[moneydance] Bank of America issues

[Gordon Alley]

One problem is that, even though MD may use the same exchange file
standard as Quicken, the software that implements the file interface
is different. So there might be subtle differences in the way the
files are created and interpreted.

There might even be bugs or quirks in the Quicken implementation that
the banks have written their software to handle. If MD doesn't
duplicate these out-of-spec behaviors, it might not interface
successfully to the banks. I've read that one reason that the early
Apple Safari web browser releases had trouble with a lot of web sites
was that those sites were written for Internet Explorer, which often
played fast and loose with some HTTP standards.

Gordon

On 7/5/06, David Schuetz <david at dasnet.org> wrote:
> > 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...)


-- 
Gordon B. Alley
http://galley.home.texas.net