Bank of America refuses direct connection.
Paul
Hi,
I downloaded the demo version of Moneydance, installed it and was able to connect to my account at Fidelity.com. When I tried to connect to my account at Bank of America, I received an error message. "The error code reported by the server was: 2000 The product which you are using is not enabled. Please call customer service at 1-800-933-6262 for assistance." Translation: Connection refused because Moneydance is not one of the personal finance software packages supported by Bank of America. I contacted Bank of American and they confirmed that only Quickbooks, Quicken, and MS Money are allowed to connect.
Anyone else have this issue?
Thanks,
Paul
Bank_of_America_-_Connection_refused.JPG
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1 Posted by Ben Spencer on Jul 12, 2009 @ 08:36 PM
Hi Paul
Bank of America provide access to their data through an OFX (Open Financial Exchange) server. This is a standard protocol that any financial software can use to connect to the banks service. bank of America employees may not have heard of Moneydance because we are not as widely adopted by users as Quicken and MS Money however Moneydance is quite capable of connecting to their server even if they are not familiar with our software. Moneydance connects in exactly the same way as Quicken and MS Money.
Some Banks do not have the direct connection service enabled for all bank accounts by default. In such situation is it necessary to contact them and ask them to enable direct connect on your account; If they do not believe they support Moneydance it is necessary to lie and tell them that you are using Quicken. Saying the following usually stimulates the banks employee to perform the appropriate actions:
"Hi, please enable Direct Connect for my bank account such that I can directly connect to your server with Quicken. Also give me the log in credentials for this service."
I am sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
2 Posted by mickey.calcara on Jul 13, 2009 @ 11:22 AM
Hello Ben, I am getting the same error and contacted their support. They replied with "Our records show your Web Connect service is open for access. " I am curious if Paul gets this resolved.
3 Posted by Ben Spencer on Jul 13, 2009 @ 02:10 PM
Hi Mickey
There are two ways to get information from your bank. One is "Web Connect" this is where you login into your banks website and manually downloading a translation file and then import it into MD by selecting File->Import.
The other is "Direct Connect" where by the Moneydance software can make a connection directly to your banks server and retrieve the transactions without you needing to open a web browser.
Often these are different independent services that your bank provides and you need to ask them to specifically enable "Direct Connect". Also the user name and password your bank provides might well be different for Direct rather than web connect.
If you bank is telling you that "Web connect is open for access" thank them and tell them you want Direct Connect open for access and you want the log in credentials for Direct Connect.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
4 Posted by mickey.calcara on Jul 14, 2009 @ 11:01 AM
Hi Ben,
I replied with what you recommended. I am not getting anywhere with Bank Of America. I am going to call them today. I still get "
The error code reported by the server was: 2000
The product which you are using is not enabled. Please call customer service at 1.800.933.6262 for assistance."
Which is obviously from their server..
Here is their "Scripted response" to when I inquired about access to direct connect...
Thank you for your e-mail dated 7/13/09 regarding your online Direct
Connect inquiry.
To download transactions from the bank into Quicken, please perform the
following:
my payment information up to date has a check mark if applicable.
Quicken will retrieve transactions for all online accounts, then the
Instructions to Send dialog box will appear.
Once the download is complete, an Online Transmission Summary dialog box
appears.
Using Online Banking, you can download all your transaction data into
the QuickBooks software to conveniently manage your finances offline.
To download transactions into QuickBooks using Direct Connect, please
follow these steps:
Result: QuickBooks establishes an online session to send and
receive transactions
Result: The pop-up Automatically Matched Transactions dialog box
displays
If any error accrue: The information you provided indicates that the
account may not be set up correctly within Quicken.
To verify the Account Attributes, please highlight the account from the
Account List and choose Edit from the Account List window.
States or Bank of America-CA as applicable.
on your account statement and contains two leading zeros. Make sure
there are no dashes or spaces in the account number.
Banking, the Customer ID is the same as your Online Banking ID used to
access Online Banking.
only with checking accounts and cannot be enabled for savings accounts
or you will receive an error.
