tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/switching-from-another-personal-finance-program/1689-switching-from-quickenInfinite Kind: Discussion 2016-07-30T03:51:16Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/395921612016-04-08T09:58:09Z2016-04-08T09:58:09Zswitching from quicken<div><p>Hi Roger,</p>
<p>If you have any queries, they can be posted to the forum as you
have done, and a member of the support team (or a knowledgable
customer is your discussion is public) will get back to you.</p>
<p>If you haven't already, I encourage you to download our free
trial version and experiment with the program before you decide if
you would like to purchase it. The demo version is fully functional
and allows you to manually enter 100 transactions. Imported
transactions are not limited, so you'll be able to fully test
importing your data from Quicken.</p>
<p>What formats are you able for use when exporting data from your
version of Quicken? If the QIF file is available, you can follow
<a href="http://help.infinitekind.com/kb/importing-data-from-banks-and-other-programs/importing-data-from-quicken-in-qif-format">
these steps</a> to get your data imported into Moneydance. I'd be
happy to provide assistance if you encounter any issues when
following these steps.</p>
<p>If you decide to purchase the program at a later date you can
keep all your data, the license key simply unlocks the ability to
manually enter more transactions. You can download the trial
version of Moneydance from <a href="http://infinitekind.com/downloads">here</a>.</p>
<p>You can find the Moneydance User Guide <a href="http://help.infinitekind.com/kb/user-guides/moneydance-2015-user-guide">
here</a>, the first few chapters detail getting started and setting
up your accounts. The later chapters detail the specific Moneydance
features and functions.</p>
<p>You're able to set up multiple accounts within the same data
set, as you have mentioned. And you can view the list of available
reports within the User Guide, specifically <em>Chapter 13, Page
74.</em> These reports can be edited before generating, then
printed, saved, copied or memorised.</p>
<p>I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you
have any questions, or if I can be of further assistance.</p>
<p>Jenny<br>
Infinite Kind Support</p></div>Jennytag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/395921612016-04-08T12:29:15Z2016-04-08T12:29:15Zswitching from quicken<div><p>Hi Jenny,</p>
<p>Thank you for the response. I have been browsing around the user
manual and your software looks very good. In fact it does look a
lot like the version of Quicken I am now using … and
that’s a good thing. I do have a couple more questions and
not sure if I ask by replying to this e-mail or posting on the
site. So I’ll try this way.</p>
<p>I think there might be a misunderstanding when I mentioned
accounts. I have two separate “sets” of accounts, or
two sets of books if you will … two separate sets of files. I
have one set for personal and one set for my business. So I go to
File -> Open and open the “home” set and it opens up
all the transactions, accounts, everything for my home finances.
Then I go to File -> Open and open up the “business”
set and it opens up all the finances for my business. The home and
business are 2 totally separate entities, with their own accounts,
categories, loans, etc. Does this make sense? Can Moneydance handle
this?</p>
<p>I’m also wondering about the import for my existing data.
I have data from 1995, and have multiple accounts, categories,
sub-categories, split transactions, loans (and payments) and
transfers between accounts. Quicken does allow me to export to a
QIF file and will allow me to export all accounts in one file. In
your experience how well does Moneydance handle importing this
data? Does it automatically set up accounts, categories,
sub-categories, etc. based on the QIF file?</p>
<p>However I will have two QIF files, one for personal and one for
business. Can this be handled?</p>
<p>Thanks again for the help. Your software really does look good
and I might give it a try if it can handle the above … mostly
handle a good import. If it can’t do that, I cannot afford to
move and will have to muddle through a newer version of Quicken,
which I really do NOT want to do.</p>
<p>-Roger</p></div>Roger Btag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/395921612016-04-09T10:06:24Z2016-04-09T10:06:24Zswitching from quicken<div><p>Hi Roger,</p>
<p>You can create multiple seperate data sets within Moneydance. If
you go to Moneydance File --> New, you can create a new data
set, and switch between them within the File --> Open menu
option. If your data sets are stored in the default location, you
can view them by going to Help --> Show Documents Folder. The
data sets will appear as <em>yourfilename.moneydance</em>
files.</p>
