tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/general-questions/370-opening-balance-in-expense-accounts-categoriesInfinite Kind: Discussion 2019-04-12T09:19:50Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/2330772009-07-06T16:42:42Z2009-07-06T16:42:42ZOpening balance in expense accounts / categories<div><p>Hi Alexander</p>
<p>I am not sure that a fully understand your question. I think you
are asking how to manually set the balance of an expense account.
Rather like setting the initial balance on a bank account. If this
is what yoou are asking I am afraid that Moneydance does not let
users manually set the banalce of an expense or income account. The
typical use pattern for transfering to Moneydance mid year is to
import your data form what ever application you were using. However
as you have probably noticed Quick Books makes exporting data into
a useble format practically impossible. However there is a
non-trivial way of getting yoour quickbooks data into a QIF file
that can then be imported into Moneydance. The wikipedia article of
the QIF file format describes the process. here is the link to
thewikipedia entry:</p>
<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicken_Interchange_Format</p>
<p>Lok under the section called "Export Hacks for QuickBooks:
exporting to QIF" I havent tried this and would be interested to
hear how you get on if you attempt it.</p>
<p>The words category and account are essentially interchangeable.
When an account is the other side of a transaction it is called the
category and when it is on this side of the transaction it is
called the account. I realise that this can be confusing and many
users do not think of Moneydance as a double entry book keeping
system and find it easier to think in terms of categorising
transactions rather than transfering between accounts.</p>
<p>Sincerely</p>
<p>Ben Spencer</p></div>Ben Spencertag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/2330772009-07-06T19:03:44Z2009-07-06T19:03:44ZOpening balance in expense accounts / categories<div><p>Hi, Ben. You understood me perfectly. Thanks for the
comprehensive<br>
reply. I will try the non-trivial procedure and report - but not
real<br>
soon. I have another question - 2 really, well maybe 3.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Does responding by Email here put my reply on the discussion
page,<br>
and if not would you generally prefer folks to post there?<br></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I hoped to install MD on 2 networked machines, one Win98 and
one<br>
Ubuntu, used "somewhat interchangeably" by self & wife. I
assumed that I<br>
could do this by getting the 2 appropriate downloads and installing
one on each PC under a single license. It's not clear to me whether
this will work and whether you sanction such use? Meantime I have
trouble installing the downloaded Windows version - "Not enough
memory," but maybe it's a problem with Java or something; I'm not
finished trying yet.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks again, Alexander. (We're old codgers and definitely not
computer hotshots.)</p></div>Alexander Millertag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/2330772009-07-06T23:11:11Z2009-07-06T23:11:11ZOpening balance in expense accounts / categories<div><p>Hi Alexander</p>
<p>1) Replying by email puts a copy in my email inbox and a copy in
the discussion forum. What you are doing with your response works
just fine for me.</p>
<p>2) Installing Moneydance on two computers to be used by yourself
and your wife requires only a single license. We count couples as a
single entity as far licensing goes and a single entity may install
Moneydance on as many machines as they like providing it is for
their use. Using moneydance on multiple machines can be tricky
sometimes dealing with user permissions. However it most certainly
can be done. The one warning is that you should not have the data
file opened on both machines at the same time.</p>
<p>3) It is possible that your Windows 98machine does not have
enough system memory. How how much does the machine have?</p>
<p>Sincerely</p>
<p>Ben Spencer</p></div>Ben Spencertag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/2330772009-07-07T00:43:05Z2009-07-07T00:43:05ZOpening balance in expense accounts / categories<div><p>Hi Ben</p>
<p>My PC reports 1011MB (= 1Gb?) memory. I think it was about 66%
free when<br>
I was trying to install the MD windows download (without Java.) Not
sure<br>
which Java I have to begin with but it's likely pretty old.</p>
<p>Actually so far I'm not really talking about 2 machines but 2 HD
in<br>
drawers: One Windows, One Ubuntu (not dual-boot.) I swap
master-jumpers<br>
and pull the linux drive when I run windows. Meantime wife doesn't
want me messing with the other (her) all-windows computer - at
least till I think I'm in stable condition. On my linux HD I
installed the MD download that includes Java (1.4?) and it works
fine.</p>
<p>I've been trying that "non-trivial" (no kidding) procedure to
get my<br>
Quickbooks files into .qif format. It "kinda" works but has some
quirks<br>
that mean I'm not sure it's easier than manual re-creation. Took me
a while to figure that you have to re-arrange the fields in the
Excel .csv file to match the order XL2QIFG wants them in, but then
the main problems are that: first XL2QIF hung up because it
wouldn't accept the Excel date formats, and Excel wouldn't let me
batch-change them to something it would accept. I tried manually
re-formatting each date, then the imported file worked in MD but
next, the data in MD doesn't differentiate/identify either main
accounts or categories. In my case, for instance, it put all the
transactions in the checking account and all the categories in its
default - ATM withdrawal. Which means even after going through the
laborious date-change, conversion & import procedure, I'd have
to manually edit the account & category information for most of
the transactions.</p>
<p>Too bad because otherwise it works!</p>
<p>Are you still accepting suggestions for mods & features for
the 2010<br>
version, or is the list closed? I'm very happy with the program
(I've<br>
looked for a long time for a linux Q-books substitute) but have a
few issues on convenience & ease-of-use.</p>
<p>Much thanks meantime,<br>
Alexander.<br></p></div>Alexander Millertag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/2330772009-07-07T19:30:35Z2009-07-07T19:30:35ZOpening balance in expense accounts / categories<div><p>Hi Alexander</p>
<p>I recommend uninstalling any old versions of java and installing
the latest release form sun. The package name in ubuntu is
sun-java6-jre and you can install it with Synaptic. I am not sure
what the latest jave is for Win98, it been awhile since I used such
a machine.</p>
<p>We are always open to accepting suggestions for new features. it
might be a bit late to squeeze them into the next release and they
might make it into the one after that. I request that you start a
new discussion for your suggestion such that other can ore easily
find and comment on it.</p>
<p>Sincerely</p>
<p>Ben Spencer</p></div>Ben Spencer