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Goodbye Moneydance.....
After a few weeks of using Moneydance I'm dumping it in favour of another application.
OK, so this isn't really a problem, but it's not praise, nor is it an idea or a question. But this site forces me to choose one of those categories for my post, so 'problem' seems most appropriate.
So why this decision?
Since I moved to Linux a while ago I've been looking for an alternative to Quicken. I'd tried a number of Linux applications, but none of them really met my needs. The closest at the time was KMyMoney, but it made a complete mess of importing my Quicken data. Because having my old financial records to hand was important to me, I gave up with KMyMoney and continued to use Quicken.
Then I discovered Moneydance, and decided to give it a try.
Moneydance has a heck of a lot going for it:- Being Java-based, it's cross-platform; it has a beautifully simple, intuitive, clean, uncluttered user interface; the data file is xml, so there's no problem with the user's data being locked away in some secret proprietary binary format; data can be exported as xml or tab-delimited; reporting is enough to meet most people's basic needs; reports run nice and quickly, etc, etc.
It also made a near-perfect job of importing close to 20 years worth of Quicken data. That was a very big win for Moneydance. It was the ONLY product to make such a good job of the import.
There are many things that I really like about Moneydance and, initially, I thought I'd found a permanent home for my financial data. But I've become progressively more disappointed with Moneydance and The Infinite Kind as time has gone on.
It mostly boils down to support issues. Moneydance itself has some shortcomings, but nothing that I'd consider a show-stopper, at least in the short term. What concerns me most of all is the reliance of the entire project on a single developer. This has repercussions in terms of the speed of product development and bug-fixing. Both take longer than they should.
Investment handling, for me, is one of the key features of a finance application. Moneydance is reliant on the Yahoo stock quote service. In itself that's OK - it's an approach taken by numerous products. Some products give the user control over which site is used as a source of pricing information and the form of the url. This allows the user to set-up an alternative pricing source without having to rely on the application developers. However, in Moneydance's case, if Yahoo breaks or changes the way their site works, the user can do nothing. Also, because Moneydance is hard-coded to use the Yahoo US site, I still have to manually enter prices for UK funds; if Moneydance allowed me to choose to use the UK Yahoo site, I'd be able to download my UK fund prices.
Issues like these resulted in me, once again, looking for an alternative application. I decided to try KMyMoney (a native Linux application) again and, this time, was prepared to put the effort into getting my data imported. For me, the advantages of KMYMoney over Moneydance are overwhelming. The pace of development and the addition of new features is rapid; user's queries on the support mail lists and forum rarely go unanswered; bugs are sometimes fixed and updates published in hours (provided the user is prepared to compile the application from source). The application also optionally supports a relational-database backend. By using MySQL I can create whatever reports I want without having to wait for the developers to recognise the need for improved reporting.
In writing this post, I'm trying to offer constructive criticism. As I said earlier, there are many things that Moneydance does extremely well. Top of the list is the user interface. But unfortunately, things like support and documentation don't seem to be considered important enough to warrant the attention they deserve. For me, KMyMoney provides a far better alternative.
One of the guys I used to work for always maintained that customer criticism was more valuable than customer praise. I hope this post will be taken in the positive way that's intended.
Mike
OK, so this isn't really a problem, but it's not praise, nor is it an idea or a question. But this site forces me to choose one of those categories for my post, so 'problem' seems most appropriate.
So why this decision?
Since I moved to Linux a while ago I've been looking for an alternative to Quicken. I'd tried a number of Linux applications, but none of them really met my needs. The closest at the time was KMyMoney, but it made a complete mess of importing my Quicken data. Because having my old financial records to hand was important to me, I gave up with KMyMoney and continued to use Quicken.
Then I discovered Moneydance, and decided to give it a try.
Moneydance has a heck of a lot going for it:- Being Java-based, it's cross-platform; it has a beautifully simple, intuitive, clean, uncluttered user interface; the data file is xml, so there's no problem with the user's data being locked away in some secret proprietary binary format; data can be exported as xml or tab-delimited; reporting is enough to meet most people's basic needs; reports run nice and quickly, etc, etc.
It also made a near-perfect job of importing close to 20 years worth of Quicken data. That was a very big win for Moneydance. It was the ONLY product to make such a good job of the import.
There are many things that I really like about Moneydance and, initially, I thought I'd found a permanent home for my financial data. But I've become progressively more disappointed with Moneydance and The Infinite Kind as time has gone on.
It mostly boils down to support issues. Moneydance itself has some shortcomings, but nothing that I'd consider a show-stopper, at least in the short term. What concerns me most of all is the reliance of the entire project on a single developer. This has repercussions in terms of the speed of product development and bug-fixing. Both take longer than they should.
Investment handling, for me, is one of the key features of a finance application. Moneydance is reliant on the Yahoo stock quote service. In itself that's OK - it's an approach taken by numerous products. Some products give the user control over which site is used as a source of pricing information and the form of the url. This allows the user to set-up an alternative pricing source without having to rely on the application developers. However, in Moneydance's case, if Yahoo breaks or changes the way their site works, the user can do nothing. Also, because Moneydance is hard-coded to use the Yahoo US site, I still have to manually enter prices for UK funds; if Moneydance allowed me to choose to use the UK Yahoo site, I'd be able to download my UK fund prices.
