I’ve got a bad habit of waiting too long to make public releases of Moneydance. It is far too easy for me to keep making bug fixes and improvements to the ‘preview’ line of Moneydance and forget to update the stable line which most people use. Well, the wait is over and Moneydance 2008r3 is now out with a long list of improvements and bug fixes (see below).
With this release, and the completion of a recent server move, I will now focus all of my energies on two areas:
Moneydance 2009. There are lots of great changes in the works for MD2009 which I’ll now be able to give more attention and love. The big improvements are better reporting (including filtering by tags), making online functions require less interaction, and an even more streamlined/intuitive interface for things like budgeting. I’m aiming for a release near mid-February, but can’t make any promises.
iPhone app. The new Moneydance iPhone/iPodTouch application is coming along nicely. It synchronizes accounts and transactions with Moneydance over wi-fi and lets you enter transactions on the go which are then loaded into your desktop Moneydance when you sync. The app is fairly basic right now, but is getting close to being ready for an alpha release to a limited set of testers.
If you’ve already got Moneydance you can click on the “Check for new updates/extensions” link on the ‘home’ screen or you can get it from the download page. Here is the detailed list of improvements in Moneydance 2008r3 (compared to 2008r2):
- Fixed main window sizing when running on windows and Moneydance is quit while the main window is minimized
- Fixed column header display in income category registers
- Homepage graph now shows grouped income/expenses in terms of base currency
- Disabled payees are no longer shown in ‘Send Payment To…’ menu
- More fixes to help window (only applies when running on older systems)
- Added cmd/ctrl-D shortcut for downloading transactions in investment register
- Fixed bug preventing preferences window from appearing when running on older systems
- Fixed some keyboard focus issues in transaction register and splits window
- Fixed calculation of semi-annual items in budget report
- Fixed keyboard focus in account/category popup on linux
- Fixed formatting of some security values in the register (removed extra comma)
- Fixed focus/flicker problem in some secondary dialogs
- Added button to reset the date used for synchronizing downloaded transactions
- Fixed bug in income/expenses home page graph when values of different currencies are added without conversion
- Fixed bug in which investment transaction reminders do not record
- Fixed out-of-memory errors when archiving large files
- Fixed bug in which batch-changing the description field doesn’t change the ‘other side’ of non-split transactions
- Fixed change in transaction entry field appearance after recent update to Java on Mac OS X
- Removed one pixel border from pie charts
- Fixed bug caused by incorrect (or non-existent) sorting of budget items
- Fix cleanup of temporary file when saving on systems that don’t allow renaming files over existing files
- Fixed parsing of certain OFX 2 response headers
- Include .png files in user guide
- Changed line border for home page panels to match the toolbar background (light gray)
- Modified account boxes on home page to show accounts with no name a bit more normally
- Fixed bug in which having more than 512 currencies or securities would hose Moneydance if the exchange-rate/stock-price panels were se\
t to appear on the home page - Fixed problem with incorrect offset of day headers in French and other week-starts-on-monday locales
- Most error messages are now selectable to enable copy-and-paste
Sean, thanks for the update. MD continues to hold off the competition in this space on the Mac for me. Looking forward to seeing what you have up your sleeve for the 2009 version.
Looking forward to MD 2009 especially because of the reporting tools. #1 for me is the Income/Expense report where I can select a specific account. Taxes are due March 15th, 2009 for corporations, so a mid February release would be perfect! I hope you can make it at that time or before. Thanks!
MDUser: have you tried using the Cash Flow report? You can select the account(s) you want and it will show the amounts that flow into or out of that/those account(s). You can use the Detailed Cash Flow report if you’d like to show all of the transactions that make up the totals.
Sean, I appreciate the ongoing attention to bug fixes and enhancements, and I look forward to MD 2009 especially for the improved budgeting. A couple of months ago, I posted a problem report on Get Satisfaction, and that problem persists. After I hit Return to confirm an entry in the register, the cursor jumps to the Category Tags column in the new transaction instead of to the Date column. Consequently, I have had to uncheck Auto-Create New Transaction in the preferences and manually hit Command-N to create new transactions. A minor annoyance, yes, but this problem didn’t exist until one of your recent updates. For the record, I’m using an Intel iMac, 10.4.11 with all of the software updates installed. I hope that you can address this problem in a future MD update. Thanks for creating a great product.
