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I'm at a Total Loss About What is Going On with Discover CC Accounts in Moneydance

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gk.springer

15 May, 2023 10:41 PM

I have 2 Discover Credit Cards (1 from long ago) and one from their "new" Discover IT cards. When discover quit providing OFX format transaction down loads and went to CSV or Excel only my troubles began. I obtained (at a cost) a CSV2OFX converter program, but it was taking too long to convert each of 5 files (3 bank account and 2 credit card) each month. So I switched to Moneydance fro MS Money. The CSV input for the bank accounts work fine, but the input for the credit cards defies belief. I have noted that the OLD Discover credit card has transactions with 1 amount field with a sign to reflect a charge or a payment. The data goes into the wrong columns of Moneydance. I contacted you about this earlier and something worked for 1 month. I reconciled my account and now when I import the data the card charges goes into the payment column and the payments go into the charge column. Then for the Newer DiscoverIT card, the CSV format files produced by Discover have separate input columns for charges and payments. I tried to mark them to be amount to deduct or amount to credit. However, in this case I get a similar result as for the old Discover card and the results are totally backwards for it as well. I haven't tried yet, but intend to go back to the CSV2OFX converter to see if if continues to get the input correct for Moneydance.

I know this is a quite general question, but what do you need to see in order to understand what I am referring to here as I have already wasted DAYS and DAYS of time trying to figure out what Moneydance is dloing with the transactions. The latest with the OT card is the transaction nALL input with a value of $0.00 for both charges and payments. Thus there are 2 CSV formats for the 2 credit cards and the way Moneydance processes the transactions is wildly different as well. I went to preferences and set the option under Network to.either ignore the amount sign or not and nothing I set there makes any difference in the outcome of how the transactions get handled. So, please tell me what you want to see in samples of the CSV files and how they show up on my credit card ledger. I want to quit wasting any more of my time without some guidance as to what you want to see and make a diagnosis of what is wrong.

As 1 person among 1000's my complaints to Discover are ignored and asking me to "pressure" them to go back to supplying the OFX format files goes NOWHERE. I would hope you folks would have a better chance to pointing out the problemns they have created for their customers ... none of whom individually will amount to a hill of beans. So it is either Moneydance can fix their input processing to correct the issue (simply a switch to flip the signs for credit card transactions) or rely on Discover to suddenly come to their senses and return to offering the OFX files. They have already shown their disdain for their customers by stopping their service in the first place. Therefore my alternative is to go back to MS Money and handle my credit cards via my old ways.using the converter.

I hope you can offer some hope this can be fixed using Moneydance code. Please tell me how to proceed and what you want as my frustration level with Moneydance is rising by the day.

Thank you,
/gks

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Maddy on 16 May, 2023 10:17 AM

   

   Hi,
   Thank you for contacting Moneydance support.

   Moneydance supports automatic downloads using OFX Direct Connect and Moneydance +.
   Discover previously supported the Direct Connect method but unfortunately, the OFX server for Discover stopped working around this time last year. So we removed the Discover OFX connection from Moneydance.

   We are aware Discover only offers CSV format now for manual downloads and you can find the relevant steps for importing CV files in this article of the Knowledge Base.

   Moneydance default CSV tool seems to work correctly as long as the amount field and the debit field are reversed.
   The amounts should be imported to the correct columns with the correct settings.

   In conclusion, when you are setting up the CSV import as displayed here

   You should select the fields exactly in this order (only the first time you import a csv file from Discover), after that Moneydance should remember your settings and it will become easier.

   date
   ignore
   description
   deposit
   ignore

   Alternatively, (if you're using Moneydance 2022/2023) you can subscribe to Moneydance+. This is the new (optional) subscription service that allows you to download transactions from your banks using the Plaid aggregator. You can read more about Moneydance+ in this blog post.
   Discover are listed in Moneydance+ so you could try subscribing to download your transactions with this method. The steps for setting up this service are outlined here.
   There is a 30-day free trial so you can fully test downloading from your bank before you're charged.

   Side note: It might be useful referring you to this public thread on the topic.

   --
   Maddy, Infinite Kind Support

   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by gk.springer on 16 May, 2023 08:03 PM

   

   Thank you Maddy for the info. With a slight variation for the credit cards I had to set the "Amount" field to be the "Debit Amount" and it worked fine. You mentioned to set the fields on import the first time an import is done, but I had updated the accounts a couple of times that worked (I'm not sure how), so Moneydance is going back to some remembered setting and not the one that is needing to be saved. Is there a way to get Moneydance to save what is now working for the imports? I would like to save the correct setting without having to do it each time I import transactions to these two credit card accounts.

   You also mentioned using Direct Connect for Moneydance+ users that includes Discover. However, does that coverage include the Discover Credit Cards? I don't think it does as I am a Moneydance+ user and I don't see a way to get the transactions for the credit cards as they are distributed from a different website than for the Discover Bank accounts. Am I wrong here or is there a way to get the credit card data directly from Discover?

   For now I'm glad to find the way to get the transactions handled correctly for the Discover credit cards. Now if I can make the changes permanent for importing the csv data that would be a plus. If I have to go back 5 months of transactions and do it all again I will, but surely that shouldn't be necessary and a procedure to update the options should be buildable by the software group. Just let me know how I can proceed here.

   I doubt I would have "found" the way to proceed here without your help as the documentation that exists certainly doesn't point me to using alternately named fields to find the one that works correctly. Even with your instructions I had to interpret what you said with what I was seeing on the input list of fields to select from to home in on which one to use. But armed with the idea that one of the alternate names should be used instead of "amount" in order to find the right combination. I still think a simple Flag to say to switch the signs for the amount is a more obvious way to deal with this issue than using names with unknown properties as to how they will get used. Just my perspective as a PhD Computer Scientist who taught University CS for many many years. But, thanks foor the help as I now see what the issue is and how to handle it in Moneydance (for this go around).

   • Edit

3. 3 Posted by gk.springer on 17 May, 2023 10:13 PM

   

   Just for completeness I would like to report that I was able to connect both of my Discover Credit Cards to Moneydance's Direct Connect capability. I indicated in my earlier note that I was skeptical that I could connect the credit cards, but could connect the bank accounts. In fact, I was able to connect sll five accounts to the Direct Connect service. I'm surprised, but delighted as this will save me a ton of time keeping my accounts updated properly. This problem has caused me an enormous amount of time and energy over the psst months. Fortunately this solves my problem with Discover as well as using Moneydance.

   Thank you for providing the information I needed to work through this problem as I also learned how to use Moneydance. At this point I will close this problem as solved.

   With kind regards,
   /gks

   • Edit

4. gk.springer closed this discussion on 17 May, 2023 10:15 PM.