I think it's a case of sloppy naming, but the NetBenefits account may
actually be a mutual fund holding a mutual fund. In that case, they're not
exactly the same fund.

I suffer exactly the same problem through NetBenefits. My workaround is to
name the investment exactly as it appears in the NetBenefits download, and
leave the symbol in. At least that way NetBenefits matches on name when it
asks if they're the same. The non-NetBenefits download matches on symbol.
Neither will do what you want, but there's a bit less tedium.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL



Rich Z. wrote:
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Rich Z. wrote:

- quote -

Another NetBenefits user reports that the CUSIP that that
NetBenefits file contains for the fund is not just a different
CUSIP; it is not even a CUSIP, tho the file says it is a CUSIP. Yet
the non-NetBenefits Fidelity does it right. Go figure. I don't use
NetBenefits, but some input from you to them could help.

If you need some info on gathering the logs, let us know. Note that
Fidelity does not put newline characters into their OFX files. The
OFX spec does not require those. If you have a text editor that will
let you substitute any "<" with a newline followed by "<",
readability will be easier.

If your current method works for you, except for the tedium, you
could select to not download NetBenefits normally. Just re-enable it
perhaps for one download quarterly.


- quote -

Thanks Cal!!!

I'll check out the logs to see whats going on....I know that wont fix things
at Fidelity but its good to know how things work.
--
Rich


"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Rich Z. wrote:

- quote -

What I think would explain this is that if these are different
downloads, one lists the regular CUSIP 316071109, and the other
lists a different one in the OFX downloads. If they are truly the
same investment, that *should* not happen. If they are a different
class of Contrafund, it should happen.

Here is a portion of what I expect you to see if log the regular
account download:

========================================
<SECINFO<SECID<UNIQUEID> 316071109
</UNIQUEID<UNIQUEIDTYPE> CUSIP
</UNIQUEIDTYPE</SECID<SECNAME> FIDELITY CONTRAFUND
</SECNAME<TICKER> FCNTX
</TICKER==========================================

I am suspecting the other account uses some other CUSIP. Money keeps
track of whether things are the same investment by CUSIP. It is
willing to change that if you say that the new download is the other
investment. So you rotate when you process your data.

The easy way will be to say it is a different investment, and have
no symbol for one of them.

Investigating the logs will be out of curiosity, since it will not
be practical to do anything to get the contents changed if they are
really the same investment.

So getting Money to save the log is not really hard. Looking at the
contents is a little harder. And it still will not open a new
solution for you; you will just understand the problem better.







- quote -

You're right Cal I missed one of your questions!!!! I copied it below to
refresh your memory (and mine).

Basically, I get asked the "is it the same investment" question once per
download from Fidelity. Its not continous and there does not appear to be
any looping going on. So I guess you could say I have an unwanted chore each
download....which BTW I do daily to keep an eye on other credit card accounts
in an attempt to prevent identity theft.

--
Rich

When you say Money keeps asking, are you saying that it happens
continually in the same download until you give up, or are you
saying it happens in different downloads?

In other words, do you get stuck in a loop , or do you simply have
to do an unwanted chore each time you download?



"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Rich Z. wrote:

- quote -

I am going to guess you were trying to reply to the response I had
made, and missed. In my item I had asked some questions. Those
questions remain.

Hi Cal!!!

I dont think so. When I go to the NetBenefits manually (browser), I see a
link "Fid Contrafund" (this is an active link). When I click on it I get
info about the fund which is apparently from a different source (probably
directly from Fidelity) which refers to the fund as "Fidelity Contrafund"
with a symbol of FCNTX like what I want to get to. So.....I presume this is
a case of sloppy naming on the NetBenefits site ie not referring to the fund
by the correct name. The question remains "Can MM05 overcome this problem???"

Thanks,
--
Rich


"Rich Z." wrote:

- quote -

Hi Cal!!!

I dont think so. When I go to the NetBenefits manually (browser), I see a
link "Fid Contrafund" (this is an active link). When I click on it I get
info about the fund which is apparently from a different source (probably
directly from Fidelity) which refers to the fund as "Fidelity Contrafund"
with a symbol of FCNTX like what I want to get to. So.....I presume this is
a case of sloppy naming on the NetBenefits site ie not referring to the fund
by the correct name. The question remains "Can MM05 overcome this problem???"

