Is Apple’s Numbers a safe app to use for financial spreadsheets?

ShinyStarlight1

Would you use Apple’s Numbers app to store your financial information on? If not, why not and what do you prefer to use for such things?

WillPS

It's a spreadsheet application. It does essentially the same thing as Excel, LibreOffice Calc or literally any other spreadsheet programme, albeit dressed up in a way you may or may not find helpful.

I personally don't like it as much as Excel or LibreOffice Calc but if it's the only spreadsheet app installed it does the trick for me in a pinch.

sk2402005

Depends on what data you are putting on the spreadsheet.

If just maybe account name, interest rate and value fine, if storing account numbers sort codes etc then no its not secure.

I track values within a spreadsheet, but actual account datails are only available from the banking apps, any other things like logins or passwords use a password manager (lastpass, keypass etc)

masonic

It's what you do with the file(s) that matters. I would store in an encrypted file container and refrain from having an unencrypted copy in cloud storage. But as above, it also depends on how sensitive the information you are storing is.

TadleyBaggie

I do exactly this with account information. I created an encrypted disk image, mount it as a drive and store the account info spreadsheet within the drive. I also keep my main current account statements on the same drive.

ForumUser7

ShinyStarlight1 said:

Would you use Apple’s Numbers app to store your financial information on? If not, why not and what do you prefer to use for such things?

I used Apple Numbers until I recently found it didn't contain certain functionality I needed for various automations and formatting. I spent day having to recreate it in Excel, with all the requisite functionality, and testing it, then another day adding in the further functionality it was lacking in numbers. Using Excel has made my financial management a lot easier, and personally I would recommend you just use this from the start.

UKX69

ShinyStarlight1 said:

Would you use Apple’s Numbers app to store your financial information on? If not, why not and what do you prefer to use for such things?

I’ve been using Numbers for financial spreadsheets since 2014 when I switched from PC to Apple. Not had any problems at all, but as some posters have said, I wouldn’t store them in the cloud. I keep mine on an encrypted drive.

AndyTh_2

I was disappointed with Apple Number's maths in the past (I think it was floating point), so part of the reason I switched to Excel. Excel maths isn't perfect though either mind you, e.g. with SUMIF

ShinyStarlight1

Thank you everyone for your responses.

May I ask - is it easy to create encrypted file? 

PloughmansLunch

ShinyStarlight1 said:

Thank you everyone for your responses.

May I ask - is it easy to create encrypted file? 

I just use File>Set Password. Once set up it can also be allowed to open with Touch ID on my laptop, or Face ID on my phone.