Tom
Great product Sean! I have been a user of MD for over a year now on a Linux ( Ubuntu ) platform. Thanks for all your hard work.
Yes, great product! I switched to Moneydance after using Quicken for the last eight years and have been very happy.
Hi Sean,
Any news on when us UK users will be able to auto-update investment prices yet? Is this scheduled for 2009? For me, this is the only problem I have with MD on what is otherwise an excellent product. I (and I’m sure a lot of the UK users who use MD for investment tracking) have been disappointed by the lack of progress on this issue and the absence of any response from MD on both the old forum and ‘Get Satisfaction’ (which BTW IMHO was a massive backward step in user ’satisfaction’ – bring back the old forum!!).
I’ve been a user now for several years and have been really pleased with MD (especially the cross-platform support – great for a serial Linux dabbler like me). Trouble is cross-platform support is no longer the rarity it once was and the investment price issue is a biggie for me. My Money by MTH is soon to release a beta of it’s investment module and if it’s any good, I rather think I could be off if there’s no news from MD.
Here’s hoping!!
Andy
Andy, plenty of UK users can download stock quotes now using the stock quote synchronizer extension. You just need to append the exchange suffix to the ticket symbol for your stocks/securities. For example, BT.L to get the “BT” stock on the London Stock Exchange.
Tom, I’m working on the date field focus issue now. Can you send an email to sreilly@moneydance.com with the version of java that is shown in the “about” window (select the Moneydance->About Moneydance menu).
Thanks!
Sean
Hi Sean,
You’re right of course for stock quotes but not mutual funds which is where my problem (and the various other posts on the forum i’ve seen) lies. Non US mutual funds no longer appear on the main Yahoo site (and haven’t done for over a year) so the synchroniser needs to be searching the uk.finance.yahoo.com using the ISIN code(+.l). But I guess you know this ;) (BTW – is it possible for the end user to easily edit the synchroniser extension search path?)
Thanks
Andy
How do we find out about progress on the iphone app? I’m a long-time treo/win-quicken user migrating (for the past year or so) to all-mac and moneydance ALMOST has me through the transition (if only I had an iPhone option…)
best of the new year!
h.
How do I stop the pop ad for the update? I get it every time the program starts.
Sean – Any chance of adding a feed to this blog?
Lance
Andy: It’s not yet publicized, but the stock quote source code can be had at http://code.google.com/p/moneydance . I’ve been planning on open sourcing some extensions (but continuing to work on them) so that others could add bits and pieces. One of the pieces I was hoping to get help on would be to add a settings window so that you can choose other sources for stock quotes.
hans: still working on it, but making progress. Hopefully we’ll get you over that transition soon!
John: First, to be clear, there are no ads in Moneydance and there never will be :) You can disable the update notification by removing the updater extension (using the Extensions->Remove->Updater menu).
Lance: There already is a feed for the blog, but not for the comments. You can subscribe to the URL: http://moneydance.com/blog/feed to get an RSS feed for posts or http://moneydance.com/blog/comments/feed to get an RSS feed for comments (for all posts, I assume).
Cheers,
Sean
Great news about the update and the future iphone release, any ideas on when it would come to surface? It would really simplify my accounting.
Congrats for the soft, I have been a happy user for more than 2 years. Keep the good work.
Cheers from Argentina!!
I’m totally stoacked about the iphone release as Mint.com has released one, which isn’t half bad, but I’m more interested in supporting your product.
I am also equally hyped about 2009! Will it be a free upgrade or a paid addition for current moneydance license holders?
I’m a new user — really like the program, though glad to hear budgeting will be getting an update in 2009. Would especially like to see an “all other” category in both budgets and budget reports. Don’t know why this is so hard to find in accounting programs.
Thanks!
