OmniBank

[edgamble]

Okay, I read how you guys have produced three new products recently and need some time to go back an add features to 'old' products. To that I say "BOLOGNA!"

OmniBank is the ticket. Quicken stinks, iBank stinks. Only you guys can do it right. I will pay for OmniBank today! [Note that I'm still waiting to pay for OmniFocus and since I have OmniFocus I will put your response to this posting on my 'Waiting-For' context.]

[edgamble]

Okay, I read how you guys have produced three new products recently and need some time to go back an add features to 'old' products. To that I say "BOLOGNA!"

OmniBank is the ticket. Quicken stinks, iBank stinks. Only you guys can do it right. I will pay for OmniBank today! [Note that I'm still waiting to pay for OmniFocus and since I have OmniFocus I will put your response to this posting on my 'Waiting-For' context.]

This suggestion is captured under my OmniFocus project of "Build the OmniGroup's New Santa Barbara Office".

OmniMoney, OmniInvest, OmniWealth, OmniFinance or OmniBankle

[chuckbo]

Guys, I second the call for OmniBank. Quicken is not good, and Intuit is evil. iBank has promise and tease but it doesn't perform well and there are some fundamental flaws. I'm in the middle of designing my own that I'll write in a database language, but I'd JUMP at the chance to pass my ideas to the Omni team and have it made into a really nice cash management (budgeting) program for individuals. I'm going to go ahead with mine and probably have something running when I have a couple of weeks to devote to it, but I recognize that it has limitations that I can't work around and would rather use OmniBank.

Chuck

[bugmenot]

I second that as well. It's especially annoying that none of these software packages are really able to get the online stock quotes from various places around the world. It's really annoying to have to enter the prices from different European funds by hand!

Btw. GnuCash is the best you can get with respect to getting quotes from different sources.

Cheers.

[edgamble]

Okay, I paid for OmniFocus but I'm still waiting for your comments on OmniBankle. I know, it happens all the time to me but, it sure is hard to imagine that somebody outside of your company could be spot-on with your next product.

Just wait until the next Macworld when Steve Jobs announces that AppleTV is upgraded to an HD game console and UnrealTournament 2008 is an Apple exclusive. Then I'll be 2 for 2 of late.

[roberte]

I would love to see what Omni could do with banking on the mac:

As already mentioned: Quicken stinks and all of the other options I've looked at have been terrible.

The closest to OK was Liquid Ledger, but it was far too buggy for reliable use and had interface issues.

The idea would be a personal money manager: with bank downloads, budgeting and reporting/graphs, with that Omni je-ne-sais-quoi. It wouldn't have to be complicated...

[Melan]

I actually came to this forum with intent to make a thread about requesting this. I would love to see this happen.

[frankiec]

I would also love to see this happen.

[pjb]

Quicken is promising a new app with up to date api's (i.e., cocoa based) and for all it's faults it actually does work as is (I'm using 2005 still). I'm sure the Omni folks could do a much better job, but then the company would have to increase in size by a factor of a hundred just for support staff, then they'd hire more lawyers, then they'd change their license, and raise their prices, maybe go public, and generally stop being the creative software house we know and love.

I do think they could, barring outstanding copyright issues, contribute a multi-dimensional spreadsheet to the community and not have to transform their culture.

I'd rather have Omni than OmniBank.

[pjb]

Maybe a better use of their resources still would be to call up ol' Will and help get DL2 out the door.

[cyleigh]

I came to this forum to suggest an OmniBank too! After deciding last week that I hate iBank I have now tried nearly every freaking finance app out there (except Quicken, cause I already knew I would hate it). Like a previous poster, I'm probably going to go with Liquid Ledger 2.2 (although Prospects is a very close second)... but since I own nearly the whole Omni suite, you can guarantee I would buy a OB in a second!

[Jeff Tidball]

For the love of all that is sweet and holy, yes, please!

I was thinking just such thoughts the other night, and am thrilled to see a whole thread of people who've already made the point.

Please, please, please.

[Pascal Harris]

I use Quicken because it came for free with my Mac. But it sucks so badly. It's U.S. only (Earth calling Intuit - there's a whole world out here. Parts of it quite wealthy. Other parts, not so much.) It's ugly. It's like the Windows of banking apps. The trouble is, I stick with it because I know it (and it was free). Lame excuse.

I would love a really decent banking app, with Quicken compatibility, the capability to import my data and just change the $ to £ without performing any currency conversion, and with the ability to connect to my online accounts (bank and stocks). Woot!

[sgiovannini]

Yes, I would love to see a properly-done Mac app that can compete with Quicken. iBank is close, but not there. I'm trying very hard to convert from Quicken to iBank, even paid for it, but I can't get there. After 15 years of using Quicken, my data must be imported accurately, completely and automatically (not happening).

