What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.7.4

Bug Fixes

• Now launching in 32-bit mode on Mac OS X 10.6 to prevent a crash when the latest HP printer drivers are installed.
• Removed “2010” from the names of 2 predefined tags.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when opening a document.
• Fixed an issue where the Save button was sometimes incorrectly disabled when editing a category or tag.
• Fixed an issue where searching for mixed alphanumeric strings would incorrectly match transaction amounts.

If you’re using Quicken Essentials 1.7.1 or earlier, please see below for additional changes included in this release.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.7.3 (Mac App Store only)

Bug Fixes

• Added support for Quicken for Mac data file conversion in the Mac App Store version of Quicken Essentials. (Mac App Store only)
• Fixed an issue where searching for mixed alphanumeric strings would incorrectly match transaction amounts. (Mac App Store only)

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.7.2

Bug Fixes

• Removed support for MobileMe backup because the MobileMe service has been discontinued by Apple.
• Removed support for Quicken for Mac data file conversion in the Mac App Store version of Quicken Essentials.
• Added support for OS X App Sandbox.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when selecting the Login to Quicken Connect option.
• Fixed an issue where the written amount on a check did not match the numerical amount.
• Fixed an issue where categories with sub-categories were being duplicated during QXF import.
• Fixed an issue with QMTF export that associated memos with the wrong split item.
• Corrected the Market Value calculation for bonds.
• Fixed an issue where some Web Connect QFX files failed to import.
• Non-chronological dates can no longer be entered in the QMTF export dialog.
• Scheduled Transactions now display the scheduling calendar in the check display.
• Fixed an issue where a backup could not be restored without a document open.
• Corrected the date and timezone printed on CSV reports.
• Fixed an issue where undoing the deletion of a Quicken Connect account, then trying to update would result in a 2001 error.
• Fixed an issue where deleting a very large number of transactions would log a user out.
• Mountain Lion: Fixed an issue where Show Memo checkbox could not be unchecked in Category Summary and Tax Schedule Reports.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.7.1

Bug Fixes

• The Quicken End User Software License agreement has been updated for 2012. Choose Help > License Agreement to see the updated agreement.
• We resolved an issue where a newly created data file would not replace an existing data file that shared the same name within the same folder.
• Disable purchase of Quicken Essentials from the Mac App Store when version 1.7.1 is already installed on your Mac.
• We resolved an issue where the “Today” line in the Overview report indicated the previous day when viewed shortly after midnight.
• Stock prices are now successfully downloaded even if some of the price data is missing.
• We fixed a Lion compatibility issue with the Quicken File Exchange Utility tool used to import Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007 data files.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.6.1

Bug Fixes

• Double-clicking an account in the Account Status window will open the register for that account.
• Files that have the HFS “busy” flag turned on will no longer cause a “File is busy” alert on Lion.
• Register searches using date ranges will now work properly in all time zones.
• Register searches will now find values in the Check # column.
• Direct Connect downloads that have unexpected Bond or Option data will no longer affect the market value calculation.
• Direct Connect servers that generate invalid OFX DTEND values will no longer prevent future downloads.
• Direct Connect servers that generate invalid OFX with un-escaped ampersands will no longer prevent downloads.
• Direct Connect connections now time out after 3 minutes instead of 30 seconds.
• Transactions that contain illegal characters (like tab, new line, and return) are no longer skipped when importing a Quicken 2007 file.
• Accounts that have a Last Check Number of 0 are no longer skipped when importing a Quicken 2007 file.
• Importing a Quicken 2007 file containing multiple accounts that have the same online banking settings will no longer cause some accounts to be skipped.
• Transactions that have split lines which do not add up to equal the transaction amount will no longer be skipped when importing a Quicken 2007 file.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.6

Lion Compatibility

• Quicken Essentials is now compatible with Lion (Mac OS X 10.7).

Known Lion issues:

• Backup/Restore with MobileMe will no longer work after activating iCloud.
• Horizontal scrollbar in Spending Over Time report will not display when using a touchpad.