If you continue to receive error messages, please provide us with the
Quicken version you are using, steps you have taken, and the specific
error message you received. We will then be able to review this matter
further.
Online Banking services from Bank of America are compatible with this
years version of Quicken plus the two previous years. These versions
support transaction downloads and Bill Pay using either a direct connect
or Web Connect through Online Banking. Copies of the software are
available through authorized retailers or directly from the Intuit Web
site at www.intuit.com Additionally, we have partnered with Intuit to
provide product specific support such as account set-up and activation.
You can upgrade your software directly from the Web site. Please visit
www.quicken.com to view all of the options available for upgrade.
Once enrolled in Quicken there is a $9.95 monthly service charge for
Consumer customers and a $14.95 charge for Business customers. Please
note the service charge may be waived depending on your account
relationship.
You may review information regarding Online Banking and Quicken at the
following Web site:
http://www.bankofamerica.com/onlinebanking/index.cfm?template=quicken
Should you need assistance setting up your online service, please
contact our Technical Support department at 1.800.887.5749 or call
collect worldwide at 1.888.801.3723 and request to be transferred to the
number provided.
Please be assured that we know your time is valuable and would not
direct you to contact us by telephone unless absolutely necessary.
We appreciate the opportunity to assist you online. Should you have any
other inquiries, please e-mail us again. Thank you for choosing Bank of
America. We value your business and look forward to serving your banking
needs.
5 Posted by Ben Spencer on Jul 15, 2009 @ 02:43 PM
Let me know how you get on. One of our members of the support staff uses Bank of America for their personal banking and they have successfully connected Moneydance to the Bank of America servers. If your bank continues to be difficult I'll pass the case onto my colleague and see if he has any helpful advice.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
6 Posted by James Nagle on Jul 23, 2009 @ 05:26 PM
We are testing a trial version of Moneydance.
Our Bank of America account was inherited from LaSalle, NA when B of A bought them out. Although we were able to connect to our Chase credit card accounts thru MD, we have been unable to connect to B of A. We have been using MS Money for years on direct-connect with no problems.
The B of A website requires a selection of either Quicken or MS Money - not both. Since we are running both MS Money & MD we don't want to disable MS Money. Your website seems to refer everything to Quicken whereas with Microsoft having garbaged MS Money, we would like some instruction as to how we can solve our problem.
7 Posted by james f on Jul 23, 2009 @ 06:34 PM
Temporarily enable Quicken and see if it works with MD.
8 Posted by Brian Adler on Jul 23, 2009 @ 07:05 PM
Mickey and James,
Using Moneydance with BofA only requires that Direct Connect be enabled (which is the same for all 3rd party software).
I bank with BofA myself. BofA doesn't make it as straight forward to accomplish this as they should. I accomplished it by calling BofA and asking that they enable my account to connect with Quicken (because I knew they hadn't heard of Moneydance).
There is also a way to enable Direct Connect from the online banking section of BofA's website. The easiest way is to use "live chat" once you have signed into "online banking" and simply ask them to "sign you up for DIrect Connect or enable your account for Direct Connect". You may want to emphasize that you are not interested in Web Connect as I had an agent who didnt know the difference.
Brian Adler
9 Posted by Brian Adler on Jul 23, 2009 @ 07:05 PM
James,
Direct Connect doesn't distinguish between the type of 3rd party software you are using. Web Connect (where you are downloading a file rather than connecting direct to the bank's servers) does distinguish between file types and there is indeed a file you can download for either MSM or Quicken. But if your account is enabled for Direct Connect, you should be able to use it in conjunction with any of the 3 programs.
Brian
10 Posted by Jim Nagle on Jul 24, 2009 @ 08:20 PM
We are enabled for both direct-connect and web-connect at B of A. Since we have quite a few future direct-connect payments outstanding in MS Money we are a little reluctant to switch our B of A account over to a Quicken file format even for a temporary test for fear of screwing up our future payments. As soon as we can, we will test that and report the results. Thanks for the help.