Thanks again,
--
Rich


"Rich Z." wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Rich Z. wrote:

- quote -

When you say Money keeps asking, are you saying that it happens
continually in the same download until you give up, or are you
saying it happens in different downloads?

In other words, do you get stuck in a loop , or do you simply have
to do an unwanted chore each time you download?



- quote -

It is possible that you indeed have two different funds; this is
from
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/mut...?firstLetter=F
:

: FCNTX Fidelity Contrafund
: FNIAX Fidelity Contrafund: Fidelity Advisor New Insight Fund; Class A Shares
: FNIBX Fidelity Contrafund: Fidelity Advisor New Insight Fund; Class B Shares
: FNICX Fidelity Contrafund: Fidelity Advisor New Insight Fund; Class C Shares
: FNITX Fidelity Contrafund: Fidelity Advisor New Insight Fund; Class T Shares

John,

One other thing on that Contrafund question. We own shares of that fund in
another account (where it is apparently referred to by the proper name) and
that account works fine. I dont want the mess that account up in an effort
to fix my wife's 403b account.

Thanks again.
--
Rich


"johnbusc[at]hotmail.com" wrote:

- quote -

John,

Thanks again for the info. Just for the record.....I followed your
instructions and things worked out as you said they would....which is really
great. Thanks!!!!

Since we/you did so well on that issue could I ask for help on another???

My wife has a 403b account with Fidelity Funds....specifically the Fidelity
NetBenefits site. I have an account set up in MM05 for this account and the
online update works fine except that they (Fidelity) keep referring to her
investment as "Fid Contrafund" without a symbol where the actual fund name is
"Fidelity Contrafund - FCNTX". This causes MM05 to apparently bounce back
and forth between the 2 names/symbols. MM05 keeps asking me if I want to add
"Fid Contrafund" to my list of investments. Each time I say no and it asks
me to select from a list of existing investments....I always select "Fidelity
Contrafund" and confirm the selection when asked.

Is there any way to make this situation quit happening??? a way to set up a
link between the 2 names, maybe. I'd rather not get rid of the real name and
symbol cause I think it might cause reporting problems elsewhere.

Hope you have a good answer.
--
Rich


"johnbusc[at]hotmail.com" wrote:

- quote -

Rich,

Thanks for posting the exact message you were getting.

The problem is not that "MM05... still keeps trying to download
transactions". The problem is its not finding that account at your
bank so there's nothing to update. Simply closing the account in Money
does not break the link between that account and your bank within Money
for the purposes of online updates.

The method used to create or break these links is done through the
Manage Online Services page. I suppose Microsoft could code Money to
prompt you through the Manage Online Services process each time you
close an online-enabled account. However, if the account was still in
your bank's system the closed account would be re-created as soon as
you stopped and then started online services with that bank!
Therefore, the way I find best to handle this is the one I previously
described.

The procedure I described assumes that the account that has been closed
at your bank and removed from their system is still open in your Money
data file. Therefore, before stopping online services for that bank
and then setting up those services again, make sure you clear the "this
account is closed" checkbox in the closed account's settings.

At that point, you can proceed to Manage Online Services and Stop using
online services for that bank. Once this has completed, you then
proceed to Setup online services for that bank again. When the two new
accounts are created, merge each of them with your remaining two
accounts.

This will leave the account you're closing without any online
association. You can then close it within Money.

Regards,
JB


Rich Z. wrote:
- quote -

John,

Again, thanks for the reply I really do appreciate your getting back to me
on such a short notice. However, as I indicated in my original question, the
account IS closed at the bank and HAS BEEN since BEFORE I closed it in MM05.
So, quite inadvertantly, I followed your instructions from the
beginning....now I just need to finish up, I guess!!!

If I go into my banks website with a browser and login to my accounts, I see
the 2 remaining accounts but do not see the closed one and in fact, Money is
telling me that it cant see the missing account either. The actual error
message in MM05 is as follows: "Microsoft Money did not update your account
because your bank or brokerage does not have a record of it. The account may
be closed or the account number may have changed".

