Frequently Asked Questions

Products

What is the difference between Macabacus subscription plans?

Compare the different subscription plans on our pricing page.

Do you build customized solutions?

No. We build customizable solutions designed to meet the needs of all finance professionals. However, if you have a suggestion for a new feature or how to improve an existing one, please let us know. If your suggestion makes sense for our entire user base, we will build it into the product. This way, you can reap the benefits of a customized solution without paying a premium for it.

Will Macabacus conflict with other add-ins I have installed?

Some Excel add-ins, such as Capital IQ, FactSet, and Bloomberg have shortcut keystrokes that may conflict with Macabacus shortcut keystrokes. However, you can easily deconflict shortcut keystrokes within Macabacus or the other add-in. There are no other known conflicts. In fact, most of our customers use Macabacus alongside Capital IQ, FactSet, and/or Bloomberg.

Trials

How do I begin a Macabacus trial?

Download the full version of Macabacus and install it. Enter your email address when prompted to initiate your trial. No credit card is required.

How long is the Macabacus trial period? Can I extend my trial?

Macabacus may be evaluated free of charge for 14 days. Trials may be extended for potential enterprise customers at Macabacus’ discretion. Contact us to request an extension.

How does the Macabacus trial version differ from the regular, licensed version?

There is no difference. The trial version is fully functional and offers all tools and features found in the Enterprise tier.

Am I eligible for a trial?

The spirit and intent of the free trial, as with any software trial, is to provide prospective customers an opportunity to evaluate Macabacus prior to making a purchase. Once your organization purchases Macabacus, no further evaluation is required, and your organization’s current, future, and temporary employees are no longer eligible for the free trial. Accordingly, employees whose employers already have a Macabacus account may be unable to initiate trials, and the software will require activation prior to use. Contact us to find out how to get onto your employers’ account.

Also, previously licensed Macabacus users not are eligible for trials.

Licensing

How does Macabacus licensing work?

Licensing is per user. See our documentation for more information.

Do you offer site licenses?

No, per the FAQ above. However, you can purchase as many licenses as your company requires in a single account.

Can I use Macabacus on a work and a home computer with a single license?

Yes. See our documentation for more information.

How do I manage user access to Macabacus?

Users can be provisioned via our easy-to-use Admin Console. See our documentation for more information.

Where is your EULA?

Our EULA can be found here.

Pricing

What does Macabacus cost?

Please see our pricing page.

May I have a quote?

Please generate a quote on our pricing page.

We do not provide prorated quotes for purchases in the middle of a billing cycle because the amount due is based on time remaining in your billing cycle at the time of purchase, which cannot be known in advance. However, you can estimate the amount due by multiplying the full-year price by the number of days remaining in your cycle at your expected date of purchase, and dividing by 365.

Renewal quotes are provided using current Macabacus pricing, only. If prices have changed but this change has not been applied to your existing subscription, the quoted amount may differ from the amount you are actually charged at renewal. If you require the quoted and invoiced amounts to be equal, your existing subscription must be updated to the current pricing.

Is pricing negotiable?

Unlike most B2B vendors, we do not set our prices arbitrarily high to negotiate them downward. We aim to deliver value to our customers, not extract value from them. Accordingly, the pricing transparently indicated on our website for our plans, is our "best" price. However, pricing of our Enterprise plans may be tailored to your specific needs, and we may match or outperform competitive bids at large licensing volumes.

Do you offer student discounts?

No—Macabacus is already accessibly priced for retail customers like students.

May I have a coupon code?

Sorry, coupon codes are not issued by request. Unless you received a coupon code directly from Macabacus, it is fake.

Why must I pay extra for peripheral services like training?

Macabacus’ customers include both enterprises and individual retail customers. Enterprise customers often require peripheral services (e.g., training) that retail customers do not. To keep Macabacus affordable for our retail customers, we offer these peripheral services at an additional charge, a la carte, rather than bundle them with much larger licensing fees you pay other vendors.

