Banktivity Review (Formerly iBank 5)

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Last Updated on: 24th March 2023, 11:43 pm

Banktivity (formerly iBank)
Banktivity (formerly iBank) - byDavid Crowder, April 1, 2011
3.5/ 5stars
on
Banktivity (formerly iBank)
Review Summary :

Banktivity is the first serious challenger that we have seen to Quicken for Mac and iOS devices. It has evolved into a close rival with this fifth iteration of the iBank personal financial management program, but it still lacks some useful functionality in the investment side of the platform.

Pros:

  • The duplication elimination process from bank downloads is efficient and evolved.
  • One of the few personal financial management programs that includes currency conversion and international bank support.
  • Delivers world-class customer service, but only through live chat and website.
  • A near-complete program for personal financial management.
  • Fantastic reporting and budgeting tools.

Cons:

  • Occasionally has issues with split transactions and reconciliation.
  • Lacks a central investment management section of the platform. Investments may only be examined under the reports section of Investments Summary and Portfolio
  • While their reports do give you the ability to hone in on specific information in this edition, it still is not so powerful as arch-rival Quicken.
Quick Facts about Banktivity (formerly iBank)
Year Founded:2003
Company Headquarters:Ashland, OR
Reviewed By:David Crowder
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(Note: As of January 2016, the company formerly known as “iBank” has rebranded as “Banktivity”. Read more about their rebrand here.)

Mac and iOS users have been largely left out of the proliferation of good programs in the personal financial management space in the past.

The number of choices for them are few and far between. Besides the Mac/iOS version of Quicken, there is another program that competes for the needs of Apple's Macintosh and iPhone/iPad users. This is IGG Software's Banktivity.

The latest version of this product is a significant improvement over the previous version, which was referred to as “iBank 4” before the company's name change. With the arrival of Banktivity, we are pleased to see that you can effectively follow your finances and transactions as well as stock portfolios, and make budgets and create reports that all work together to assist you in efficiently analyzing and rating your own present day and future finances.

Banktivity Intro and Background

Intuit has dominated this niche of the personal financial management software for years, but this has changed thanks to the introduction of the much-improved Banktivity. We are sufficiently impressed by the Banktivity dashboard that displays a substantial amount of important financial metrics such as account and credit card balances, statement of net worth, deposits and bills that are coming, recent spending habit categories, budgeting information, rate of personal savings, and most importantly information about your investments.

We also like the all new account summary pages. These deliver single glance and fully customizable snapshots of your different individual accounts sorted according to the type of account they represent.

If that is still not enough to impress you, Banktivity makes available all of this data that you require in only a few clicks. This powerful, simple to use, and quick interface lets you develop instantaneous spreadsheets and reports. These reports update automatically and render in the easy to comprehend and to grasp forms of tables, bar graphs, and even pie charts.

Banktivity Supported Countries

Unlike its main rivals, Banktivity actually does support international banks, currencies, and accounts within its interface and program. It gives you the ability to work within any currency you want. You can set up accounts in any currency you like and then make conversions to whatever your home currency is when you need to. We were impressed with how Banktivity allow you to download current exchange rates with only a button's click from online.

The currency conversion function permits you to do transfers from an account in one currency to others in a differing currency. Banktivity will even calculate up your exchange rate automatically if you desire. Easiest still is the fact that your budgets and all reports will automatically be converted for you utilizing the present rates of exchange from Banktivity. This is pretty impressive functionality for the international and multi-national account holders.

New Improvements From iBank 4

iBank 4 was an alright personal financial management tool, but Banktivity is a significantly improved version mainly because of the new and improved features that come with it. These include:

  • Improved Tools for Investing – The old iBank 4 edition supported tracking of stocks, mutual funds, bonds, ETF's, money market funds, CDs, commodities, precious metals, and even stock options. The new version, Banktivity, impressed us with its improved support for options and bonds.
  • Improved Budgeting – In this better version you are able to monitor your savings and spending, oversee your day by day progress, review your goals compared to your results, integrate your regular bills and income, and even synchronize up your budgets from Banktivity to your iPad for on the go convenience.
  • Bill Pay – There are many bill pay programs out there today, but we like this one that not only allows you to program up, pre-schedule, and dispatch payments, but also to follow up on them and finally categorize these bill expenses.
  • Direct Access – Thanks to Yodlee being used for back-end interfacing now, you can currently connect to thousands of different domestic and international banks.
  • One Button Update – Now you are able to use a single mouse click to download any and every one of your financial transactions, as with rival Quicken.

