Frustrated new Money Dance user / etrade banker
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G2
Hello - I am hoping someone can help me out with a problem that i am running into.
Just downloaded MD 2011, and I am have a a few different Etrade accounts. MD has no problem recognizing and linking to my investment accounts, but will not find my checking accounts. Without this ability MD is useless to me! I have emailed tech support several days ago and have not heard a response. Anyone else run into this problem?
May have to request a refund if I cannot get this fixed, and I dont really want to go back to quicken!
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1
harryfranks
on 16 Jul, 2011 10:09 PM
I have etrade accounts as well and I've been using Moneydance for a number of years. First, if you have an e-trade complete account (i.e., a brokerage account with full check writing) I set up two accounts in MD. One is an investment account and another is a checking account (Called ETrade Cash). I do this because the investment accounts don't just have the same flexibility as the checking accounts. When I download transactions they all come into the investment account, if they are cash type transactions, I do the batch transfer to the cash account (control click to select a number of transactions the right click for batch change to another account).
For accounts with ETrade bank, they have never allowed OFX downloads (what you need for simple one click downloads). So ETrade bank won't have this capability in any software program. From the Etrade website for those accounts you can choose download, choose a time period and pick the quicken file and then import that into MD. Hope that helps. Let me know if I need to clarify anything.
2
g2
on 16 Jul, 2011 11:05 PM
HAFMAC - thanks for the response. I think you hit the nail on the head with the second paragraph.
This now leads to another question - Automatic downloads worked in both Quicken and MS Money from etrade. Were they using a different type of download?
3
Jessica Little
on 16 Jul, 2011 11:54 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. Moneydance only supports automatic connections through direct connect and not web connect. You can still download OFX, QFX, QIF, and OFC files files from your bank and import them, but there's currently no way to do this automatically from within Moneydance.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
4
harryfranks
on 17 Jul, 2011 01:56 PM
It appears Quicken for Windows has a way to automate the downloading of OFX files from the Etrade Bank website. Maybe this is something Moneydance can work on in the future. I for one, haven't had too many problems with simply going to the Etrade website weekly and downloading the last week's transactions as an OFX file. The Mac knows when I open those files to bring them into MD.
From the Quicken support site I found this:
Express Web Connect / Quicken Connect - Details
Availability
Most financial institutions.
Features
Download transactions and update account balances.
Setup
Use the web site login information as your user ID and password when you add accounts at that financial institution to Quicken.
Bill Pay
Not available from within Quicken.
Use
You don't need to leave Quicken to download transactions and update account balances.
Just update your accounts and your new transactions and balances will be downloaded directly into Quicken.
Fees
You are not charged fees to use Express Web Connect.
Data
Express Web Connect is a one-way connection. Data is imported into Quicken, but Quicken cannot affect your transactions or balances in any way.
Access and retrieval of data is automated through the use of scripts and nightly aggregation. During aggregation, Quicken logs in to your online banking web site on your behalf. Generally this happens once a day and outside of business hours. Because of this, you may notice login activity on your online banking web site overnight.
Your login credentials are stored on Intuit-hosted servers. This makes updates faster for you.
Your financial data is stored on Intuit-hosted servers. This provides a more complete history of your financial transactions than is typical for data stored on financial institution servers.
We use state-of-the-art security measures to protect your login credentials and your financial data.
5
Jessica Little
on 17 Jul, 2011 04:12 PM
We actually are working on web connect functionality for Moneydance and hope to have something available for release sometime this year. For now, you can associate a website with an account in Moneydance, so that going to your bank's website is just a keystroke away.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
6
Jim
on 15 May, 2014 02:23 AM
I am interested in this feature and it has been a few years. Jessica Little said that the feature was hopefully going to be available in 2011. A key requirement to use moneydance is the ability to import etrade bank (not brokerage) accounts. is there something that can be done?
7
dantheelder
on 21 May, 2014 04:27 PM
I'm also very interested in this feature as I'm looking at jumping ship from Quicken (very painful to use under Linux). I'm very impressed with how far MD has come but having to manually download from ETrade is a pain.
8
dgliserman
on 16 Mar, 2015 06:10 PM
Clearly, the issue of QFX format file and Direct Connect has been bounced around. As a relatively new MD user, I find the inability to download transactions from Ally Bank frustrating. I have have a number of accounts with Ally and have to gather recent transactions via a kludgy download process inside the bank's website. Ally does not support OFX for security reasons so Ally has to work with them to establish a QFX connection that will facilitate automatic downloads.
9
dgliserman
on 16 Mar, 2015 06:15 PM
Clarification - I meant that MD would have to work with Ally, not "Ally" as I mistyped
10
Scott Meehan
on 16 Mar, 2015 11:22 PM
Hi Dave,
Unfortunately, Ally doesn't support direct OFX connections, which Moneydance (and other financial software) requires in order to talk directly to a bank. The best way to get your transactions into Moneydance is to use a web browser to download them from your bank's web site. You can download into QFX, QIF, OFX or OFC files (sometimes referred to as Quicken or MS Money files), any of which will import cleanly into Moneydance. 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.
If your bank begins to support direct OFX connections in the future, we will be happy to work with them.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance, and thank you for your interest in Moneydance.
Scott Meehan
Infinite Kind Support
Scott Meehan closed this discussion on 16 Mar, 2015 11:22 PM.