Moneydance as MS Money replacement - any advice?

[NotoriousCanary]

After 20-something years of using Microsoft Money, the problems of using unsupported software are beginning to take their toll.

After a look around at the alternatives, I think I'm heading towards Moneydance. It seems to do everything that MS Money does for me (track/reconcile cash accounts, track share and other investments, and provide reports).

I've tried a couple of test migrations of the data (this is limited in scope until I purchase the SW) and it seems to work ok. There were a couple of problems but I understand the issues and I think they can be resolved easily.

So can anybody offer any advice (good points, bad points, things to watch for etc.) when moving to Moneydance from MS Money?

Thanks

.. NC


ps Just for info - the Microsoft Money problems I've encountered are :

* Database problems - I've had to rebuild the database 3 times in the last 3 years when something clearly became corrupted. I suspect there was some underlying problem because rolling back to previous backups helped make things better but did not resolve the problems. The database repair tool did not seem to help. I've probably just accumulated too many years of data and reached some limits.
* I've been using the excellent Gaier Software MS MoneyQuotes to update my share prices in Money, but I always realised that this was an temporary solution.
* Net Worth Report - the total started to creep to the right each week, until it is now off the screen on the RHS with no scroll bar to see the total. I have no idea what could cause that - the software engineer in me says that data and presentation information have become entangled somehow. And that makes me think that I might expect more problems sooner than later.
* I use a datafile that is not always on the local computer, and MS Money seems to struggle with remote network files sometimes.

[staffordian]

I'd say go for it.

I moved to Moneydance probably a decade or so ago after Quicken abandoned the UK, the software wasn't updated and online quotes stopped.

IMHO it isn't as polished as Quicken or Money, and the screens look a bit clunky at first, but it does what I want perfectly, has an Android app to quickly input transactions on the go which then sync with the main program.

The biggest issue is always migrating data, but if you're on top of that, you're ahead of the game.

A plus with MD is that it is being actively developed, has a reasonably responsive forum with staff and some users offering help and advice, and there are some very useful third party extensions, eg a stock price updater developed by a couple of users, and a find and replace extension which can be useful for searching or to change categories etc.

If you've any specific questions, just ask.

Staffordian

I meant to mention, I've not used it with files stored on a network (other than using Dropbox for the app sync function) so don't know if it works well in that scenario, but if you've downloaded and used the free version, you will no doubt be able to check it meets your needs in this respect.

[staffordian]

If you've not already found them, the discussion boards are here...

http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions

Staffordian

[Watis]

After 20-something years of using Microsoft Money, the problems of using unsupported software are beginning to take their toll.

After a look around at the alternatives, I think I'm heading towards Moneydance. It seems to do everything that MS Money does for me (track/reconcile cash accounts, track share and other investments, and provide reports).

I've tried a couple of test migrations of the data (this is limited in scope until I purchase the SW) and it seems to work ok. There were a couple of problems but I understand the issues and I think they can be resolved easily.

So can anybody offer any advice (good points, bad points, things to watch for etc.) when moving to Moneydance from MS Money?

Thanks

.. NC


ps Just for info - the Microsoft Money problems I've encountered are :

* Database problems - I've had to rebuild the database 3 times in the last 3 years when something clearly became corrupted. I suspect there was some underlying problem because rolling back to previous backups helped make things better but did not resolve the problems. The database repair tool did not seem to help. I've probably just accumulated too many years of data and reached some limits.
* I've been using the excellent Gaier Software MS MoneyQuotes to update my share prices in Money, but I always realised that this was an temporary solution.
* Net Worth Report - the total started to creep to the right each week, until it is now off the screen on the RHS with no scroll bar to see the total. I have no idea what could cause that - the software engineer in me says that data and presentation information have become entangled somehow. And that makes me think that I might expect more problems sooner than later.
* I use a datafile that is not always on the local computer, and MS Money seems to struggle with remote network files sometimes.

I, too, have used MS Money for nearly 20 years. I am experiencing the same problem with report totals sliding off the right side of the screen!

I shall be interested to hear how you get on with Moneydance as I may need to switch to something else in the near future. Please keep us informed.

Thanks,

Watis

[NotoriousCanary]

A quick update on progress on the transfer so far.

I had a couple of Money data files that contained information about multiple bank accounts only. They transferred across with no problems, and all the cash transfers between the accounts seemed to reconcile beautifully. So that was very easy.

I found it easier to add assets directly into Moneydance rather than try to transfer asset accounts from Money. The way this is done is a little bit different from Money, but very straightfoward, especially with the advice and guides available on the Infinite Kind discussion boards [http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions] that Staffordian recommended (thanks for that tip!).

Transferring share accounts across is currently proving a bit more problematic and I'm still working through the problems.

If shares were transferred from one account to another in Money (so an In Specie transfer for an ISA account for instance), the notional transfer price does not come across, and this makes the account values look wrong. So they needed to be corrected manually in Moneydance.

