[moneydance] Moneydance Trial/Thinking of purchasing

[Andrew Bennett]

Hi Mark,

I hope you don't mind one more opinion among the flood of replies.

> 2. After importing - regarding the Categories - not sure if it's a trial
> version restriction but I can't select multiple transactions, select the

The only difference between the trial version and the full version is
that the trial version will expire after you enter 100 new
transactions (which was long enough, for me, that I thought the
license checking was broken!)  If you can't do what you want in the
trial, buying a license key won't fix it.  My advice: stick with the
trial until you're sure you like it.

(FWIW, the long trial period was actually a factor in my decision to
purchase Moneydance.  Not the biggest, but the "take your time"  
attitude made it a little easier for me to actually pay for software.   
Also, by the end of the trial I was sure that I liked Moneydance, and  
I was very comfortable using it.)

> 4. Can someone please clarify exactly what the objective of "Reconcile" is?
> I looked at the Wiki explanation but still not sure. Same applies to credit
> cards. Really don't understand what the overall objective of this is. A
> simple example would help me.

Are you referring to the "Actions | Reconcile (^b)" while you are
viewing an account, or the general concept of 'reconciling' an account
(most people have answered the latter)?  If the former: I _believe_
this is supposed to be some sort of automated tool to make it easier
to reconcile your account; if anything it makes reconciling more
difficult for me so I don't use it.  Perhaps someone who takes
advantage of this feature can explain better how they make use of it.

> 5. What account type does a mortgage go under? Don't really see that it has
> much capability around this, but then don't know the product.

Mine is a 'loan'.  I believe I used a message from the archives of
this list as a guide when I set it up (or maybe something from the
forums. Or the wiki).  Once you get it set up (along with, most
likely, a recurring transaction to make a payment to it from your
checking account), Moneydance guesses how much of each monthly payment
goes to your interest and your principal, although for me those
numbers tend to be off by about one dollar each month.  (Also, I have
to go back and manually add my additional principal to the split each
month; so for me the process is not completely automatic, but I don't
consider that to be a problem.)


One final comment: I've only been subscribed to this list for about a
month and a half, but your e-mail seems to have generated slightly
more response than usual.  Most questions do seem to receive an
_answer_, just not always to this level of detail (want to ensure your
expectations for future support are set to the right level).  I'd
suggest browsing the mailing list archives to gauge for yourself the
level of responsiveness.  Also, you'll probably pick up a few tips
along the way :)


Andrew


PS Just curious, since you didn't mention: what operating system are
you using (it should not affect your usage of Moneydance)?  I am
running Linux (Ubuntu 8.04).



-- 
---
Andrew Bennett
abennet1 at gonzaga.edu