Read a great review of Moneydance and am eager to use it on the mac.
I’m waiting to purchase the 2009 version… Please hurry! :o)
(Will you keep me posted?)
Sean, I volunteer to be a beta tester for the IPod Touch app. Let me know,
Mike
I am also interesting in alpha/beta testing the moneydance iphone app. Please add me to the list!
Great program. My only “Wish” is pretty minor. Any way to add percentage(%) to the pie chart reports, and possibly the home page graphs.
Thank!
I tired to do the update to the new version but alway get a pop up window saying that MD can’t be updated while it is open, then on another pop I get a message saying telling me to coy a file so I haven’t been able to upgrade to the new version, please help. I’m a Mac user
PLEASE let me know when the iPhone app is released — I’m a musician and am away on tour a lot. The iPhone has been wonderful for me because I now no longer have to lug a laptop around with me … if only I could update my MoneyDance accounts via the iPhone, it would be perfect! Is there any sort of work-round I can use while waiting for the app to be available, and do you have a release date in mind?
Hello,
I would enjoy helping you on the beta testing of the iphone app. I am currently on the testing team for Mariner’s iCalc (which is going to be an insane app when finished, actually it already is insane).
Anyway, I do not balance my books as consistent as I should, and am interested in helping test an app that will help people like myself stay on top of things.
Sarah,
In the meantime look for a spreadsheet app that will export and import csv. You may be able to export account data to your ipod, and then import it to your Moneydance data after editing it on the road. This is what I do with students’ grades, and it works well. I bet with a bit of tweaking, you should be able to get a temporary solution.
Thank you all for your hard work.
Sincerely,
Jacob
Hello,
Fantastic product. I just switched from MS Money starting Jan. 01, 2009 to start the year fresh. So far have been extremely pleased!! MD is straight forward, and elegant in it’s simplicity. Thank You. I look forward to future features.
Rick A.
1 more quick query — while we’re waiting for the full app, is there another iPhone app that will allow us to enter transactions which can then be uploaded to Moneydance when we get home? Seems like this oughtn’t to be too difficult ….
Just a quick comment from an evaluator (tried just about all similar programs available for mac os x). There’s one major thing about the fluidity of using MD: inability to disable “Possible Match” when importing transactions. This has been mentioned in the forums. I hope that option would become available. I have two recurring payees and sums (ATM withdrawal of 20 or 40 bucks + bying a cup of coffee from local coffeeshop) that are shown as possible matchs during import even though they are always separate cases. It is too easy to make entries disappear this way. Other than that, MD seems to be a bit ahead of the competition.
Hi Teemu,
I think there are two ways to work around the problem you describe:
1) In the Network section of the Preferences window you can set an option for Moneydance to only match downloaded transactions when they are at most N days apart. Setting that to zero will prevent most of your incorrect matches, but the next option is still better…
2) When importing QFX, OFX or OFC files, or when connecting directly to your bank, Moneydance will never match a downloaded transaction to a previously downloaded transaction. Because of this, after you have downloaded and accepted a batch of transactions, Moneydance knows those transactions have already been “matched” and will try no further matches. The “Possible Match” option is only ever applied when there is a non-downloaded (ie manually entered, or imported from another app) transaction in your register that looks very similar to a downloaded transaction. This is why it is important to accept downloaded transactions rather than simply delete them.
I hope this sheds some light on your Moneydance evaluation.
Is MD 2009 going to provide “one-step update” online functionality (i.e., downloading transactions for all accounts with one button click, as opposed to having to go into and update each account individually)?
I actually came to see about syncing my app PocketMoney to MoneyDance, but sounds like the MoneyDance guys are working on it. If you want something to enter transaction on the road then to sync until they have their iPhone app version done, then you can use PocketMoney LITE. I will let you export to QIF files that MoneyDance can then import.
Sean, I’m interested in beta testing the iPhone app. Please let me know if you need any more testers.
Thanks,
D.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for your help a couple of months ago regarding using Moneddance and Wells Fargo online transactions. After Wells understood what info they needed to provide to make the software work properly, (electronic routing number) the program has performed perfectly! Wells was very cooperative in troubleshooting and they renewed my faith in my bank.