But there are problems with developing a personal finance app:

- Figure that 90% of the Mac users who might buy a PF app are already using Quicken. Personal finance is a saturated market. People who want to track it on a computer are already doing so. New users will largely be first-time computer buyers or young adults.

- Since Quicken is so well established, a v1.0 app has to duplicate every significant piece of Quicken functionality or risk being labeled "promising" and not being purchased.

- That means online banking in v1.0, which is a huge undertaking not entirely under the control of the developer.

- Personal finance is all about the database. If any piece of the data is wrong or missing (or you suspect it might be), the software is worthless. Personally, I would never do it without a pro-level SQL engine. Developers have to focus on data first, interface second.

- It's nearly impossible to redefine how personal financial data is stored because any app that will survive must import Quicken data and therefore must copy Quicken's method of storing data. iBank has made a mistake here in implementing transfers in a different way. Nothing wrong with that, unless you want to import your Quicken data...

- It is very hard to leave a program you are so used to, even when you want to. I've used Excel for so many years I've found it nearly impossible to keep going in Numbers. I want the same menus, the same keyboard shortcuts...

- With all the development necessary for a 1.0, it will cost more than Quicken (which has volume and past development to build on, not to mention no support costs because Intuit just doesn't bother)... A LOT MORE.

There is a way to develop a new PF app for the Mac... focus on writing a 1.0 that is essentially a Quicken clone. Do what Quicken does with a different interface and better support (ANY support is better!). THAT will get the Quicken users. Innovations will come in later releases.

MS Word for Windows had compatibility modes for WordPerfect users, to get them to stick with MS Word even if they were used to WordPerfect. This might be necessary to get Quicken users past the evaluation period.

While I'd love to see Omni in this area, I can see why they're not there. iBank is making a gamble, and it's promising...

[chinarut]

hey - it's good to see this thread going - I was considering making the jump later this year after the Quickin 2008 rewrite announcement (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/18/intuit-to-rewrite-quicken-demos-turbotax-2008/) I read the other day.

I'm going to contribute to this thread from a different front - i am a MS Money user since the mid 90s who never found Quicken to stick in the past - even to this day, I have Parallels running just to use Money and would love to get rid of this dependency. (just like I have migrated to OmniFocus to get rid of my Outlook GTD Add-in dependency!)

I am not a diehard user of Quicken nor am I intimate with what is going to be released in the 2008 version.

I have a request that the "Lifetime Planner" and all the components it depends on (ie. Debt Planner) be part of OmniBank - it's a pretty sophisticated modeler that made me realize last week budgeting is the least of my concerns!

my 2 cents

[jim lee]

An idea for those of you with the highest level of frustration here. Its not all that tough, if you really know what you want, to "roll your own" application like this using Filemaker. Banking s-ware is basically just exercising data and pushing numbers here and there. Filemaker is great at doing stuff like this.

Might be worth a try? Maybe you could get it polished to a point where you could hand it off to the Omni group with "Here, this is what we want". They could rewrite in c++ and package it.

Or not..

-jim lee

[sgiovannini]

I've tried to "roll my own" although not in FileMaker, which I don't have. I'm a Windows developer, though I use Macs mostly. So I started one using MS SQL Server. There was a lot more work than I anticipated. I had to program transfers, splits, split transfers, scheduled transactions and forecasts. I never got as far as a GUI and I had no intention (nor the capability) of including online banking.

It's harder than you think!

[pjb]

I'm going to take back what I wrote earlier in this thread. I've been trying the latest iBank and an app that just did what that one claims to do would be a fine tool indeed. Isn't really just about a good interface to core data? Unfortunately, iBank is not reliable—there must be some bad code between the interface and the database, something Omni would never do. If a small shop can get that far in producing something so many are clamoring for then the Omni folks could keep a narrow focus on a self contained app but do it right. Automatic downloading from banks is not a requirement for me since half of my accounts have to be exported from their website's anyway. I would easily pay the price of an OmniFocus for this kind of app, even though the tool is actually much simpler.

[mhelke]

The lack of a reliable piece of personal finance software for the Mac represents a serious gap as well as a significant opportunity.

Those who never record a transaction in a foreign currency can possibly make do with Quicken, though the Mac version draws a lot of criticism. Others, for instance anyone who has used a credit card abroad, will not be served. This is even more true of anyone who uses multiple currencies on a regular basis, e.g. many business travelers, expatriates, person living and working close to the border with Canada and Mexico, many Brits, Swiss and other Europeans not in the Euro zone, etc.

