Very Good, but still a way to go

MoneyWiz 2 is very good.

I have used MoneWiz on and off for several years, starting with version 1.

I have also extensively used Quicken (2007, Essentials) and iBank. And I tried MoneyDance and MoneyWell. iBank is the best of all of those by far, but still seriously lacking. Below I will compare MW2 primarily to iBank. The others aren’t worth mentioning.

Pro’s of MW2:
Best synchronization between devices - by far. It is flawless! They appear to have developed MW2 for mac and iOS in parallel, and it shows in the sync process.
Best budgeting process of any system I have used, including Quicken, which had the best budgeting process in the past.
iBank is cumbersome and takes forever to set up. I don’t use it.
MW2 budgets have a truly simple interface on all the devices, including iPhone, which makes it very easy to instantly check where any given budget line from my phone.
Auto transaction Download is truly automated - no buttons to push, and after I make changes, categories, Refunds etc. It just resync’s itself.
Recognizing transfers is not flawless, but far better than iBank.
iBank sometimes creates transfers out of transactions in different accounts with the same $$ amount.
OFX import on iPad is amazing.
My local bank doesn’t support auto download. On my iPad, I can go to the bank site and export the history I want.
Then it asks what app I want to open it in. MW2 is one of the apps. It really is possible to do everything on an iPad. iBank doesn’t support that at all.
MW2 has frequent updates, and they aren’t just bug fixes. There is realy feature and funtionality improvement in each release.

Needs improvement:
No Investment Account support. This is a big one for anyone, who wants to manage invesment activity, or those who write checks out of their investment account.
MW has been committing this feature for years, starting in MW1.
I am still using iBank in parallel to keep track of my investment accounts. It also serves as a continuous comparison between the two systems.
Auto category recognition still needs work. It works most of the time, but sometimes when it doesn’t know what to do, MW2 “makes up” a category instead of leaving it blank
The Data entry window is cumbersome. Entering directly into the register would be faster and easier
The register has only one line. It is more difficult to see everything that with two lines per transaction.
Creating refunds out of deposits that are a return is cumbersome and time consuming. It would be far easier to just assign the deposit to the expense category.

Final analysis:
No Financial Management package is perfect. However, all things considered, MW is the best of all. The things in which MW2 excels (especially device syncing, budgeting and transaction download/import) far outweigh the things it doesn’t do well. The only thing standing in the way of a 5-star rating is the lack of investment account support. Hopefully they will soon have that, and I can use only MW2.

t0pgun about MoneyWiz 2 - Personal Finance