Bug Fixes

• Changes to improve stability and the user experience when running Lion (Mac OS X 10.7).
• The end date or number of occurrences of a scheduled transaction is no longer ignored when exporting a QXF file.
• Creating or editing a scheduled transaction now displays a message if the next scheduled occurrence falls outside of the viewable date range.
• Clarified the options for showing/hiding scheduled transactions in the account Settings sheet.
• Deleting an unused category now displays a warning if any of its sub-categories are assigned to transactions.
• Bond holdings no longer show the coupon date as the maturity date.
• CMD+D now correctly duplicates register transactions.
• You can now import non-ASCII OFX files.
• Fixed a crash when running reports with a “@” character in the name of a category, tag, payee, or account.
• Improved ability to “Merge Selected Payees...” with an item in the Edit Payees list gear pop-up menu to help consolidate multiple payees into one.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.5.4

Bug Fixes

• Search/Find now finds dollar amounts that contain more than three digits.
• The roll-up of categories/sub-categories in budget settings no longer impacts income budget calculations.
• Budgets created in earlier 1.5 releases of Quicken Essentials now migrate properly.
• The large amount of trailing white space that was displayed at the end of budget reports no longer appears.
• Memo/Notes in split transactions now display properly in the Category Summary and Tax Schedule reports.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.5.3

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a problem that could cause the application to crash when performing an Online Banking update from the Account Status window.

What’s new in Quicken Essentials 1.5.2

Budget Enhancements

• You can now enter both income and spending goals when setting up a budget.
• We have improved the budget over/under rounding calculations and color transitions.

Investments Enhancement

• You can now use same ticker symbol in multiple investment holdings.

Reports Enhancements

• You can now include memos and notes in the Category Summary and Tax Schedule reports.
• Uncategorized items in Category Summary Report are now sorted alphabetically with the rest of the category items.
• We improved application performance when printing the Spending Over Time report in a large data file.

Register Enhancements

• You can now use the +/- keys to increment the check number in registers and the Write Checks window.
• Transaction registers now have a built-in paper-tape calculator in the amount fields – just enter an arithmetic operator such as + - * or / to use it.

File Operations Enhancements

• We improved the handling of situations where the volume on which the Quicken data file is located becomes unavailable.
• You can now export Quicken Essentials for Mac data using the .QXF file transfer format.