<p>You can follow the steps in <a href="http://help.infinitekind.com/kb/importing-data-from-banks-and-other-programs/importing-data-from-quicken-in-qif-format">
this article</a> to export your data as a single QIF file. It is
highly recommended to export all Quicken data into a single file -
doing so makes the import process much smoother. The one exception
to this is if you have accounts in more than one currency. As you'd
like your data within two seperate data sets, you can export these
separately and let me know if you encounter any issues.</p>
<p>Most customers are able to import their Quicken data without
issues. That being said, the QIF file format was never really
intended for transferring all data from Quicken to another program
and as such it can contains inherent ambiguities that may need to
be manually corrected post import. How much manual correcting needs
to be done is hard to predict. Typically investment accounts fair
worse that regular accounts in this matter. If you encounter any
issues, you may wish to refer to <a href="http://help.infinitekind.com/kb/importing-data-from-banks-and-other-programs/possible-problems-after-qif-import-from-quicken">
this article</a>, which details problems that may arise and how to
resolve them. And of course, i'd be happy to provide assistance so
we can get your data imported correctly.</p>
<p>Jenny<br>
Infinite Kind Support</p></div>Jennytag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/395921612016-04-10T16:26:28Z2016-04-10T16:26:28Zswitching from quicken<div><p>Thanks, Jenny. I will download the trial version and import a
quicken QIF. Say a prayer for me, will ya’. It may take me a
few days to get this done …. tight schedule right now. I will
contact you again if I have any more questions.</p>
<p>Thanks again and have a great week ahead.</p>
<p>-Roger</p></div>Roger Btag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/395921612016-04-13T16:21:59Z2016-04-13T20:46:28Zswitching from quicken<div><p>Hi Jenny,</p>
<p>I just wanted to get back to you on my trial of MD (so far). I
was pleasantly surprised at how well it did on importing the QIF
file. It wasn’t perfect but did much better than I thought. I
have 8 bank accounts and 4 CC accounts and it nailed about 9 out of
the 12. Pretty good job. The worst was my main bank account, which
was off by thousands of dollars. In my initial review I saw that it
had added a number of transactions that were NOT in my Quicken
files. No rhyme or reason, just added some arbitrarily. It would
take me some time to go through and find all the issues, since this
file has data from 1995. That’s a lot of data, and a lot of
records to go through.</p>
<p>The worst part, however, is loans. It totally did not do an
acceptable job of importing loan info. It did import the raw data
… entries to the loan and interest categories (I do not have
any escrow accounts), which helped balance the account. But no
loans were set up, with entries showing when payments were made and
reductions in the balance. I have 4 loans from the past set up,
which would not be so much of an issue in moving the data. But I do
have 2 current loans … a mortgage that has been used from the
last 10 years or so, and a car loan used over the last 4 years. All
of this history would be gone when converting.</p>
<p>One thing I could not figure out is how to make a payment for a
loan. I see the “reminders” but that’s not what I
need. What I need is, when I am entering transactions from my check
register and come to the loan payment, I need to be able to enter
that payment against the loan I set up (check number and amount,
with the amount defaulted to the loan amount) and have it
recalculate the outstanding balance. I need a payment /
amortization schedule. I could not find how to do that anywhere,
and the user manual wasn’t any help either.</p>
<p>I did some playing around with reporting and needed a
transaction register filtered by selected accounts and selected
categories in the same report, but alas your transaction register
does not handle this level of filtering. But I did find an income
and expense report that DOES have this level of filtering which
would handle my needs perfectly.</p>
<p>So, I am still considering using your program. If I did, I would
most likely start this program from January 1 of this year …
a clean start. But I would then certainly lose all that history,
and I do go back to look at things as needed … ie. what was I
paying for internet service 5 years ago, what was my payment
history for electricity over the past 4 years, or did I make
certain payments to specific companies. This is what a financial
manager is all about, and I would lose that capability for now. On
the plus side, it would clean up the files, as I do have accounts
from years ago that I do not need and are just sitting there.
Decisions … decisions.</p>
<p>So, may I ask a few more questions about the product / company?
