Bank Online Connections
I am a frustrated Quicken user, as so many of your users appear to be. I just purchased your product because many of your users are happy with it and I want to give it a try.
I am attempting to connect it to my Bank of America accounts, and am getting an error code 2000. After researching this in your knowledge base, it appears that I must enable Direct Connection with my bank in order for your software to connect. I want to verify this. Quicken has a type of bank connection with limited functionality (I think its called "Express Connect"). Can your product not connect to my bank in this limited way, or do you have another alternative to download transactions automatically?
If not, how is Quicken able to provide this type of connection but not Moneydance?
I have multiple accounts with Bank of America, and they charge a monthly fee for the Direct Connect service. These fees will add up to hundreds of dollars per year for me.
If you have no alternative transaction download method, I will try for a couple of months to download the QIF file for my accounts and import manually into Moneydance, but I suspect I will find this even more cumbersome than Quicken and may need to take advantage of your 90 day money-back guarantee.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
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1 Posted by Ian L on 23 Mar, 2015 02:46 PM
There are two methods that personal finance software can use to access your accounts: direct connect and web connect. With web connect, the software basically connects to your bank's website and downloads and imports OFX, QFX, QIF, and OFC files automatically. Direct connect actually connects to a server at your bank instead of their website and usually requires different login credentials than you would use to log into your banks website. From a user's perspective, these two connections look basically identical. Moneydance only supports automatic connections through direct connect and not web connect.
If you want to avoid the fees, the best way to get your transactions into Moneydance is to use a web browser to download them from your bank's web site. I would suggest downloading a QFX or OFX file if available, instead of QIF. OFX/QFX files contain transaction ID numbers that will help Moneydance automatically get rid of duplicate transactions. You can also open your bank's download page directly (after entering the appropriate address in the Account->Edit Account menu) by going to the menu bar and selecting Online->Open Account Website.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance, and thank you for your interest in Moneydance.
Ian
Infinite Kind Support
2 Posted by Debbie L. on 13 May, 2015 09:44 PM
I am going through the same problem as above. If I am reading that correctly you are saying I need to go to my bank and credit card websites and download the data manually? I have several accounts - that will be painful as I watch the accounts regularly.
I installed the System - I assume I am running as a trial System. I was unable to login to anything.
3 Posted by Steven on 14 May, 2015 12:30 AM
I think that if it's possible for you to login to your bank through Moneydance, you should be able to even on trial.
Yes, I have to download files for each account (except for Vanguard, which supports Direct Connect for free). Fortunately, if it's working correctly, you should be able to just open the file from your browser and Moneydance will automatically import them. I'm downloading files for my two most-frequently-used account once a week and for my others once a month. I'm actually having trouble with one of my accounts not importing correctly, however, which they are currently helping me with in another support thread. It's duplicating existing transactions rather than recognizing that the transaction is already in the register. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it - all of my other accounts import fine.
If you're coming from Quicken, I think it's going to take a bit of a different mindset/thought process. It doesn't work the same way as Quicken - it's not meant to. But it does run smoother and is less buggy than Quicken.
I've pretty much just resigned to the fact that there is no perfect financial accounting software. I've tried Mint, Quicken, Ace Money, and now Moneydance. None of them work just like I want them to, with control, ease, simplicity, and detailed reporting. For now I'm going with Moneydance because it provides more control than Mint and is much less buggy than Quicken. I'm slowly working my way through the user guide in order to learn how to use the software how the developers intended, rather than trying to force the software to work how I think it should.
Hope that helps some.
4 Posted by Steven on 14 May, 2015 12:36 AM
I was just thinking it might be helpful for Moneydance to create some sort of user guide that specifically compares the functionality of Quicken to the functionality of Moneydance in order to help lower the switching cost for frustrated Quicken users...
System closed this discussion on 19 Mar, 2016 04:56 AM.