Balances in Calendar
Ryan
via web
One of my favourite features in Quicken 2007 is the ability to see future account balances in the Calendar view. Is something similar possible in MD, perhaps in an extension? I'd love to switch, but if I can't get this feature, I'll have to choose between looking for something else that does this, or sticking with Quicken (and I'm really sick of being reminded to upgrade).
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32 Posted by svg1234 on 18 Feb, 2012 10:20 AM
Like many here, I'd love to see the Quicken Calendar implemented in MD. It's the only reason I still use Quicken (2001! lol). The extension mentioned in the thread is appreciated, but it still doesn't come close to the Quicken layout and information at a glance. The calendar shows past and future transactions - scheduled or not. You can click on any transaction and get more details. The graph bars are better than lines too (perhaps the extension author can make that option available? Because it's MUCH easier to click on a bar than it is to click on a thin line, and it's easier to pinpoint the exact day too).
FYI, I have been running Quicken on Crossover for many years. Works 99% (just a few graphics/display issues in certain situations). I have my Quicken datafiles located outside of the bottle to facilitate easy backups. Thus, you don't need to use a vm to run it. Even though I have XP on a VB VM in Ubuntu, it's still faster and easier to use crossover. Of course, not using any windows-based s/w would be best. QuickTax is the only program I boot into windows for. This year I plan on running it off of my vm and seeing if it'll all work ok (netfile, etc).
33 Posted by Kevin Stembridge on 18 Feb, 2012 11:33 AM
Hi svg1234,
I'm interested in the graph bars feature you mention. Could you go into a little more detail about how you'd like to see them integrated into forecaster? Maybe provide a screenshot to show me what they look like.
Cheers,
Kevin
34 Posted by svg1234 on 18 Feb, 2012 12:45 PM
Here you go, Kevin.
If you slowly run the pointer across the bars, the tooltip will keep updating with that date's balance. The bars are so much better for a variety of reasons.
The two of them together (a calendar showing past and scheduled transactions, and a chart showing the date and balance)...is exactly what's needed.
35 Posted by svg1234 on 19 Feb, 2012 06:49 AM
Hmmm...Kevin, I wrote a post yesterday in response to your post, but I don't see it here. I'll try uploading the screenshot again.
36 Posted by Kevin Stembridge on 19 Feb, 2012 11:16 AM
Thanks for that. I've never seen Quicken before and I was having a hard time imagining what people were talking about. So, just to confirm, when people are saying that the account balances are displayed in the calendar view, they are referring to the histogram in your screenshot?
Another question. What happens when you click on bar in the graph?
And one more. What does it look like if you want to see multiple accounts?
37 Posted by PaNiX on 19 Feb, 2012 01:28 PM
No I use Quicken Deluxe 2011 on Windows and on mine each day on the calendar has the projected balance and if there are transactions that occurred or will occur on that day it lists them and you can edit them. It does not have a bar graph. Basicly if you could take the data you already have in forecasted and put it on a calendar it would be perfect.
Sent from my iPhone
38 Posted by svg1234 on 20 Feb, 2012 03:10 AM
Kevin,
I'm using a very old version of Quicken (the reason I stick with it is because I love that graph layout so much). According to Panix, ti works differently in more recent versions. So I'm not sure what people are referring to, or what happens when you want to see more than one account, etc. I've used it the exact same way for almost a decade. I dont' recall ever clicking on a bar (the tooltip w/ the balance comes up immediately - no reason to click). I assume it just highlights that day in the calendar (I'm not near my PC to test it). However, you can click on each item in the calendar (historical or upcoming) and it'll show you the details in a pop-up.
39 Posted by PaNiX on 20 Feb, 2012 04:39 AM
Here is a picture of the calendar from Quicken 2007. It looks pretty much the same in 2010. It looks as though it does have the bar graph at the bottom, but what I find most useful is the running balance on each day of the month on the calendar.
40 Posted by PaNiX on 20 Feb, 2012 06:26 PM
Here is what the balance calendar I use looks like. It has the running total displayed on each day of the calendar along with what transactions took place on each day (you can also edit them from the calendar but that is not necessary).
It also has the bar graph mentioned above displayed below the calendar, along with other options like upcoming transactions, etc.
41 Posted by PaNiX on 20 Feb, 2012 06:32 PM
Here is what the balance calendar I am used to looks like. It contains the balance for each day on the calendar and also has the bar graphs at the bottom. I never even know about the bar graphs as the useful thing to me was the balance on each day and what transactions occurred on each day.
Hopefully this will post now as I have tried to post this response 4 times now.
42 Posted by svg1234 on 20 Feb, 2012 06:40 PM
PaNIX, that looks better than my version. I'm not surprised - afterall, they had ten years to improve it. lol. I guess it is time for me to check out more recent versions and see if they'll work with crossover (and allow importation fo the old Quicken datafiles). Of course, if Kevin improves the extension, I'll be switching to MD20xx. ;)
43 Posted by PaNiX on 20 Feb, 2012 06:46 PM
I don't see it being too difficult to implement. All he would need to do is create a calendar view and populate it with the data he already has. Then just add another button along the top of the main window. I have been trying to figure out how to do it myself, but I am a bit rusty in programming and have to teach myself java to do it LOL.
I am curretnly running both MD (love the iphone integration) and Quicken using vmware fusion.
44 Posted by Kevin Stembridge on 20 Feb, 2012 09:39 PM
Thanks for the extra info and the screenshot.
I'm still wondering how it handles multiple accounts. It looks as though the Account Balance Graph has a dropdown that allows you to select a single account but what about the balances on the calendar? From the screenshot it looks as though the calendar balances match the graph balances. So is the balance in the calendar tied to the single account selected in the bar graph view?