The bottom line is that I dont think its a situation of the bank sending
unsolicited information to MM05, I think MM05 is asking for info on the
account proactively. Of course, I cant prove this theory since I know of no
way to actually see the transactions (XML????) sent back and forth between
MM05 and the financial institutions. By the way, this is NOT, I believe, a
Yodlee situation.

My opinion is that accounts are opened and closed at financial institutions
all the time and Money should have a better process for handling this
real-life situation.

Lastly, why would I want to forego online transactions (at least in most
cases) when the bank offers them to me???? I have more productive things to
do than manually key transactions or to import them via a "point & click"
process.

Thanks again,
--
Rich


"johnbusc[at]hotmail.com" wrote:

- quote -

Rich,

In characterizing the process I described as "difficult" and "bizzare",
you make it sound like the workaround to a bug. I don't view it this
way.

Your initial question dealt with the fact that you had closed an
account at a bank and within Money but you were still getting online
updates for this account. This is not really an issue produced by
"Money developers" but is a natural result of the fact that you setup
the account for online services in the first place.

I assume when you first setup your accounts in Money with that
particular bank, Money went online to see which services your bank
provided to interface with Money. When it found it could download your
account information into Money, it created the online-enabled accounts
for you based on information provided by the bank (not by Microsoft).
I assume again that you liked this feature and continued to let Money
update these accounts.

Alternately, you could have setup the accounts in Money but not
associated them by name with the list of banks that Money maintains.
If you had done this, the accounts would not have been online-enabled
and you would have either gone to your bank's site and imported the
account transactions or manually entered them.

In this alternate scenario, when you ultimately close one of the
accounts with the bank and within Money, you would be done.

For online-enabled accounts, you can (and did) just close the account.
But this does not address that fact that when you setup these accounts
in Money, you chose to have your bank tell Money which accounts you had
with them. Therefore, your bank will continue to try and update your
accounts based on the data in their system.

Now, I suppose the Money developers you mentioned could write some code
that would hide the fact that your bank is downloading data for an
account you have marked as closed but the app is bloated enough
already!

What I suggested in the process I described in reply to your initial
post is in my mind the most straightforward method of handling what is
actually happening between me and my bank. If I have an online-enabled
account in Money that is still in my bank's system, then it is still in
my system. Once they remove it from their system, I close it in mine.

I realize in describing this it seems "difficult" and "bizarre".
However, it is just a reflection of what actually happens when you tell
the bank to close an account. If you'd prefer these processes to be
more transparent, using an application that taps into your bank's
account system is not a good way to do it! There's always the
alternate approach I described. At least, Money gives you the choice.

Post back and let us know your thoughts! Thanks.

Regards,
JB

Thanks John.....I'll give your process a try.....after I back things up well.
However, as a personal comment, doesn't it seem to be a little
short-sighted on the part of the Money developers to make it so difficult for
someone to close only one account of many at a financial institution.....I
mean, my gosh, who could possibly want to do something so bizarre.

Thanks again....and any comments are welcome. Maybe we can get them to
change the product for 2007????
--
Rich


"johnbusc[at]hotmail.com" wrote:

- quote -

Rich,

When you close an account at the bank, they often leave it in their
system for some period of time. Eventually, assuming you don't have
them re-open the account, they will remove it from their system. This
can sometimes take months.

When I close an online-enabled account with a bank, I leave the account
open within Money. If it was previously a "favorite account", I turn
this off. I continue to let the bank's downloads update the account
(what choice do I have?). Eventually, when the bank removes the
account from their system, I get an error message on download that it
could not update the account.

At this point, I go to Manage Online Services and perform the steps to
Stop Using Online Services for the bank in question. Once this is
complete, I perform the steps to Setup Online Services for the same
bank. When this occurs, only the open accounts will be setup in Money.
With MM05 and later, this typically means I will have duplicate
accounts that need to merged.

Since there will be no downloaded account to merge with the one that I
closed, it will no longer be online-enabled and I will not get the
error message on download that it could not update the account.

It is at this point, that I close the account within Money.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
JB


Rich Z. wrote:
- quote -

I recently closed an account at my bank where I also have 2 other active
accounts. I am using MM05 and it still keeps trying to download transactions
even though this account is closed in MM05 and at the bank.

I do I stop these attempts at downloads????
--
Rich