Archive - Getting Started - Online Banking and Bill Pay

This is an archived document. Please refer to the more recent knowledge base articles on this page

Moneydance supports direct connections to many banks and financial institutions. Moneydance uses a direct OFX connection to communicate securely across the Internet with properly equipped institutions. You can download information through direct connections into bank, credit card, and investment accounts.

Can I automatically download transactions from my financial institution?

Using ‘Direct Connect’ allows Moneydance to connect to a server at your bank (instead of their website) and usually requires different login credentials than you would use to log into your banks site. You can view this article to see if your bank supports this feature.

What should I know before using a Direct Connection for the first time?

The first time you connect to your bank through Moneydance, Moneydance will download all transactions available on your bank's server. This may result in duplicate transactions, especially if you have transferred data from another personal finance program. First, try to run through the Confirmation process to merge the duplicates, then delete any undesirable transactions.

Most banks only offer the most recent 30-90 days of transactions on their direct OFX connection server. To get transactions prior to this point you'll need to download and import files from your bank's website. Moneydance is able to import OFX, QFX, OFC, and QIF files, which are sometimes referred to by banks as “Quicken” or “Microsoft Money™” files.

Special information regarding Investment Accounts: Regardless of which method you choose for entering your holdings, it is important to remember that Moneydance will only download transactions from your account when you import or download from your financial institution. Therefore, unless the initial purchase of the security is in the download, you will not have the complete information for your security. You may need to manually enter transactions for the account to reflect your current holdings. To so do, please see the User Guide, specifically Chapter 7, Page 35.

How can I recognise Downloaded or Imported Transactions?

When you have transactions in an account which need to be confirmed, you will see a blue dot next to that account's name in your sidebar.
Downloaded and imported transactions are placed according to the current sort order of your account's register and so may be dispersed throughout the register. You can easily identify these transactions by using the “Unconfirmed” filter at the top of the register, or by looking for the “blue dot” in the description field.

Once a transaction has been confirmed in the register, this is signified by change from the "blue dot" to the "blue circle"

How can I confirm Downloaded or Imported Transactions?

Once you have downloaded or imported new transactions you will review and accept them (or “confirm” them) into your register. To begin the confirmation process, click on the first transaction in your account register with a blue dot. After you confirm a transaction Moneydance will “look” for and select the next unconfirmed transaction. Moneydance attempts to recognise and auto-categorise transactions with similar payees and amounts, so once you have manually assigned a category to a transaction or changed it's description you can expect Moneydance to suggest the same category and/or description for similar transactions.

When you highlight an unconfirmed transaction a matching panel will pop up on the right side of the screen which will contain suggested options for you to choose how to handle the transaction.

Current Transaction - Accept the transaction in it's current form as displayed in the register.
Transaction as Downloaded -Accept the transaction in it's original format as Moneydance has received it. This option will reverse any changes you've made to the downloaded transaction.
Merge Choices - Merges the downloaded transaction with the duplicate in the register.
Similar Payees - Changes the Description and Category to match the similar transaction.

Select and click the desired option to process your transaction and click “Confirm” or “Merge”.
Once you have accepted the transaction into the register the blue dot disappears, and the blue circle signifying the transaction has been imported remains.

Can Moneydance automatically merge my downloaded transactions?

You may choose to have Moneydance automatically merge downloaded transactions instead of going through the confirmation process. To enable this option, click File → Preferences → Network, and select “Automatically Merge Downloaded Transactions”.
Within the same menu, you can also specify 'Only match downloaded transactions when they are at most 'X' days apart' at the bottom of the screen.

Does Moneydance support Online bill payment?

Online bill payment is only available if your bank supports this type of connection through personal finance programs. Not every financial institution which Moneydance supports for online banking will allow application-based online bill payment, so you may receive an error message if you attempt to set up bill payment with an institution that doesn't allow it.

How can I setup Online Bill Payment?

Setting up Online Bill Payment uses the same procedure as setting up regular online banking. Go to Online --> Setup Online Bill Payment, then follow the steps and enter the relevant information.

You can find further information about using Online Bill Payment in this article.

Didn't find the information you were looking for? You can find more information on the Moneydance online banking features in the articles here and here.