Issues like these resulted in me, once again, looking for an alternative application. I decided to try KMyMoney (a native Linux application) again and, this time, was prepared to put the effort into getting my data imported. For me, the advantages of KMYMoney over Moneydance are overwhelming. The pace of development and the addition of new features is rapid; user's queries on the support mail lists and forum rarely go unanswered; bugs are sometimes fixed and updates published in hours (provided the user is prepared to compile the application from source). The application also optionally supports a relational-database backend. By using MySQL I can create whatever reports I want without having to wait for the developers to recognise the need for improved reporting.
In writing this post, I'm trying to offer constructive criticism. As I said earlier, there are many things that Moneydance does extremely well. Top of the list is the user interface. But unfortunately, things like support and documentation don't seem to be considered important enough to warrant the attention they deserve. For me, KMyMoney provides a far better alternative.
One of the guys I used to work for always maintained that customer criticism was more valuable than customer praise. I hope this post will be taken in the positive way that's intended.
Mike
I’m no longer using Moneydance. Sorry!
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Inappropriate?Hear, Hear! I also have been using MD only a few months, but I have never really stopped looking at other packages. Like you, I was initially won over by the clean, intuitive user interface and easy setup of MD. And, like you, I've grown increasingly troubled about the lack of response from the (apparently) lone developer to a number of long-standing shortcomings in the program.
I'm also bothered by the near-total absence on this forum of anyone from MD or The Infinite Kind or whatever they call themselves these days. I can't escape the impression that they set this forum up so that they could abandon any effort at user support and leave users helping each other as the only way to get help. How many questions or problem threads here have Sean or Ash responded to in the last few months? Precious few.
Thanks for the hint about KMyMoney. That's an interesting looking package, and much better supported than MD. Unfortunately for me, it's a Linux/KDE specific solution, and I'm using Mac OSX. I know it's possible in principle to get almost all Linux software to run under OSX, but I have neither the time nor energy to figure out the various hacks involved. I'll check their forums from time to time to see if anyone's made a port to OSX.
The other one that is still in the running for me is MyMoney (see mthbuilt.com). It's also platform-agnostic like MD. It's still missing an investment module, but the developers say one is coming in beta around year's end. Like your KMyMoney, it's updated 1-2 times per month, and the developer(s) seem to respond to almost all the posts on the forum which is a very healthy sign. There is also a feature for direct access to the underlying database which allows users to create their own reports. That by itself is a huge advance over what MD offers.
Given the support vacuum at The Infinite Kind, I'd guess more MD users are going to be abandoning ship over time.
Sean, Ash: are you listening?
David
I’m sad MD users aren't better cared for.
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I've just noticed that Ash is no longer listed as an employee of The Infinite Kind. The line under the company name at the top of this page used to say "3 The Infinite Kind employees are ready to listen and respond". Now there are only two. -
Looks like Ash has gone to United Lemur.
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Inappropriate?I'll talk to Sean... hopefully we can improve the current situation
BTW, I also don't like this forum... it is really hard to follow specific threads, ideas and support requests
Sorry about those unsatisfied (mostly american) users - for foreign users e.g. german ones like me, several features like onlinke-banking are not that critical because this generally doesn't work with financial institution outside US, Canada, UK.
This means that MD is just working (I didn't need to import Quicken data) and probably will in the next few years. And that without the need to modify or change something within the app.
But that is just how I personally feel about it!
Apart from that I'am still one the way improving stuff for german users (e.g. translation, documentation, some minor things) and maybe I can focus on that by next year...
Raimund
I’m concerned
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Inappropriate?BTW, I also don't like this forum... it is really hard to follow specific threads, ideas and support requests
I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds these new forums totally useless.
I find it pretty much impossible to get my head around the set up of the forum.
I would gladly go back to the old forums.
Maybe someone can point me to a help area to understand the format for these forums ... but then. After years of using forums, having to check out a help area to be able to use a forum seems to speak volumes for the user unfriendliness of the forums. Ah well.
I’m really unhappy with these new forums
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Yes...please find a way to migrate to better forums. This forum is the worst I have ever used.
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couldn't agree more ... but then it's unlikely anyone will ever find this comment ...
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Inappropriate?Agreed, I am looking at alternatives to MD after being a faithful user for some years. Here's why:
I need a more flexible report format so that I can choose which combinations of items are going to be included in the report. MD offers only one report (Transactions) that allows me to filter by TAG, yet I need to do that for other types of reports, which are essentially useless to me without filtering by tag.
I also need to export QIF files for individual accounts, rather than for the entire MD file, and I don't want to manually parse a QIF file as has been suggested by other users.
I agree with Xerty that this forum is difficult to use at best (rubbish at worst). Please go back to the previous kind of forum that showed threads, dates, etc. instead of requiring users to type a question for the forum robots to attempt to interpret.
I’m disappointed
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Inappropriate?I'm new to MD. I'm a windows convert, been using linux going on two years. I've also been fed up with companies that have quit listening to their customers.. companies that have grown too big and have lost perspective.
Ive been in the struggle also trying to get away from a dual boot machine.. trying to leave quicken.. trying to go opensource.
Long story short, after some research, I decided to just bite the bullet and get to work on MD. I bought 2 licenses.. a copy for a son out of state, who is making the switch also.
I've been struggling for two plus weeks converting my quicken accounts over. The biggest struggle for me has been finding information.
