files with a large number of attachments and we have some ideas, but they won’t make it into v6.
To be honest, Auto-save is the least of my worries. Whatever was changed for save between 4-5 broke something foundational (saving) that to this day works better in an almost 5 year old product than newer versions. Large file handling works better. But sticking with a version that is aging rapidly and not getting fixes is problem waiting to happen in the software world. Who know when an OS change could break the app?
I appreciate your candor, but this clinches it You’re losing a customer along with my family members who I’d previously recommended to purchase your app I have recommend holding off on updating since 5 was introduced. It’s time to get them free. I will look to helping them migrate to other products. It’s sad to know that after almost 4 years of between iBank 5 and Banktivity 6 this was not prioritized and addressed and there is no plan to solve this in the v6 timeframe. Based on your release history it would likely be another 3 -4 years before you *might* try to solve this in v7? This is unacceptable. This indicates to me a serious flaw in the database design and no-one has a clue how to fix it. Slow single entry saves , long banking histories, and basic a feature (receipt attachment) that will eventually make working with the app impossible? Is the crash trying to import large files into v6 another sign of a serious problem that is not being prioritized?
It seems that you have created a product that will eventually fail long time users. I guess it’s fair to warn users to avoid attaching receipts, don’t plan on using this product if you want/need long data histories.
I’ve also been having serious issues with the import process, trying to open up an iBank 4 file in Banktivity 6 – particularly around scheduled transactions, but also login data. Loan account settings all messed up, all scheduled transactions revert to 12 instances remaining, scheduled transactions getting tied to wrong (hidden) accounts. I filed a ticket, but they ignored half of my issues in their response.
Like you, I held off on iBank 5 for various reasons, and was hoping to make the jump to 6. But at this point, I just don’t feel like I can trust it.
At least you could import to test. 😉 Sorry you had conversion issues. I had still hoped they would follow up to resolve the crash, they may still. But after Ian’s response, I sadly don’t think anything will come of this.
Where do I learn more of this crash?
I was contacted by Nancy a few days ago to get the file. The ticket is Ticket #XDWP4
PW – I started with Quicken around 1989 and migrated to iBank when Quicken no longer worked on the Mac. My datafile has almost 30 years of transactions in it. I just checked the file size and it is much less than the 700 megs you mentioned. My Banktivity 5 file was 133 meg and after importing it into Banktivity 6, the new file was 60 meg. I noted that saving in iB5 was slow. Banktivity 6 is noticeably faster.
I had trouble migrating from iB4 to iB5. I believe the issue was related to my stock portfolio. As I recall, the root cause was the import into iB4 of my Quicken file. Some entries did not import properly and iB4 ignored negative share balances caused by entries not imported, reporting zero balances instead. The iB5 transition did not ignore the errors still in the file and some of my accounts had negative share balances. The move to Banktivity 6 was uneventful.
Interesting insight into large files and attachments. I have been using Banktivity for 4 years and love the concept of attachments etc. I also think the product has an opportunity to mine these attachments thru a View Attachments option that would display all Attachments on file by Account and date.
Legally I need to keep receipts for IRS audits for 3 years here in AU, if the product offered a way to display and manage these attachments I would rather cull 3+ year old attachments than suffer performance or double store these receipts (ie I have another copy of these receipts in Dropbox).
“View Attachments” would be a nice enhancement and it may give us the ability to manage an issue before it happens or is technically resolved in V7 (which in all likelihood is 2 years away).
I guess it depends on your use. In the US, 7 years is often recommended for personal taxes and using the attachment option is perfect for this. This has been a great feature for me because I have multiple back-ups of my banktivity file and can get rid of the hard copies since I digitize everything. It was one of my favorite parts of iBank. I’m also strange in that I like to do long term analysis of my banking…which needs to be in one file. It’s frustrating and confusing that when I’ve spoken with IGG about this over the years they don’t appear see these as reasonable workflows or serious issues to be resolved quickly. Like you said, who knows when v7 will happen and if it will be prioritized or solved. Too long to wait.
Just to be clear v6 should be much more efficient at saving that v5. We are re-enabling the auto save timer too, so people have more control. If you don’t want to wait, you can do this.
1. Quit Banktivity 6
2. Launch Terminal app
3. Type:
defaults write com.iggsoftware.banktivity6 IGGAutosavingDelay “600”
600 indicates the number of seconds between autosaves, set it to what you want.
