No investment cash accounts in MS Money
Gavin
via web
I have investment accounts in MS Money 2004, but there don't appear to be separate 'cash' accounts for these that I am aware of. This being so, how can I export the two accounts that are referred to in the instructions for importing to Moneydance? When I choose a file for export the dialogue asks me to choose 'Regular' (i.e. bank) or 'Investment' types, choosing the former does not then offer any of the investment accounts, so I assume there are no 'cash' versions of these.
I have tried exporting the (single) investment account twice with diferent names (e.g one as [name]- Inv and the other as [name]-cash and importing these into the approriately named Moneydance Bank and Investment accounts and then moving the data from the Bank account to the Investment account as described in the instructions, but all I get is everything twice in the Investment account. One entry contains the name of the investment under Security category but not the transfer account, and the other entry contains the transfer account but not the Security category name. Have I got to edit the thousands of entries and then delete one of each duplicate or is there an easier way?
I would be very grateful for your help.
Gavin
2 Posted by -Kevin N. on 08 Sep, 2010 04:13 PM
Hi Gavin,
When you export the Cash account associated with your investment account from MS Money you should choose the 'Regular' account option.
This Cash account will be imported into Moneydance as a 'Bank' account and later merged into your investment account via 'Batch Change', then deleted.
Moneydance does not use seperate associated Cash accounts for investment accounts, it just keeps a Running Balance.
Practice by just exporting / importing one Investment account and it's associted Cash account into a new Moneydance file to get the feel for it.
HTH -Kevin N.
3 Posted by Gavin on 08 Sep, 2010 06:31 PM
Thank you HTH-Kevin.
I find that when I choose the 'Regular' accounts option Money does not then list any of the investment accounts, only the bank account, so I cannot choose to export an investment account as a 'regular' one. Am I missing something here?
Gavin
4 Posted by -Kevin N. on 08 Sep, 2010 07:10 PM
Hi Gavin,
The list of accounts that is generated after you choose 'Regular' should include the associated Cash accounts for each of your investment accounts along with any Bank accounts, Credit Card account, Asset accounts etc.
Lets assume you have an account at Fidelity Brokerage, the account listed in the 'Regular' list would be 'Fidelity Brokerage (Cash)
Make sure you name the .QIF files accordingly. Name the .qif file for the Fidelity Brokerage investment account, 'Fidelity Brokerage.qif' and choose it from the 'Investment' list.
Name the .qif file for the associated Cash account, 'Fidelity Brokerage Cash.qif' choose it from the 'Regular' list.
In Moneydance make sure to create the Fidelity Brokerage account as an I'nvestment' account and the Fidelity Brokeragae Cash account as a 'Bank' account. Make sure to import them into the appropriate accounts.
HTH -Kevin N.
5 Posted by dutchy999 on 09 Sep, 2010 07:50 PM
Was the investment set up in MS Money with an associated cash acct? If not, you wouldn't have an associated cash acct to export.
See printscreen from MS Money attached. It shows an investment acct without an assoicated cash acct. This feature can be toggled on or off by checking / unchecking the "Track Cash Transactions" field in the "Change Account Settings" screen.
dutchy999
6 Posted by Gavin on 10 Sep, 2010 08:37 AM
Thank you guys,
I think you have 'hit the nail on the head' here, Duchy999. I have checked my existing investment accounts and they do not have the 'track cash' element in them. I have also gone through the procedure of setting up a new investment account in Money to see if my version offers the 'track cash' facility as shown in your screen shot. It does. It appears that I did not initially set up this option (quite a long time ago). I will now have to think hard about how I should import my investment data ! Thanks again.
Gavin
7 Posted by dutchy999 on 10 Sep, 2010 01:00 PM
Probably the easiest way to get going in MD is as folows:
Import the Investment part into MD. Your register will show a negative balance. Now you can either
a) Go back to your records and manually enter the required cash transfers. (This may be quite a lot of work, especially since you have lots of entries)
b) Make note of the negative balance, then do "Account", "Edit" and enter the negative balance as a POSITIVE number in the "Initial Balance" field. At this point, unless I'm missing something, your register should show a 0 balance. There will be no cash transfer history, but at least you should be OK moving forward.
dutchy999
8 Posted by Gavin on 10 Sep, 2010 08:27 PM
I will try as you suggest duchy999 when I get a moment (rather a big workload this weekend).
I had hoped to persuade Moneydance to merge the 'cash account' element of the data with the 'investment' element as when I import the investment accounts into both the Bank and the Investment sections they show different 'slices' of the original data. The former shows the transfer account but not the name of the security, and the latter shows the name of the security; both registers show the date and the cash amount, which gave me hope tha I might be able to merge them. So I tried exporting the Moneydance 'cash account' from the Bank accounts section and then importing it as a downloaded file into the investment account. However, no merging is offered and I would have to edit in every single entry as noted before, so that idea fails.
Anyway, many thanks for the effort you have made to help me with this awkward problem, it is greatly appreciated.
Gavin
9 Posted by -Kevin N. on 10 Sep, 2010 10:33 PM
Hi Gavin,
I'm a little confused. In Microsoft Money, do you have a Cash account associated with your investment account?
Your most recent post tells me that you do. But from earlier posts it sounds like you don't.
Anyway, if you want to 'Merge' two accounts, access the Cash account that you want to move all of the txns out of. Select (Highlight) all of the txns in that account, then right click on any tnx. Choose 'Batch Change', then 'Account', select the Investment account from the drop down list.that you want to merge all of the tnxs into.