Usually when i am new to some software, the first thing I do is to find a forum that I can browse through to get a gist. When I discovered the forum with the "discontinued and moved" notice on the top.... and came to this forum, I was dumbfounded and extremely disappointed.
This is my first post in this "forum" but from my lurking here... checking "recent activity" for the last few weeks... and now running into this "thread" some of my concerns have been heightened.
Its kind of funny. I left proprietary software because "I felt" they weren't representing me as a customer anymore. I made a concession in this one instance (thinking financial software maybe one area that is critical) and went the "closed source" route, liking many things i saw about MoneyDance.
Now I'm wondering if I've been too hasty and am wasting my time and effort converting my data into a program that is fizzling out? After reading through some of these posts (or trying to).. I am getting the impression that the "customer does not come first".
I will be watching these "forums" closely for the next few days.. before I make my "final" decision on which direction to take. The $ I spent is minuscule compared to the future effort I will be putting in.
ps I can't stand these forums If you didn't pick that up.1 Comment Add a comment
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Hi, Steve. Like you, I converted my files to MD from Quicken, after years of being an Intuit junkie, and years of being "sold" upgrades every year or two that always seemed more bloated and less functional than the previous version of Quicken. I started on Quicken for Windows, and then converted the files to Quicken for the Mac, and then to MD. Getting from the Windows side to the Mac side was much harder than from Quicken Mac to MD. I've never been unhappy with MD since I made the switch. The conversion was a bit of a hassle but after I got everything in place, MD has worked fine for me, except for some missing features that I need on the reports. For what it's worth, my experience with the developers of MD has been stellar. I've written to them directly and gotten answers within a day or two. You just can't get that kind of responsiveness from Intuit, in my experience. I have no idea if they're fizzling out--and I do need those extra features so I am looking at other programs--but the fact that you can output an XML (text) or QIF file from MD provides a lot of transportability of your data to other programs, even back to Quicken if you go that way. I've tried round-tripping my files from MD back to Quicken, and they work fine that way too. Hope this is helpful -- George
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Inappropriate?George, thanks for the reply. It is nice to hear from satisfied customers of a product... gives one the impetus to continue.
I tend myself to want to support smaller operators who are good coders, like what they are doing, and have some interaction with their customers.
Don't know what the history of MoneyDance is other then that at one time I think it was opensource. From bopping around here I see that Sean is the only "employee" that now responds. I would guess that he is THE guy. I also read somewhere that he is working on something for the iphone, which would be BIG for him. So I'm kind of getting the drift.
I'm just wondering if, for me, and my needs, this is going to pan out. I want to put my efforts into something that will be around for a long time with frequent updates and an open architecture so that the data remains mine.. to do with what I want. (That is the main reason for leaving the other big names).
I'm not sure if a one man show (not knocking your obvious incredible talents Sean), will be able to deliver in the future. It seems to me as I get in here.. that things are in a bit of a transition. Not sure about that.. Just my feeling. And my feet are sort of cold.
But I'm glad to hear that you do get responses from the "developers" in a fairly short time. That is encouraging .
Just to be honest with you all. Entering financial data into a program isn't my favorite thing to do. And.. I want to do it once. I want it right. And I want it safe for the future. :-)1 Comment Add a comment
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Steve - you have to spend some time in getsatisfaction to find informative posts. For a new user from quicken - there are many good posts in the old forum: http://moneydance.com/forum/YaBB.pl
I'd suggest that you try there. -
Inappropriate?Katahdin,
Thanks for the input and help. You are all very positive and try to be helpful. But, I can't help but feel that it is the current users that are trying to buoy up MoneyDance... hoping that it will survive.. mostly because of your own efforts put into the application... both personally and from a help to other users perspective.
My perspective, coming into it now (having paid for two licenses) is that Sean is overloaded and his past crew, for whatever reason, have left.
I can't stand this "forum" and the sentiment from others is overwhelmingly negative towards it also.. yet it remains as the only communication between the customers and the developers (-s).
I have spent the weekend moving over to kmymoney as advised by Midahed. Conversion of my Quicken data via a QIF file has a little more flexibility via their "custom" QIF profiles. Still a frustrating experience.
I believe there is a giant market out there for frustrated customers of both Quicken and MS Money. I really wanted MoneyDance to be MY product.
I still have a license.. and I will, for a time,read these crappy "forums" in hopes of more support... but for now consider me gone. I should pursue my wasted $ especially in these economically trying times.
Maybe Sean will read this and offer my money back.. like a reputable company.
I don't expect a response from him.
Sorry to sound so negative.
Steve1 Comment Add a comment
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If you haven't already gotten your money back by emailing support@moneydance.com then please do so. We are more than happy to refund purchases from dissatisfied customers. I'm very sorry about the lack of attention this forum has received. I am working on both getting more responsive as a company as well as making the forum more useful and less frustrating.
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Inappropriate?Steve,
Another Linux and KMyMoney user! Welcome to the dark side :-)
Like you, I wanted to make a go if it with Moneydance. There are so many aspects of the application that are really elegant - such a welcome change from Quicken and it's plethora of 'features' that just bloat the product.
One of the things I particularly liked about Moneydance was the excellent job it made of importing all my Quicken data (20 years worth). I'd intended to switch from Quicken to KMyMoney months ago, but at that time Moneydance beat it hands down when it came to importing my data. But my increasing disappointment with Moneydance led me to try KMyMoney again. It took me ages to get all the data correctly loaded, but it was worth the effort.