Purchasing

What payment methods are accepted?

You can pay immediately using major credit/debit cards, PayPal, or a checking/savings account (ACH debit) at our online checkout. Or, submit a purchase order and receive an invoice that you have 30 days to pay electronically ("manual invoicing").

  • Credit/debit cards (MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover) and PayPal may be used for any purchase.
  • ACH debit is available only to U.S. customers for annual plans, and requires a minimum purchase of 2 seats (licenses).
  • Manual invoicing is available only for initial and renewal purchases of $500 or more. See below for more information.

How do I submit a purchase order?

For initial purchases using manual invoicing, use our online checkout to submit a purchase order ("PO") by selecting the "Invoice" payment option. You can optionally enter a PO number here that will appear on your invoice. For renewals, see this topic.

We do not accept POs via email or vendor management systems like Ariba, Coupa, etc. because you must create an account when placing your order. This requires you to select a password that can be used to access and manage your account via the Admin Console, and passwords cannot be securely specified in a PO.

Manual invoicing terms

  • Minimum initial or renewal purchases of $500.
  • Monthly plans are not eligible for manual invoicing.
  • Payment must be made within 30 days by ACH credit or wire transfer (no exceptions); we do not accept checks.
  • A processing fee applies to purchases that we must process manually.
  • Your access to Macabacus software begins when we process your order, not when payment is received.
  • There is a $25 fee for late payments.
  • Direct sales, only; resellers should select another payment method.
  • Upon payment, email a remittance notice that includes your account code or invoice number so that we can mark your invoice paid. Otherwise, your payment may not be recorded and your service may be suddenly suspended.
  • Macabacus is a subscription that renews automatically until canceled. As such, you will receive an automatically generated invoice at renewal, whether or not we have received a renewal PO from you. If your last submitted PO contained a PO number, that PO number will appear on subsequent invoices unless you submit a renewal PO with a different number at least 48 hrs before the renewal invoice is sent.
  • Upcoming renewal notifications are emailed 30 days prior to renewal. If this allows you insufficient time to prepare a renewal PO, be sure to track your Macabacus renewal internally rather than rely on our email notification.
  • Although not required, your order should specify a group email address to which billing notifications will be sent, rather than the email address of a specific individual.
  • A subscription will be suspended automatically if any invoice related to that subscription is more than 10 days past due. Your billing contact(s) will receive three late payment notices prior to suspension. If your subscription is suspended, you can restore access for your users by (a) submitting payment electronically, or (b) emailing an automatically generated remittance notice. You can immediately restore access by paying your invoice with a credit card via your Admin Console.

Is there a minimum purchase requirement?

No, unless your organization participates in a live product demonstration, in which case the minimum purchase is 5 licenses.

At Macabacus’ accessible price point, we are unable to accommodate customer paperwork for purchases of fewer than 5 licenses. Paperwork includes, but is not limited to, completion of vendor onboarding forms, contract negotiation or modifications to our EULA, and agreement to customer codes of ethics. Macabacus is intended for teams of 5 or more users, and we sell Macabacus at lower licensing volumes as a courtesy. We expect customers to reciprocate by relaxing procurement protocols for small purchases.

Who pays wire transfer fees?

Any payment we receive must match the invoiced amount. Some banks (particularly in Europe) deduct their wire transfer fees from the invoiced amount, resulting in underpayment. If this happens, your invoice will be marked unpaid and your service may be suspended, or you may receive a separate invoice for the wire transfer fee. You must then wire the difference between the received and invoiced amounts, plus another wire transfer fee to your bank. Consequently, underpayment may cost you over 2x the amount of underpayment. Check with your bank before sending payment to understand how its wire transfer fee is paid, and gross up your payment as necessary to cover your bank’s fees.

Here is a simple example to help you understand why we do not pay your bank’s wire transfer fee. Suppose you add an additional seat to your subscription a few days before it renews and receive an invoice for $10. If you wire us $10, and your bank charges us a $20 wire transfer fee, how much do we receive for your purchase?