There is a facility to update the share prices automatically, but it took me a while to realise that this was not working correctly for me (it may be picking up incorrect share symbols - I need to check that further), but once I corrected the share prices manually, all the account totals matched up.

Finally, although I have ported across the cash transactions for the share account (this is a two step process out of Money, and the the cash and shares get merged together again in Moneydance), there still seems to be big discrepancies where cash transferred in to buy shares is not being matched with the shares purchased. So I seem to have accounts with a large negative cash value even though I can see the cash transferred in and the cash being used to buy the shares. I'm not yet sure if I'm reading the data incorrectly (the column headings don't mean much to me yet)

Overall, I'm very impressed with Moneydance so far (it seems fast and pretty easy to use), and I'm very impressed it has sucked up 20 years of Money data in less than a morning. If I can work out the cash/share balancing in the accounts then I'm pretty sure I've made the right decision to move away from Money.

More progress reports later ...

..NC

[staffordian]

...the bit about stock prices updating...

There were problems with this a while back because of Yahoo changing what they allowed external programs to access and this broke a reliable extension which provided automatic updates.

Moneydance developed an alternative extention called Quotes and Exchange Rates, but I and many others found it's data source unreliable.

Mike Bray and another developer came up with a superb extension called Quote Loader, described here...

http://help.infinitekind.com/discussion ... dance-2019

and has subsequently also developed an extension updating extension (!) which simplifies adding and then keeping up to date the Quote Loader(and any other) extension.

If you are using the Moneydance Quotes and Exchange Rates extension, I'd strongly suggest uninstalling it and trying the new one instead.

Staffordian

[NotoriousCanary]

I finished the porting of my Microsoft Money database to Moneydance today, and I am very impressed about how easy the whole process turned out.

I did notice quite a few discrepancies in the imported data (I spent longer checking the data than I did importing!) and I can see the problems are almost certainly to do with corrupt or incorrect data in the Money database. Most have been easily fixed, and I've left a few to follow-up on sometime later.

The Quotes Loader extensions works perfectly (thanks for the pointer Staffordian), so I'm back to being able to update my stocks and share prices automatically within the program.

And I downloaded and reconciled my first bank statement today, and that seemed to work in a very similar way the Money does.

Next steps are to explore all the interesting new features in Moneydance (I'm particularly interested to see if I can write some Python script reports that might replace some spreadsheets I maintain separately at the moment). And I need to check out the link to Android devices.

Given that I had accumulated 20 years of Money data and was working off a database that I knew had some imperfectly corrected corrupt data in it, I was very very happy with the easy of moving over to MoneyDance. If I was doing the porting process again, I reckon I could do it in half the time - there was the usual learning curve for some topics that as soon as I understood the Moneydance way of doing things became very straightforward.

And the program seems to be much faster to start-up and operate, even if the GUI is a little bit clunkier (more like a Linux program than traditional Windows/Apple).

Overall, it seems a very good replacement for the venerable Microsoft Money.

So that is me sorted for the next 20 years (I hope!).

..NC

[Clariman]

This all sounds very interesting. My first MS Money transaction showing in my current account is 17th March 1999, so I guess I've been using it 20 years almost exactly. I will probably plough on until it creaks a bit more.

[Watis]

After a bit of delving in Microsoft Money, I've found out how to bring the total column of a report back onscreen.

Right-click the report and select 'Customise...'

In the Customise Reports window that opens, select the 'Fonts' tab.

In the Fonts tab, it is likely that the setting for 'Report Column Widths' is 'Custom'.

Select one of the alternative settings, then click the 'Apply' & 'OK' buttons, and your total column will move to the left, adjacent to the income & expense descriptions.

HTH,

Watis

[shetland]

I am interested in this as a portfolio management tool and have a few questions.

Is MD formatted for US use only or is it formatted for UK use ?

How does it handle multiple purchases of the same stock, can it calculate the overall rate of return

Does it offer capital gains tax calculations

Thanks

[staffordian]

I am interested in this as a portfolio management tool and have a few questions.

Is MD formatted for US use only or is it formatted for UK use ?

How does it handle multiple purchases of the same stock, can it calculate the overall rate of return

Does it offer capital gains tax calculations

Thanks

It is a US developed program.

I monitor a portfolio but as it's tax sheltered I've not dealt with it's CG capabilities. From what I've read, it's not perfect though as it's not specifically designed as a portfolio management tool.

It does include editable reports which show rates of return, and multiple stock purchases are catered for. IIRC there are options for choosing lots or average costs when dealing with sales etc, but I'm no expert on this.

Best bet would be to download and play with it. It's free, and is the full version, but limited to inputting 100 (I think) transactions. But you can import an unlimited number to test imports and historical data. If you're happy with it, buying a licence unlocks it for full use so you don't have to re-import data.

HTH

Staffordian

Edit I meant to add that the link I gave upthread to the Infinite Kind message board might be worth checking, there is an investments section where many questions have been asked and answered.