The only existing package that comes close is Liquid Ledger www.liquidledger.com, a severely under-resourced product by an individual developer. This package has improved over time under the prodding of a number of dedicated users. Still, for now it only meets basic requirements. Besides, there are performance issues and the latest release is so full of bugs that most users seem to shun it. Alas, the developer now seems to have abandoned the product altogether. With the exception of four posts in October, he has not posted to the user forum since early June 2008, leaving many users in the lurch. In addition, several updates he announced are still pending.

As far as I know, Liquid Ledger is the only product with a data model that will support the functionalities required by anyone using multiple currencies. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only product on any platform to do so. In particular, the multi-platform Moneydance, its nearest rival, will not. Thus with good support Liquid Ledger has the potential for providing Mac users with a personal finance package that will satisfy even the needs of those with multi-currency requirements. At the same time, in view of the absence of any comparable product regardless of platform, it could provide a competitive advantage to the Mac.

There may be an opportunity to buy out the developer - rather than starting over again from scratch - given that he has apparently abandoned his product. In any case, there is an unsatisfied demand within the Mac community for a good personal finance package, in particular one capable of handling multiple currencies.

The Omni Group ought to consider the business case for addressing this need.

[gianpiero]

The lack of a reliable piece of personal finance software for the Mac represents a serious gap as well as a significant opportunity.

...

The only existing package that comes close is Liquid Ledger www.liquidledger.com, a severely under-resourced product by an individual developer. This package has improved over time under the prodding of a number of dedicated users. Still, for now it only meets basic requirements. ...

As far as I know, Liquid Ledger is the only product with a data model that will support the functionalities required by anyone using multiple currencies. ...

There may be an opportunity to buy out the developer - rather than starting over again from scratch - given that he has apparently abandoned his product. In any case, there is an unsatisfied demand within the Mac community for a good personal finance package, in particular one capable of handling multiple currencies.

The Omni Group ought to consider the business case for addressing this need.

I could not agree more!

I have been using Liquid Ledger for over 4 years now, and due its persistent lack of support have reluctantly decided to move on to another Personal Finance software. In the past 7 months I have checked out, tried out almost every PF software I could find on the Net, except Quicken of course, which I won't even consider, for its lack of multi-currency support. Unfortunately, I could not find a piece of software, which could meet the features Liquid Ledger has; with all its flaws it remains the best piece of PF software in the market.

Recently I have purchased OmniFocus and I have become an absolute fan of it! It is now one of my "always on" applications together with iCal and Mail, when I'm working on my Mac. If Omni Group should develop and put out a PF software with similar features as Liquid Ledger (double entry, multiple currencies, import and report capabilities), I would certainly not think twice in buying it. As a matter of fact, as mhelke suggested, buying out Liquid Ledger could be an extraordinary opportunity to enter this market, at maybe a lower investment rate than developing a software from scratch.

So, give it a thought, will you?

[Brian]

Just jumping in to say that we're not turning a deaf ear to requests for new products, but our development team is more than 100% busy working on our existing projects.

In other words, if folks know of talented cocoa developers, please send them a link to our "Jobs" page. :-)

[Andrew N]

While I am sure if Omni did ever decide to take on this challenge they would do a good job, let's look further afield.

What is the future of personal finance management? Is it really a piece of local software? Financial data aggregation can be done so much more efficiently as a web app. Take a look at mint.com Not ideal for me (is US only right now, is not really a double entry system, can't handle liabilities etc.) BUT does produce an extremely useful and accurate picture of 'How am I doing today'. It has an iPhone app too, and gives a much more accurate picture than manually adding and categorizing transactions. It is always up to date. That is the future.

Personally I use a combination of MoneyDance (much better than Liquid Ledger almost everywhere) and Mint.com for my finances. MoneyDance handles my overall financial picture and records, and mint.com is great for day to day budgeting.

Cheers, Andrew

[Andrew N]

Oh and for what it's worth Moneydance DOES do multiple currencies. It just doesn't handle realized gains and losses from currency transfers like LL did.

[oldblueday]

I had used LiquidLedger since 2002, when v2.0 was just around the corner and was guaranteed a free upgrade. Years, no free upgrade and a buggy, less-useful product later, I looked around for an alternative. I checked out (and unfortunately bought) many products. The best out there is MoneyWell by www.nothirst.com.

It uses the envelope method of budgeting, which took some getting used to. However, the developer (Kevin) is very responsive (he's incorporated some of my suggestions) yet true to his vision of his product (he's not incorporated most of my suggestions).

All in all a very good product and experience. I believe there's a free trial and a bunch of tutorial videos on his site. Check it out.

