Why is Money so Buggy

I have been using Money 2004 for probably a year. I am constantly
encountering bugs that make it very difficult to accurately keep track of
things.

I download statements every few days from my bank. I go through every
transaction and verify them. Every week or two I make sure that the total
money gives me is the same as the total the bank gives me and I balance the
account. So why is it I am suddenly off by 26 cents and the problem goes
back as far as the account is being tracked. I would have balanced only a
couple of weeks ago and everything would have been fine at the time, so what
happened.

And why when I try and link a transaction to an occurrence of a bill does it
sometimes refuse to do so. It will simply treat it as though I never did the
linking. The only way I can get it to link properly is to delete the
transaction, enter it manually, and then download the statement again.

3 months ago I started a completely new Money file because my previous file
had become so out of whack with all the little bugs that keep cropping up.
Now I am just seriously considering buying Quicken instead.

Dick
Tue Nov 08 20:56:26 CST 2005

I don't download transaction data. M04 has the paycheck morphing scheduled
transactions. It mangles one element of one of my scheduled transactions
into multiple entries in cash flow forecast every time I enter one of the
scheduled items. It is very temperamental about letting me specify the date
to use on entered checks from scheduled items. Sometimes it pays attention
to the dates I force it back to, other times it ignores me. There are some
other issues. But in general I don't have problems like you describe.

Downloaded transaction data seems to cause more problems that I'd guess it
was worth to many people who post here.

"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C6E353A2-6A5A-4CCE-BF5E-088A1582421A@microsoft.com...
>I have been using Money 2004 for probably a year. I am constantly
> encountering bugs that make it very difficult to accurately keep track of
> things.
>
> I download statements every few days from my bank. I go through every
> transaction and verify them. Every week or two I make sure that the total
> money gives me is the same as the total the bank gives me and I balance
> the
> account. So why is it I am suddenly off by 26 cents and the problem goes
> back as far as the account is being tracked. I would have balanced only a
> couple of weeks ago and everything would have been fine at the time, so
> what
> happened.
>
> And why when I try and link a transaction to an occurrence of a bill does
> it
> sometimes refuse to do so. It will simply treat it as though I never did
> the
> linking. The only way I can get it to link properly is to delete the
> transaction, enter it manually, and then download the statement again.
>
> 3 months ago I started a completely new Money file because my previous
> file
> had become so out of whack with all the little bugs that keep cropping up.
> Now I am just seriously considering buying Quicken instead.

R
Tue Nov 08 22:13:48 CST 2005

Eggman,

I don't have any of these problems with Money 2002 which can be purchased on
eBay or Amazon. Don't recommend a switch to Quicken. I already switched
from Quicken to Money and Money is definitely better. If you do want to
look at a different program try Moneydance. It is not perfect yet but it
might be all you want. Many folks are really happy with it. I tried it for
a few months and it is small, clean and fast with no strange behavior of the
sort you mention.


Regards,

Bill Wood
Fountain Hills, AZ


"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C6E353A2-6A5A-4CCE-BF5E-088A1582421A@microsoft.com...
>I have been using Money 2004 for probably a year. I am constantly
> encountering bugs that make it very difficult to accurately keep track of
> things.
>
> I download statements every few days from my bank. I go through every
> transaction and verify them. Every week or two I make sure that the total
> money gives me is the same as the total the bank gives me and I balance
> the
> account. So why is it I am suddenly off by 26 cents and the problem goes
> back as far as the account is being tracked. I would have balanced only a
> couple of weeks ago and everything would have been fine at the time, so
> what
> happened.
>
> And why when I try and link a transaction to an occurrence of a bill does
> it
> sometimes refuse to do so. It will simply treat it as though I never did
> the
> linking. The only way I can get it to link properly is to delete the
> transaction, enter it manually, and then download the statement again.
>
> 3 months ago I started a completely new Money file because my previous
> file
> had become so out of whack with all the little bugs that keep cropping up.
> Now I am just seriously considering buying Quicken instead.

