Future of Moneydance?
I was prompted to start this thread by
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/questions/851-transfer-sha...
and particularly the last 3 posts.
I believe that MD has to decide what it wants to be. Does it want to (continue to) be a niche product? Or does it want to be THE (Mac + others) personal finance program, succeeding QMac in particular? If it wants to be the latter, it has to act to provide the features, and make the bug fixes, that are requested & suggested here. All too often, the response to a Suggestion/Bug Report is that it will be put on the list, but there is no schedule for, or even promise of, implementation.
I have been following MD for a long time. Many years ago, while looking for a replacement for QMac, I actually exchanged emails directly with Sean. I did not switch at the time since the QIF import required major fixing, but I remembered his attention to my questions. I did finally switch a year ago, and suffered through a better but still problematic import after Intuit announced that QMac would not be updated for Lion (now changed). And while I am now comfortable with and satisfied with MD, it is missing many features that I got used to with QMac. I have seen posts on these boards criticizing requests that MD implement a feature found in QMac, saying that MD is its own product, take it or leave it the way it is. I think that is a very short-sighted position and think it misses the forest for the trees.
If MD does want to be the successor to QMac, it will have to find the resources to act more quickly to incorporate missing features. Or fixing bugs that are just plain wrong. I point to the Portfolio Report and the Annualized Returns columns, particularly the All column, which are acknowledged to be incorrect. And they remain that way. I recognize that prioritizing the features is a problem - what I like is not what some else likes - but the solution now is far too often that MD will get around to it when it gets around to it. And unfortunately that seems to be the attitude for far too many bugs.
I want MD to stay around. They are far more worthy of our support than Intuit. But if MD chooses not to strive to be the successor to QMac, someone else - iBank, SEE Finance, or Intuit - will! Whoever comes up with a polished, complete product will be successful. And I say that recognizing that QMac had its problems, too, but was by-and-large an easy to use, complete personal finance program.
I just want to hopefully get a discussion going about MD's future, or lack thereof, in a general way rather than related to specific requests, and hopefully let Sean and company hear directly from users in that regard. I posted a 2011 Moneydance Wish List in this thread with that in mind, but got only a polite response from Ben and one other related post. Perhaps this will generate more interest.
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31 Posted by jack on 11 Feb, 2012 06:27 PM
Interesting discussion. There are many good perspectives here. I too am a retired firmware engineer and intimately know about the labyrinthine ways of complex software (even when written with OOP in mind).
Be that as it may, the points here are that this is a purchased product for us and it should be doing what we expect of a PFM -- well let me amend that somewhat. I came from Q2009 because of the sunsetting policy. I thought I needed the investment capabilities to be exactly like Q2009 and I expected it to have a TXF export capability.
The more I worked with MD the more I thought about why I really moved to MD. It was because I wanted to kick Q2009 as far away as possible. Check. MD's check/cash register system is just fine, thank you. Check. TXF is missing -- but wait how did I use Q2009's TXF facility when I didn't use Turbo-Tax anyway? I just printed out a report based on tax categories an then worked them into my other tax software and really (for me) that worked quite well. So MD can do that so TXF, check.
Now investment capabilities -- yes many issues here, Q2009 much fewer issues, but as I thought about it I asked myself why was I requiring one program to do it all so I started to look at investment tracking software. I settled on Fund Manager (URL not included 'cause this ain’t a commercial it's just what I did) and found that it provides much more functionality and insight into our investments than any PFM seems to do.
So there it is -- I use MD as it is for our checking, credit card, reminder type needs and I use Fund Manager for our investments (MAC folks would have to use Parallels I think). I'm happy that MD is willing to listen and continue on at there own pace (and willing to be prodded a little).
32 Posted by anthonywarnold on 12 Feb, 2012 05:15 PM
I use MD in a pretty complex way, all my accounts banking, credit card, mortgage, investments both tax deferred and taxed, as well a stock appreciation rights account. I import weekly transactions from my financial institutions into MD accounts. I use the budget features and a wide arrange of the reports. I never used Qmac however, but came to MD as a replacement to Quicken when migrating from PC to Mac. I can't duplicate many of the problems I read in these posts. I have never had trouble transferring shares between accounts. I can always find a fairly decent work around to any issue that arises and the support staff is awesome. MD is far simpler than Quicken and therefore much more elegant. I am a huge champion of MD for what it is worth.
