Why Does Money 2006 Create a Separate MSN Billpay Account?

I have been paying my bills through MSN Billpay since 2002 (Money 03). I
recently upgraded to M06 and noticed that all of my MSN BP transactions are
entered into a new account which naturally is a big debit ($20K or so, since
it's all debits), rather than into the checking account I use to pay the
bills from. Is there any way to correct this, especially since it throws my
Net Worth of by $20K? I'm really confused....any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ted

johnbusc
Tue Aug 09 04:32:35 CDT 2005

Ted,

There are a couple of ways to handle this.

One, you can merge the MSN Bill Pay account with your original checking
account. I believe you can only do this if your original checking
account is also setup for online services. If it is also setup with
your bank for online bill pay through Money, one of the bill pay
methods may be disabled for the merged account (MSN's or your bank's).
You will still be able to pay bills with the merged account though. If
you didn't have bill pay setup through your bank within Money, then the
merged account will pay bills through MSN.

Two, you can leave the two separate accounts. In order to reconcile
the MSN account you'll have to classify the bill pay debits from your
checking account as transfers to the MSN account when they clear your
bank. This will keep the MSN account balance at zero except when there
are bill pays in process.

The latter method, while more cumbersome, is also good if your original
checking account is also activated for bill pay through your bank
within Money. You can either bill pay through your bank or MSN!

Hope this helps.

Regards,
JB



Ted Kontos wrote:
> I have been paying my bills through MSN Billpay since 2002 (Money 03). I
> recently upgraded to M06 and noticed that all of my MSN BP transactions are
> entered into a new account which naturally is a big debit ($20K or so, since
> it's all debits), rather than into the checking account I use to pay the
> bills from. Is there any way to correct this, especially since it throws my
> Net Worth of by $20K? I'm really confused....any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Ted

Al
Tue Aug 09 21:38:40 CDT 2005

<johnbusc@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123579955.190451.247500@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Ted,
>
> There are a couple of ways to handle this.
>
> One, you can merge the MSN Bill Pay account with your original checking
> account. I believe you can only do this if your original checking
> account is also setup for online services. If it is also setup with
> your bank for online bill pay through Money, one of the bill pay
> methods may be disabled for the merged account (MSN's or your bank's).
> You will still be able to pay bills with the merged account though. If
> you didn't have bill pay setup through your bank within Money, then the
> merged account will pay bills through MSN.
>
> Two, you can leave the two separate accounts. In order to reconcile
> the MSN account you'll have to classify the bill pay debits from your
> checking account as transfers to the MSN account when they clear your
> bank. This will keep the MSN account balance at zero except when there
> are bill pays in process.
>
> The latter method, while more cumbersome, is also good if your original
> checking account is also activated for bill pay through your bank
> within Money. You can either bill pay through your bank or MSN!
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
> JB
>
>
Or you can go back to a version of money that works. I was not able to
solve the same problem with my conversion from 2004-2006. That was after
working with two levels of MS support for a couple of weeks. Their final
advise, when all other attempts failed, was to start from scratch with a new
money 2006 file and to import the accounts that were to be exported from
money 2004.

Money 2006 even screwed up the operation of Money 2004 which I had
maintained following MS instructions for a dual install. I finally had to
go back to a system checkpoint that I took prior to starting the Money 2006
installation. That one simple restore step made Money 2004 start working
again.

It's clear to me that Money 2006 migration of previous version data files is
a sorry mess. Installed from scratch with new data files it might be the
best thing since sliced bread, but I'll never know. The other show stopper
in my opinion is the total dependence on an internet connection to help for
anything other than connection problems. For those of us who spend a lot of
time traveling in our RV's that's a sorry mess also. If MS wants to claim
that the internet help feature provides more up-to-date information that
fine with me. Just give me a link from which I can download the help files
for offline use.

Al