Recently I've been helping the developers test a new version that does a much better job of the import. It's come on leaps and bounds over just the last couple of weeks (for those who are prepared to build from the cutting-edge development source).
I hope KMM lives up to your expectations.
Mike
I’m sure that Moneydance could be 'Quicken beater'.... if only.....
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Inappropriate?Midahed,
Still, I see that you check back here too to see if anything is happening ;-).
I'd be interested in the "cutting edge" version myself, being i've been working on different "renditions" of my conversion process. I'm almost to a point of saving a messed up conversion for record and starting a fresh file. Maybe the newest alpha version would help?
I'm not apposed to building from source. Is there a link that might pertain?
Steve -
Inappropriate?Hi Steve,
Yes, I still visit occasionally - sometimes, as on this occasion, prompted by email notification of a reply to a subscribed thread. Like you, I own a Moneydance licence (which I bought very recently), I like the product, and I'm still interested in what happens to it.
The basics of installing from CVS are here:-
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/inde...
I'd also recommend subscribing to the developer's list. It's more active than the users list and you can get a real feel for what's going on with the product.
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/inde...
If you don't like using mailing lists, you can always read (and post) via Nabble...
http://www.nabble.com/KMyMoney-f4152....
...but you still need to be subscribed to the list if you want to post, even if you choose to do so via Nabble.
They also have a forum, but it's very new, it's still effectively 'on probation' and I get the impression that the action is (and always will be) found on the lists rather than in something as non-geeky as a forum ;-)
http://forum.kde.org/forumdisplay.php...
Hope this helps.
Mike
(Apologies to all for the non-Moneydance discussion) -
Inappropriate?Midahed,
Thanks for the links! I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 and I see that there is already v9.2 in the repositories.. so perhaps I have the latest stable, though not the "bleeding edge".. and no need for me to compile?!
I too am sorry for carrying on this non-MoneyDance discussion here.
* Another "The Infinite Kind" limitation. In normal forums, members can email/message each other and not post to the main board with such discussions. :-( -
Inappropriate?Hi Steve,
I run Ubuntu as well, although I also have all the KDE libraries installed because I prefer most of the KDE apps to their Gnome equivalents. I really might as well go the whole hog and switch to Kubuntu at the next major update.
KMM 0.9.2 from the repositories is reasonably up to date, but if you want to benefit from the recent changes to the import process, you'll need to run CVS and build it yourself. There is someone (whom you could probably easily find by searching the list archives) who builds a .deb from CVS every two or three weeks. That way you don't have to build it yourself but, as a total CVS newbie myself, I'd go for CVS every time. It's really easy - just four commands to run once you have the basics set up. I now update mine almost on a weekly basis - sometimes more often if there are changes that I need to test. It takes ten minutes from file update to completion of the install.
Hope this helps.
It's probably best if you contact me using email via the developer's list if you want to take this conversation further. I use the same username there.
Mike -
Inappropriate?I use moneydance on an Imac and am very happy with it as I just need basic keeping track of finances tools. However, I also do not like this new forum. I rarely go to it because I find it hard to find any information that might be helpful. The forum that was in place when I signed onto md not quite a year ago was very easy to use and find information on. -
Inappropriate?i am on the verge of abandoning moneydance. i've been trying for 10 days to import my data from money. i have several unanswered posts in this forum, and i've emailed the support group twice. i've read many posts were users were able to do some type of work around or manipulate the data into working for MD - great - but what about us regular folks that just need a streamlined import process? it shouldn't be this difficult. i have used money since 2003 and have never experienced the frustration that i have thus far with MD. my next stop is quicken. even if it has quirks - i'll take it if it will import my historical data.
I’m frustrated
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Most of the established personal finance applications use the QIF format in some form or other as a means of transferring data. Unfortunately, the format is badly designed and poorly specified. In short, it's use is always going to be problematic. If you Google for QIF import export you'll find plenty of explanations as to why this is the case. There's not much that any application designer can do to put this right. I found that Moneydance made a very good job of importing my Quicken data - I've written about this elsewhere - but, to a certain extent, it's a matter of luck. Whenever a QIF import is involved, you'll need to be prepared to read-up on what can go wrong and try to see how this affects your data. Normally, once you've spotted the pattern of the errors in the imported data, it's not too difficult to sort it out. It's a pain, I know, but it's the price we all have to pay for buying Quicken or MS Money in the first place when they offered such a restricted means for exporting data. Of course, this might have been a deliberate ploy to tie the hapless user into their product because to move elsewhere would be too difficult. ;-)
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Inappropriate?I can only say I'm both relieved and frustrated reading this thread ...
Relieved -- because it's clear I'm not alone in my frustration, which I've been venting for about two years on this forum and the previous one. It got hopeful early this year when Ash picked it up ... but then zilch again, and now bye-bye Ash.
Frustrated -- because as I've banged on in other threads, critical features have been left unaddressed for literally years. (Just search on my userid or "tags" on this forum ... I can't tell you where to find the thread by any conventional route because .. well .. nothing about this forum appears to be conventional or even comprehensible.)
I have a decade worth of data in MD, and nowhere to go :( Like David I'm a macuser. Outside Quicken this is the only finance app for mac (bar none AFAIK) that offers both investment tracking and tags/ classes -- but development of both has been barely existent for years, and some of the needed enhancements are critical for my needs. There's another mac app called Prospects in the early stages. It sounds promising, but it's also a lone developer app, so I'm not especially hopeful. I'll check MyMoney again, but from memory it doesn't have tags and no plans ...