Banktivity Tools and Features

Banktivity boasts some impressive features and tools, making it in our opinion about competitive with Quicken for Macintosh. Some of the most important ones are:

  • Setup Assistant – Helps with the once-arduous task of importing your various accounts.
  • Direct Access – We love this options service, available by subscription. It provides auto updates for your accounts from more than 10,000 banks and financial companies across the globe, then synchronizes all of this information on your iPad. It only costs 11 cents per day, too.
  • Better Categorization – Transactions with investments may now be categorized.
  • Investment Center –  Permits you to reconcile up your various accounts. The improved version is able to gather the most current stock quotes and then display them in Banktivity.
  • Improved Speed – Categorizing has been greatly sped up thanks to improved usage of import protocols.
  • Synchronizing Capabilities with iPhone and iPad – Thanks to the Banktivity mobile app, you are now easily able to synchronize with iPad or iPhone to have your financial data when on the go.

Banktivity Interface Screenshots

Banktivity Fees

Banktivity is not free. It is a program that you must purchase to obtain a direct access single use license for less than $5 USD per month. This is a one time fee to acquire the program. IGG Software does provide you with a risk-free 30 day trial period to give you peace of mind and help you to go for this service.

Banktivity Safety and Security

IGG Software works hard to make Banktivity safe and secure. They do not rent, sell, or trade any of your individual data or information for any reason. They utilize TLS encryption to secure your credit card data purchases and then delete your numbers afterward. Your passwords and IDs are both encrypted and then securely stored with the Mac OS Keychain.

The proprietary browser utilizes a Safari technology with 128 bit TLS encryption. They do not keep your browsing activity or information on file. TLS secured connections are similarly employed for all of the synchronizing processes. All of your stored data is encrypted before, during, and after transmission and storage on IGG's secure servers.

Direct Access optional service has its own phenomenal security protocols with which we are very impressed. All connection details with your bank accounts remain in world-class level security data centers. The security here is comprised of multi-factor authentication, central bastion hosts, redundant infrastructure, and SIEM Security Incident and Event Management that is centralized. This service is audited, goes through daily security sweeps from multiple agencies, and boasts a PCI Level 1 certification.

Final Words on Banktivity

We find that Banktivity ticks off all of the important boxes for cutting-edged personal finance management software. The good news is that this app is extremely easy to work with and to understand. Every newer version of Banktivity seems to make great strides towards overtaking its arch-rival Quicken for Macintosh. Quicken still bests Banktivity in the investment management section, but Banktivity is its equal in most every other respect. A serious investor will not be completely satisfied with the investment functionality in Banktivity, but major improvements have definitely been made.

Banktivity (formerly iBank)
Banktivity (formerly iBank) - byDavid Crowder, April 1, 2011
3.5/ 5stars
on
Banktivity (formerly iBank)
Review Summary :

Banktivity is the first serious challenger that we have seen to Quicken for Mac and iOS devices. It has evolved into a close rival with this fifth iteration of the iBank personal financial management program, but it still lacks some useful functionality in the investment side of the platform.

Have you purchased products from Banktivity (formerly iBank)? Leave a review!

Leave your rating

Field is Required

Field is Required

Field is Required

Field is Required

Leave a rating:

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David Crowder
David Crowder

W.D. Crowder is an American published author. His background and areas of expertise include history, economics, expatriate living, international relations, investments and personal finance. A widely read and top of his class graduate of Stetson University, he obtained his bachelor of arts degree in History with minors in Latin American Studies and International Relations and a special emphasis in Economics. He was President of his Phi Alpha Theta (National History Honors Fraternity) Stetson University chapter and a Phi Beta Kappa (National Honors Fraternity) member.

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