Eggman
Wed Nov 09 18:40:59 CST 2005

I did a search on the forums for bugs and looking at the replies, the general
response seems to be "I don't download transactions and I don't encounter
bugs". It seems to me the ability to download your transactions is a
powerful feature and if it doesn't work, then why is it even in the program.
A feature that doesn't work, isn't really a feature at all.

"William R Wood" wrote:

> Eggman,
>
> I don't have any of these problems with Money 2002 which can be purchased on
> eBay or Amazon. Don't recommend a switch to Quicken. I already switched
> from Quicken to Money and Money is definitely better. If you do want to
> look at a different program try Moneydance. It is not perfect yet but it
> might be all you want. Many folks are really happy with it. I tried it for
> a few months and it is small, clean and fast with no strange behavior of the
> sort you mention.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Bill Wood
> Fountain Hills, AZ
>
>
> "Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:C6E353A2-6A5A-4CCE-BF5E-088A1582421A@microsoft.com...
> >I have been using Money 2004 for probably a year. I am constantly
> > encountering bugs that make it very difficult to accurately keep track of
> > things.
> >
> > I download statements every few days from my bank. I go through every
> > transaction and verify them. Every week or two I make sure that the total
> > money gives me is the same as the total the bank gives me and I balance
> > the
> > account. So why is it I am suddenly off by 26 cents and the problem goes
> > back as far as the account is being tracked. I would have balanced only a
> > couple of weeks ago and everything would have been fine at the time, so
> > what
> > happened.
> >
> > And why when I try and link a transaction to an occurrence of a bill does
> > it
> > sometimes refuse to do so. It will simply treat it as though I never did
> > the
> > linking. The only way I can get it to link properly is to delete the
> > transaction, enter it manually, and then download the statement again.
> >
> > 3 months ago I started a completely new Money file because my previous
> > file
> > had become so out of whack with all the little bugs that keep cropping up.
> > Now I am just seriously considering buying Quicken instead.
>
>
>

Chris
Wed Nov 09 19:15:54 CST 2005

"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B2B383E4-6F50-4F59-9088-E3F88AAE77EF@microsoft.com...
>I did a search on the forums for bugs and looking at the replies, the
>general
> response seems to be "I don't download transactions and I don't encounter
> bugs". It seems to me the ability to download your transactions is a
> powerful feature and if it doesn't work, then why is it even in the
> program.
> A feature that doesn't work, isn't really a feature at all.

I use downloading extensively, as do other users contributing to this forum.
There are some problems in Money, but none that have made me switch or stop
online banking, in the 7 years or so that I've been using it.

My criterion for selecting a bank is that it supports direct banking with
Money. I'll switch banks before I'll abandon direct online banking, except
under very limited circumstances. I do not have a Passport associated with
my Money file, and therefore do not use the connection through MSN and
Yodlee. While that works for many, more users seem to have problems with
that than with direct banking (ie, banks that have their own servers
supporting Money.)

Without ranting, just what problems are you having?
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

Ron
Wed Nov 09 19:56:27 CST 2005

On Wed, 9 Nov 2005 16:40:59 -0800, Eggman <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>I did a search on the forums for bugs and looking at the replies, the general
>response seems to be "I don't download transactions and I don't encounter
>bugs". It seems to me the ability to download your transactions is a
>powerful feature and if it doesn't work, then why is it even in the program.
>A feature that doesn't work, isn't really a feature at all.

I've been using Money for many years -- I'm presently on 2003 and will get a
current version (I hesitate to say upgrade) when M2003 no longer supports
downloading.

I download transactions from my bank, credit cards, and brokerage accounts.
However, I do NOT use Passport and I do NOT have automatic downloading enabled.
My bank and two of my credit cards require that I go to their web sites and
initiate a download from there -- generally an OFX file; the other credit cards
and my brokerage (Fidelity) can download from Money directly.

I have not had any problems.