DO NOT attempt this without a recent backup.
HTH -Kevin N.
10 Posted by Gavin on 11 Sep, 2010 08:19 AM
You are probably less confused than I am, Kevin, but, no, I don't have a Cash account associated with each investment account in Money. What I did notice though was that if I import each investment account twice - once into the pre-set-up Bank account in Moneydance (remember that I already set up appropriately named accounts as advised in the instructions and before I realised that I did not actually have Cash accounts in Money) and secondly into the appropriate Moneydance Investment account, then I get different views of the original data as described in my last post. I have also tried to merge in the way you recommend but the data is not merged, it just appears twice in the Moneydance Investment account after the move. I will keep experimenting ! Thanks again for your help.
Gavin
11 Posted by -Kevin N. on 11 Sep, 2010 12:35 PM
Hi Gavin,
Perhaps you need to start over from scratch. This time import the Investment account into Moneydance as an 'Investment' account only.
Since you do not have an associated Cash account for your Investment account, don't bother with importing the Investment account into Moneydance as a 'Bank' account. (That part of the instructions assumes that you DO have an associated Cash account)
You may or may not end up with an imbalance in the resulting Investment account but that can be corrected by adjusting the initial balance.
I never ran MS Money's Investment accounts without having associated Cash for them so this is a little new to me too.
Keep us posted.
-Kevin N.
12 Posted by Gavin on 11 Sep, 2010 04:58 PM
That was good advice Kevin.
Doing as you suggest, carefully and saving a new file after each stage (just in case!), has resulted in accurate Bank balances and Investment accounts balances though I had to put in correcting cash balance amounts for the Investment accounts as well as the Bank accounts to bring the net worth into line. The investment security details are pretty accurate too - accurate quantities and cost bases. The price histories are all haywire - but I have corrected all the current prices and set up price downloading from the web. Job done !!
Many thanks (to you both) for all this help. I would not have succeeded without it I think. Best Regards,
Gavin
13 Posted by -Kevin N. on 11 Sep, 2010 05:01 PM
Hi Gavin,
Glad to hear you're up and running.
-Kevin N.
14 Posted by WT on 21 Oct, 2010 10:31 PM
I have a similar problem. I have a cash account associated with my investment account in MS Money but there are no transactions in it. I tried an import according to the instructions but the balances are incorrect. Should I import two accounts (i.e. cash and investment) or simply the investment account only?
My investment account also includes transactions from a closed bank account which was created atomatically created by MD after the import, is there anything I can do about this please?
Many thanks
WT
15 Posted by -Kevin N. on 22 Oct, 2010 12:44 AM
Hi WT,
Since your Investment account's associated Cash account in MS Money has no entries, there should be no need to import it into Moneydance. Moneydance does not use a separate Cash account for Investments accounts. It keeps a Cash Balance instead.
Due to the limitations of the QIF file format, the initial balance of the account will not be imported, stock splits will need to be reapplied and stock price quotes may need to be updated. This could account for your balance differences.
The closed accounts that were imported can be hidden in MD. You should not delete them as they most likely contain transfer txns. To hide them access the register of the account in question, then from the menu bar, click 'Account' then 'Edit Account' in the resulting form put a check mark next to 'Hide on Home Page (If Balance is Zero)'
HTH -Kevin N.
16 Posted by dutchy999 on 22 Oct, 2010 03:04 AM
Hello WT.
Since your cash account is empty in MS Money, how, in MS Money, do you track $$$ going into the Investment for the purpose of buying stocks etc? Do you have a CATEGORY such as "401K Contributions" or something of that nature? If you do, then in Moneydance, you need to change the category/account called "401K Contributions" and actually make them transfers into the investment account.
Why do I use the phrase "category/account"? Here's the fun part: In Moneydance, the terms "account" and "category" are used interchangeably. To actually change the category "401 K Contributions" to a transfer into the investment account, do the following: Find the transactions in question and change the Moneydance ACCOUNT from "401K Contribution" (or whatever the MS Money category was named) to Moneydance ACCOUNT
If there are many of these transactions, you may want to get the Find & Replace extension which will allow you to do all affected transactions in one fell swoop. Make sure to create a backup of your file before starting.
Confused yet? My apologies. Feel free to comment if you have any questions or if my ramblings above don't make any sense at all.
dutchy999
17 Posted by dutchy999 on 22 Oct, 2010 03:10 AM
Resent because previous entry had critical info messing re the investment account to transfer funds into... Sorry
Hello WT.
Since your cash account is empty in MS Money, how, in MS Money, do you track $$$ going into the Investment for the purpose of buying stocks etc? Do you have a CATEGORY such as "401K Contributions" or something of that nature? If you do, then in Moneydance, you need to change the category/account called "401K Contributions" and actually make them transfers into the investment account.
Why do I use the phrase "category/account"? Here's the fun part: In Moneydance, the terms "account" and "category" are used interchangeably. To actually change the category "401 K Contributions" to a transfer into the investment account, do the following: Find the transactions in question and change the Moneydance ACCOUNT from "401K Contribution" (or whatever the MS Money category was named) to Moneydance ACCOUNT "name of investment account"
If there are many of these transactions, you may want to get the Find & Replace extension which will allow you to do all affected transactions in one fell swoop. Make sure to create a backup of your file before starting.
Confused yet? My apologies. Feel free to comment if you have any questions or if my ramblings above don't make any sense at all.
dutchy999