33 Posted by davet65 on 12 Feb, 2012 06:48 PM
anthonywarnold,
Please tell us how you transfer shares, and all of the history, dividends and reinvestments, between accounts.
34 Posted by anthonywarnold on 12 Feb, 2012 08:12 PM
If I state things that you already know, please forgive me as it is impossible to know the context of everyone's knowledge and detail of use.
I have transferred complete holdings from an existing account to a new one when moving from one investment company to another. I used the BuyXfer or SellXfer transaction type and chose the appropriate accounts in the category fields. Does not matter which side you use, the selling out account or the buying into account. As far as transferring the history of dividends, reinvestments, cost basis, etc., I have never used any software that can do that. All you can do is transfer your existing holdings at their current value. Your investment company can't do this. If you change investment accounts, ex: DeanWitter to NYLife, NYLife is not going to have such information online either. You always have those histories in the old account and can run reports on that account. You can hide the old account, just don't delete it if you want to retain this information.
If you a migrating every holding into a new account and want to keep those histories I see 2 options: 1) Don't change accounts, just edit the account name and information to match the new physical account. You still can do the Sell and Buy transactions within to simulate the real market xfers and any costs therein. 2) Copy all old transactions into the new account, again you can do Sell and Buy transactions to simulate real xfer and cost. Having never done #2, there could be some quirks to this.
One trick in MD, which I admit is a bit odd, but not a big deal, is that setting up a security is not enough to make things work correctly. You also have to add the security to an account. Just doing a transaction with the security within the account will not do this. You have to go to the Securities Detail tab when you are in the account register and then choose the Add Security action in the Action drop down box. If you don't, reports and values will not show correct holdings.
I can only share what I have done. I hope it added some value. If not, just disregard.
35 Posted by Doug on 12 Feb, 2012 10:30 PM
I haven't tried transferring investments lately, if something has changed please let me know. I struggled with this when I first starting using MD. I also wrote a note in another support thread where a number of people were discussing the same issue. We all felt that MD needed to support "true" transfer of investments with correct handling of basis. To my knowledge this has not been addressed.
I don't think that SellXfer and BuyXfer do what anthonywarnold thinks they do. In my experience with MD, they do just what the names describe, SELL the investment and TRANSFER the proceeds to another account. When I transfer a stock or mutual fund from one account to another (which I've done several times over the years) I simply move the investment from one account to another. MD's use of SellXfer / BuyXfer causes the investments basis to be "reset". When I later run a Capital Gains Report in MD, it uses the last purchase price, i.e. the price at the time of the transfer, to calculate gains and determine the type (short or long term). It will also show the transfer activity as a Capital Gains event in the year of the transfer.
36 Posted by anthonywarnold on 13 Feb, 2012 12:19 AM
I agree with Doug that is how the MD works. Again, I have not used any financial software that carries the basis across accounts with a single transaction on a security. There may be one that does, but I am not aware off it.
But would not work-around #2 in my post do the trick? In the original account, use the search window to identify all transactions for the security you want to move. Highlight all the transactions isolated by the search and then use the batch change to change the account to the destination account. This would retain the correct basis would it not? The search and the batch change I find to be very useful tools in MD.
37 Posted by jack on 13 Feb, 2012 12:43 AM
Anthony,
Unless you want to stay all in one program in which case read no further. You might want to look at Fund Manager. I have not done this yet but my understanding of how to do this keeping all your basis and complete transactional history is that you create a new empty account (called sub portfolios) and just drag the investment from the old account to the new account. Just like you drag a file from one directory to another.
For actual details look in their forums section (http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/forum/index.php)
38 Posted by Doug on 13 Feb, 2012 12:33 PM
My interest is primarily investment tracking. I came from Quicken 2008 (for Windows) and I'm pretty sure it fully supports transfers. When I moved to the Mac, I tried Quicken 2007 for Mac and found it very poor in a number of areas and not at all comparable to the Windows version. Intuit has a long history of offering terrible products for the Mac community (I don't get it, but that's the way it is).
I chose MD (in spite of its limitations) because it runs natively on the Mac (no more Parallels needed) and because my wife, still a Windows user, could use it as well for the family checkbook.
Since I'm a confirmed Mac user now, Fund Manager (Windows only) isn't a possibility. I'll continue along with MD unless something better comes along. I would like to see MD improve but it seems to be taking a very slow path (funny, that's one of the things that originally irritated me about Intuit products for the Mac).