Looking forward to MD 2009
Matt
Hi Sean,
are there any plans to support CSV import?
Thanks,
Patrick
Hi Sean,
I have been looking for an alternative to Quicken, and I think money dance is the one. There is one improvement that would make it perfect. I am a Canadian and we have a tax related retirement plan here called an RRSP. Throughout the year I make contributions to my RRSP. I need to be able to identify all these contributions between certain dates of the year and then produce a report. I could do this if I could tag any entry I make in any account. As Moneydance stands at the moment, it seems that investment accounts cannot be tagged. As good number of people here take advantage of the RRSP each year, a modification to allow tagging across the complete chart of accounts could be an excellent incentive to use your software.
Hi Sean,
After spending a couple of days, I really like Moneydance. I have a suggestion and a question. The suggestion – I prefer smaller fonts. I have it set to minus 2. It would be nice if it changed the home page font as well. The question – is it true that Moneydance can’t/won’t match transactions for downloaded mutual fund transactions? I appears it was a feature that was removed last year. Are there any plans to reimplement this?
Patrick: You can already import CSV files using the text-import extension
Gerard: good catch that investment account transactions cannot be tagged. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get to that, but it will go on the to-do list!
Steve16: Setting the font to minus two doesn’t change the home page font? I’ll have to check that out. It is true that Moneydance doesn’t match downloaded transactions for investment accounts. If it was removed (I don’t remember) it was because the feature was only accidentally enabled. Currently investment transactions are too complex to match because of the way the downloaded investment transactions are structured. I hope to work through that complexity in the future, but I’m sure it won’t be in Moneydance 2009.
Thanks,
Sean
Sean,
Thanks for the reply. Regarding matching downloaded investment accounts, I don’t care about automatically matching the transactions to those already in my register. But it would be nice to have a manual match. Currently I have reminders that automatically commit purchases in my mutual funds from my checking account. All I want to do is enter the correct share price. Currently I can’t even view the downloaded transaction and edit the existing transaction at the same time. I have to look at the downloaded transactions, write down the prices or memorize them, close that part of the window, then edit each transaction. Whatever you could do to streamline that process would be appreciated.
thanks,
Steve
I have two checking accounts in Moneydance for Mac. One is a personal account and one is for a corporation for which I keep the checkbook. When I do a Income and Expense report there is no option to choose which account and it combines my personal account and the corporation account. Is there some way to get a separate income and expense report for each account? The cash flow report separates them but there are no overall totals only totals by category. I don’t want to manually total the categories or separate the accounts. I have switched from Quicken for Mac and like the program except for the reporting.
Sean,
Any update on the MD2009 timeline? Mid-April is here, and I’m trying to decide whether to stick with iBank, move to MD, wait for QFL… I’d love to use MD2009 to make that decision.
Thanks very much.
Hi,
Any idea when MD2009 will be ready? Really looking forward to the new release.
Thanks
Gary
Moneydance for iPhone…any updated status for May? You know that Moneydance is the only package that can REALLY compare to Quicken and MS Money…and in many ways is better! Adding iPhone functionality will bring MD one step closer to knocking off one of the ‘big boys’. There have to be thousands of us who will be downloading the iPhone app when it becomes available. Sean…any update on an ETA of the release? Thank you, David
MD for iPhone! I can’t wait! I love this product. I switched form Quicken and love it. Please hurry for the iphone app!!!
Is Moneydance 2k9 still on the Horizon?? (with iphone app)
Tye, the iPhone app will be available shortly and MD2009 will be some time after that as there is more work to be done on MD2009 but the iPhone app only has a couple loose ends to tie up.
will moneydance 2009 be a free upgrade for owners of 2008? how about the iphone app?
will moneydance 2009 actually come out in 2009?
New iPhone…new OS…really looking forward to the iPhone app!
How can we find out when the iphone app is available? Can we sign up for an email? How soon is it coming out? I’m looking forward to using the moneydance app.