I can't get a new security to appear in pop-up menu for a transaction
Hi, I recently purchased MoneyDance and transferred data from Quicken. Now I am finding that it takes a lot of work to correct errors in securities transactions downloaded from my broker. My latest problem is that I seem to have deleted a transaction, and trying to re-create it, I find that the security is not listed. (Perhaps I had misidentified the security when it was downloaded.) I used Actions -> Add Security -> New Security, filled in the form, then filled in the security, Type and Subtype in the Add Security form. I clicked OK, then went to choose the security in the transaction I am creating, but the new security is not listed! What do I have to do to be able to select this security?
While documenting my process, I did it all again and this time it worked; I was able to complete the transaction. But I don't know why it worked this time and not before. Could you explain, for one thing, the Security ID field in the New Security form? Should I leave it blank, and MoneyDance will choose an ID itself? That may be what I did differently.
Also, is there a way to see the ticker symbols of all the securities at once? That would seem to be the best way to be sure I select the correct security among several with very similar names. I believe I have several copies of the same security with slightly different names; is there a way to find matching securities and then change all transactions in that security to use the same name?
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1 Posted by dwg on 24 Nov, 2018 04:27 AM
I'm a fellow user.
I'll try to answer some of your questions.
Yes investment transactions are the hardest since they can be the most complex.
A security definition is independent of the investment accounts. Thus after setting up a security via Tools --> Securities you then need to associate the Security with the investment account. If you created the security from within the Investment account the software normally adds it to this specific account for you if I remember correctly.
The Security ID field only has meaning within Moneydance use it as you wish.
Perhaps using the Ticker symbol as part of the security name would work for you.
Changing the security will need a bit of work. From the Edit security window rename the security you eventually want to remove to a real obvious name. Go to the account register sort by security and for each matching transaction double click on the security and using the drop down change it to what security you want to use. When you have done all of them you should be able the remove the obsolete security.
2 Posted by rickjopete on 24 Nov, 2018 10:52 PM
Most of these thoughts are what I had already figured out, though I was hoping I had missed something that would avoid much of the tedious work I'm going through now, and I guess you're saying no, I have to accept the tedium.
It makes no sense to me that the Security ID field would even be accessible if it "only has meaning within Moneydance" -- that says to me that MD assigns it a value for communication within the program, and if I mess with it, I'll confuse MD. It can't be *both* for MD's internal use and for my own use. My working hypothesis is that I should leave it blank when defining a new security. If that doesn't help with future problems, I'll be back.
My main issue with not being able to see the ticker symbol readily is probably an issue with my investment firm's download process at least as much as MD. When downloading, MD asks me to associate a security name from the download with a security I have defined (or to say none of the above, and it will use the name my investment firm uses). If the download showed the ticker ID (which I can see on the firm's website), *and* MD showed it (or I make it part of the name), then I would be able to see right away whether I've already got that security defined. But again, I guess I have to live with this, and be ready to make tedious changes if I find that I guessed wrong.
I have a new problem that I will put in a new discussion.
3 Posted by dwg on 27 Nov, 2018 05:23 AM
I meant that the ID has no meaning as far as the investment is concerned in the world outside of Moneydance, it has no meaning to the software itself it is there for your use.
4 Posted by derekkent23 on 27 Nov, 2018 09:24 AM
I am not support staff just a users.
Just to add I have encountered problems if the ID is left blank. The ID should be unique for each security so I tend to use the securities name.
Hope this helps
5 Posted by dwg on 27 Nov, 2018 10:33 AM
Amusing, I've never used the field
6 Posted by rickjopete on 27 Nov, 2018 09:47 PM
When I see the term "ID", as a former programmer, I think in terms of a *unique* identifier for internal use in a program -- something that can be used as a key in a relational database, for instance. Thus I was afraid of choosing an ID that might already be in use, and it didn't make sense to me that I as a user would be tasked with choosing it. Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that. I have no idea how a user might *use* the Security ID, seeing that I don't see any way to access it apart from the Edit Security form, but I'll just ignore it.
Changing topics, dwg mentioned something that I can't seem to do, and I wish I could! How can I "go to the account register and sort by security"? I can sort by other things, but not by security. The closest I can come is to select a transaction with the given security, go to Securities Detail, and then double-click on each transaction listed in order to do whatever I need to do with them (like change the name of the security because I found the same security has two different names and I want to consolidate them).
7 Posted by dwg on 27 Nov, 2018 10:08 PM
At the top of the register you should see a header row. Click where it says "Security" and it should sort accordingly.
8 Posted by rickjopete on 27 Nov, 2018 10:51 PM
It doesn't work for me! I tried it, of course, as that's what works for some other fields, and it does something, but I can't figure out what -- it definitely doesn't group same-named securities together. Maybe I have a bad version? (Version 2017.6 (1656))
9 Posted by dwg on 28 Nov, 2018 03:56 AM
I've tried it on MD 2017 build 1701 and also on the old MD2012 and it works on both for me.
System closed this discussion on 27 Feb, 2019 04:00 AM.