Bug Fixes

• We improved the help content for Reconciling accounts.
• The label under the Budget bar has been changed from "13 months" to "History".
• Search now finds amounts in split detail lines and negative amounts.
• On Mac OS 10.5, changes to the date range were not reflected in the Tax Schedule report. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Changing a transaction's category was not updating the budget in the Overview. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• When creating a new budget, the opening sheet no longer scrolls horizontally.
• Pickers can be resized after they are torn off.
• The "Please Wait" window is now dismissed when an online update is complete.
• Empty budget bars no longer appear shorter than bars that have non-zero positive amounts.
• Under certain circumstances, the bars in the budget graph had different lengths within the same chart and the lengths appeared to change depending on the number of items in the budget. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Undoing a deleted budget caused the application to crash. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• When importing a QXF file with downloaded transactions into an existing data file with downloaded AND manually entered transactions, the “merge” resulted in duplicate transactions. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• We corrected color/placement issues in the Budget Summary over/under values.
• The text indicator in the budget graph bar for negative spending/income now displays correctly.
• QXF import failed to import category tax schedule attributes. This has been fixed and these attributes are now correctly imported.
• If the Overview budget was set to the current month, clicking the budget took you to the main budget window, but the window displayed whatever month it was displaying previously -- not the month that was displayed in the Overview. In addition, the Next Month and Current Month buttons did not work. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Adding tags to a budget followed by Undo and then Redo caused the settings sheet to crash. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Fixed a crash during Online Banking enablement and download.
• In the Spending Over Time report, no bar was displayed when the total for the month was significantly less than other months. The graph now displays the shortest possible bar.
• When enabling an account for online banking, the Add Account dialog now has the manual "skip" option selected by default.
• You are now able to undo a category deletion from the Budget Settings/Manage Categories window without corrupting the budget.
• When enabling a SARSEP investment account type for download (Vanguard), the Account Found window was blank. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• The application can now detect potential data file corruption issues as they occur and will display the error message "Quicken has detected a fatal error and must quit. Please contact Intuit.” Upon subsequent launch of the application, the application will attempt to repair the damaged records.
• Selecting “Last Download" from the source list only displayed the content from previous selections in the source list. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• When an investment account was deactivated for online download and then reactivated with the same financial institution using the “Assist Me” button, an error message displayed saying “You have no more accounts to activate”. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Fixed Error 12253 when performing an online investment download – we were incorrectly supporting open order investment download.
• You can now enter multi-line text in register "QuickFill" fields.
• If you created a new transfer transaction and then switched to the destination of the transfer, the originating account was not listed in the Transfer field - the field was blank. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Budget settings calculations no longer include transfer transactions in order to be consistent with budget report.
• The Investment parent section of the Account Summary report did not show a subtotal, and looked like a calculation error when the section was expanded. It now has a subtotal when more than one account exists in a subsection.
• The application became unresponsive if you hid the application after re-activating an account. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Clicking OK in budget settings while the progress bar was active removed all budget categories. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Budgets were updated and refreshed at unexpected times, when nothing affecting the data in the budget graph had changed. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Corrected the Available Cash Balance for online Merrill Lynch investment accounts – the money market holdings value (for ticker symbols CMAST, CMAT, IIAXX, MLEXX, MLIXX) was incorrectly being used as the Available Cash amount.
• If an online account was created without saving the Intuit ID Manager password on the Keychain, you were asked to login when attempting to update or delete the account. If you decided not to continue and closed the ID Manager login window, the application would freeze. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Under specific circumstances, clicking on Overview and Update All caused the application to crash. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Under specific circumstances, after adding new categories to a budget and then undoing the addition of these categories caused the addition of more categories to the budget to fail. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• If a number was entered in the transfer field of a transaction, and the number was not the name of an account, a "same account transfer" was created. We no longer allow the entry of a number for a transfer unless that number is also the name of an account.
• Renaming a subcategory to an existing subcategory name, and then accepting the merge and then undoing the merge deleted the existing subcategory from the Category list. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• If a manually entered Split transaction with transfers was not automatically matched to a downloaded transaction, and you manually matched it to a downloaded transaction, and then marked the transaction as reviewed, the transfer amount in the *original* split transaction was updated to a negative amount causing the split to be out of balance with the transaction total. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• Printing a budget at the beginning of the month caused the Today indicator line to print to the left of the actual budget chart. This has been fixed and no longer occurs.
• We no longer permit MobileMe Restore to overwrite an open Quicken data file

If you’re new to Quicken Essentials…

Like previous versions of Quicken for Mac, Quicken Essentials lets you view all your accounts in one place and helps you see where your money is going. Many of the basics are the same as in previous versions: You create separate accounts for things like your checking accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts, and loans. You’ll enter transactions and run reports. But in many ways, Quicken Essentials is an improvement.

New look

You’ll immediately notice that Quicken Essentials has a completely new look, modeled on many of the Mac-based software programs you already enjoy and use. We think that all users will have an easy time learning how to use the new Quicken, but if you already use programs like iTunes or iPhoto, it’ll be a snap.

New, improved registers

You’ll discover that the new registers are much more flexible and easy to use.

• Unlike previous versions of Quicken, each transaction appears on a single line—rather than on two lines—making it easier to skim through your registers and find what you need.
• As with other applications for the Mac, like iTunes, you can drag columns left and right and position them where they work best for you. You can also add and remove columns so you see only the information you want.
• Instead of having to change transactions one-by-one, you can now apply changes—like marking a transaction as reviewed or assigning a category—to several transactions at once.
• Matching transactions you entered manually with ones you downloaded from your bank or credit card is easy: Just drag and drop one over the other. Quicken Essentials bundles them together.
• Quicken Essentials now has extensive undo capabilities so you can easily correct mistakes.

Global registers

Three new global registers let you review and work with transactions across all your accounts at once. The Transactions register lists transactions from all your accounts. Scheduled Transactions lists all scheduled transactions. And Last Download shows you all the data that was downloaded into Quicken Essentials the last time you did an update.

Downloading transactions

If you’ve used previous versions of Quicken, you are used to using a two-step process for downloading your transactions into Quicken: first you download them, then you “accept” them into the register. This new version of Quicken streamlines that process and skips the second step altogether. Instead, all downloaded transactions go straight into the appropriate register.

More financial institutions

Using new technology, Quicken Essentials lets you download transactions from over 13,000 different financial institutions, up from about 4,000 in previous versions of Quicken.