What the hell were they thinking hiding the advanced budget. Lack of
PocketPC support and now this is not making me a happy person with
microsoft.

And all this time I thought it was just wasted real estate.

"Michael Gordon, MVP" <gordonm[at]denison.edu> wrote in message
news:%23z2CKpprGHA.3940[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Finally a use for the URL window in Money!

--
Michael Gordon
MVP


"Ronald Pierce" <ron[at]pierceplace.net> wrote in message
news:ndk7c29l3jil2lom89a2uiadnqbmnqkl37[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

- quote -

That's along the line that I was hypothesizing.


- quote -

Thus limiting it to people who will find any answer to any problem by faster
means (that cost Microsoft less) than by opening a support case?

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote in message
newsqk7c2lvqvds8k8p31g3tk1bn2cs1op5gb[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Ronald Pierce wrote:

- quote -

Nice find.

- quote -

Maybe it is a strategy to limit the advanced budget to those who can
successfully use Help or other resources.

On 23 Jul 2006 11:45:19 -0700, "Spadowski" <jschasteen12[at]cox.netwrote:

- quote -

help for "Advanced Budget". Select the entry on "Create a new
Advanced Budget". It tells how. Will 2008 support it? Who knows....

- Ron

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:01:34 -0500, Cal Learner-- MVP
<via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote:
- quote -

file. It is not readily available, but the Help file tells you to
type the following "money://navigate/newadvbgt" into the url window
in MS Money 2007. It worked on a new, test file I created. Since
there isn't a straightforward interface to the "Advanced" budget, I
would expect MS Money 2008 to have it totally eliminated. How long
can they be expected to keep a feature around that has no visible way
to get to that feature?

- Ron

I bet there is one--we just need to find out what it is. RegHack, maybe?
Haven't gone looking there just yet...

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote in message
newsah7c21v6afl4r7r9cro33vddqsgut7895[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

This is not a new trend...

"William R Wood" <secret[at]???.net> wrote in message
news:eRsEnnorGHA.1508[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, William R Wood wrote:

- quote -

If by "version" you mean type of budget, there are three types that
Money 2007 can handle. He was referring to the newest one called
spending and expenses. There is "essentials", and "advanced" is
available to converted files.

Money 2007 will continue to use the advanced budget if you convert
an earlier file that used the advanced budget. I believe you can try
a different one and resume your "advanced" one.

With a *new* file, there is only the choice of the two non-advanced
versions. I don't know if there is a trick to make a new file with
the advanced budget using only Money 2007.

This does not change the conclusion that you will stay with Money
2002-- only the premise.

Incidentally, I still cannot believe what MSFT has done to Money.

If they want to create a Money for Dummies version and sell it separately,
fine.

Why would MSFT dumb down the real Money? I want a product written for
grown-ups who handle personal finances in a
responsible manner. I don't want my hand held and I certainly don't want my
hands tied.

Regards,

Bill Wood


"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote in message
news:vu97c2hq7com8mru1j0j7v3co86bc6lf52[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

Cal,

Are you saying that the original poster's description of the Budget tool
refers to some basic version, not the advanced version and that the advanced
version does not have these limitations? There is only one version in
M2002.

Bill Wood



"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote in message
news:vu97c2hq7com8mru1j0j7v3co86bc6lf52[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

UPDATE:
-You can keep your existing Advanced budget from previous versions if
you want to, but if you create a new file in 2007, you don't have the
Advanced budget as an option.

-According to the help files, the cash flow calculates the cash flow
based on "Information from your Advanced Budget, if you have one, or
data calculated from your past spending, if you don't use an Advanced
Budget."

So, this is why my cash flow is all messed up now that I switched to
the Spending and Savings budget. I'm going to have to switch-off the
trending that is done on the Cash Flow and just have the Cash Flow show
my bills and deposits. Cash Flow just became a whole lot less useful
for those who don't continue to use the Advanced Budget!

I can't see how this trending from previous spending adds any value to
the Cash Flow projections. In fact, its down right inaccurate! Just
to give some examples:
1) The Cash Flow is trending in my cable tv expenses from past expenses
to that category. It is also figuring in my scheduled cable tv bill.
Yeah, it counts it twice.

2) Its trending in my one-time state tax return from months ago as a
monthly income. This is useless.

