Frequently Asked Questions (and their respective answers and or explanations)

What is the difference between the Trial version and the Licensed version of Moneydance?

You can download the Trial version for free to see if Moneydance is right for you. It is identical to the Licensed version, except you are limited to 100 manually-entered transactions. Downloaded and imported transactions are unlimited. When you purchase the Licensed version, you receive an email from BMT Micro with a registration key. Entering this will turn the Trial version into the Licensed version without altering any of the data you have already entered.

My bank does not appear in the list of financial institutions in the "Setup Online Banking" window. How can I connect to them?

Moneydance can connect to financial institutions that allow direct connections to their services via the OFX protocol. If your bank is not listed in the list of available financial institutions, please visit the list of banks we do not support to see a reason why. If the bank is not listed there, either add them to the list, or email Support.

Frequently banks that do not support direct connections usually provide web-based downloads of transactions/statements from their web site. Moneydance can import virtually any type of downloadable transaction file, including QIF? , OFC? and OFX/QFX?.

What if I have lost my registration key, or I did not receive my registration key from BMT Micro?

Email keys@bmtmicro.com will the full name of the person who made the purchase and we will send you an email with your registration key.

How can I transfer my data from Quicken or Money into Moneydance?

See Importing Quicken files into Moneydance

Can I import my GnuCash data?

At this point, Moneydance cannot import GnuCash data directly. The easiest way, if possible, is to export your data from GnuCash into a QIF file and import that file using the File->Import->QIF menu in Moneydance.

Another option is to use the migrate.pl perl script written by the very talented Sid Reed? to export your GnuCash data from a PostgreSQL database to an XML file that can be opened directly by Moneydance. For details on using this script, see the comments at the beginning of the migrate.pl file.

There are also several additional options:

Users familiar with the Python scripting language can use the Python extension to Moneydance to write a script that reads the GnuCash XML data file and adds the accounts and transactions to Moneydance.

If your GnuCash data is not too complex you can export your data from GnuCash into a tab or comma-delimited text file that can be imported by the text file importer extension to Moneydance.

Write a program that converts a GnuCash XML file into a QIF file that can be imported directly into Moneydance.

Does Moneydance allow for assigning 'classes' to transactions?

Yes, but in Moneydance they are called 'tags' and you can apply multiple tags to each transaction. In order to edit your list of available tags, click the Tools->Edit Transaction Tags menu. You can then select tags for transactions using the popup field in the transaction edit form.

How do I move a transaction to a different account?

A transaction can be moved from one account to another by taking the following steps:

Select the transaction in the account from which the transaction will be moved.

Double-click on it and select the "Actions" button at the bottom left corner of the transaction editor, and click "Show Other Side" from the list. (Or, right-click on the transaction and chose "Show Other Side" from the context menu.)

A new window for the expense category will open with the "other side" of the transaction in edit mode. Change the account in the Category field to the bank, investment, or credit card account you want the transaction moved to.

Press the "enter" key or click on "Record" to save the change.

If the transaction has splits, the Category change will be made in the other expense accounts, too.

How do I reconcile a Credit Card account?

See: Reconciling a Credit Card Account

How can I edit the items that show up in the "Check#" list (i.e., CkCrd?, Dep, Trn, etc.) ?

While looking at the Home Page, select the menu item "Account"->"Edit". This will display the dialog for your overall account information. Use the "Up" and "Down" buttons to the right to change the order of "Check# Items", the "New" button to create a new item, or "Delete" to remove items you do not want.

How can I add extra principal payments to a Mortgage?

This question was taken from the email list archive and there appear to be two answers. The first option is to record the transaction as normal and then add a split that goes to the loan with the extra principal amount. The second option is to add the extra principal to mortgage amount. In either case, MoneyDance should handle all the hard stuff, such as calculating your next payment correctly, adjusting the remaining number of payments, and anything else.

Can you change the word "Check" to "Cheque" anywhere in the programme?

You can change Check to Cheque (and other similar changes) by selecting the English (UK) locale in the General tab of the Preferences window.

