from Microsoft Money 2005
Can anyone advise how easy it is to migrate from Microsoft Money to Moneydance? I've had a go at moving to Money Plus Sunset but it's not straightforward & with a lot of accounts I expect it to be error prone. I'm in the UK so I'm also unsure how well it will work given that Sunset is a US based product.
I'm hoping for a straightforward conversion process & hoping I'm not asking too much :)
Any advice appreciated. Chris
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1 Posted by Chris Hoggarth on 03 Jan, 2016 11:59 AM
I have read the notes on this site about how to do the migration but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has done this. I have over 20 accounts in Money so I expect the transfer process to be long winded & error prone. Again thanks for any advice you can give. Chris
2 Posted by Alastair Barcla... on 03 Jan, 2016 12:29 PM
Dear Chris
I am also based in the UK. I read your post as I have received an error on my screen and am trying to resolve it (java.lang.NullPointerException)
I bought Moneydance a year ago and have found that it does the basics of recording transactions into categories very well.I thought about trying to convert from Microsoft money as you are doing but in the end settled for starting from scratch.
A word of warning - I have found the budgeting facilities very rudimentary and quite basic. In fact I am trying to create a budget for 2016 and this is where the error has occurred.
Regards
Alastair
3 Posted by derekkent23 on 04 Jan, 2016 09:24 AM
Hi,
I live in the UK. About three month ago I moved from Microsoft Money 2005, UK version. The move included just over 15 years of cash type accounts, Building Society, Bank, ISA and credit cards. 37 accounts in all, only 5 still open. This involved a lot of repetitive work as each account has to be exported from MS Money as a QIF file, a corresponding account set up in Moneydance and then each QIF file imported into Moneydance. This went well. The only thing I needed to check was the opening balances of accounts that were already open when I initially started to record them in MS Money. If I hadn’t transferred all my cash accounts then Moneydance may have had many more issues to fix as there would have been missing information on transfers between accounts.
Investment accounts, fund, bonds etc., were more of a problem. I had to develop some work arounds to cover the way I had set up investments in MS Money which were not covered in the Moneydance transfer instructions. That said, once I had developed my workarounds things went well with only a little more work required compared to transferring cash type accounts. The only real issue was that investment prices history associated with each security investment are not exported by MS Money, only the price associated with a sell or buy. I had updated securities prices at the end of each month in MS Money and so had to manually enter price history into Moneydance. For this reason I have only transferred investment accounts going back 6 years.
I does take a lot of work but I am pleased with the result.
4 Posted by Chris on 04 Jan, 2016 04:14 PM
Alastair, derekkent23
Thanks for the replies.
derekkent23 - I take it you reopened the closed accounts & transferred them too? Is that what you mean about transferring all the accounts to allow the transfers to reconcile?
I've just checked & got 38 open & 34 closed accounts - this is going to be unrealistic I think.
But the migration to Money Plus Sunset seems no easier. I hate the idea of starting from scratch & losing 16 years data though.
I have the CD for Money 2005 - I will try to install it on our new laptop but fear it may fail as it won't register online anymore,
Thanks anyway for you help.
Chris
5 Posted by derekkent23 on 05 Jan, 2016 10:01 AM
Hi, yes to export a closed account from MS money you need to reopen it first.
I transferred all my 37 bank type accounts, thus enabling Moneydance to link transfer between accounts and reconciled them to give the correct balances and in MS Money terms the correct date, payee, Category, Payment/Deposit and Balance. This gave me the full history of just over 15 years of this type of account. When you transfer your first open account it should have the correct date, Description (payee), Category, Payment/Deposit and Balance. You may have to enter the opening account balance. It will automatically set up all the accounts that are transferred to/from in the account you have just imported. They will be hidden in the right side bar list but can be unhidden by clicking on the + at the bottom. The reason they are hidden is that there balances are wrong as you haven’t imported there data from MS Money. As you do so the account should sort itself out. Transferring one account takes about 2 to 3 minutes.
So far I have transferred 107 securities (bonds, funds, share ISA etc.) to make up my investment type accounts for the last 6 years. The only tedious issue is the entering of price history not covered by buy/sell transitions, in my case month end prices. This of course only applies if you won’t this history in Moneydance. In MS Money I selected not to track cash transaction so the procedure I had to follow was different than that outlined in the Moneydance Knowledge base article “Moving from MS Money to Moneydance”. But once I had developed a work around all went well.
I would suggest you download the free version and try thing out. The only limitation on the free version is a maximum of 100 new transaction entries. There is no restriction on setting up accounts or transferring data into them from MS money. Give it a go.
You won’t be able to load MS money 2005 from your disk, the US sunset version is not a good option. There are ways to get MS Money 2005 working on a new PC, but I would encourage you to try MoneyDance first as it is actively supported software.
6 Posted by andrewarthur2 on 14 Jan, 2016 10:04 PM
Hi, interested in this discussion as I am in the UK and trying to transfer from Money 2005. It hasn't gone well for me. Derekkent's advice is interesting. This seems to suggest you have to transfer all your accounts before they become accurate? I transferred three of my 15 and found everything was wrong. Anyone else any suggestions?
Thanks
7 Posted by derekkent23 on 15 Jan, 2016 09:58 AM
A “Bank Type” account for which you have imported the exported QIF file from MS Money 2005 should be OK. You may have to set the opening balance. It’s the “Bank Type” accounts that this account is linked to that will be wrong, until there data is imported.
Check date format before you create and import accounts under Files – Preferences.
If the 3 “Bank Type” accounts you so far have imported are wrong, did you follow the instructions “Moving from MS Money to MoneyDance” on the knowledge base page. E.g. selecting “Loose QIF” in MS Money as part of the export. In MoneyDance create accounts with the exact spelling used in MS Money. When importing into MoneyDance select “Existing Account” and then use the drop down to select the account you have just created to import into. Make sure “From another Program” is selected.
If after following the procedure you still have an imported Bank account were everything is wrong, post some details and maybe someone can help.
System closed this discussion on 15 Apr, 2016 10:00 AM.