In my case I can't even revert to Quicken -- even if I could tolerate Intuit's comprehensive customer support failure. I'm in Australia where the local Intuit incarnation haven't released a localised mac version since 1995. I could use the Win version through VMware Fusion, but the pricing and upgrade policy is unspeakably objectionable (and expensive).
So if MD doesn't get it's act together, I really am ... (well what can I say?)
Sean / Raimund ... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE say something that tells us you recognise how serious this is. I'm sorry, but I'm just not hearing it -- and from the sounds of this thread I'm not alone.
I’m frustrated (but that barely says it now ... )
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I'm in the same boat as you Lance. Waiting for something that supports both investments and tags on a Mac. I REALLY like iBank, but it doesn't support tags. So still using Quicken for Windows on a Mac with Parallels. Tags is a deal breaker for me. MoneyDance supports them, but there is no useful reporting by tag.
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Just to state the current situation:
Sean is developing the iPhone app and also polishing MD 2009
At the same time he is looking for an additional developer as well as for a new support guy.
I'am going to work on german localization again and perhaps on some useful extension ( - mainly for german users) next year.
Because of that and also for personal and structual reasons there is some kind of shortage in support... but hopefully that problem gets resolved in first quarter of 2009.
Developing speed of MD has always been slower than I would like to have it but has gone on steadily and with good and solid results. -
So Raimund, even though I know Sean historically has been loathe to let out any secrets, is there anything you can say regarding possible changes we can look forward to in '09 update? I assume since he is "polishing" it as you say that there must be some tidbits you can give us - please?
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Inappropriate?Eddie, David ... and anyone else listening (oh, and thanks to Mike for the pointer to the cross-platform MyMoney) ... Have i got news for you!! The cavalry have arrived (hopefully) ..
I've exchanged just two e-mails with the devs at MTH Software (makers of MyMoney), and here's what came back:
Lance,
We printed your email and actually discussed it on a meeting.
We are going to add support for classes, if you don't mind we will ask you to test it since you have so much knowledge on the subject
We plan on starting working on this mid-January
Thanks,
MTH Team
You might like to offer to join the test as well? .. info@mthbuilt.com -
Inappropriate?Thanks, Lance, that's exciting news. MyMoney appears to have a lot of great plans. At the moment they have support for neither tags/classes nor investment tracking, so I don't think either of us is ready to switch just yet, but as I said before I'm certainly keeping an eye on them.
The best things about MTH are 1) that they seem to be actively working on releasing updates and new features at an impressive pace, and 2) that they respond to nearly all of the problem posts on their forum. Moneydance almost looks like an abandoned product in comparison. That's what troubles me the most. I can live with the shortcomings it has, at least for now, but I really don't want to keep years of data in MD if it's about to dry up and blow away.
Here's an interesting (to me, anyway) observation: The most active thread on this forum is the one about an iPhone app under development. The second most active thread is one (this one) where people discuss alternative products. Sean has posted several times on the iPhone one. He's posted once, briefly, here, and has never responded to any of the comments or criticisms made here, never tried to speak up for his product. Does this strike anyone else as strange? The most charitable conclusion one can draw is that 100% of Sean's attention is on the iPhone app, and nothing is going into fixing shortcomings that people have been complaining about for years. That's not a good sign for the long-term health of the program or its users.
David1 Comment Add a comment
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A good analysis, David. I agree ...
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Inappropriate?Thanks Lance and David. I will add MyMoney and Prospects to the lists of apps I track for progress, etc. Like I said above, I really like iBank, but they don't do tags. That is all that's holding me back from that moving to it.
But sounds like the guys doing MyMoney are very active in upgrading the product and listening to their customers and prospective customers which is a huge thing in my book. We'll see how they progress in the next several months. -
Inappropriate?I looked at Mymoney and found the interface quite nice. However, none of the downloads from banks and investment companies worked for me. It's not quite ready for prime time if you download data.
If not, it may be worth a look.
Moneydance while not as clean an interface, works!1 Comment Add a comment
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By downloads, I take it you mean downloading transactions direct from bank servers to your finance app -- as distinct from exporting QIF/OFC data files from the bank for you to then manually import into your finance app? Or do you mean both? I'm asking because the former isn't available to me in Australia anyway, so the latter is all I can do regardless of which app I'm using.
Hmm .. actually now I think of it .. I don't download transactions directly, but I do download stock prices directly. Is that one of the things you said didn't work in MyMoney? -
Inappropriate?Sorry to not respond to this thread until now. I have been watching it but haven't had a chance to respond until just now.
I am currently working on a bunch of things:
- Moneydance 2008r3 (to be released any minute now)
- Moving moneydance.com to a new server (just finished! fingers crossed)
- Writing iPhone app to sync with desktop Moneydance
- Getting Moneydance 2009 finished enough for an alpha release
- Fixing these forums
For the last item, please check out http://moneydance.com/help/
It is another view into these same forums, hopefully a little more streamlined. The benefit of using the getsatisfaction forums is that we have had zero spam since switching to them. We also get the benefit of RSS feeds as well as being able to tell more easily which questions have been responded to and which haven't. Now with moneydance.com/help/ online (if your DNS has updated... it just went live an hour ago) we can customize the interface to make it less cluttered and easier to read and keep up with.
