Can't establish online banking with American Express
When I try to start online banking for my Amex credit card,
after entering my userid and password, at the next menu ("Please
choose the account that you wish to use") both options (online
banking and bill payment) are grayed out.
This problem occurs regardless of whether I use New Connection or Manual Setup. (Using manual setup I have entered the OFX info found at http://www.ofxhome.com/index.php/institution/view/424.)
I have a Macbook Pro, OS X 10.6.2, running Moneydance 2010
(723), Java Version: 1.6.0_17. My online banking works fine with my
MS Money account (even running on my Mac using Fusionware).
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1 Posted by Ryan on 03 Jan, 2010 03:21 AM
I am having this exact same problem, and I also use Money with my AMEX without problems. I am considering switching over to Moneydance, but need it to work with AMEX.
I am also having this same problem with my USAA brokerage account. My USAA savings account is fine, but I get grayed out options for online banking and bill payment for the investment account.
2 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 04 Jan, 2010 06:23 PM
I have forwarded this discussion to our institution connection specialist, and she will look into it in the next few days.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on 04 Jan, 2010 06:23 PM.
Jessica Little re-opened this discussion on 06 Jan, 2010 04:16 PM
3 Posted by Jessica Little on 06 Jan, 2010 04:16 PM
Hi Bert and Ryan,
Most financial institutions will require you to enable your accounts for application-based online banking. If you have your financial institution set up your account as if you were using Quicken 2008 for Windows then it should also work with Moneydance since they use the same protocol. This is sometimes necessary as many banks don't yet recognize Moneydance or know how to deal with it.
Additionally, application-based online banking often requires a different login/PIN than the ones that are used for ATM or web-based banking. When you enable your account for access from Moneydance or Quicken, your financial institution should let you know what customer ID/login and PIN to use.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance, and thank you for your interest in Moneydance!
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
4 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 08 Jan, 2010 03:33 AM
Thanks for the reply. I called American Express, but they do not have any technical support staff who supported Moneydance. Their specialist in Quicken had no advice other than reminding me how to download my account data in a format made for Quicken. (I did this, but Moneydance could not import it.)
Of course, my goal is to establish a one-click electronic relationship between my Moneydance account and my Amex account. If there is no other advice available on how to do this, I'll have to ask Moneydance for a refund.
5 Posted by Ryan on 08 Jan, 2010 09:15 PM
The suggestions posted did not help or address my problem, either. I've used Quicken and MS Money for years, and I have the correct login credentials to connect to AMEX and my USAA brokerage. I know they are correct, in part, because the exact same credentials work RIGHT NOW in MS Money and Quicken. In fact, I am authenticating fine, just once I do, both of the options are grayed out.
I am using a trial of MoneyDance right now, and the program will not be useful to me if I cannot connect with these instituions. I am connecting fine with Compass Bank, though I do have intermittent issues where I get an error about not being able to connect (for updates or to schedule an electronic payment). The message makes it sound like my financial institution may be having a connectivity issue (or my computer), but 9 out of 10 times, exiting MoneyDance, then re-opening it resolves this problem. At least I can work around this one - I cannot work around not being able to connect to AMEX and USAA for brokerage acct. (USAA savings works fine).
6 Posted by Jessica Little on 09 Jan, 2010 08:24 PM
Quicken and Money support two methods of accessing your accounts: direct connect and web connect. With web connect, they basically connect to your bank's website and download and import OFX files. 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. This could explain the troubles connecting to AMEX - you could be using web connect in Quicken and Money. I'm not sure if their credentials are the same for web connect and direct (their website isn't very helpful), but it might be worth looking into. You would need to contact AMEX about it.
When you call them, you should ask them to set up your account for direct connections through Quicken 2008. If you mention Moneydance, they will likely say that they don't support Moneydance and them refuse to help you get connected. However, if you can convince them to set up your account for Quicken, it should work in Moneydance.
Ryan, USAA is different in that it appears that they don't require accounts to be activated for direct connection. One possibility is that the account type in Moneydance doesn't match the account type that USAA is sending when you try to connect. For example, if you've set up your account as an Investment account but USAA is sending information as if it's a bank account (or visa versa), you're get those greyed out boxes. If you try connecting your USAA account to a different account type in Moneydance, do you have any luck?
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
7 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 14 Jan, 2010 02:15 AM
Thanks for your help, but these are the questions I asked Amex before--after 40 minutes of trying to track down the right person--and it didn't work. I just don't have time to badger companies, research solutions and wait for emails. if Moneydance can't connect me to Amex as a matter of course, I need to move to some other software.