I suspect that the problems revolve around using Passport and having the
automatic downloads (or download in background) enabled.


--ron

Dick
Wed Nov 09 20:31:12 CST 2005

Downloading transactions takes two to tango. For every bank that cares about
setting up and maintaining their systems up so this can work well, there are
probably ten who can't be bothered. Is that a Microsoft Money problem?

"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B2B383E4-6F50-4F59-9088-E3F88AAE77EF@microsoft.com...
>I did a search on the forums for bugs and looking at the replies, the
>general
> response seems to be "I don't download transactions and I don't encounter
> bugs". It seems to me the ability to download your transactions is a
> powerful feature and if it doesn't work, then why is it even in the
> program.
> A feature that doesn't work, isn't really a feature at all.

R
Wed Nov 09 20:53:49 CST 2005

Chris is right, downloading does work. I can't personally vouch for any
version after Money 2002 but I have been downloading 90% of my transaction
data without problems for 15 years. I do not use and would not consider
using an MS Passport and like Chris I will not do business with a bank that
does not support direct downloads to Money.

I suggested Moneydance in my prior post if you are determined to switch
applications because MD has very clean, problem free downloading from many
banks and MD will not expire downloading in older versions like MSFT and
Quicken have determined to do.

But the most likely source of your problems is your own setup, not Money
bugs. Over my 20 years of Quicken/Money experience, I found that 90% of my
problems were my own fault or my lack of understanding of Money's behavior
and not the fault of the software. So before switching programs, check your
own data and procedures for errors or inconsistencies. It may not be
applicable but, as an example, the last problem I had with downloads related
to having too many old payee names in my payee list. Money was getting
confused and matched the wrong payee. I simply deleted the old unused payee
names and the problem is gone. The more carefully you study the program and
understand why Money does what it does, the easier it is to fix problems.

Regards

Bill Wood


"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B2B383E4-6F50-4F59-9088-E3F88AAE77EF@microsoft.com...
>I did a search on the forums for bugs and looking at the replies, the
>general
> response seems to be "I don't download transactions and I don't encounter
> bugs". It seems to me the ability to download your transactions is a
> powerful feature and if it doesn't work, then why is it even in the
> program.
> A feature that doesn't work, isn't really a feature at all.
>
>

Eggman
Wed Nov 09 21:59:05 CST 2005

I don't know, it is possible that it is my setup (hey anything is possible),
however, I am trying to be quite careful about the way I operate. I don't
use a passport for downloading. I go to my banks website, and download
directly from the bank to Money. I do have background banking enabled so
that it can download my investment data.

Beyond that I don't do anything fancy. I download my statements every few
days. I have a setup of bills and deposits which I link to my account.

It is possible that having too many payees causes the second problem I
mentioned (of course I would again suggest that if tracking that many payees
causes problems in the software, the software should limit the number of
payees - thus it would still be classified as a bug). I will try and clean
out the Payees and see if the problem goes away.

Granted I don't know the inner working of the communication between my bank
and Money, but it seems to me that the first problem I mentioned must be a
bug. If everything balanced a couple of weeks ago, how am I now off by 26
cents and that error goes back as far as the account tracks. I know that I
could quite easily fix the issue by either adjusting the starting balance or
by adding in a correction transaction, but I shouldn't have to.

Anyway, I took a look at Moneydancer and the User Interface sucked. If
everyone seems to think that Quicken is even worse, then I guess I am stuck
with no alternative.

Overall I love the presentation of Money, I just get very frusterated by the
fact that I have trouble getting it to do very common tasks without errors.

R
Thu Nov 10 06:20:07 CST 2005


"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5A99F95F-EBAD-449E-945D-9F988B024A86@microsoft.com...
>I don't know, it is possible that it is my setup (hey anything is
>possible),
> however, I am trying to be quite careful about the way I operate. I don't
> use a passport for downloading. I go to my banks website, and download
> directly from the bank to Money. I do have background banking enabled so
> that it can download my investment data.