It looks like I can right click on these trended entries and remove
them. But, that doesn't change the fact that unless the forcasted Cash
Flow uses your budget amounts it is really not useful.





Spadowski wrote:
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, William R Wood wrote:

- quote -

William appears to have drawn an inaccurate inference in concluding
he would lose his advanced budget by converting his file to Money
2007.

Based on your review I am not even going to bother looking at Money 2007.

I use Money 2002 and the Budget Tool is the most important feature to me.
None of your complaints about 2007 exist in 2002 which works perfectly and
lets me create my budget anyway I like. Also the Cash Flow tool works
perfectly so that I have total control of my budget and cash flow.

I cannot believe what MSFT has done to Money.

Regards

Bill Wood
Fountain Hills, AZ




"Spadowski" <jschasteen12[at]cox.net> wrote in message
news:1153597935.205907.11370[at]i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

amen brother.
--
Wayne Miller
Pecan Deluxe Candy Company


"Spadowski" wrote:

- quote -

I installed the trial version because I wanted to see how they changed
the budgeting tool. I've never been very happy with how they handled
budgeting. My first impressions are that this is a step in the right
direction, but it is not integrated very well with scheduled bills and
deposits which is a big disappointment. There also appears to be a big
problem with how my cash flow is calculated.

Comments:
-There are six main budget groups that cannot be changed. They are
Income, Committed Expenses, Fun, Irregular Expenses, Savings & Debt,
and Retirement. You are not allowed to change these, but you can move
individual categories between them. For example, most of the
categories defaulted into the Committed Expenses group, but I wanted
them in the Irregular Expenses group (e.g. Gifts:Christmas, etc.).
Moving about, oh, 40 to 50 of these was a painstaking one-at-a-time
process!

-When you first set up the budget, you enter your total gross income,
and then adjust the percentage that is allocated to each group. By
default, all the categories in the group have zero planned expenses for
them, but the actual expenses are tracked as you enter transactions in
your account registers.

-It does allow you to change the planned amounts for each category, but
the group total amount does not adjust when you change the dollar
values of the subcategories unless the group total is less than your
subcategory totals. Instead, the difference goes into an "unallocated"
category. When you're done allocating your planned expenses for each
category in a group, you must manually adjust the group dollar
allocation to subtract out the value in the unallocated category.
(Otherwise, you have, well, unallocated dollars and that is a budgeting
no-no.) This really bugs me because it is opposite the way I do my
budgeting! I would much prefer if the group totals automatically
summed what I specified in my categories.

-I think it boils down to the overall budgeting process. Looks like
Money 2007 is taking a top-down approach whereas I do my budgeting from
the bottom up. Money wants you to allocate percentages to each group
and then adjust your categories within that group to spend the money
you allocated.

-I'm very disappointed that the categories in the budget are not linked
to my bills and deposits. Why they didn't do this is a mystery to
me. Now, instead of my budget worksheet automatically changing when I
change a bill, I've got to manually change my budget to see how my
electric bill impacted my budget.

This wouldn't be so bad if I could right click on the category and see
previous transactions so I could ball-park it. Unfortunately, when
looking at previous transactions the period is the current month, thus
nothing historical is shown. I expect that when I'm doing my budget
each month, I'm going to be going back and forth between the new budget
page and the bills and deposits page quite a bit.

Question for Microsoft: What is the point in my putting in all my
scheduled bills and deposits if you're not going to integrate that
into the budget?

Other thoughts:
- The budgeting page uses pretty small text and tightly packed rows.
Even with my young eyes I find it a challenging page to use.

- At first I didn't like the groups, but I kind of like them now. I
do like how it shows the % that you're spending in each of them.

- I'd like to see a change that allows users to add to the major
groups. One group that would be very helpful would be one called
"Giving". I'd separate the "Saving & Debt" group.

- The Spending Tracker is still the same, except that now there is also
one for the major groups. (I wish they would dedicate a whole page to
the spending tracker and make it so the bars are scaled based on the
budgeted amounts. Basically something that represents the same
information as what is on the budget worksheet page.)

- CASH FLOW - This is very messed up at the moment and I've not yet
figured out why. Instead of just factoring in my budgeted expenses, it
is trending in all kinds of things from the past that don't apply to
my budget anymore. Hopefully they can release a fix for this because I
use the cash flow all the time.