8 Posted by Anthony on 14 Jan, 2010 05:18 PM
I have both USAA savings and investment accounts. I am able to download from both.
Are you using selecting the correct 'Financial Institution' when setting up your online accounts?
"USAA Federal Savings Bank" is the FI that is used for USAA bank accounts.
"USAA Investment Management Co." is the FI that is used for USAA investment accounts.
9 Posted by Anthony on 14 Jan, 2010 05:28 PM
The AMEX issue could be related to a different OFX specification that has increased security but is not currently incorporated into Moneydance.
This is an issue with a number of banks as well.
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/switching-to-moneydance-fr...
10 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 16 Jan, 2010 12:41 PM
Thanks to all for their advice. I think I'm going to get a refund for now, go back to using MS money, and wait on the new Quicken for Mac or a sense that this issue has been resolved with Moneydance.
11 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 16 Jan, 2010 12:53 PM
Also, I can't find an email or other box to communicate my request for a refund. How do I do this?
12 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 17 Jan, 2010 01:23 AM
Bert,
Please post a request as a private case on this forum, or send an email to [email blocked] to request a refund.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
13 Posted by Jessica Little on 17 Jan, 2010 05:50 PM
Just to update everyone on in this discussion, we are currently working on updating Moneydance so that it will be able to connect using the newer OFX security measures that banks have begun to implement. This may solve the AMEX connection issue, though it's not clear that the issues are related. I'll update here when we have a fix implemented, so that y8ou can try it out and see if it solves your AMEX connection problem.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
14 Posted by bert Brandenbur... on 17 Jan, 2010 09:23 PM
Thanks, I will keep an eye out.
15 Posted by Jessica Little on 27 Jan, 2010 04:25 PM
Hi All,
We've released a new build of Moneydance 2010 (738) that implements the updated OFX auth scheme. I'm very interested to know if this allows you to connect to AMEX now. The update is available from our website at http://moneydance.com/trac/wiki/Moneydance2010Beta.
Thanks for you patience while we work on this issue. Please let me know if you're able to successfully connect to AMEX after applying this update.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
16 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 02 Feb, 2010 03:46 AM
Thanks for the update. I downloaded the new version, but the exact same problem continued. If further fixes are made, please keep me posted.
Support Staff 17 Posted by Sean Reilly on 02 Feb, 2010 04:01 AM
I can confirm that there is no problem on Moneydance's side with connections to American Express. I've been downloading transactions for my Amex card with Moneydance for at least 5 years now. You simply need to enabled DIRECT connections for your account. You can do this by calling American Express Online Services:
1-800-297-1234 (7 days a week, 8AM - midnight EST). If you are outside the U.S., call collect at 1-336-393-1111
Once you have a customer support person on the line you can ask them to enable direct connections from Quicken 2009 for Windows or MS Money (either will work). They will simply turn on the option that allows direct OFX connections from desktop software and Moneydance will connect using the same direct method as Quicken for Windows or MS Money.
Many bank's customer support teams may not recognize the name Moneydance, but since we use the same protocol for direct connections it will work. I promise, as I download from my Amex account from within Moneydance every day.
Raimund Buchholz closed this discussion on 05 Feb, 2010 06:27 AM.
Bert Brandenburg re-opened this discussion on 24 Feb, 2010 02:19 AM
18 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 24 Feb, 2010 02:19 AM
I appreciate the advice. I called Amex, and the tech person said that there is no special switch they need to "turn on" to allow direct OFX connections. They said that it is automatically enabled.
19 Posted by Chris on 26 Feb, 2010 11:53 AM
I finally decided to make the switch from MS Money to Moneydance. I also am unable to connect to American Express. What a pain.
Why doesn't it "just work"? Is it really that complicated?
20 Posted by Chris on 26 Feb, 2010 05:35 PM
I forgot to mention: I have MS Money running in a VM, right next to Moneydance 2010r2 (743) in Mac OS 10.6.2.
I can update my two American Express accounts just fine in MS Money. When I try it from Moneydance, I get the error:
There was an error communicating with your financial institution. The details of this error are below.
Bank Name: American Express
The error apparently has no details?
21 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 28 Feb, 2010 03:07 AM
My Amex card is jointly held with my wife, under whose name we originally created the account. On the advice of Amex, I got HER login and password to use, instead of mine.
