Can't change categories on imported transactions
Adrian
I'm new to MD and just imported one bank statement in QIF 4
digit format. All of the imported transactions have a default
category of "ATM withdrawal" and I can't find a way to change it.
If I click on a transaction it prompts me to merge transactions,
and in most cases the options it gives are far from what I would
choose. I also don't understand what the merging actually does - is
that just for the categories is is that a feature for finding
duplicate transactions?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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1 Posted by james f on Apr 13, 2012 @ 10:06 AM
After downloading transactions, they need to be imported into your Moneydance account's ledger.
There ought to be three options available for impoting transactions:
1. Current Transactions > Confirm
2. Merge Choices > Merge
3. Similar Payees
If you do not have anything already existing in your ledger, then choose Confirm.
If the transaction that you downloaded matches an already existing transaction in your ledger, then choose the Merge option. If there are Mutiple options in the Merge Choices, then choose the one that closely matches the entry already in your ledger. When this happens to me (very seldom), I make sure that the Description(Payee) and Dollar amount match and that the dates are close enough together. With the "Merge" option, the downloaded transactions will take on the attributes of any transactions that you have previously entered into your account ledger. In other words, if you have an entry already in your account ledger with a specific Category already set, the downloaded transaction will take on that Category once Merged.
As a last resort, you would choose Other Payee if nothing else matches.
Once you have completed the "Merge" process, then you can go back and edit the Category field. I suggest waiting until your all done with the Merge process to edit transactions. However, if you were to click on the downloaded transaction a second time while in the "Merge" process, it ought to let you edit the downloaded transaction. I do not suggest doing this way for there have been reports that such editing does not hold if you use the Confirm option. It is best to just wait until you're all finished importing all of your downloaded transactions before editing them.
Once you're done importing all of your downloaded transactions then you want to go to Account > Reconcile. There you will reconcile your account.
The Beginning Statement Balance is a pre-calculated amount based upon the last time that you reconciled your account. If this is your first reconciliation, then it will be the amount that was used as your Opening Balance.
The Ending Balance is claculated based upon the transactions that have been fully integrated into your account's ledger from the import process.
You should not have to adjust the Ending Balance in any way.
Once you are all done, you want to choose File - Save. This will save all of your hard work.
If this is your first save ever after having just setup your account within Moneydance, then you want to choose File - Save As. This will prompt you to save your work with a name and location of your choosing. With the name, it ought to end in .md (The appending of the .md ought to happen automatically). As to the location to save the file to (this is a very crucial step), I suggest saving to a folder that is on an external device such as a USB Flash Drive, an external Hard drive, a Networked Hard Drive, or into "The Cloud". With the last choice, "The Cloud", if you have an account with say, "Dropbox", there ought to be a "Dropbox" folder on your computer system somewhere. Just save your .md file to that folder and it will populate into your "Cloud" online. Any other "Cloud" service will do a similar thing.
I, for one, saved my primary .md data file to an attached USB Flash Drive. Others use their "Cloud" folder. Saving to "The Cloud" is an excellent choice, as long as you have your .md data file encrypted. Encryption is not such a bad choice. It just means that you have to enter a Passphrase every time that you open Moneydance.
Saving to an external device is a !!! crucial !!! step in the event of a catastrophic crash of your internal Hard Drive, or other fatal Hard Drive situation, or fatal crash of your computer in some fashion or another.
One other thing, you want to choose a location for your backup data file to reside in. You would go to File - Preferences - Backup. Again, I suggest choosing a folder that is on an external device of one type or another. I further suggest that it not be on the same device as your primary .md data file. But that is not such a crucial deal as making sure that your primary .md data file is saved off computer somewhare.
And YES, you can definitely acces and write to your primary .md data file no matter what external devaice you have saved it to. Once it is saved to that location, Moneydance will always be looking for it at that loaction every time that you open Moneydance.
2 Posted by james f on Apr 13, 2012 @ 10:07 AM
Here is a screenshot of the Merge process.
3 Posted by james f on Apr 13, 2012 @ 11:14 AM
Oh, and here are a couple of screenshots of the Reconcile process.
4 Posted by Adrian on Apr 13, 2012 @ 05:36 PM
Hi, James,
Thanks for posting the screen shot as well as the info. I think I should give some more background info on my situation. I used to use Quicken but my data got corrupted and I've switched to MD. Because of the olld database being corrupted, I'm starting completely from scratch and entering all of my transactions from 2011 to the present.
I can only download digital statements for up to one year ago, so for Jan, Feb, March and April of 2011, I was entering the data into MD directly from my printed statements. I tried to import the May 2011 statement in QIF format, but MD was prompting me to merge the May transactions with older ones. From what I gather from the screen shot, the merge function is for when you've entered something by hand with one date, and the bank statement show that transaction posting a few days later? or am I missing the boat?
I've already reconciled a few times, but I'm wondering if there's a way to uncheck everything and reconcile again. But that's another question entirely.
Thanks for your help!
5 Posted by james f on Apr 13, 2012 @ 11:01 PM
"From what I gather from the screen shot, the merge function is for when you've entered something by hand with one date, and the bank statement show that transaction posting a few days later?"
Absolutely correct.
"MD was prompting me to merge the May transactions with older ones."
Did you manually enter your May 2011 transactions? Or did you leave that to be imported from your downloaded transactions? If you did not hand enter anything for May of 2011, then you ought to be able to use the "Current Transaction" Confirm process.
By the way, does your Financial Institution offer transaction downloads in any other format besides QIF? In particular, do they offer either Microsoft Money format (OFX) or Quicken format (QFX). If either of the two are offered, it would be much better to use one of those formats rather than QIF. QIF is a very flakey format. OFX and QFX were desinged specifically for importing transactions into Money Management programs.
If you can download transactions using either OFX or QFX, you can specify to open Moneydance at the time of downloading. You ought to have the option of either "Open with" or "Save as" when you choose to download transactions. If you choose "Open with" you can then choose Moneydance to open the download. Moneydance will then prompt you to choose the account to download the transactions into (the default choice ought to be correct if the account number matches).
I'll try to post a screenshot of what I am talking about.
6 Posted by Adrian on Apr 13, 2012 @ 11:13 PM
Here are the only options offered by my bank:
WEB Connect for Quicken 2009 and above
Managing Your Money - QIF file (2 digit)
Quicken - QIF file (4 digit)
Microsoft Excel Format - Comma delimited text format.
Printable Text Format
Any of these better than QIF?
Thanks!
7 Posted by james f on Apr 13, 2012 @ 11:46 PM
I guess your stuck with using QIF unfornuately.
Keep using the QIF format that you have been.
One good piece of news, you can still choose the "Open with" option and choose Moneydance. You might have to select the correct account when the "Select an Account" option opens up. That ought to save a little bit of time on your part. It works. See screenshots.
Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on Sep 20, 2013 @ 10:41 PM.