[mhelke]

Oh and for what it's worth Moneydance DOES do multiple currencies. It just doesn't handle realized gains and losses from currency transfers like LL did.
Beyond the shortcomings mentioned by Andrew N, Moneydance doesn't even handle such basics as transactions in a currency different from that of the account, at least not adequately. Say, you use a USD credit card for a purchase denominated in JPY. When you record this transaction, Moneydance converts it to USD and discards the JPY amount. So, when it comes to reconciliation, the JPY amount is not available to identify the transaction. And, what with foreign transaction fees and the like, the USD value on the account statement will will rarely if ever match the USD value recorded. In Liquid Ledger, on the other hand, this issue simply doesn't arise; both the JPY and USD value of the transaction are available.

[robbo42]

Come on, Brian! I bet your code cutters get at least Thanks Giving as a holiday. Cancel all leave as of now. We, your dedicated OmniUsers NEED the Omni financial product. When do we need it? Now!

[Jay6821]

As a fan of Omni products I would love to see what you could do with "OmniFinance". I've used Quicken for years, first on a PC and then Quicken 2005 with a Mac. I recently switched to iBank. Quicken for Mac is horrible so in many ways this is better, but it is far from perfect. If you could develop a financial program, with the functionality and ease of use of OmniFocus, you would have a great product.

[Splinky]

I would pay right now for even the promise of an OmniBank application.

I've been using Quicken for Windows for over 10 years, but I hate it. What's worse, being in Australia, there is no Quicken version for Mac at all. Thus I'm resigned to having to load Parallels just to do my finances. Blech. Reckon, the company which owns the license for Quicken in Australia, doesn't believe there is enough market demand for an Australian version of Quicken for Mac.

I've tried all the other Mac finance apps, but they just don't seem robust enough for me to trust them.

An Omni product, however, I would trust with my financial life.

[pjb]

A few more apps have crossed my radar. Mini$, iFinance, iCash (looks a lot like gnucash), and iCompta. Version 4 of iCompta will have sub-categories and linked transfers (for proper double booking for those who need that). My new Omni fantasy: Omni hires Mr. Anger, robusts up the code with their frameworks, fine tunes the interface with all they've learned from OF, and releases OmniBank 1.0 for the world.

[pheller]

I prefer "OmniFinance", but no matter what it might be named, I would say this is a product that would suit the Omni portfolio well. An excellent companion to the "individual" purpose also filled by OmniFocus.

I would actually pre-pay for this application with nothing more than a commitment and perhaps a few screenshots of an early alpha -- to show that development is occurring.

Come on Omni! :-)

P.S., there would obviously have to be an OmniFinance for iPhone too!

[JonoWW]

OK, so I'm fairly new to the OmniFocus group, having recently purchased a mac license and iphone app. I'm now looking at OmniPlan for my 'at work' organization of projects.

Well, thinking about it, I began to wish that Quicken had some of the capabilities that OmniFocus has.

I went as far as to draft a 'suggestion' letter to Intuit/Quicken and ask that they 'co-op' with the OmniGroup to develop something that would work (i.e. on the desktop and sync'd to the iphone).

Well, I guess, by the looks of this thread, that something like this HAS been on the table for quite a few years.

So, here's my vote for a finance app!

Would be nice to hear from a developer to see if this has had any progress or plan :)

Edit (3/26/10): Since posting this I've obtained a copy of iBank for both iPhone and Mac. I must say that I'm surprised a the usage and the ability to sync data 'in the field' on your iPhone to your database that can be accessed through your mac. This is a HUGE problem for Quicken folks (along with the terrible mac support in general); not being able to access their data on a portable device. The customer support seems pretty top notch too... actually... they really remind me of you all at OMNI... hmmm... answer the nagging requests for an OmniBank app through collaboration with iBank... hmmm two mac companies collide and amazing things happen.... hmmmmmmmmmm

[twobarb]

It's funny that I stumbled upon this thread. I downloaded iBank a few days ago and after looking at it some I told my wife "If OMNI made a finance program I would buy without even trying it out first."

[pheller]

I'm sure the Omni folks could do a much better job, but then the company would have to increase in size by a factor of a hundred just for support staff, then they'd hire more lawyers, then they'd change their license, and raise their prices, maybe go public, and generally stop being the creative software house we know and love.

Why do you think Omni would have to significantly increase in size to support a personal financial app? iBank's maker has another major product, and they consist of about 6 people total.

I think Omni could handle this task with 1 additional developer and 1 additional support resource.

edit: I just realized that I responded to a much older message. Still an appropriate contribution, I think.

[equity space]

What's the best or who has the best solution to this?

[voxmia]

I'm a huge fan of your applications, and own most of your desktop apps. Looks like you're focused on mobile at the moment; however, like many in the forum, I would jump at the chance to buy an Omnigroup personal finance app.

Sadly, the available personal finance software for Macs lack the polish and functionality that user of banking software expect, and which I am confident the Omnigroup dev team could deliver on.

Here's another vote for personal finance app!

[josephho]

All in all a very good product and experience. I believe there's a free trial and a bunch of tutorial videos on his site.