I was happily using MS 2004 until mid-December when automatic download of
data from various financial institutions stopped. I hated that, but decided
that I could manually download the accounts, even though it was a minor
irritation, but guess what: some financial institutions now allow download
ONLY by the automated process, in particular "Discover Card". So manual
download from them was not even an option. And there may be others, for
example one institution holding a couple IRAs for me only allow automated
downloads. There just are no manual downloads allowed. My guess is that
the practice is likely to spread in the future, so once we get used to
auto-downloads, we are caught up in a perpetual upgrade cycle.

BTW, the upgrade still has my main checking account all fouled up after two
months of fiddling with it. The only solution "may" be to redo nearly 700
transactions in one of my credit card accounts, even though there was no
problem at all with any of the accounts when I was using MS 2004.

"W'" <W[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9AEAD662-480D-4742-8B2A-D9189DBC4619[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Windows User wrote:

- quote -

No doubt.

- quote -

I missed that you were Canadian. Only Money 2006 is sold in Canada,
tho Money 2007 from the US will work for you. Money 2007 is not
localized for Canada, tho the earlier versions were not all that
localized anyway. They still referred to IRAs instead of RRSPs. But
they did try to adhere to Canadian basis rules (where holdings in
all accounts were averaged to get a basis -- if I remember
correctly). I expect that Money 2007 uses the US rules only.

US rules are that basis is only computed within an account. The
method can be FIFO or specific identification for stocks. Mutual
funds permit two more methods: averaging within the account ("single
category)="), and separate short and long term averaging within the
account("double category"). So to the extent that Money's job is
largely to track basis, that would be a significant limitation I
think. I don't actually know if Money 2007 uses the regional
settings for basis method selection as earlier versions did, or not.
For all I know, it might have the Canadian basis thing still there.

- quote -

That learning curve for revised user interfaces can be a chore. Can
you imagine having to re-learn this stuff in old age?

One advantage that Money has over Quicken: it can export accounts to
QIF files. Even after expiry, it can import QIF files for account
recovery (but not as statements where duplicates are checked).

I'm not sure that others who know more about the product than I do noticed
that you said you live in Canada. I do know that there is no M2007 Canadian
version. While you can download from your Canadian bank into the US version
of M2007, I don't know if you can import your data from a Canadian version
of Quicken into it (I suspect not). Also make sure that if you buy Money,
that you do not get the Essentials version. It is Essentially useless.
(M2006 and prior had a Standard Version of Money which was fine).

The last Canadian Version of Money was M2006. Note that I also don't know
(but others on this board do) if prior versions of Money Canadian will
import into Money 2007. If it will not AND IF no future versions of Money
Canadian is produced, ***IT IS POSSIBLE*** that MS will not enforce the
sunset provision on the Canadian edition. It is my understanding from
reading this board that MS has decided not to enforce this provision in the
UK (and elsewhere) where M2005 is the last localized version produced and
where it is impossible to upgrade and keep one's data.
--
Peace,
BobJ

"W'" <W[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9AEAD662-480D-4742-8B2A-D9189DBC4619[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Thanks for the heads-up on this Cal. I guess this is the way of the
future so I'll probably stick with Quicken and just entering things
manually. It is more than a small bit frustrating that I can download
the update file from my bank but Quicken (or Money it seems) won't
process it because of some arbitrary time-out, not for any technical
reason. Not even really an on-line transaction but I will presume that
the reason is simply to drive more sales.

Locally for me there is no Sams or Costco kind of place (I am out in the
country) but according to fliers we get places like Future Shop have
basic versions of Quicken or Money for CDN$39.99 to CDN$48.99. The
deluxe version like I have now start at CDN$99.

So, at $25 it might be ok. That would be just of $1 per my roughly
monthly update of my chequing account. At $99 it is over $4 per update
which is getting to be a bit much. And what it will be in 2009, more I
am sure. At that point, or the next release, it may even require you to
upgrade to Vista, who knows.

Don't get me wrong here. I have no problem for paying for new features
that will make it easier or for services where required. But this scheme
to make you buy a new version of the program and go through the
purchase, install and migration hassles just to do something that the
old version can do just fine really burns.

vs

P.S. reading through posts for other problems I see that many are
resorting to manual updates - the way of the future !


Cal Learner-- MVP wrote:
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Windows User wrote:

- quote -

See http://money.msn.com/Money/2007/OSP.asp

Note that the use of the word "automatic" there will differ from
many people's interpretation. In that page, "automatic" means not
keyed in with the keyboard.

Microsoft Money followed Quicken's lead, it seems. Be aware that
Money 2007 Deluxe is under $25 with no rebates at Sams or Costco.

It has not happened to me yet, but MS Money has a sunset clause for downloads
for stock quotes etc. For M2007, you get until Sept 2009 (if I remember
correctly), or two years from purchase, which ever occurs first. (It used to
be 3 years) The software will continue to work, but investments will need to
be updated by hand. I don't think this limit applies to bank downloads,
however, unless the bank drops the support (or begins to charge you).

Money seems to update in the fall; if you could hold out until then, then it
may make more sense. M2006 and 2007 are almost identical and are really not
that great (although everytime I look critically at Quicken, which I have
done yearly for over a decade, I decide to stay with Money). Somewhere on
this board someone observed that an actual improvement occurs every two
years, meaning that M2008 would be the next true improvement. This makes
sense to align with Vista and .Net 3.0, assuming Microsoft cares enough to do
so.

"Windows User" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks John, I looked through the MS Money Web site and didn't see any
indication that it would expire like Quicken but I wanted to get some
feedback that it truly was the case.

Mike

John Morrison wrote:
- quote -

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:23:40 -0500, Windows User <veeshooter[at]hotmail.comwrote:

- quote -

Not that I'm aware of.
I'm using Money Version 12 which dates from 2004.
I haven't upgraded Money because it does all that I need it to do.

- quote -

Don't buy Money on my feedback alone, wait until users of more recent
versions than mine get back to you.

- quote -


John

This question is about MS Money, but I need to explain the background
first - a bit of a long rant.

Currently I have been using Quicken 2000 that I got through a deal with
my bank. All was rosy and fine, then one December I had a disk crash
and after a re-install after that Christmas I was unable to get it to
connect to the bank any more. The reason was that I apparently have to
buy the new version of Quicken to get the continued download support!

So for the last while I have just been using Quicken as a glorified
spreadsheet and balancing things with the paper bank statements. The
bank site says downloads for Quicken 2002 or later. So I was thinking
that maybe I'd buy a current copy and life would be rosy, but I read
some disheartening news on their web site:

http://anon.intuit-canada.speedera.n...Sunset_Eng.pdf

Basically after a certain sunset period their program stops working or
as they put it "...all access to online services will be discontinued.
These services include downloading financial data from your bank, credit
union, credit card, brokerage, or mutual fund accounts;..." There are
different sunset dates for different versions.

So my question is, does MS Money do this same sort of thing. All I want
to do is balance my bank accounts and be able to download the
transactions to keep things in sync easily. If MS Money will just work
and do the job without this artificial sunset date like Quicken I'll be
off to get a copy this week.

BTW, I picked up a Quicken 2005 in a discontinued rack in the USA but it
is USA tuned in that it doesn't seem to accept data from my Canadian
bank. The annoying thing is that the acceptance of the data or not is
so artificial, it is just simple XML, there is no reason I can see that
I could not tell the program that it is fine, use it. But because it
does not know the bank it won't even allow direct import of the qif file.



vs