39 Posted by jackdaniel_chin... on 16 Feb, 2012 04:09 AM
Hi
I do agree that there are many things to be improved in the MD in all versions. (Windows,Mac,IOS)
please share the link for your 2011 Moneydance Wish list...
I would like to post some!
40 Posted by davet65 on 16 Feb, 2012 01:22 PM
Here is an existing thread that generated very little interest. The suggestions are scattered in many other, specific threads.
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/suggestions/961-2012-money...
41 Posted by zeke on 17 Feb, 2012 02:51 AM
One could make quite a List of Wish Lists. I've seen a huge number of suggestions ranging from general to extremely narrow and specific. All users have some particular set of features / improvements that are near and dear to them. If MD wants to significantly expand their user base (and I'm not necessarily sure they do), there has to be some sort of strategic plan and understanding of the overall market that individual users in a forum can't really supply. My guess as an outsider looking in is that there is limited expertise in personal finance management as a whole at MD. I recall a blog post mentioning that MD employees were investment junkies who invested in gold futures or some such. That's well and good but I can't imagine it fits the profile of the vast majority of potential users. I think this shows up in the way investment information is handled. For example, total return on investment (ROI) is a very basic and crucial performance metric for many people, but it appears to be something of an afterthought in MD (seeing as how it does not appear at all in the "security detail" view and is often inaccurate in the reports). Again as an insider looking in, I would say MD needs to acquire some additional expertise in the field of personal finance management (including basic financial calculations!) to guide the development and improvement of features that are most needed and desired by potential users. Of course I could be wrong...
42 Posted by Mike on 17 Feb, 2012 02:33 PM
Is there any word on the response from Sean mentioned in comment 11 of this thread?
Support Staff 43 Posted by Sean Reilly on 17 Feb, 2012 08:17 PM
Hi All,
I'm sorry for not chiming in earlier. We are taking all of your feedback into account, and I am working hard to find additional full-time developers with personal finance experience who are located in the UK. If you or someone you know fits that description, please send me a message at sreilly at infinitekind dot com.
We are currently working on several fronts, and the only issue holding us back right now is spinning up the best talent we can find to expand the company.
I promise you will see some amazing things coming from us in the next 12 months.
Sincerely,
Sean Reilly
Moneydance founder and Developer
(still learning to be a business owner)
44 Posted by Roy on 18 Feb, 2012 01:33 AM
Sean,
Saw your ad on FaceBook and this is fantastic news. Knowing that there is direction and a plan for the future of MoneyDance is very encouraging.
I believe you are positioned to make formidable gains within the PFM user community and ultimately own it. Timing is (as in life and all things we know) critical.
All the best wishes for the new and improved additions to MD, and a future success story waiting to be told . Roy
45 Posted by davet65 on 18 Feb, 2012 06:02 PM
As the originator of this thread, I am delighted to hear from Sean, and pleased with what he says. That is exactly the kind of reassurance I was hoping for. And, I believe, a recognition that some of the fundamental issues discussed here deserve the attention of full-time developers with personal finance experience . Sean's candidness in his signature sign-off is also welcome.
I look forward to what MD will be in a year.
Thanks, Sean.
46 Posted by davet65 on 27 Feb, 2012 11:25 PM
Support/Sean:
Please read post #23 here. It is extremely well stated and applies to this thread, too.
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/suggestions/761-memos-on-s...
47 Posted by ..d..ecay on 28 Feb, 2012 04:23 AM
Here's a link that will let you know once there is an update regarding Lion Compatible Quicken 2007 for Mac:
http://tinyurl.com/732jglu
Moneydance never came close to providing usable data when converting my QFM2007 QIF export file. Something about the way it processed all my splits was faulty, since I ended up with accounts containing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars which should have had a couple hundred in there. I hate having to remain w/Quicken, but just cannot find a truly viable alternative.
48 Posted by james f on 28 Feb, 2012 01:07 PM
..d..ecay, Your issue is not the fault of Moneydance. It is the fault of the structure of the QIF file format done by Quicken.
QIF format was never intended to be an export / import file format. It was intended for Financial Institutions internal processes.