The server move has also taken a lot of my time lately, and it is completely invisible to everyone but was very necessary. With that done, I plan on adding new features and fixing bugs in the desktop MD at a much faster pace while also getting the iPhone app out the door soon.
As for support, Brian is picking up steam and catching up with the queries to support@moneydance.com before focusing on these forums. If Brian is unable to keep up with the forums then I'll hire another person to help him. I am also looking to hire another developer, so if you know java/swing (Objective-C + Cocoa a big plus) then please send a note to sreilly@moneydance.com.3 Comments Add a comment
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Sean - On behalf of all on this thread, it's good to hear from you. What you've said offers some hope, I think. But I'd still like to hear some assurance that feature requests, bugfixes etc won't be ignored -- which to all appearances is what's been happening, and will be addressed as high priorities -- which to all appearances has not been happening. Bearing in mind that some of us have been raising these issues for SEVERAL YEARS through successive help forums and trac tickets. For me, the big one is full implementation of tags; for others it's more reporting options; etc....
I could go on for pages with my concerns and frustrations, but I've said it all previously. What specific assurances can you give?
Thanks. -
Sean - First, my thanks also for your post. It really does help to know that the comments are at least being read, if nothing else.
I agree with Lance's comment above. My own take on the situation is that you need to do three things to keep (and keep getting) customers. These are in no particular order, and all are equally important.
1 - Be Visible. We all get very worried when we call out for help and no one seems to be listening. If this forum, for all its shortcomings, is to be the main vehicle for communicating with users, then by all means be here - DAILY - communicating back to us.
2 - Be Responsive. Lance said it all. Tell us what you're going to do about these long-standing complaints, or tell us why you're not doing something.
3 - Help users communicate more easily with you and with each other. Mostly, what we need are overhauls to this forum. The old forums may have generated spam, but at least they were easy to navigate and search. Please do whatever you can to improve the navigation and search functions here, and do it quickly. I just got the new 'help' link above to work after several '404 not found' errors (slow DNS updates, I guess). I'll be very interested in trying it over the next few days.
One concrete suggestion (borrowed from one of your competitors, iBank) would be a developers' blog. If there were one place where your customers could look for frequent (say, ~weekly) short updates to tell us what you (and any other developers) are working on at the moment, it would go a long way towards dispelling the notion that nothing is happening. It might also help us figure out where our personal pet peeves stand in your work hierarchy.
I find it _very_ encouraging that you are adding staff in both the support and development areas. As I said elsewhere, my biggest concern personally was that Moneydance was on the way to being abandoned. I am DELIGHTED to know that's not the case, and I'm looking forward to hearing from Brian soon.
Thanks, David -
dspray - I appreciate your (and everyone's) comments in this thread and do plan to do a much better job communicating with customers. We will be much more visible. Brian and myself will be on these forums more often and also providing information via the blog. We do actually have a Moneydance blog, but I've been pretty bad at updating it. You can get to it via a link from every page on moneydance.com: http://moneydance.com/blog
I can assure everyone that Moneydance is not going away anytime soon. I am working on it seven days a week, even on vacation!
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?For Lance in Australia,
I only tried to download from within the program in Mymoney. It didn't work for any of the bank and investment companies I use. Most of them work in Moneydance.
Can't comment on the download from the bank as I didn't try it nor did I look at the download of stock prices.1 Comment Add a comment
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OK, thanks for the clarification. In light of what you say, switching to MyMoney would be value neutral for me as far as downloading goes.
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Inappropriate?Good to hear the response, Sean. Many thanks. I'd say that I'm now looking forward to a blog post addressing the status of some the major longterm issues. (Along the lines of David's recommendation '2'.)1 Comment Add a comment
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Inappropriate?Just picked up on this thread. I have no problem with importing stock prices from the London market. Just make sure that the ticker symbol used is the full ticker symbol for the London Stock Exchange quotations.
eg BT.A for London as opposed to BT for New York1 Comment Add a comment
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If you want quotes from the London stock exchange you must use a suffix .L. To get the quote for BT group use BT-A.L for an LSE quote not as quoted above. I am currently evaluating moneydance as an replacemment for my creaking version of Money (99). I am a UK user. I find that I find moneydance does not appear to import prices for the first and last securities in an investment account. Has anyone else experienced this problem
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Inappropriate?I have used Microsoft Money for a number of years. I don ́t need to import any old information, just start from scratch. I have worked for IBM, I have run a finance company , I ́ve been a project leader, and I have managed my own book-keeping for several years. But I find the User Manual useless. I can ́t manage to split transactions, because only 1 line comes up. I can ́t find how to transfer money from one bank account to another. The VAT-box uncheckes itself, so no VAT is transferred to the the VAT account. I ́ve spent one full day trying to make these simple things work. Disastrous! So I ́m ready to go back to Microsoft Money again. These things are very simple there, and I have a business to run instead of trying to figure things out myself.
Tomas Barth, sweden
I’m frustrated
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To do a split:
When you open the split box only one line shows in the box initially.
To get a further line (or lines), simply click on the button at bottom left of the box "New Split". Every time you click the button you get a new line.
Pretty simple. Did you say you worked for IBM? -
Inappropriate?Just checking in on this thread again ...