4. Hit return
5. Launch Banktivity 6
Payee list – what do you think?
I’m tidying up my list of payees in B6 (something that wasn’t easily possible in B5) so I can finally get accurate spending figures for payees. I’m finding the way that Banktivity 6 sorts the payee names is making the task harder than it needs to be. The sort order is case-sensitive, which leads to oddities such as “iTunes” appearing AFTER “Whole Foods” (intuitively you’d think something beginning with the letter i would appear much further up the list than something beginning with the letter w). Another example: “AXA Insurance” is AFTER “Admiral Insurance”, and “IGG Software” is quite a way apart from “igg software”.
I can’t think why the sorting should be case-sensitive here; it certainly adds a complexity to the list that makes it hard to navigate or to ensure you have only one entry for a given payee instead of multiples depending on spelling and capitalisation and other differences introduced when transactions are downloaded automatically.
I’m wondering what the reason for this is? Is there a point I’m missing and a good reason why anybody would want Amazon towards the top of a (long) list and amazon towards the bottom f it?
When I said Payee List what I meant was the Payee Report.
Like you Steve I am fastidious about Payee names and I have spent hours tidying things up in B5 , it is definitely a big improvement in B6 and I agree with your comment on case sensitive sorting, it does not make sense.
Also I noticed that the Payee report includes txn count and Amount which is great in terms of understanding the worth of your relationship with that Payee. But if you compare the results of the same report for B5 and B6 you will notice that transfer txns are ignored in B6 so you will be down some txns in the count field, the $$ values are the same because B5 would treat the transfer as net value zero.
I have raised this as an issue with support, I like that Payee report but it needs to be more than a list of Payees, the count and value should be accurate. I prefer the results of B5 as they are more complete in terms of finding all the transactions for that payee.
One more request on Payee reports. It would be great if when you drill down into a category report, when you’re down to the lowest category level, it breaks the report down by payees. So for example when you drill into Groceries, it shows spending by Payee; Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Walmart, etc.
Banktivity five worked this way as well. I reported it as a bug, and it was never addressed. The fact that Banktivity 6 still does this is extremely disappointing. It certainly gives users the impression that IGG is listening. To be honest, I am holding off on buying Banktivity 6 for this reason. IGG needs to restore my confidence that they will address bugs and respond to feedback quickly and efficiently. Let’s see how long it takes before they respond to your concern (if at all).
This has already been fixed for, not the very next release, but the one after that.
Ian,
Can you help me with this Q?
One feature I’ve been waiting for is the ability to do job costing or project management. For example, I buy materials for the “smith” job and the “jones” project and pay for them with the same CC. In version 5 I have to enter multiple transactions for the same CC statement in order to accomplish this. I used to use categories & sub-catergories and classes & sub-classes in Quicken but the only way I can get the reports I need in iBank is using Smart accts. Is this feature now somehow doable in V6?
Could you use the new Tags feature, Ian? Split the credit card transaction to reflect the amounts allocated per client and tag each one with the client name (then you can call off reports by tags to see what you’ve spent on each project/client rather than by category)
Sorry – meant to address that reply to Gordon, not Ian.
Steve,
That very well might be the way to accomplish it. I’m just looking for a conformation that this is in fact how it would be done. I can’t test it yet because I’m still running V5. I have to upgrade to the Sierra OS before I can try V6. I probably won’t do the upgrade if I’m not able to accomplish my project job costing the way I need to. I’m hoping Ian or someone that is doing the same thing can chime in. Thanks for the input, Steve.
I would think tags would work for this. I’d split the transactions as appropriate, and then tag the splits as described by Steve.
Ian,
Congratulations. Banktivity 6 is smoking hot! I have been a customer since 2012 and have loved every minute of it. I have utilized your support staff on occasion, and they are fabulous. Kristen Barth spent around 3 hours with me once and since then my understanding of budgeting has skyrocketed and is incredibly useful to me. The other support staff are excellent too.
I do have one question. I know you have been working on this for some time now. When do you think we will be able to see on our iPhones the amount remaining in budgeting envelopes?
Thanks and congrats on great work.
I miss the ability to color-code categories like in the previous version. Visually, it made it easier to discern between different categories instead of the solid white screen. Also, the ability to “Save As” is gone. I like to save files under different file names in the event that one file gets corrupted. That ability is now gone.