49 Posted by ..d..ecay on 28 Feb, 2012 02:03 PM
The genesis or original "intention" of the QIF file format is irrelevant. It is the method by which financial data can be extracted from QFM2007 (and others), and there are companies who have the ability to parse & process the data correctly - that is a fact; Moneydance just isn't one of them. Although many features of Moneydance are quite good, it's pointless to try and make a go of it unless they have the ability to import one's current data correctly.
50 Posted by james f on 28 Feb, 2012 10:31 PM
..d..ecay,
The useful intent of the QIF file format may not seem relevant to you, but it is very relevant. The QIF file format was never intended to be used to transfer data from one PFM to another. It is not THE method.
Even between various releases of Quicken, there are differences in how the QIF file is formatted.
Can you name any PFM that can handle all the various formats of the QIF file?
QIF is a very flaky file format, at best.
I suggest that you study up on the QIF file format. Such as it's relevant intended use as well as it's inherent instabilities / weaknesses / flaws, so forth and so on.
51 Posted by james f on 28 Feb, 2012 11:20 PM
File Extension Qif: http://www.fileextensionqif.com/
Files with .qif file extension can be associated with one of three different programs. The first, and most common, is the Quicken Financial software from Intuit. The Quicken .qif (Quicken Interchange Format) contains the standard account information from the Quicken application. This includes multiple banking and investments accounts, individual transactions, financial institution data, and saved reports. It is the native format for the Quicken software and is generally used only for saving data on the hard drive. Although never intended to be used for online banking, some financial institutions offer downloads in .qif format. Those that don't may offer .ofx, an open and standard format which most current financial software packages support.
QIF: http://www.ehow.com/list_6611967_quicken-file-types.html/
Many institutions used QIF files as a way to allow customers to download financial transaction information. Intuit stopped using the the Quicken Interchange Format, or .QIF, file extension when it released the 2006 version of Quicken. The company explained that this format was over ten years old and was never intended for download purposes and advised customers to switch to OFX (Open Financial Exchange) files that Intuit developed with the help of Microsoft and Checkfree.
http://www.respmech.com/mym2qifw/qif_new.htm/
Some of the limitations with QIF include the following: http://web.intuit.com/personal/quicken/qif/qif_faqs.html#faq6/
QIF was never designed to be a transaction download standard, it was designed for technical support purposes.
QIF Import can lead to duplicate transactions.
QIF Import requires a multiple step process for data import.
QIF does not allow Quicken to automatically set up accounts within Quicken.
QIF is not supported by Intuit technical support.
The QIF format has some downsides, including: http://linuxfinances.info/info/financeformats.html/
It does not guarantee uniqueness of transactions. There is no "transaction key," thus if you import a file twice, you will get the transactions booked twice.
It uses the assumption that a transaction is associated with a "balance sheet" (asset/liability) account and an "income statement" (income/expense) account. (Possibly multiple of the latter.)
In effect, everything looks like a cash expenditure/receipt. Transfers and adjustments must be fiddled into groups of "cash" transactions.
These are but a few examples of what the QIF file format is intended for.
52 Posted by quarterboats on 28 Apr, 2012 03:15 PM
Thanks, Sean, for your candid response in #45 above. I have been a MD user/customer for a number of years now and I confess that my recent frustrations have "clouded" my overall satisfaction with MD and led me to research competing software solutions. Over the course of many years using MD, I have moved from a PC-centric world to a MAC-centric world. Operating in a mixed-environment during the transition was seamless (using a dropbox-based .md file - which I wouldn't use without encryption). For that I am truly grateful!
I'm glad you have a multi-platform approach, and imagine this has something to do with your initial foray into cloud syncing being limited to Dropbox. Which brings me to my point: Besides supporting multiple platforms, two of the greatest strengths of MD are the option to encrypt the data file, and the ability to sync between mobile and desktop machines. To my knowledge no other personal finance application for the Mac encrypts data files, and cloud support is limited to one other product using iCloud (apart from work-arounds).
As you increase staff, would you please consider improving the strength of file encryption and bolstering support for the Apple universe (Mac app store, iCloud syncing)? I see strong encryption becoming more critical as users' data files reside somewhere other than their own machines, and I'm sure the Windows 8 rollout will include an integrated model (app store, SkyDrive) similar to what Apple is doing.
I'm excited to see what is in store over the next 12 months!