Sean, I don't want to be a pain - but I'm still waiting to hear what's happening about the longterm frustrations raised by me and others. I think you did mention somewhere (was it on the blog?) that MD2009 will add tag filtering to reports. That's really good news, and will be deeply appreciated by many of us .. and yet, it's only one of several aspects of tagging that's remained incompletely implemented for a long time.
Can you tell us more, please (here or on the blog)?
Thanks.
I’m about as frustrated as last time
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Inappropriate?New user here. It's taken me 2 days to import 69 accounts from 18 years using microsoft money. The import worked very well with a bit/lot of tweaking. For me moneydance is a great product BUT
1.Needs reports with the ability to select multiple categories
2. Really miss the right click on a transaction to see a summary of totals by category or payee
TBH these are critical for me. I will say no more at the moment
I’m undecided
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both can be done with the current version - but maybe I misunderstood the problem you are describing
1) use reports like Income/expense/cashflow, select the account list;
select an account, hold CTRL while selecting other/more accounts/categories
2) you can still sort transactions by using RMB and specific menu item (sort) - or use the button top right in every register -
Inappropriate?Fantastic.........cmd in mac selects multiple categories then I can save - this is the big thing for me - great thanks very much
As to the second solution, what does RMB mean? the button top right in every register is the report button?
Thanks very much (from the UK)1 Comment Add a comment
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Right Mouse Button - you can sort a register by category, payee, date, etc
no, not in the menu line - at the top right end of column headings
for a more specific summary you can use reports or even the search-tool (homepage, - menu ((binoculares icon)) -
Inappropriate?Oh I understand, but you can't search across multiple accounts/registers to get a quick total for a specific category or payee - or can you?
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Inappropriate?I'm surprised at the rather negative tone of this thread. I've been using Moneydance for only about 10 days so far. I haven't paid my money yet because I want to make sure everything works before I commit my precious data to it. My experience so far has been entirely positive. I've imported about 15 years' worth of data from MS Money, including investments; I can do everything in MD that I could do in MS Money, and quite a bit that I couldn't.
The reason for my quest for a new personal finance app is that I have converted to Mac and after two years of using Mac, the only reason I still have to go on my Windows machine is to access MS Money. So if I can just get my personal finances on my Mac, I can ditch Windows for ever. I've evaluated all of them, including Moneywell, Quicken and iBank. There's is absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that MD wins against those products.
I must say you've got me worried though if there's only one developer - maybe Infinite Kind could comment on that?
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Hi Howard, for most of the past 12 years we've been operating with one developer (me) however it's been working pretty well so far. Just a few weeks ago I've added a second developer who is now working with me.
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Inappropriate?Okay, after we switched to MacBookPros, we tried tons of ways to track our financial data, and Moneydance was far superior to any alternative. Like Howard, we explored clinging to MS Money. We also researched and tried a number of the options listed on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparis...).
The bottom-line for us was, Moneydance plays well with every single financial institution that we use (Bank of America, ING, PayPal, AmEx, Chase, Discover, HSBC, Vanguard...etc. etc.). We are able to either download transactions directly from within Moneydance, or download Quicken files from the web that automatically open within Moneydance (from those institutions that either reject direct connections from third party software for security reasons, or charge ridiculous fees for the "privilege").
Yes, this forum is funky and nonstandard. Yes, responsiveness is not the greatest strength of the tiny (one-man) development team. Like many other users, I had to wade through a ton of threads while trying to figure out how to set up one account or another. About half the time, I found the information I was looking for, and the other half of the time I had to figure things out myself. But for me, what counts is that (1) the forums do actually contain useful answers (often provided by other users), (2) everything that I needed to set up was actually completely 100% possible, and (3) everything that's set up is painless (actually, enjoyable!) to update and maintain.
Yes, we could have made use of clear, illustrated documentation for the most common types of accounts. (Maybe hire a contractor just to write that stuff up with screenshots.) Yes, we could still use more reporting features. Yes, we would absolutely benefit from the sudden availability of either/both iPhone and Android companion software. (Hubby uses the iPhone and I use the G1, so I have to selfishly hope what Sean's coding for the iPhone gets ported over eventually.) Fortunately Rolf's work from the extensions angle has been alleviating the reporting gaps, and Sean's working hard on the iPhone app, apparently in addition to holding down the fort in every other way (uh, including server migration? ...actually, hiring one single reliable person to take care of non-innovative, non-developmental, but-nevertheless-critical stuff like that would go a long, long way).
Anyhow, Moneydance will continue to be a pleasure to use each day until the next major version or companion piece comes out. Maybe Mike got his money back - whatever makes him happy - but we're keepin' Moneydance, so keep at it, Sean. Our money's on you!
I’m thankful for what Moneydance can do already, and excited about the ongoing feature development.
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Inappropriate?After reading this discussion I got a little nervous. Would I have to start all over again, now that I was getting comfortable with MD? Was Sean so overwhelmed that he would slowly abandon his project? Was the end near?
So..... Yesterday I played around with Money3 by Jumsoft. It took 1.7 hrs to convert my old .qif file (yep I saved it!) that I used when I converted to Moneydance (only 15 min and a couple hours of tweaking with MD).
The conversion was a complete mess. BTW it took 3 tries to get the conversion to show in the program. Dates ranged from 1901 to 2052. Yep it works into the future. Imagine that!!
Money3 has a nice interface, more OS X look to it, but NO forum support. I looked all over the Net. Are they nuts, no support? No place for peer to peer help?
