Intuit on Friday announced a handful of significant new features coming to Quicken Essentials, its Mac-native financial software that replaced Quicken 2007 for Mac. To demonstrate its commitment to the Mac platform and listening to customer feedback, Intuit also announced a new, lower price for Quicken Essentials—and a refund for everyone who purchased at the previous price.
By the end of April, Quicken Essentials for Mac will gain the option to protect imported files with a password and the ability to export transaction data to spreadsheets for number crunching in other applications.
Throughout the rest of 2010, Intuit also detailed other new features on their way, such as the ability to: accept investment holdings data from brokerages that do not provide downloadable data for Quicken, compare spending between different time periods, export tax-deductible expenses to tax filing applications like TurboTax, and track budgets across several months. These updates, and others still under wraps, will all be provided free to Quicken Essentials for Mac owners.
To wrap up Friday’s announcement with a smile, Intuit says it listened to customer feedback and dropped the price on Quicken Essentials for Mac from $70 to $50. The new price is already live on the company’s Web site, and all customers who purchased a copy at the higher price before April 19 (the day the price actually dropped) are entitled to a refund for the difference. Just visit this Intuit support document for details on how to get the refund.