Jim
11 Posted by Brian Adler on Jul 24, 2009 @ 08:28 PM
Jim,
Web Connect is always available as it simply refers to logging in and downloading a file (of a type specific to MSM or Quicken, both of which is importable by Moneydance) containing your transactions from BofA's website.
Direct Connect is either enabled for any 3rd party software that has a bank's connection information or none. So if you can use Direct Connect with BofA with MSM or Quicken, you should be able to use it with Moneydance.
12 Posted by fcardman on Aug 20, 2009 @ 11:09 PM
For credit card only customer, BAC doesn't support Direct Connect, only Web Connect. Do you have a BAC checking account as well? If so, you should be able to have them enable Direct connect for you for both the Checking acct and the credit card account, though there is a monthly fee.
Hope that helps.
13 Posted by Elizabeth Reed on Sep 04, 2009 @ 06:38 PM
Just wondering why BA can charge for that service? It doesnt seem fair. I have a CC through American Express and have a direct connection with them for free.
Thoughts? Any suggestions on a way to work around having to pay $10 a month for the direct connect feature?
14 Posted by Brian Adler on Sep 05, 2009 @ 09:41 PM
Elizabeth,
Many banks do not charge a fee. BofA is actually the exception, not the rule.
Brian
15 Posted by jgohlke on Sep 20, 2009 @ 01:57 AM
The 2000 error means that MD is connecting to BoA, but BoA is not allowing MD to get any information because the account you have is not allowed this type of connection. Most likely because, for this account, you have to pay.
BoA lets you download a QIF file for free (you can search the BoA Help page for "download"). Once you have it downloaded to your computer, you can import it into MD. It's a 2-step process, but it is free.
When I talked to BoA recently, they suggested I "upgrade" my account to one of the other account types where electronic connection is free. It wasn't a good option for me, but it might be for others. They don't charge for all accounts, some accounts offer it for free.
Like Brian said, most banks offer basic connection for free, so another way to get this for free is to switch banks.
16 Posted by avp2 on Sep 27, 2009 @ 01:07 AM
As they are separately listed in the supported institution list, here may also be some differences in B of A California vs B of A in other states, . I have B of A in Virginia and it works fine.
I seem to remember B of A calling direct access "Quicken Support" like they do at Chase. BTW, Chase charges $9.95/mo for direct access too and, unlike B of A, has no accounts that provide it free.
17 Posted by leselkind on Jul 18, 2010 @ 09:17 PM
I've downloaded the demo and tried to set up online access to my Bank of America accounts and am getting exactly the same issue as others. I thought it was because the online feature was not enabled for demo. But now this appears to me to be a result of a deal Bank of america has made with Quicken to make them sole providers of this service (and collect 9.95 a month from the customers). The work around of "impersonating" a Quicken user is probably effective but kind of disturbing. I'm having a hard time buying Moneydance unless I can get direct connection to my Bank of America account, so this is probably worthan effort on the part of the moneydance folks as there are probably others like me.
18 Posted by Mailbox98 on Jul 18, 2010 @ 09:49 PM
----- Original Message -----
From: "leselkind"
<[email blocked]>
To: <[email blocked]>
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: Bank of America refuses direct connection. [Questions]
19 Posted by darbyhouse on Jul 19, 2010 @ 01:25 AM
Mailbox98....I am having the exact same problem today, both in trial version and purchased version. I have not yet contacted BoA to ensure Direct Connect is enabled on my account.
20 Posted by jgohlke on Jul 19, 2010 @ 01:40 AM
Sent from my iPad
21 Posted by Angie Rauscher on Jul 19, 2010 @ 05:01 AM
OFX connections us an open, industry standard server protocol. We're not recommending our users impersonate Quicken users to injure or negatively impact any of these banks (they will charge you the $9.95 direct connection fee for connecting through Moneydance as well as through Quicken). It is simply that most customer service reps at the call centers of major banks are taught that they only support Quicken and Money (meaning their reps will only assist you in connecting with those two programs). This is completely true, but Moneydance support staff will assist you in making connections with the OFX servers at these banks.