Just wanted chime in on this comment. Save functionality should behave like other modern document-based apps like Pages. You can get Save As by clicking on the File menu and pressing the option key.
It sure is frustrating trying to work out which are the new posts in this forum… :-/
I use Banktivity on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and I’ll be upgrading on all devices this year, nonetheless Banktivity 6 for the Mac feels like a rewrite not quite finished.
My biggest complaint would be wasted space. In the sidebar, icons and account names take up too much space even if “small” is chosen in the preferences. The toolbar—now unable to be edited and with universal search gone to the sidebar—is huge, and if it is hidden, so is update status in the window. However, the worse example of wasted space is the account ledger, which is begging for single line entry. There is just no good reason for an accounting app to require two lines in the age of ubiquitous wide screens. Would another ten pixels for cleared/uncleared column break the Banktivity?
I’m just starting getting into Banktivity 6, but so far I’d say it has more the look and feel of the iPad version with touch input, less the data density I’d expect on a Mac using keyboard and mouse.
I use Banktivity on two MacBook Airs running MacOS Sierra 10.12.4 and an iPhone 6 running the latest IOS. Upgraded today and everything went well.
I wish the process of setting up Cloud Sync and managing documents both local and in the cloud were a little clearer. It’s only because I’ve been through it several times before with Banktivity 5 (deleting and replacing corrupted documents) that I got through it without too much trouble. It still took a long time (30-60 minutes) for the 2nd MacBook and the iPhone to download the cloud doc after syncing the first Mac. But everything looks good.
Reports all came through in the upgrade, and they are lightning fast. Click on one and it’s open. Less than a second. Impressive. Love being able to click the blue arrows upper right on the report and scroll between years. Again, lightning fast. No calculating. Love this.
Report layout for print looks clean.
Great upgrade IGG team!
MIss the quick edit of the category field. Now a real pain and more time consumed to edit especially automatic downloads. Please bring it back.
Are you ever going to fix the pesky notices “Banktivity 5.app needs to download the font ….”
This is the bank’s website pushing the notices. I’m not sure we can safely disable it. It would be best to download the fonts.
Just upgraded from 5 to 6. Need to find out how I can set the split balancer function to ALWAYS be with the top transaction. Example, credit card transactions get entered as they are charged in a long split transaction. I need the amounts entered to ALWAYS add up so I have a running total of the credit card charges. How can I set the button in this manner? I could check it on 5 and it would stay memorized in this way. Am unable to find a solution in the manual.
Overall, great job IGG Software! I love the new version. There is a lot of great stuff here! Unless I am missing something, I miss the “sync only” feature. It appears all you can do is “update everything” and that can take time when all you wanna do is sync as a form of back-up when you just updated everything.
I miss that and also the “Download Quotes” option. I generally do a complete update each morning with my first coffee. None of my financial institutions update (via OFX) during the day so no point in doing a complete update again. But occasionally I like to see how the market treated me that day, so sometimes like to update just quotes in the evening.
I also agree with an earlier comment about the excessive white space in the registers and sidebar. And I miss having the payee remain bold which made the register much more readable. The new approach is probably in line with Apple UI guidelines? Still don’t like it, though.
I’ll spare you my complaints about investment-related calculations in reports and Portfolio — serious issues, generally appear to be errors in date calculations/comparisons.
That said, I like 6 a lot. Directionally, it’s a big improvement. Once some bugs are fixed, it’ll be great.
I also would like to see the function of syncing only with the cloud (without having to sync with all my bank accounts) returned. The full update is fine when opening the file, but after everything is updated it’s nice to just do a simple cloud sync so other devices can also get in sync without having to wait for another round of a full update. I was actually hoping that B6 would add a new button just to do the simple cloud sync.
To add to this, having to go through the full update is causing me a problem. When I sync with my bank (BoA) checking account, sometimes it clears the wrong transaction if two or more have the same amount around the same date. I have to fix that manually, but then when I go to do my sync before quitting, it goes back to the bank again, and again it re-clears the wrong transaction. To fix it I have to then go to one of my iOS devices and clear / unclear the correct transactions.
Annoying. Please let us just sync to the cloud without going through the whole update.
1- No tags in schedules transactions?
2- Can you add the fusion possibility of categories management like version 5
Lavigne,
As for 1) It doesn’t appear that you can do this when creating the scheduled transaction. It does seem possible to add tags in the ‘Upcoming Scheduled Transactions’ drop down though… but you’d have to add a tag every time. Seems like an oversight.