Why was my credit card declined?

Macabacus does not reject transactions—either your card’s issuer (bank) or our payment gateway (PayPal or Stripe) does. If your card’s issuer declined the transaction, you will have to contact it to learn why as we do not have that information. If our payment gateway rejected the transaction, it is often because the card has been linked to fraudulent activity. This occurs most frequently with transactions that originate in certain countries, but determining the exact reason for the decline requires additional information from our gateway, which can take several days to obtain and may ultimately be inconclusive.

So, the easiest solution is to try another credit card, or use another payment method described above. If alternative payment methods are not available to you, we may be able to try another payment gateway to see if it allows the transaction, or request that the gateway stop blocking the card (which can take several days).

Can I purchase Macabacus outright?

No, we only sell licenses to our software on a subscription basis. The benefits of the subscription model are lower up-front costs and perpetual access to the latest version of Macabacus for any version of Office, including new features and other improvements.

Do you offer refunds?

Credit card, PayPal, and ACH debit transactions will be refunded in the following
circumstances, subject to the limitations below:

  • Inadvertent or unauthorized purchases / renewals
  • Account consolidation

You have 30 days to evaluate whether Macabacus meets your needs prior to making
a purchase, so we do not provide refunds for reasons related to personal preference,
product satisfaction, etc.

We cannot provide refunds after 30 days under any circumstance, except to facilitate account consolidation in some cases.  Full refunds will be provided if requested within ten days of the transaction; otherwise, prorated refunds will be issued.  Prorated refunds are adjusted for the time remaining in your billing cycle at the moment the refund is initiated.

Refunds are not provided for inadvertent renewals of monthly subscriptions. 
Instead, simply cancel your monthly subscription so that it does not renew.

Wire transfer and ACH credit payments cannot be refunded, but in cases where such transactions would otherwise qualify for a refund, a credit will be applied to the account.

Subscriptions

How do I renew my subscription?

Subscriptions normally renew automatically until canceled, but please see this documentation for more information.

Can you process my renewal early?

No. However, you can cancel your current subscription and then purchase a new one. The value of any time remaining in your current billing cycle cannot be refunded and will be lost.

My subscription expired. Now what?

You will need to purchase a new subscription using these instructions.

My account is suspended due to a billing issue. Now what?

Accounts are suspended automatically once any invoice goes more than 10 days past due, resulting in temporary loss of access to Macabacus software for all users. Suspension occurs only after reasonable efforts to contact you have failed. These efforts include past due notices emailed to your billing contact(s) immediately when the invoice goes past due, and 4 and 7 days thereafter. These notices clearly warn that failure to remit payment promptly will result in suspension and loss of access.

To restore access, we must receive either (a) payment of the overdue amount via wire transfer or ACH credit, or (b) an automatically generated remittance notification showing that such payment is in progress. You can also restore access immediately by adding a credit card to your account and using it to pay your invoice via your Admin Console.

Suspension can be frustrating for customers, but please note that suspension occurs only after (a) payment is not received for 40 days, and (b) our repeated attempts to alert you to the overdue invoice and possible suspension are met with insufficient urgency or ignored altogether. To reduce the likelihood of suspension, you should:

  • Keep your billing email address(es) up-to-date in your Admin Console
  • Specify at least two billing email addresses for redundancy
  • Specify a group email address, rather than the email address of a specific individual
  • Target payment at least several days prior to the invoice’s due date

If you require assistance with a suspended account beyond the guidance provided here, your account will be assessed a late fee of $25 payable with the next naturally occurring invoice.

System Requirements

Will Macabacus run on my version of Office?

Macabacus works with full desktop installations of Microsoft 365, Office 2021, 2019, 2016, and 2013 (32-bit and 64-bit) in Windows 11, 10, and 8 (32-bit and 64-bit). Microsoft no longer supports Office 2010, Office 2007, and Windows 7 and, consequently, neither do we.