When I started over, creating an Amex Card account, it said (as with Chris):
"There was an error communicating with your financial institution. The details of this error are below.
Bank Name: American Express"
I hit OK, the same error message came back, I hit OK again and moved me on to the next step. I got through the setup to Finish using my wife's info--farther than I'd ever gotten. But then when I pressed download accounts, it said there was no account to download, as if I'd not even set it up.
22 Posted by Brendan White on 28 Feb, 2010 03:08 PM
I am having similar problems with American Express credit card downloads. All my other credit cards work fine. I also called AmEx and they said there is nothing to "turn on." One thing that I think is odd is that when I try to set up this credit card again, it always requires me to start over whereas the other credit cards always show the previous info I used. It appears as if Moneydance is not completing the setup for American Express.
23 Posted by Andrew on 28 Feb, 2010 05:13 PM
Strange.. my amex account has never had any problems with moneydance, including 2010. I set it up a long time ago though with MD2007
24 Posted by Jennifer Rothen... on 01 Mar, 2010 02:31 AM
I am having the same problem. I was pulling in American Express transactions just fine in Moneydance until I upgraded to the 2010 version. Now I cannot seem to set it up and am getting the same error message that others above have described. Can you provide step-by-step directions to renew the direct connection of working with Amex? Thank you - this is a big problem!
25 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 01 Mar, 2010 03:44 PM
If you are not using the most recent version (2010r2 build 743), please update to that version. You can download the update here. This update has resolved a few key issues our users have been experiencing, including a number of OFX issues.
Re: error message- You've hit upon a small bug in Moneydance. The error window you received is too small to show the full error message, but it's not immediately obvious that there's more to the message. Please click and drag the lower right hand corner of the message window to expand the window, and then copy and paste the full error message here. We're working on a fix for this so that in the future it will be clear that the error message continues past "Bank Name."
Please let me know if you continue to have connection problems after recreating your connection.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
26 Posted by seth on 01 Mar, 2010 05:02 PM
American Express is complaining that the version of the application is not supported. It was working on the 26th, but stopped working on the 28th. This may have something to do with the new release of Quicken Essentials for the Mac and Intuit's usual timing out of their download application life. Maybe Amex is expecting a new application code or version number. Alternatively, something has just gotten mucked up.
(I tried the connection with build 743, and it failed, as it had with 723. I used a Python script for downloading OFX files to get the error message. I tried changing the QWIN 1800 to 1900 and 1700, but that didn't work either. Could Intuit be using a new version numbering scheme?)
27 Posted by Nader on 02 Mar, 2010 12:45 AM
For me, AX worked perfectly fine with the previous version. As soon as I upgraded to 2010, it stopped. Although all other financial institutions download the transactions just fine. For AX, it doesn't even ask for the password. After selecting American Express as the institution, it asks which account from the list of current accounts to be used with. Then it asks for the credit card number and Customer ID. The next screen only confirms that Moneydance has everything it needs to connect to AX and that I should click on Finish. After I click on Finish, it's finished. Nothing is downloaded and no errors. It simply does nothing.
28 Posted by Bert Brandenbur... on 02 Mar, 2010 02:35 AM
I have the exact same problem as Nader, before and after downloading 2010r2 (743).
But before I get to that point, right after confirming the credit card information, when I press continue, it says: "There was an error communicating with your financial institution. The details of this error are below. Bank Name: American Express. The error code reported by the server was: 2000 [ofx.unsupportedClientApplication] Client application or version is not supported by this server. [ref: 20100302022955.074]"
If I press okay, it gives me the same error. If I press okay a second time, it lets me continue--but then I have the same experience as Nader.
29 Posted by Christopher Lar... on 02 Mar, 2010 04:05 AM
Hi Angie,
I am using build 743.
I tried setting up online banking for American Express again. After it
prompted me for the password then failed to connect, I expanded the error
box as you suggested. Here's what it says:
The error code reported by the server was: 2000
[ofx.unsupportedClientApplication]
Client application or version is not supported by this server.
[ref: 20100302035301.824]
Chris
30 Posted by Jason on 02 Mar, 2010 12:51 PM
Count me in as well. AmEx downloads worked just fine for months and months, but as soon as I upgraded to build 743 I'm getting the same:
The error code reported by the server was: 2000
[ofx.unsupportedClientApplication] Client application or version is not supported by this server.
[ref: 20100302035301.824]