I forgot to mention that I never use background banking. Never had much
luck with automatic downloading so I initiate it manually.


>
> Beyond that I don't do anything fancy. I download my statements every few
> days. I have a setup of bills and deposits which I link to my account.


Don't know what you mean by setup of bills and deposits linked to your
account.



>
> It is possible that having too many payees causes the second problem I
> mentioned (of course I would again suggest that if tracking that many
> payees
> causes problems in the software, the software should limit the number of
> payees - thus it would still be classified as a bug). I will try and
> clean
> out the Payees and see if the problem goes away.


My example was just an example and probably has nothing to do with your
situation. My payee problem was unusual and it was caused by the vendor
constantly changing the name format that they submit to my credit card bank.
Money was getting confused by the many very similar payee names in my list
which caused some odd mismatches. But I have hundreds of payee names in my
list and never had a problem before or since I deleted the many almost
duplicate names of that particular problem payee. So I definitely believe
Money can handle unlimited payee names without a problem and do not feel my
weird problem was a Money bug but rather poor data from the bank.


>
> Granted I don't know the inner working of the communication between my
> bank
> and Money, but it seems to me that the first problem I mentioned must be a
> bug. If everything balanced a couple of weeks ago, how am I now off by 26
> cents and that error goes back as far as the account tracks. I know that
> I
> could quite easily fix the issue by either adjusting the starting balance
> or
> by adding in a correction transaction, but I shouldn't have to.
>

It might be a bug but the way to find out is to find the error and fix it.
I do not recommend using kludges like adjusting the starting balance or
making a correction transaction. Find the error and fix that. If you have
to reconcile every statement from the beginning that is what you should do.
When you do find the error you will probably be able to figure out how it
happened.

I have occassionally had wierd small balance errors like 26 cents and I
believe most if not all of them were my fault. I don't remember specifics
because it is rare but I probably fiddled with a reconcilled transaction and
somehow changed it by mistake.

I have also seen matching errors on downloads cause small balance errors. I
almost always catch these because I download manually and verify every entry
before I accept it. But being human I have missed some mismatches which
caused a balance error that I corrected when I did my next reconcillation.
I do a formal reconcillation every month when the bank statement goes online
but I reconcile informally every few days now that I am retired and have too
much time on my hands :)


> Anyway, I took a look at Moneydancer and the User Interface sucked. If
> everyone seems to think that Quicken is even worse, then I guess I am
> stuck
> with no alternative.

MD2005's interface is different but it grows on you. But the developer just
published MD2006 beta which is supposed to have a totally new interface that
he says is more polished and professional. A stable version should be ready
in a month or so and you might want to look at it again later. I bought a
license about a year ago and I try MD every 3 months or so. It is improving
rapidly and may very well become a viable replacement for Money and Quicken.
So supporting MD is probably worth the small license fee since we need more
competition in the personal finance software field.

I think we are all stuck with no real alternative at this point, except
possibly MD. Money and Quicken are the only mainstream choices and both
MSFT and Intuit are pursuing this new "forced" upgrade deal by automatically
expiring downloads after 2 years so there is not much to choose between
them. Fortunately Money and Quicken do work reasonably well and many folks
get along fine without major problems. I believe you will be happy if you
spend more time studying how Money does things. I believe you said you have
been using Money for about a year - after 20 years of using Quicken and
Money I am still learning :)

>
> Overall I love the presentation of Money, I just get very frusterated by
> the
> fact that I have trouble getting it to do very common tasks without
> errors.


Overall, I like Money too. Hang in there, I bet you will resolve these
issues with a little more time and practice.