Windows Store "app" and browser-based editions of Microsoft 365 do not support sophisticated COM add-ins, which severely restricts their utility. Therefore, professional / enterprise users should always install the full desktop edition of Office. Microsoft 365 customers may need to use the Office offline installer to install Office 2019/2016.

Note that your PC may ship with the Windows Store edition of Office pre-installed. If so, you must remove this edition, then download the .msi-based edition from Microsoft and install it.

Does Macabacus work in Microsoft 365?

Yes. Microsoft 365 is a subscription plan for Office software, not the software itself. If you have Microsoft 365, then you should have the .msi-based edition of Office 2019/2016 installed locally. Refer to the FAQ above and see the Microsoft 365 FAQ for more information.

When will you support web-based and Windows Store "app" editions of Office?

While it is currently possible to develop what Microsoft confusingly refers to as "Office add-ins" for these Office editions, the development infrastructure provided by Microsoft to do this—an API—is woefully underdeveloped. At present, this incomplete API lacks tools that developers require to create Office add-ins comparable in any way to powerful COM add-ins. Until Microsoft focuses more effort on this API, anyone who requires the advanced Office functionality that only COM add-ins can deliver (which includes nearly all professional/enterprise users) will need to install the desktop version of Office locally.

Does Macabacus work on a Mac?

Yes, so long as you have the desktop version of Office for Windows installed. You can create a Windows virtual machine on your Mac using VMware Fusion or Parallels. Office for Mac does not support sophisticated COM add-ins like Macabacus, and Microsoft is not expected to change this.

Does Macabacus work with SharePoint?

Most Macabacus functionality will work in a SharePoint environment, but some will not. You should evaluate Macabacus in your SharePoint environment to ensure it meets your needs before purchasing. Periodic updates to Macabacus may improve SharePoint compatibility.

How do I download the software?

You can download Macabacus software with any modern browser. Some corporate environments may prevent downloading the installer (an .exe file). If you are unable to download the software, upgrade your browser, disable any browser plug-ins that may prevent download, enable Javascript, check your firewall settings, and/or contact your IT personnel for assistance.

Support

What is your customer support model?

Standard Support, included free with Professional plans, provides email support. We may prioritize email support inquiries based on the nature of your inquiry, so response times may vary with your inquiry’s assessed severity and the availability of a solution in our Help Center, which provides immediate answers to most questions. In addition, support agents may be available to chat on our website from 09:00 to 18:00 ET, Mon–Fri. Phone support / remote assistance may be offered after reasonable efforts by both parties to resolve issues over email or chat have been exhausted.

Enhanced Support, included with Enterprise plans, includes the same features as Standard Support, but additionally prioritizes email support inquiries over Standard Support email inquiries, and makes phone support / remote assistance available upon request within 24 hours during normal business hours (Eastern Time). Enhanced Support also includes concierge services for account management actions that you would otherwise need to perform in your self-service Admin Console.

Basic Support is offered to our Basic plan customers and includes email support and chat support as described above. Phone support is not available with Basic Support.

Phone support / remote assistance is not available to resellers and for some billing issues for security or privacy reasons. Our responsive email and chat support and extensive self-service capabilities (e.g., thorough documentation and troubleshooting guides, Admin Console) help you resolve nearly any technical or account/billing issue efficiently, making phone support / remote assistance unnecessary in most circumstances.

Our ability to provide technical support often depends on your cooperation in providing the information we require to address your issue. The more information you provide, the better we can assist you.

Is there a support number I can call?

If phone support / remote assistance is required (Standard Support) or requested (Enhanced Support), you will receive a Zoom or Google Meet invite with dial-in instructions and a meeting link. Please be prepared to share your screen so that we can provide better guidance. If you are unable to join a Zoom or Google Meet meeting or share your screen using these meeting solutions, you will need to send an invite using your meeting solution.

Demand for phone support / remote assistance among Macabacus customers is extremely low; a testament to the quality and ease of use of Macabacus software, documentation, and Admin Console. Consequently, we do not operate a call center for incoming calls at this time, and pass along the associated cost savings to customers in the form of accessible, retail pricing.