At least as quirky as this forum is we DO have peer to peer support and the developers DO respond, albeit slow sometimes, but Sean realizes the problem and has hired to rectify this shortcoming.
Further reading deep into the discussion, Sean in a response to "dspray" mentioned these links... http://moneydance.com/help/
which directs to this link... http://moneydance.com/help/helpstart.php
and... http://moneydance.com/blog.
All 3 are an improvement to the look and feel of the GS site. The GS people are still in the background.
Anyway, the long and short of it... this program works, it has strong points and shortcomings... its gets the job done... No program can be everything to everyone... Get into as much of the program as you can or want to... direct suggestions and questions to Sean and his team. I'm sure they're tweaking to improve the product.
I’m cautiously optomistic
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Inappropriate?I don't want to get into point-scoring between the satisfied or the dissatisfied, because it's basically all matter of what particular set of features you want. If MD has everything you want, why wouldn't you be satisfied? I certainly was to start with.
And I might add it's not my natural style to be a carping wet blanket on a forum -- in fact I cringe at that behaviour and avoid it for all I'm worth. I consider myself very forgiving and patient, and that's what others say about me generally. But sadly there does come a time ....
The reason for the negative tone of this thread is that unfortunately some of us are coming from years (and I do mean years) of frustration over particular features that really matter to us not being fixed or fully implemented. I can only say that whilst I have no doubt that MD would be a dream if it has the features you want - and those features are consistently developed, if that's not the case and you've been waiting a very long time with a huge data file and doing tedious workarounds ... it then becomes a nightmare.
Speaking of which ... Sean - I'm still waiting for some news on what's happening with tags and the others issues i and others have highlighted before ... Please ...
I’m same as before
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Inappropriate?I too am actively looking for a replacement. I've been using MD for several years, and there's a lot to love. but for me the reports are just useless. they are not just missing a few features, they are fundamentally broken. many people have been asking for fixes for years, literally, and there has been no movement that I can see. I'm waiting for proof MD hasn't been abandoned.
I’m sad and frustrated.
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Abandoned? MD 2008r3 was just released in December, and 2008r2 was released in August before that. So I'm pretty confident that MD is far from abandoned. The pace of development is slow, and the software is not perfect, but no software is perfect for every user. Let's hope the 2009 version gives us a lot more to love.
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Inappropriate?I hope the 2009 version will fix important things like the reporting issues and that valuable development time will not be wasted on whimsical gimmicks like the iPhone app.
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Inappropriate?3 months ago Sean wrote:
I appreciate your (and everyone's) comments in this thread and do plan to do a much better job communicating with customers. We will be much more visible. Brian and myself will be on these forums more often and also providing information via the blog.
and hasn't commented since.
2+ months ago the last post appeared on the blog.
Sean - it's not looking good still, is it. I'd have gone elsewhere long ago and hence wouldn't be hanging around here making a pest of myself, if there were any other app with the features I want for my platform and location. But as there isn't, I have no choice but to wait for something to happen with MD -- and just do all the tedious workarounds required, whilst my data file continues to grow.
So if you simply do the communicating you promised 3 months ago, we'll all be a lot less stressed ... -
Inappropriate?While I'm also somewhat bothered by the lack of communication from the developer, I'm wiling to give Sean the benefit of the doubt in this instance. I can only imagine how furiously he must be working to get Moneydance 2009 out the door. As someone who used to write code, I know how hard it is.
Moneydance has a unique and visible position as one of the only full-featured alternatives to Quicken. With Mac and Linux market shares growing (where Quicken is weak or nonexistent), and with new competitors really stepping up their games, I can also imagine that Sean probably feels that the 2009 version really needs to hit it out of the park. With a few bug fixes and better reporting, the 2009 version could really catapult this product to a new level of success. In other words, this is arguably a critical juncture for Moneydance, which I'm sure is not lost on Sean.
We know that MD 2009 is just around the corner. Let's let Sean ship the new version, and then see how it measures up and how The Infinite Kind interacts with its growing customer base going forward. I'm optimistic on both fronts.1 Comment Add a comment
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REPORTING REPORTING REPORTING
If this is not fixed in MD 2009 I intend to go back to MS Money. I'll have to rebuild the last couple of months' activity but it's the lesser of two evils. The lack of reporting in MD is so very, very frustrating. -
Inappropriate?I've been running in parallel with Quicken for almost two weeks.
As of now, I can not successfully get the online download working for at least 4 out of 20 accounts. I deleted the account and re-imported, changed security name, but the online download either refuses to match already downloaded transactions.
It seems that even when I delete the account and all the security names associated with the account, there is still some link that is not deleted in MD (saved the file, exited MD, came back in and try to set up online account).
Also downloaded transactions with the action 'Buy' now show up a negative cash balance in the mutual fund account.
Since I already bought the license, I may give it another hour IF and WHEN the MD 2009 is release. Otherwise, I'm switch to Quicken for MAC (2009 when released). Quicken 2006 online services are ending this April (the reason for looking at another software package).
Basically, I just can not get 4 out of 20 accounts to download right (downloading form T. Rowe Price).
The time spent on MD dwarfs the cost of upgrading Quicken. If I ignore the cost; I just can't get the online download to work (which was my biggest reason to pay for a new piece of software).
MD has great potential and may be an alternative to Quicken or iBank if you get it working.
EMPLOYEE
EMPLOYEE