With respect to 2) You still can merge categories but it’s not obvious. It’s a tiny ‘MERGE’ button text at the top right of the category listing. It should be possible with a context sensitive menu IMHO.
thank you , thank you for pointing my attn to the merge button. I thought the feature was removed from v 6. Merge needs to be option-click.
I need categories in reconcile statements
I need categories and tag in reconcile statements
When we make reconcile statements, the actual amount is not live, we have to save to have the good amount!
I am not sure what this blog is actually intended for but it seems to work quite well as a self help/information scheme.
Like many others, I’m sure, I check the final number of blogs to see if any have been added since I last looked and then………well then I have to try and find them!!
There must be a better way of organising this blog. The latest entry dated 4 May is actually second on the list of 78 as an answer to the first entry dated 25 April.
I agree Peter, have found some terrific tips and solutions to my problems. Would love to see this turn into a self help among users. The software is very flexible and the way other users make use of it lights up the bulb !!
I really like the new Banktivity 6. One thing I miss, though, is that I could set the default view of each account on the “summary” view. Now, it always reverts back to the “transaction” view. Would it be possible to make this an option again?
Hi, Anyone know how to remove a common tag from a number of selected transactions rather than one by one!? Thanks.
The tip about adjusting the auto-save helped some, as I am a trial Banktivity 6 upgrade user (from iBank3, and I use both iPhone and iPad versions. I ams still getting a lot of spinning pinwheel and wasted time. I most likely will not upgrade unless this is corrected.
And I’m surprised that the transaction type syncing between the Banktivity Cloud and at least the Mac apps on different devices is still not resolved. A “charge” transaction becomes a “withdrawl” on my other Mac for example. The ios versions do not have the same transaction types available to them, that are in the Mac versions.
Another valuable feature from Banktivity v5 that is missing in action in the latest version: you can no longer sort your list of scheduled transactions by account (which, you’d think, would be a more useful view than sorting them by Note, which you can do (why????)! It’s an odd omission and I can’t see any work-around – anybody have any tips? Another victim, perhaps, of the “design” because the scheduled transaction’s account has been demoted to a third line (no wonder there’s so much darned white space on the screen) yet the heading bar only has titles for the “columns” in the first two lines.
Sadly a lost customer here I’m afraid as version 6 won’t import my version 5 file. Doesn’t show payee names, categories or the actual totals in the accounts. The only thing that support suggested was to send my file to them but I legally can’t send that data out of the EU so no go. Same happened with a recent upgrade on the iPad version. If it can fixed in an update then I will be back.
Please come to our live chat Craig. We can help you! http://www.iggsoftware.com/support
Ian
Sometime in the past there was discussion about providing upgrade pricing for purchases through the Apple Store. I have encountered a situation where a software company has been able to do this.
The company is mSevensoftware, and they sell exclusively through the Apple Store. As they released mSecure5 they extended an upgrade for existing customers at an upgrade price of $9.99 compared to the normal price of $29.99. The offer was made via email – and the upgrade purchase was done in advance of upgrading. The App is made available as a trial for free with a in-app purchase of the software. When I opened the software all I had to do was enter my email address and my password for their website and the application recognized me and activated the new program.
I was able to get my upgrade price with Omnifocus, So I’m not sure how they are able to do it and IGG wasn’t able to .
Will there be upgrade pricing offered through the app store?
We currently don’t have upgrade pricing through the app store. You can get upgrade pricing if you buy directly from us.
Price on the US store (Mac Apps Store) is $65, but on the Australian Store it’s $99. At the current conversion rate $USD 65 converts to $AUS 87. It a bit of price hike to $99 don’t you think?
Most of this is out of developer’s hands… and there is also GST to consider when buying through the App Store.
One of the issues I have with Budgets in Banktivity 5 is you can’t get it to report over different dates. That is, it reports over a calendar year. I would like to budget of the financial year 1st of July to 30 June the following year. Can this be done in Banktivity 6?
Yes you can now set Fiscal year to start 1/7 (or whatever) !! all reporting for the ‘year’ will now be AU Fiscal year.
Ben,
Just checked to be sure and you have WEEK MONTH QTR and YEAR (which obeys the Fiscal year that you set).