Can I set a Starting Balance for my checking/savings/etc. Account?

Once you've opened an account register by clicking on it in the home screen, you can select Account->Edit from the main menu bar which will bring up a popup window of account properties. One of these is "Beginning Balance" and is the field where you can enter the balance without creating a "false" transaction.

Is Moneydance compatible with major (or minor) tax programs?

Moneydance is not directly compatible with any tax programs, however you can use the TXF export extension to export your data to a file that can be used by TXF-compatible applications such as TurboTax. To get the TXF export extension, please email support@moneydance.com as the extension is still in a "beta" release mode.

How do I restore from a backup?

Moneydance can be set up to save backup files, which are just regular .md save fiels with the file extension "chopped off" to keep you from confusing them with your regular files. To open such a backup file, simply rename it so it ends with .md and you'll be able to access your transaction history as it existed in MD at the time of the backup

How can I change an account's type after it's been created?

The type of an account can be changed after being created in Moneydance by following these steps:

1) Export your data to an XML file using the File->Export menu and choosing the Moneydance XML option. 2) Edit the exported file in a text editor. Search for the name of your account and you should see a section like this:

{{{<ACCOUNT> <TYPE>B</TYPE> <NAME>My Account</NAME> <ACCTID>110</ACCTID> <CURRID>8</CURRID> <STARTBAL>1020.00</STARTBAL> ...}}}

3) Change the letter in the <TYPE> field to the correct letter and then save the file. Valid types: A = Asset; B = Bank (checking or savings); C = Credit Card; V = Investment; L = Loan; Y = Liability; S = Security; E = Expense; I = Income

4) Open the edited file in Moneydance by selecting the File->Open menu and choosing the XML file. Note: The file may need to have the ".xml" extension in order for Moneydance to be able to open it.

What is the deal with setting up a new PIN?

I am trying to setup online banking. When I connect for the first time, I am prompeted to enter a new password/PIN, and there is an arbitrary-seeming limit of 8 characters in the new password? This did not happen when I was connecting from another application such as Quicken of MSMoney.

The OFX servers for some banks (SunTrust? for example) include a flag that indicates that customers must change their PIN the first time they connect. Some servers enforce this so Moneydance must also. It is a security requirement because these banks usually mail the customer a temporary PIN that needs to be changed the first time they connect to the service.

If Quicken doesn't require that they change their PIN the first time you connect then either:

1) you were using web-connect in Quicken (rather than direct-connect) to download transactions, or 2) Quicken is connecting to a difference server/service for that bank

The OFX service to which Moneydance connects also specifies the minimum and maximum length of the PIN. If this is not the same as the customer's PIN, #1 above is most likely the case and you will have to use a different login/PIN for direct OFX banking from Moneydance.

What is that orange Diamond?

See Reconciliation

How can I import security, stock or mutual fund prices?

Moneydance imports stock prices from Yahoo! Stocks (finance.yahoo.com) using our Stock Price Updater extension. You can download this extension using the Extensions->Add... menu.

The Stock Updater will install itself as an icon in the upper right corner of the Moneydance window. Clicking on this will update the values of all the securities you've added to your investment accounts. The Updater looks up values based on the ticker symbol, so make certain that all your securities have been associated with the correct stock ticker symbol.

To associate a ticker symbol with a security, simply add the ticker to the "Ticker" field of the Edit Security window.

How can I do this from non-US stock exchanges?

To use a non-NYSE security listing, simply add the appropriate suffix to the end of the ticker symbol - for example, the Toronto exchange's suffix is ".TO"

A full list of exchanges and their suffixes can be found here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/exchanges

How do I get the Register to auto fill todays date instead of the last entered date?

Press the "t" key while in the date field for the new transaction. That sets the date back to the current day. It works this way because many people enter receipts sequentially for several days at a time. If that's how you enter transactions then resetting the date back to today for every new transaction would be infuriating and there's no shortcut for selecting "the date of the last transaction entered".