Still extremely, extremely frustrated with how poorly Moneydance matches imported transactions
I just went through a reconciling exercise that was so bad, I felt compelled to post.
I'm running Moneydance 2010r3 (751). The way I work is, on a monthly basis, I download transactions from my credit card and then categorize them so I can keep track of expenses for budgeting purposes.
A number of months ago, I purchased some clothes at a store called 'Sams of Livingston." Fast-forward to today: Because I shop frequently in the town of Livingston, many of my credit card transactions have the word "Livingston" somewhere in the transaction data. It seems that when Moneydance matches transactions, it erroneously tries to rename ANY transaction that has 'Livingston' in it to be 'Sams of Livingston'.
Case in point: here's a screenshot I compiled of three different
times this happened. For all three screenshots, I held down the
Alt-key so you can see the original transaction and what Moneydance
tried to match it to.
In the first transaction, I made a purchase at Menzel's Violins. Moneydance tried to rename it and re-categorize it to Sam's Livingston, even though the transactions had nothing else in common.
In the second transaction, I ate lunch at Subway in Livingston, and again Moneydance tried to tried to rename it and re-categorize it to Sam's
In the third transaction, I made a purchase at Kids at Heard, and yet again the same thing happened.
I could go on with examples, but I'm sure you get the point. And, the problem is not just happening with Sams; I have started getting similar problems with other stores in other towns.
Why is this happening? This is really driving me crazy as it's requiring way too much work to simply download and categorize credit card transactions. Is there anything I can do to stop this? Will this be fixed in the long term?
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31 Posted by dave on 22 Mar, 2011 08:13 AM
Mods, I couldn't find a button to mark the post before this one as offensive, demeaning and insulting.
I feel it could have been better worded and phrased, or better yet, not posted at all since it neither contributes to the thread nor offers any advice to the customers experiencing the problem.
32 Posted by Tom Freeman on 22 Mar, 2011 01:05 PM
After receiving a few complaints I removed a comment before post 33 that was offensive and added nothing to the thread.
Tom
33 Posted by Owen Jones on 05 Apr, 2011 07:35 AM
Agree on not changing the description - please take this "feature" off or optionally disable it.
34 Posted by Luis on 28 Apr, 2011 01:06 AM
So what's the update on this? Has anyone at Moneydance fixed this issue?
Yes, in my mind, it is an "issue." The software should not automatically change the description and memos of my transactions. I am now going through the process of categorizing my downloaded transactions and it's so frustrating I am about to start looking at other banking software.
I want it to just pick a category, let me chose in a list of categories and move on. And I want to do it using only my keyboard like I used to in previous versions too!
35 Posted by Owen Jones on 28 Apr, 2011 06:28 AM
Completely agree. Please please fix this, just make it simple for the basic case - accept the transaction and pick the category (with an intelligent guess provided). I see that a lot of work has gone into this area with changes in every build, but maybe it is all trying to be too clever? The current 778 build is something of an improvement, but I still find myself having to think for a good 5 seconds about every transaction since the defaults provided are not obvious. Also 778 does not allow the category to be another account (e.g. for a transfer) within the accept panel, you can only set this in the main register - that is clearly a bug.
Please never change the description!
36 Posted by Patrick on 02 May, 2011 02:49 AM
37 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 04 May, 2011 03:00 PM
Hey all,
We've released a new preview build, number 783, which has refined the matching process and fixed the category/account bug. Could you all please check out the newest preview, and we'll move forward from there?
Thank you for your willingness to test Moneydance 2011,
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
38 Posted by Luis on 06 May, 2011 12:34 AM
I just tested the new preview version. It works much better!
I noticed that even when it matched a previous payee, it only changed the description, but not the memo, keeping transaction specific data intact. Very good job on this!!
Also, just to make sure how it works, where it says "current transaction" I am assuming that it means the transaction is as downloaded. Is this correct? I ask because on previous revisions that was not always the case.
I still need to test keyboard shortcut functionality. In the old versions I'd just hit command+enter to accept transactions and it was easy to just use tab to move in between fields. Once we restore that kind of functionality, I'd say we're there!
Lastly, this is just a suggestion, I could not find a way to change the width of the transaction clearing box. That's a minor annoyance, but I liked the previous version's full field visibility.
Thanks for answering to our call for a change!
39 Posted by -Kevin N. on 06 May, 2011 11:53 AM
Hi Luis,
If you're not sure what a specific Section of the new Confirmation Sidebar will accomplish, hover your cursor over the 'Confirm' button to reveal a tooltip explaining what clicking 'Confirm' will do.
HTH -Kevin N
Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on 08 Jun, 2011 06:12 PM.
DAMON GILL re-opened this discussion on 09 Jun, 2011 01:38 PM
40 Posted by DAMON GILL on 09 Jun, 2011 01:38 PM
________________________________
From: agedeboer <[email blocked]>
To: "[email blocked]" <[email blocked]>
Sent: Tuesday, 15 February, 2011 0:32:11
Subject: Re: Still extremely, extremely frustrated with how poorly Moneydance
matches imported transactions [Problems]
Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on 10 Jun, 2011 02:06 PM.