Great program--just a couple suggestions
I'm really enjoying Moneydance. I left MS Money for Quicken when I became a Mac user. Then Chase stopped supporting my version of Quicken, so I tried Quicken Online and Mint to see if the online stuff worked for me. Finally I realized I needed desktop software but by this time MS Money was dead, so I didn't want to start using unsupported software and run Windows on Mac. Read a ton of reviews and tried a few free trials, and your program is hands down the best for me. I love the home page--having the calendar there is soooo helpful.
So just a couple ideas.
One issue I had was when budgeting, any deposits to my savings account seemed to categorize as deductions from checking. So I had a friend deposit $20 in Paypal, and that's showing up as a transfer to savings from checking in our budget, when I would think that $20 just shouldn't appear at all. Not a huge issue, but it seems like a small fix you could do--unless I'm misinterpreting what's going on here.
Also wanted to request that in the budget manager, instead of just having total income and expense, could you please also show the difference, so I don't have to drag out a calculator?
That's it. I really hope you guys end up having some staying power, because after betting on MS Money and then Quicken Online, I'm tired of having to switch software because I picked the losing team. And I think your program is great.
Julie
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1 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 28 Aug, 2010 03:25 PM
Julie,
Your suggestion about budget manager differences is a good one, and one I'd personally like to see implemented. I have created a ticket for this issue. The ticket is attached to this discussion. By posting in this discussion your interest in the ticket has been registered. This is equivalent to voting for it.
As for the savings issue- all transactions are basically transfers between accounts and categories (in the case of income or expense transaction) or between 2 accounts (in the case of transfers). If you set the category field of a transaction as another bank account, the transaction will in reality be a transfer of funds between 2 banks accounts. For example, if I enter a payment in my checking register of $20, and set the "category" field to savings, I will be transferring $20 from my checking to my savings account. This could get confusing if you have both and account named savings and a category named savings. To tell the difference between the 2 in the category drop-down list, bank accounts have what looks like a little white building next to them, while categories have a black diamond. I would strongly suggest not using identical names for any categories and accounts, as it's likely to cause significant confusion. I say this because I made that mistake myself!
I hope this clarifies the issue, and if not please do let me know and we'll discuss it further. It's possible there is something odd happening in your data file which is making things more difficult.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
2 Posted by Julie Ann Cross on 29 Aug, 2010 12:44 AM
Thanks, Angie.
The categories on those transactions were "personal:gifts," and "other income:gifts received." (One item was payback for a gift contribution.) So I don't think they should have categorized as deductions from Checking at all. And my accounts are named differently than my categories.
The place I saw this is in the budget, where the budgeted expenses are compared to actual expenses, and there's a little bar that's red, yellow, or green. The actual amount includes these other savings deposits. This doesn't make sense to me. I understand your explanation but I don't see that it is actually explaining this issue.
I think maybe just the fact that I have transfers to savings in the budget at all throws something off. I notice in the Income and Expenses reports, transfers don't even show up as expenses. And even when I check "include liability / loan accounts" our car loan won't show up in that report. I find this a little odd, since I like to include the car loan in the sidebar so I can see the progress of our paying off that loan, but then the payment doesn't show up in the expenses report, although it shows up in the budget. Maybe this is an accounting principle I'm not used to.
3 Posted by Ben Spencer on 12 Sep, 2010 05:32 PM
Perhaps I can clarify Angies explanation a little further.
Budgeting is specifically designed for income and expense accounts (these may also be refered to as categories). A transfer between assets (e.g. checking to savings) or a transfer to a loan or liability account is not an expense, it is simply moving money from one account to another. It does not affect your networth.
The trouble is that it is not possible to know if a transfer from one asset to another should be considered income or expense as it is both and neither depending on your perspective. If you create budgets on asset accounts or liability accounts you may well get unexpected behaviour as the budgeting system is not designed for these types of accounts.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
4 Posted by Julie Ann Cross on 13 Sep, 2010 04:09 AM
Thanks for responding, but my confusion is this: this was not a transfer.
Not.
A.
Transfer.
So in the budget, transfer to savings is there. Transfer to savings happens.
Then, totally separately, another deposit appeared in my savings account.
Not.
A.
Transfer.
And this deposit was counted as a subtraction from my checking account in the budget.
Make sense?
5 Posted by Ben Spencer on 14 Sep, 2010 07:24 PM
i am sorry I do not understand what you mean.
Do you have a budget line item for a non income or expense account? It does not make sense to create budgets on checking or savings accounts as the values of these accounts are neither income or expense.
Perhaps you could send me a series of screenshots explaining what how you have the budgets set up and the transactions involved.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
System closed this discussion on 31 Mar, 2015 03:30 PM.