Before I go on, I should mention that I don't see myself adding a Calendar to the forecaster extension. It would be quite a bit of work and almost all of that effort would be duplicating functionality that already exists in Moneydance. So I think that adding balances to the calendar is something that should be left up to the Moneydance team.
Besides that, I also think that the calendar view has limited usefulness when it comes to monitoring future balances. It doesn't do a good job of showing trends, its layout doesn't cope well with multiple accounts and it can only show one month at a time. But I can certainly understand why a lot of people want this feature.
So the other thing to consider is the suggestion to add graph bars to the forecaster. Thanks for the extra feedback and screenshots to help explain how they work. Sorry to be a downer again but I don't think there is much to be gained by adding them. Visually, they don't provide any more information than a line plot and they are not suitable because:
The format doesn't cope well with multiple accounts.
They become very cluttered when displaying a long time period.
The one benefit they do have over a line plot, as mentioned by svg, is that they are easier to click on or hover over in order to get the tooltip to appear. This is definitely something that I want to improve but I have a different feature in mind for that. The underlying chart library I use (JFreeChart) has a feature called crosshairs. It allows you to click anywhere on the chart and a separate table will display the account balances on the day that you have clicked.
I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to add that feature but I welcome any feedback in the meantime.
45 Posted by Mike Lawson on 20 Feb, 2012 09:53 PM
On Feb 20, 2012, at 14:39, "kevin.stembridge.dev"<***@tenderapp.com> wrote:
> #ignore
46 Posted by Ruth Rogers on 20 Feb, 2012 10:00 PM
Kevin,
The Quicken calendar allows you to select any combination of your
accounts to include in the calendar, and then shows all the
transactions for those accounts and a combined total balance for each
day.
Ruth
47 Posted by PaNiX on 20 Feb, 2012 10:12 PM
I find it much more informative and useful when laid out in calendar view than a graph or list.
For example I get paid bi-weekly so I can look at a glance in a 2 week period and see how much money I have to work with from payday to payday. Granted you can get the same info as is, but it is quicker visually seeing it laid out in calendar view.
48 Posted by Kevin Stembridge on 21 Feb, 2012 12:49 AM
Hi Ruth,
Thanks for clearing that up. That would solve layout issues. The only thing that would worry me about a combined total is that it might still show a positive amount even if some of the accounts have gone below zero.
PaNiX,
I don't want you to think that I'm saying there is no value or usefulness in displaying balances on the calendar. I think its useful, but lets understand its limitations. Even for the simple use case you describe the calendar won't show you your next payday roughly 50% of the time. If the current day happens to be anything less than 14 days before the last day displayed on the calendar then you can't see your next payday. Its even worse for those who get paid monthly.
49 Posted by PaNiX on 21 Feb, 2012 01:09 AM
No problem Kevin, totally understand. I should elaborate a little. The Quicken calendar doesn't limit you to just one month displayed. You can look as far into the future as you want. It bases balance predictions on reminders or scheduled bills you have setup.
So looking at current day I can look 14 days or even 14 months into the future for a projected balance. I can also look into the past if I need to as well (as long as there have been transactions recorded).
Support Staff 50 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 21 Feb, 2012 01:21 AM
Hi all,
I just wanted to let you know we are keeping an eye on this thread and the information you've all been offering here. We haven't had our overall discussion of features for implementation in Moneydance 2012, but the rating on this ticket means it will be part of the discussion.
Thanks again for sharing these thoughts and information with us, it's really helpful as we work to build tools which better meet our users needs.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
51 Posted by Hafmac on 21 Feb, 2012 01:28 AM
Ive found some of the forecasting extensions cover most of what I need. If I could make those more useful and mimick a feature of quick emit woul be to allow schedule transactions that are credit card payments to specify pay balance in full. That way I see the entire patent as an outflow even if it is unusually large.
52 Posted by Kevin Stembridge on 21 Feb, 2012 09:57 AM
Ah, that's good to hear PaNiX. I guess I shouldn't be so quick to make assumptions. I don't think the Moneydance calendar has that ability so that's something for the MD team to consider.
Hafmac,
Great suggestion. I voted for it on the thread you started a couple of years ago. For anyone else who would like to vote for it the thread is here:
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/switching-from-quicken/87-...
53 Posted by PaNiX on 22 Feb, 2012 07:44 PM
Is there a way for an extension to modify the info shown on the calendar that shows up on the Reminders screen? That would probably be the perfect place for the balances to be implemented.
54 Posted by Kevin Stembridge on 22 Feb, 2012 08:01 PM
I don't think that's possible but someone from Moneydance may have to confirm it. Extensions have direct access to read and write all the data in your Moneydance file but as far as I'm aware there is no way for an extension to modify how another interface component displays that data.
55 Posted by rsnauert on 22 Feb, 2012 10:41 PM
Just wanted to add my wife and i use the calendar balance forecast in Quicken 2012 to help us watch multiple accounts and their balances along with tracking income/expenses. For example, she sets a budget for us and we can traverse through the future months to see when our balance goes red (the balance is either black or red). This indicates that adjustments need to be made or another income must be there to compensate. We can plug in "what if" purchases temporarily with this approach and see if it will work also. Great for inputting future bills to see if any trouble will arise. One of the only reasons left for not switching over.
56 Posted by Craig on 28 Apr, 2012 12:13 AM
I would like to add my support for some kind of calendar view showing a daily balance and projected/scheduled transactions. A nice example is the PNC Virtual Wallet online calendar view that has this and also shows warnings on days where you might not have sufficient funds.