Loan setup: reconciling reminder transactions with real account activity
I've been a Quicken user for 10 years, and am currently trying out MoneyDance as a replacement. I really want to like the program, but there are a few things that are making my transition difficult.
The biggest problem is making the really nice "loan account" feature work. Take my mortgage. I setup all the loan details, and after RTFM, I realized that I needed to set reminders to ensure the loan would be properly drawn down. Having that setup, I'm faced with a dilemma. I make my loan payments from my checking account at the end of every month (I bank online, so I make the payments on my bank website). Thus, my checking account shows a transaction at the end of the month, and this is categorized in my Home: Mortgage category. The problem is: if I then "record transaction" through the reminder, I seem to have only two options: (a) Use my "checking" account as a category, and thus have my mortgage amount deducted twice from that account (one time for real, the other time in fiction); (b) Categorize the reminder transaction in the Home: Mortgage category, so that category takes the double hit instead of an actual account. This renders the data for that category highly inaccurate, but at least the loan account is basically working.
My basic question is: Can I take the actual transaction that I paid for my mortgage and use that for the reminder, so that my loan is properly drawn down? For example, it would be great if I could categorize that transaction with the loan account. That doesn't work, however, because doing that means it won't properly split the transaction between interest, principle, and escrow and thus the loan account becomes defunct. Alternatively, if that isn't possible, can I "record a transaction" in the loan account has no effect on my other activity? E.g., the transaction goes into the ether, as it were? That at least lets me know what my loan status is, although all the day to day data would still get drawn from categorized transactions in my checking account.
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1 Posted by Ben Spencer on 16 Nov, 2010 06:41 PM
Hi
The way I would handle this would be to use the loan reminder to enter the split loan payment transaction into the correct accounts and categories and then when you download the transaction from the bank into the bank register merge the downloaded transaction with the transaction that was created by the reminder. You would do this by clicking on the newly downloaded transaction which will bring up the accept dialogue at the bottom of the register. Select the MERGE option next to the transaction that was created by the reminder in the accept dialogue and then click the accept button.
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
2 Posted by bbasgen on 23 Nov, 2010 04:34 AM
How do I bring up the accept dialogue for a transaction I've already "accepted" and cleared? Marking it back as uncleared doesn't seem to bring the dialogue up again. Meanwhile, for the newly created transaction from the reminder, I also do not get the accept dialogue.
If I select both transactions, I do not get a Merge option via the menus or via right click. Advice please? Thanks for all your help.
3 Posted by Ben Spencer on 27 Nov, 2010 06:46 PM
It is not possible to "un-accept" a transaction once it have been accepted. The accept dialogue only appears on "unconfirmed" transactions that have been imported or downloaded from the bank before they have been accepted. Since the transaction created by the reminder is not "unconfirmed" it does not present the accept dialogue.
The merge option is only available through the accept dialogue on unconfirmed transactions.
What I propose you do is delete the transaction that you downloaded and then accepted and then download it again. It will be marked with a blue dot to indicate that it is unconfirmed when it is downloaded. You can then click on it and accept it with the merge option.
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
System closed this discussion on 31 Mar, 2015 03:30 PM.