I have been doing some research on MD and, like most products, you
don’t have a perfect record. There are many good reviews and
many bad reviews. The worst reviews are about support. You do not
have telephone support, so using this e-mail system is all there
is. The downside to that is that if I need help, I generally
don’t want to wait x-number of days for someone to get back
to me. And I have seen in multiple reviews where, if there is not
any apparent help or answer to a problem, then users do not get ANY
response back. Support just goes away for them altogether. Any
comments on this?</p>
<p>Some general questions?</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>How long has MD been around?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What version of the application are you on (ie. how many release
have there been over the years)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I see where Infinite Kind is not the originators, rather Infnite
Kind bought MD, is this correct? If so, when was that?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Where are you based? I don’t think you are a US company,
but don’t know for sure.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>How many people in the Infinite Kind company? How many support
people?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Are you actively working on, improving and fixing bugs for
MD?</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I think that’s enough for now. I ask because I can’t
find any of this info on the website, and if I make the switch from
Quicken I don’t want to be in this same situation a year or
two from now … ie. Quicken has gone really far downhill over
the years, which is why I am looking for an alternative now. Also,
I hear the Quicken software is for sale.</p>
<p>Thanks, Jenny, for your responses so far. Hope you have a great
rest of the day.</p>
<p>-Roger</p></div>Roger Btag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/395921612016-04-14T08:57:31Z2016-04-14T08:57:31Zswitching from quicken<div><p>Hi Roger,</p>
<p>Let me try to answer your questions below, and you can let me
know if you'd like further information or if other questions arise
-</p>
<p>Moneydance is a product of <a href="http://infinitekind.com">The
Infinite Kind</a>. It was started as an open-source project in the
summer of 1997 by Sean Reilly (who is still the primary developer),
but was converted to a closed source product soon thereafter.</p>
<p>Moneydance is currently on version 2015.7, and although we
haven't released a date, we will be releasing MD2016 soon. You can
view the previous versions of Moneydance <a href="http://infinitekind.com/previous-versions-of-moneydance">here</a>,
and you'll see in our <a href="http://infinitekind.com/blog">blog</a> that were constantly
improving and updating the software. We also use the support forum
to track customer suggestions, and these are often included in
upgrades.<br>
When you purchase MD (2015 for example), you're entitled to the
next version for free (2016 when available), and any future
versions will be discounted for you. However, we never 'sunset'
older versions of the software, so you can continue to use the same
version for as long as you wish.</p>
<p>We have team members dotted around the globe, I am based in the
UK, specifically Edinburgh, Scotland, where a few other members of
the team are located. We also have agents in the US, and some other
staff in Italy and New Zealand. While we do have a very small team,
myself and another full time support agent have been brought on
board in the last six months to deal with the volume of support
requests we're receiving. I can understand your concerns using only
the support forum for assistance, however, we aim to respond as
quickly as we can, and in difficult cases we'll offer TeamViewer
sessions to get issues resolved quickly.</p>
<p>Regarding the points you made above your questions -</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the QIF file format was never really intended for
transferring all data between personal finance software and as such
it contains inherent ambiguities that will need to be manually
corrected post import. How much manual correcting needs to be done
is hard to predict. Typically investment accounts fair worse that
regular accounts in this matter.</p>
<p>When creating a loan you may enter payments manually, or choose
to schedule a recurring transaction reminder which will allow
Moneydance to track how many payments have been made on your loan,
how many are left, and the interest to principal ratio. With regard
to making an adjustment to the principle it is not possible to
directly enter a transaction into the loan account. While you
cannot create transactions from within the loan account register,
you can create from another account register and select the loan
account as the category.<br>
I would recommend checking out the <a href="http://help.infinitekind.com/kb/user-guides/moneydance-2015-user-guide">
User Guide</a>, specifically <em>Chapter 11</em> which details
'Loan Accounts', and <em>Page 70</em> which details 'Entering an
Existing Loan' - and you can let me know if you have further
questions or need assistance getting this setup.</p>
<p>If you go to Tools --> Graphs and Reports, you can view a
list of the available reports and see the settings which can be
amended. If there is certain information you're looking to
generate, you can provide details and we may be able to provide a
suitable report for use.</p>
<p>I hope I've addressed everything you mentioned (let me know if
theres anything I missed!) Don't hesitate to reply if you have
further questions, or if you'd like more information on anything
detailed above.</p>
<p>Jenny<br>
Infinite Kind Support</p></div>Jenny