Regards

Bill Wood

Taylor
Thu Nov 10 13:47:44 CST 2005


"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C6E353A2-6A5A-4CCE-BF5E-088A1582421A@microsoft.com...
>I have been using Money 2004 for probably a year. I am constantly
> encountering bugs that make it very difficult to accurately keep track of
> things.
>
> I download statements every few days from my bank. I go through every
> transaction and verify them. Every week or two I make sure that the total
> money gives me is the same as the total the bank gives me and I balance
> the
> account. So why is it I am suddenly off by 26 cents and the problem goes
> back as far as the account is being tracked. I would have balanced only a
> couple of weeks ago and everything would have been fine at the time, so
> what
> happened.
>

I occasionally have that problem. The problem occurs, I think, when the
Money compares your account to the downloaded information and updates the
entries. In the problem you mention, check the cleared status of the entry.
Sometimes I find money automatically marks a transaction as reconciled.
Search the recent transactions and change them back to unreconciled.

> And why when I try and link a transaction to an occurrence of a bill does
> it
> sometimes refuse to do so. It will simply treat it as though I never did
> the
> linking. The only way I can get it to link properly is to delete the
> transaction, enter it manually, and then download the statement again.
>

I get this problem, too. I don't know the solution yet.

> 3 months ago I started a completely new Money file because my previous
> file
> had become so out of whack with all the little bugs that keep cropping up.
> Now I am just seriously considering buying Quicken instead.

Chris
Thu Nov 10 19:31:48 CST 2005

"Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5A99F95F-EBAD-449E-945D-9F988B024A86@microsoft.com...
> If everyone seems to think that Quicken is even worse, then I guess I am
> stuck
> with no alternative.

I don't think that everyone thinks that Quicken is even worse, but it's not
necessarily an improvement. I personally have no opinion of Quicken in that
respect, because I've never spent enough time using it to draw a conclusion.
In addition, the thought of converting years' of data is rather daunting, as
is the prospect of the time spent learning the product, only to find bugs in
it, too.

Intuit has the audacity to charge you for technical support, on top of the
bugs I'm sure they have, and their license fees to banks are apparently
enough for some banks not to license it.

Your conclusion should be based on how well you like the basic product, bugs
aside. All products of this nature have limitations and bugs. Many of them
can be worked around to some degree, and some may be issues that you
actually can resolve.

Eggman
Tue Nov 15 06:56:04 CST 2005

Well it is nice to know that I am not crazy and other people encounter these
issues as well.

It is interesting to note that after installing Money Dancer, and removing
it, Money would no longer recognize my bank downloads. So I tried running a
quick repair on the file (not really expecting that to help), and then
re-installed money. My 26 cent error has now gone away. Hmmm.

"Taylor" wrote:

>
> "Eggman" <Eggman@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:C6E353A2-6A5A-4CCE-BF5E-088A1582421A@microsoft.com...
> >I have been using Money 2004 for probably a year. I am constantly
> > encountering bugs that make it very difficult to accurately keep track of
> > things.
> >
> > I download statements every few days from my bank. I go through every
> > transaction and verify them. Every week or two I make sure that the total
> > money gives me is the same as the total the bank gives me and I balance
> > the
> > account. So why is it I am suddenly off by 26 cents and the problem goes
> > back as far as the account is being tracked. I would have balanced only a
> > couple of weeks ago and everything would have been fine at the time, so
> > what
> > happened.
> >
>
> I occasionally have that problem. The problem occurs, I think, when the
> Money compares your account to the downloaded information and updates the
> entries. In the problem you mention, check the cleared status of the entry.
> Sometimes I find money automatically marks a transaction as reconciled.
> Search the recent transactions and change them back to unreconciled.
>
> > And why when I try and link a transaction to an occurrence of a bill does
> > it
> > sometimes refuse to do so. It will simply treat it as though I never did
> > the
> > linking. The only way I can get it to link properly is to delete the
> > transaction, enter it manually, and then download the statement again.
> >
>
> I get this problem, too. I don't know the solution yet.
>
> > 3 months ago I started a completely new Money file because my previous
> > file
> > had become so out of whack with all the little bugs that keep cropping up.
> > Now I am just seriously considering buying Quicken instead.
>
>
>