Can you call me?

As indicated above, if phone support is required to address your issue you will receive dial-in instructions.

Security

Technical information

See our security statement for information about our security practices, technologies, certifications, etc.

What is your privacy policy?

Our Privacy Policy can be found here here.

What information do Macabacus add-ins collect?

Macabacus add-ins log errors and record usage statistics in the background. This data generally does not contain sensitive information, and we use it only for internal purposes such as product improvement and troubleshooting. This data is transmitted over HTTPS protocol to Macabacus’ servers—or, in the case of error logs, to a third-party provider—where it is stored.

If you prefer that Macabacus not collect this data, you can opt out. However, opting out may limit some Macabacus functionality and impair our ability to provide technical support when you need it, and is not recommended.

Note that certain errors logged by Macabacus contain file or folder paths. In general, file and folder paths should contain project or code names in place of sensitive information. Although paths logged by Macabacus are not normally read by humans, please avoid sending us data that includes sensitive information like "S:\Investment Banking\Clients\AAPL\MSFT Merger".

Software Resellers

How do I request a quote?

Please generate a quote on our pricing page using the Quote button.

We do not provide prorated quotes for purchases in the middle of a billing cycle because the amount due is based on time remaining in your billing cycle at the time of purchase, which cannot be known in advance. However, you can estimate the amount due by multiplying the full-year price by the number of days remaining in your cycle at your expected date of purchase, and dividing by 365. We suggest overestimating the cost of mid-cycle purchases when quoting your customer and then presenting them with a lower cost when you actually bill them. Or, simply quote your customer the full-year cost of the number of licenses they require (computed using our online quote generator); the actual cost will be no higher.

Renewal quotes are provided using current Macabacus pricing, only. If prices have changed but this change has not been applied to your existing subscription, the quoted amount may differ from the amount you are actually charged at renewal. If you require the quoted and invoiced amounts to be equal, your existing subscription must be updated to the current pricing.

Do you offer a reseller discount?

Only for resellers that proactively promote our software and source more than USD 250,000 in global Macabacus sales, annually.

How do I purchase Macabacus for a customer?

You can purchase Macabacus using our online checkout. The Macabacus account created at checkout is in the reseller’s name, not the customer’s. If the reseller does not transition the account to the customer following the purchase, the reseller is responsible for account management via the self-service Admin Console where you can modify subscriptions (e.g., purchase additional licenses); provision administrative access; and, if no customer admins are provisioned, assign licenses to end users. Please see this page for more information about how to purchase Macabacus for your customer.

Which products are eligible for reseller purchase?

All plans except our Basic plan are available for reseller purchase.

What are the payment terms?

Please see purchasing options elsewhere in these FAQ.

What is the delivery method?

Software is downloaded directly from our website, so delivery is immediate.

Is deal registration available?

No.

What is the SKU code?

We refer to Macabacus subscriptions by their plan names, only. There are no SKU codes.

How does licensing work?

Licenses are per user, and valid for any Windows, Office, or Macabacus software version. See our docs for more information.

Where are your Terms of Use?

Our Terms of Use can be found here.

What if I do not want the subscription to renew automatically?

Macabacus subscriptions renew automatically by default. To prevent automatic renewal, cancel the subscription promptly after purchasing it. If you do cancel the subscription, then no notice of upcoming renewal will be sent to the billing contact 10 days prior to the end of the billing cycle. Therefore, be sure to track the term of the subscription internally so that your customer does not lose access to Macabacus without warning.

What is your return policy?

Your customer has 30 days to test and evaluate Macabacus prior to making a purchase. Therefore, we only offer refunds under specific circumstances (e.g., purchases made in error), and those refunds may be pro rated. Under no circumstance can we provide any refund after 30 days. Note that Macabacus licenses are intangible and Macabacus software is downloaded directly from our website, so there is no physical product to return.