We are working to have more transparent and cooperative relationships with these banks, but it's been a tough road. We will continue to work on this, and are also in the process of implementing a new connection service which we hope will simplify the connection process, as well as make connections with many more banks possible. It is a major project, and will likely take a year before implementation is ready to roll out, but it's on our active task list.
For now, we recommend our users use the following process: Calling up your bank and stating precisely the following should get you started. "Please enable direct connect on my account such that I can connect to your servers directly with Quicken. Also give me the login credentials I need to connect Quicken to this service." We know this isn't the most elegant solution, and we appreciate our users bearing with us as we work to create relationships with these large banking institutions.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
22 Posted by avp2 on Jul 19, 2010 @ 01:56 PM
As an update of my earlier post, I have closed my BofA accounts, even though they did have Direct Connect access, at no charge for the amount of money I had at the bank. The problem was they would charge me the $9.95 and I would then have to call them to get it reversed. This went on for about 8 months with them saying they would get their billing system corrected in a month, or two at the most. I finally had enough.
Judging from BofA exec's comments quoted in the news lately, I expect the fee to increase. Seems like many of the bigger banks plan to start cutting back on free services.
23 Posted by Darren on May 09, 2011 @ 08:47 PM
I, too, tried the trial version of Moneydance and got the error. i jumped to the conclusion that I needed the licensed version of MD to access online banking, but was again refused.
I am now dealing with BofA to get Direct Connect activated. They are waiving the fee for me because of my account type. It takes 24 hours to activate Direct Connect, so I will sit on my hands until then.
My question is, how does mint.com access my BofA information without using Direct Connect? Could Moneydance use the same procedure?
24 Posted by james f on May 09, 2011 @ 09:51 PM
Darren,
Mint.com uses a connection called Web Connect. Basically connecting to BofA's web site and downloading transactions that way. Direct Connect connects to a dedicated server on BofA's end.
Moneydance currently does not support Web Connect. There is some chatter about Moneydance supporting Web Connect sometime in the future. But that would be in the future sometime, if they ever do support it.
25 Posted by Thomas Boettger on May 09, 2011 @ 11:13 PM
I believe that Mint.com actually uses screen scraping....they in essence log in with the credentials you give them and 'scrape' the data from the displayed information. It generally works ok, but subject to break if BAC updates their website for instance.
26 Posted by Knuckler49 on Jun 23, 2011 @ 07:19 PM
"Sebastian" at Bank of America help just told me that BoA only allows direct connect for bank accounts. Rats. I have two credit cards at BoA: "Sebastian" says "use Web Connect" from the Website. I noticed that they now let one set the default file type to .OFX (Microsoft Money Active [something]), so that should be a help in importing credit card data from BoA.
27 Posted by Thomas Boettger on Jun 24, 2011 @ 01:59 AM
Not true...they support direct connect for credit card accounts, but you have to have a checking account as well. webconnect works fine too though.
28 Posted by W James Hadden on Jun 24, 2011 @ 07:19 AM
I thought, on reflection, that that might be the case,
but didn't think to ask BoA—-I'm not likely to set up
ANOTHER checking account.
I suppose it's moot about setting the default download
format at BoA, since the 'extra work' for the MD software
was done in the design of importing from many formats.
Knuckler49
29 Posted by mankiko on Aug 31, 2011 @ 10:50 PM
I have the same issue with B of A - I only have a credit card account with them, and when I called customer service they told me to select the web connect option in quicken. They also said that the only way to enable direct connect for my credit card is if I have a checking or savings.
Any update on when web connect will be available in money dance?
Thanks
Man
30 Posted by Ben Spencer on Sep 03, 2011 @ 06:04 AM
All webconnect really means is that you download an OFX or QFX file manually from the banks website and import it into Moneydance.
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support