[moneydance] Bank of America issues

[David Schuetz]

> If Moneydance could 'work just like Quicken' then only we MD customers
> would have to care.  I'm sure there are patent issues with something of
> that nature.

That's just it -- it *does* "work just like Quicken," to my understanding.  [I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong here.]  It uses OFX, the "Open Financial Exchange" protocol, which was jointly defined by Microsoft, Induit, and CheckFree in 1997.  From the OFX web page (www.ofx.net): 

    "The Open Financial Exchange specification is publicly 
    available for implementation by any financial institution 
    or vendor. As of May 2006 OFX is supported by over 3500 
    banks and brokerages as well as major payroll processing 
    companies. The latest version of OFX is 2.1.1."

So all that we need to happen is for Bank of America to recognize that:

1) there are applications out there besides Quicken and MS-Money
2) some of those also utilize OFX
3) for those which do use OFX, "we" (BoA) need to do _XXX_ to enable a customer's account to use OFX
4) for non server-side OFX issues, customers need to contact the vendor for app support

That doesn't seem like a whole lot to ask, since the only real work is creating a document that tells tech support people "Hey, if people call with Moneydance problems, all we can do is make sure that the WIDGET and the GEEGAW are set to UMPTYFRATZ.  Beyond that, it's an app problem."  (and, most likely, those settings will be exactly the same as the settings for Quicken 2006).  


Or am I way off base?  

If not, is there something particular that I can tell to the tech folks that'll get it working properly? (or is my "15502 - your account has been locked" error a new one that we haven't collectively tackled yet?)

david.
(maybe I should load up quicken on the office PC long enough to get it working and see if that doesn't set some flag on BoA's side...)