Liquid Ledger Personal Finance for Mac

User Reviews

• Seems promising, but currently unpolished and...

  Rinzwind42July 29, 2007

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  ...expensive<br />This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br /><p>Liquid Ledger doesn't have many features, but it does what I need it to do: import my bank statements and let me tag them with income/expense accounts, so I know where my money goes. I've been using the trial for a few days now, my review: <p>Pros: <ul> <li>Easy to use interface for importing CSV files, much nicer than what I've found in iBank version 2.3.1</li> <li>Defines several fields for keeping information about each transaction (name, memo, explanation, ...) that I've found helpful. I'm only missing a "personal notes" field (all the other fields I import from my bank statements, and prefer not to change)</li> <li>Double accounting model is very flexible</li> </ul> <p>Cons: <ul> <li>Gives some odd internal error when I try to import OFX files from my bank</li> <li>Looks&feels very unpolished, just some problems I've already encountered in a few days of use: <ul> <li>There are four types of accounts (assets, liabilities, income and expense accounts) and the accounts list has four categories for these. You can actually delete these categories, but then they are lost because you cannot create your own categories, nor does creating say a new "liabilities" account re-create the liabilities category if you deleted it.</li> <li>In the accounts list you have to click the "balance" field to open the transactions list for that account, accidentally clicking the "currency" or "name" field allows you to change those fields. Now how many times do you want to do the latter? It would be better if clicking any part of an account would open the transactions list, and editing name and currency is done through an inspector.</li> <li>I've had a few occassions where I had the transaction list for an account open, and in the mean time created some more accounts, where the autocomplete would then not allow me to type the name of an account to transfer to (for example, I had an expense account "Books" and one "Bank Charges", trying to type "Bank Charges" always came out as "Books"!!).</li> <li>In the transaction list window, one can open an account drawer to quickly switch to the transaction list of another account. In the list, when an expense account is selected, there are columns "Deposit" and "Withdraw" which change to "Expense" and "Income" when an expense account is selected. Switching back to the asset account does not always change back the names of these columns, which means "deposits" suddenly look like "expenses"!</li> <li>Exporting the transactions of one account to CSV does not export the "transfer track" field if a transaction has been tracked to multiple accounts.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Considering how much it does and how well it is designed, it is ridiculously expensive</li> </ul> <p>All in all, this application shows promise, but I'd rather wait for the next major version release or a serious lowering in price before purchasing it.

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• Bought then Abandoned

  vottamusicFebruary 9, 2007

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I purchased a license for this product for roughly $67. I had tried the demo, and thought it worked ok. I was especially sold by the interface. But, after paying for it and really trying it out, I discovered that nothing was simple or straitforward, and as far as I can tell it actually doesn't produce correct (or at least understandable) results. The manual is a joke, merely a series of extremely simplistic examples that teach no theory of how the program works, or how it will behave in more complicated situations. To help prove that I am an actual customer, my initials are DR and my registration number for LL begins with "G0" and ends with "Q5". The Liquid Ledger people can figure out who I am, which will hopefully prevent them from posting a message saying I'm not an actual customer. I did not even bother attempting to request a refund, because I would have become even more angry if they said 'sorry, no refund'. What a waste of time and money. I can't believe Apple actually sells this program in their stores.

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• Limit Functionality and Expensive

  tahoerobJanuary 9, 2007

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Like many, I've been searching for a better Quicken. After evaluating several applications - MoneyDance, Jumsoft's Money, and LiquidLedger - I bought Quicken 2007. None of these programs come close to matching Quicken in terms of features and stability. Yes, Quicken has its problems, but the alternatives are far worse (and more expensive). LiquidLedger's interface is decent, but doesn't really offer much over Quicken. I like the fact that splits are shown at the bottom of the window, in their own dedicated area, versus Quicken's inline splits. I've always hated the way Quicken makes the user open and close splits in the register. LiquidLedger also seems to have pretty decent support for multiples currencies, although I never really tested this feature. If all you want out of an accounting package is a ledger/register, this will do, but why not just buy Quicken? LiquidLedger is so feature poor in all other areas, from investing to reporting to online banking, that I can't see any advantage to using this program - especially since it costs *more* than Quicken. Furthermore, if you need to export QIF files, LiquidLedger's QIFs are problematic. I was unable to import them into Quicken, so I've had to manually re-enter all of my data. As much as many of us are hoping for a "Quicken Killer" to emerge, there's nothing close out there now. I'm most optimistic about a new little app called Cha-Ching. The interface is a knock-out; simply gorgeous. If they manage to deliver a solid feature-set, stability, and good interoperability, they'll get my vote. But, for now, I'm sticking with Quicken.

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• Not impressed.

  iGregDecember 20, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I strongly dislike Quicken, but do not see Liquid Ledger as much of an improvement (if any improvement) over Quicken. I do not find anything more user-friendly than Quickenin LL. All I see is that it has less features than Quicken. So LL is essentially Quicken Lite. Not worth more than $30. The $80 retail price is absurd. So I continue my search for a user friendly replacement for Quicken.

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• A Joke

  VersionTrackerUserOpinionFebruary 8, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I was sucked in by this companies marketing scheme of a 2.0 update that was supposed to offer great features.....never delivered for years now.....what a joke. It is about time that I get more serious with letting others know the scam that this companies claims!

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• not quite vaporware but...

  payshunzJanuary 18, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I bought this program back in 2004. Though I saw promise, there were some things Quicken would do back then that Liquid Ledger wouldn't (yet). That was somewhere around version 1.3. There was a mention of an big update to version 2.0. Months went by, no 'big' update, simply smaller bug-fixes, till I decided by October 2004 that version 2.0 was nothing more than vaporware. Surprised I was to see the notification of an update to Liquid Ledger, over a year later....up to version 1.5. Still working on that 'big' upgrade to 2.0, I see. Wake me when 2.0 is out. Perhaps then I'll give it another look.

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• Tops Quicken by far

  xcellJanuary 8, 2005

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I am using LL (1.3.2.) now for nearly 1 year and can strongly recommend it. LL made my accounting "enjoyable". Especially the multi currencies feature is a bonus.

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• Good Product with Great Potential

  tombodgerOctober 9, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Overall I'd recommend Liquid Ledger. I used to use MS Money running on Virtual PC which was slow and it always seemed ridiculous that there wasn't a decent personal finance application for the mac that handles multiple currencies. The Liquid Ledger team have excellent customer service - I had some questions about handling multiple currencies and they offered to let me download version 1.3.2 which fixed some of the issues I had. There are one or two minor annoyances with the interface and whilst it initially seems pretty basic the double entry accounting system it uses actually makes it a really powerful tool. They seem responsive to their users and I'm sure this product wil continue to grow and improve.

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• Good program, terrific support... watch that space...

  gryphonentMarch 5, 2004

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  ...Quicken!!<br />This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I purchased Liquid Ledger after upgrading to Panther and OS X. All my accounting needs were previously covered by a littler program called "Profit 97," which was an easy to use yet flexible program for OS 9. Liquid Ledger is the best solution out there at the moment for OS X, and I found the customer support to be truly terrific, responding fast to bugs, problems, and general feedback. Personally I can't wait to get my hands on version 2.

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• Not worth the price

  Top50ReviewerSeptember 10, 2003

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />For $45 I can get the new upgrade to Quicken 2004 with hundreds of more features and still get $10 change! What a rip off....no online banking, no quotes for portfolios, no banking email, etc....pales in comparison to Quicken.

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