Thanks Mario! That’s great news
I am hoping the TOP INVESTMENT MOVES in the B5 Overview finds its way into B6 ‘s Summary (or as a report). I find that very valuable to alert me of major moves in my stocks.
Hello Users,
How does one upgrade from Ver. 5 to Ver. 6 for the reduced price? In the App Store it only shows the $64.99 price point.
Thanks!
Hi Andrew
You can’t get upgrade pricing for Banktivity through the App Store (see Ian’s post above, May 17). To get reduced pricing you will have to download Banktivity 6 from the IGG website then prove you have an earlier version in order to qualify for the reduced price. IGG have written more details in this support article: https://www.iggsoftware.com/support/articles/banktivity-6/id-like-to-upgrade-from-banktivity-5-to-banktivity-6-is-there-a-discounted-price/
Thanks!
Any word on when we’ll see an update to the iOS versions? I’m very happy with Banktivity for MacOS, but I use the iPhone version at least as much and it could stand an update – Summary or Overview screen; functionality to bring it closers to the MacOS version, etc.
I am wondering if someone has come across this issue in B6 Scheduled Payments.
I have scheduled payment (annual) which I have deleted but it has remained in the upcoming list (ie click on the calendar icon) as it was deleted after its due date.
The transaction is NOT on the Scheduled payments, Templates but it seems to be happy to cycle thru SKIP thru Confirm Scheduled Transactions. The DELETE key is not enabled in the Confirm panel.
It seems like the Confirm panel and the Scheduled Payments list are 2 separate bits code and a selected transaction can be orphaned if it goes past its due date.
Hi Mario,
I had exactly the same problem and IGG were not able to come up with a solution. I think it has a lot to do with the order in which you carry out the deletion of the payment. I don’t think it is possible for you to actually remove the payment from the upcoming list now.
What I did was to use Time Machine (but any back up would do) to open an earlier B6 file and brought it up to date manually. Then, to remove the Scheduled Payment I no longer wanted, I actually deleted the Payee entry associated with it first and in doing that it removed the Scheduled Payment for me. It then no longer appeared on there Upcoming list
It appears that removing the Scheduled Payment first, on occasions, has an adverse effect.
Good luck.
I
Thanks Peter, I think you are spot on about NOT being able to delete items in the Upcoming List, it appears to work independently of the Scheduled txns. Luckily I am still using B5 and the issue is in my B6 file which at this point I am just using in parallel so I can remove with a new import. The crux of your reply is that in a real situation this is dangerous so I will cop your tip of deleting the payee first (or perhaps posting the upcoming txn i don’t want and then delete all elements). Thank you.
Same problem and I found no way to get rid of the orphan scheduled transaction in the desktop version. Yet, interestingly, this can be done in the iPhone version! Just go to the Budget, edit it, and remove the transaction shown there!
Congratulations on the new release of Banktivity 6. I have a question (and I don’t see a list of new feature for 6.0). Does the app support variable months budgets now — a budget that understands that I only have to pay insurance two months/year?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it does this already IF you have these payments set up as scheduled transactions.
Tell me more, please. We’ve been asking about this since about version 2 but always told it’s not available yet. We want to report actual vs budget on a budget that recognizes that our insurance is due only twice a month and that our electricity bill goes up in the summer and that our educational expenses vary monthly. How would that work? Are you saying to use scheduled payments instead of the budget feature?
In Banktivity 6 you can budget variable amounts each month. When choosing an interval for a budgeted category choose “Custom” and you’ll get a new user interface to enter varying amounts.
That sounds very good, if I understand it correctly.
Are you saying that I can create a budget for 2018, label it as custom, and then I can put in monthly budget amounts for every expense category? And then I can report against that budget to see how I’m doing for the entire year?
Reply to chuckbo:
After creating a budget, open it. Look at the amounts on the right hand side in the column ‘Budgeted’. Put your pointer on the amount for the category that you wish to customize. Once highlighted, click on the amount. In the dialog box, there is a frequency drop down box. Choose ‘custom’ and that is where you can enter varied amounts for each month.
Unfortunately, the Banktivity 6 manual makes no mention of this WONDERFUL new feature.
Very happy. Longtime iBank and Banktivity user. Biggest gripe was the reporting format. Bantivity 6.0 fixed that and improved on every other level. Great redesign, Improved reporting. Definitely worth the $30 upgrade or $60 newcost.