Kent
53 Posted by jimmplsmn on 12 Aug, 2012 07:07 PM
I've seen exciting happenings with the MD mobile app - anything new and exciting coming in MD 2012? I'm assuming that since there has not been a new build in quite a while that you are fervently working on it behind the scenes. Just wondering ....
54 Posted by Jessica Little on 13 Aug, 2012 12:02 PM
You assume correctly. :-)
Probably the biggest feature for Moneydance 2012 is that we've been working on getting the program into the Mac App Store, which has turned out to be a pain but is nearly done. We've also changed the file format in a way that will allow us to make a lot of improvements we've been wanting to make. And, Kent, you'll be happy to hear that the 2012 version will feature AES as an option for encrypting your data file. Since the 2012 version contains some fairly major structural changes, we'll be asking for more testers once the beta is ready.
We hope to release Moneydance 2013 a few months later, and have quite a list of features we'd like to get into it. Sean basically asked us support staffers for a top 5 list of bugs/feature requests we hear about the most. I think we gave him about 20. We're not going to get all of our wishlist completed for Moneydance 2013, but I think we'll knock out some big ones. The main focus so far has been on a completely revamped budgeting interface and the addition of envelope budgeting.
So, stay tuned! We've got a lot in store.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
55 Posted by davet65 on 13 Aug, 2012 01:05 PM
I am happy to hear from Support, but am frankly a bit concerned regarding the Priorities. Budgeting improvements will be welcome, but to me, the #1 priority should be to fix the things that are wrong.
I point to this comment from my post which started this thread:
Or fixing bugs that are just plain wrong. I point to the Portfolio Report and the Annualized Returns columns, particularly the All column, which are acknowledged to be incorrect. And they remain that way.
56 Posted by zeke on 13 Aug, 2012 04:17 PM
I couldn't agree w/ davet65's comments more. Calculations of investment performance cannot be trusted at all. Overall moneydance is subjectively as buggy as any software I have used. I will probably have to figure out how to switch back to another solution (aka quicken) in the not-so-distant future. Maybe if we reported that the bugs are related to the iphone app...
57 Posted by anthonywarnold on 13 Aug, 2012 04:41 PM
As a heavy MD user across all types of accounts, banking, investment, credit/loan, assets, and budgeting tools, I disagree with comments above.
I have had very few issues with MD, can usually get a very quick, helpful answer via the knowledge base and the tech support team Have not had a single issue in which there was not an easy work around.
I find MD to be the most stable, user friendly personal finance software out there, specifically for MAC users. Would never go back to Quicken and certainly not MS Money.
Although no company or software is perfect, the Moneydance product and the team are tops in my book. As a heavy user and former software developer I am very pleased. Make use of the bug submission list and the communication of the tech team to help make MD even better, but sans threats.
Caveat: I do not use any Mobile bank attributes as I personally make the choice to not have sensative information stored on Cloud networks.
58 Posted by Mike on 13 Aug, 2012 05:12 PM
I'm with Davet65. The lack of any progress at all on issues I've raised, combined with issues I'm following, has already prompted me to purchase a new copy of Quicken (ugh). I'm not happy at all having to go back, but the lack of usability of the budget feature, and the issues with investments and brokerage accounts, have finally reached the point where I'm finding Moneydance really doesn't meet my needs.
Obviously, having already purchased Quicken I'm not looking for anything from the MD crew at this point. However, I am trying to point out that the lack of communication and progress has already cost you at least one customer, and I doubt I'm the only one.
Good luck to all of you in the future, and thanks to everyone on the boards that's helped me with workarounds.
59 Posted by mark.lyon on 13 Aug, 2012 05:32 PM
Used MD for a two years now after 20+ years on Q.
Doesn't do everything but does what I want. Interacts with my bank (though still no bill pay), mobile app, reconciles.
Please continue development. MD suits my workflow better than any of the other Q-replacements.
Thanks,
M.
60 Posted by sth on 13 Aug, 2012 05:35 PM
I am not sure that I would go with "Not any progress at all". But development takes time. There have been some small bug fixes in the nightly builds.
I also purchased a new copy of quicken since it was very cheap as a back up. But plan B always sucks. At the moment I have hit the "too many security quotes" issue (ie more than 2375) that totally corrupts your quicken file. Going back to Q is not a solution.
I would like to see more investment features fixed/added but that is my main problem.
I am not quite clear on the strategy of releasing MD 2012 at the very end of 2012 and then 2013 a few months later.