Just starting (Quicken refugee) - two questions
After years of suffering with Quicken, I decided I had had enough. So I've just today started with MoneyDance. Setup and connecting with banks is 100% better. I downloaded transactions for two credit card accounts, and have two questions:
First, I see the system does not autocategorize based on the vendor, like Quicken did. So I went ahead and manually set the categories for each transaction on the first credit card. I was hoping that MoneyDance would then memorize these, and apply them to transactions on the second credit card when I downloaded them (for instance, I set "Richters Marketplace" as a grocery on the first card, then downloaded the second card's transactions which included Richters - but it did not apply). Am I doing something wrong? Will I have to manually categorize every transaction on every card and bank account?
Second, when creating the credit card account and setting up online banking (Citibank), I set the start date at 1/1/17. But Moneydance downloaded transactions as far back as 8/2016. I manually deleted them. Will they keep coming back? The next time I download transactions, do I have to set specific start and end dates, or will Moneydance download all that is available, compare to what's already in the register, and eliminate duplicates.
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Support Staff 1 Posted by Jenny on 06 Mar, 2017 04:30 PM
Hi Martin,
Glad to hear you've got everything setup correctly with your bank. Regarding the 'auto-categorisation' of your data - when you download data from your bank, these transactions will be 'Unconfirmed'. This is signified by a 'blue dot' in the register (as seen here).
You should 'Confirm' these transactions to the register, as detailed in this article. During this process, you'll have the option to amend the transaction details, confirm the transaction to the register, or merge the transaction with a duplicate already entered.
As you go through the confirmation process, it should become easier and quicker. Moneydance will begin to recognise and suggest transaction fields, based on the data you've previously confirmed.
When you're downloading your data automatically, Moneydance will download any and all available data on your banks server (with the exception of data previously downloaded). As you've deleted these transactions they won't be recognised and they'll likely be downloaded again.
You could simply amend the account register view, using the 'Filters' at the top of the register. You can select 'This Year' so only the 2017 data is displayed.
To specify a date range for your download, you could try downloading the data file from your banks website directly. Each bank is different, but most banks allow you to specify a date range when downloading data from their site. There may be a number of download formats available to you - OFX and QFX files are the best format, with QIF files being the second best and CSV files being a distant third. You can find the steps for manually importing a file, outlined in this article.
Jenny
Infinite Kind Support
2 Posted by yoyosnz on 09 Mar, 2017 12:30 AM
Hi I've also come over from quicken and tried a manual bank download. The info came through ok but is there any way you can tab through the lines to categorise the payment correctly. Is there a keyboard short cut that allows you to enter a transaction and move down to the next transaction in the register. I am having to go over to the right of the screen and use the mouse to change the category from the default one loaded with that account.
Support Staff 3 Posted by Jenny on 09 Mar, 2017 10:05 AM
Hi Martin,
When you're confirming your transactions for the first time, I'd suggest using the box on the right, rather than the transaction register. In the top section of the box, (where you can see the 'Current Transaction' details) you can amend the transaction fields within this window and select Confirm. This means you're much less likely to input any errors.
Once a transaction has been confirmed for the first time, the transaction fields will then be suggested when a similar transaction appears. This will make things much quicker and easier, as you won't need to assign the categories and can simply 'Confirm' the data as it is.
There are some keyboard shortcuts available within Moneydance, which you can find in this article. If there are further shortcuts you'd like to see, please advise and I can locate or create a suggestion ticket for this improvement.
Jenny
Infinite Kind Support
System closed this discussion on 08 Jun, 2017 10:10 AM.