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An Unofficial FAQ for microsoft.public.money
This unofficial FAQ for the microsoft.public.money newsgroup is offered as a public service in hopes that newsgroup readers will find answers to the most commonly asked questions here and avoid asking these questions of the group. This will save all involved time and effort and preserve the newsgroup for more important things than answering the same FAQs every few days. It is maintained and posted to the newsgroup aperiodically as a text document. Richard Bollar has graciously agreed to host the HTML version on his web site. Please note that Richard is hosting it, but blame for the contents still goes to me, Dick Watson, since I am the sole maintainer and authored all of it that isn't credited to others. Versions can be found in the newsgroup or on groups.google.com. Corrections and submittals are welcome, but I reserve absolute right to edit and/or ignore these submittals for whatever reason including judgments about the question's status as a FAQ. I will give credit where appropriate and expect no less in return if you feel compelled to quote the FAQ. Some Money features are not covered as well as others. In particular, I do not use any of the network bill pay and statement features and am relatively unfamiliar with features for stock options and have treated few related issues here. I also don't use the frequent flier features and will skip the grocery coupon tracker feature if and when it's added to Microsoft Money. Also, I haven't treated any issues peculiar to the Deluxe & Business versions since I've never used it, don't follow postings about it, and cannot judge good FAQs and answers for it from bad ones. In this edition: After skipping a month, there are only a few minor changes and four or five new Q/A added this month. Generated from database Friday, September 26, 2003. Q1): Help! I've lost my password. Now what do I do? A1): Passwords are there for a reason. When you forget them, you've discovered the reason. It's to make it harder for people who don't know the password to get at your data. That is why you used a password in the first place, isn't it? If you use Passport authentication to control access to your Money file, just use the Passport lost password tools at the Passport site. (This is probably the only decent reason for integration of Passport authentication with Money.) If you just used a file password, there are services and a number of software tools that do password recovery. References: Q2): How can I prevent getting duplicate entries of Transfer transactions when importing accounts via .QIF? A2): When importing multiple related accounts that have transfers amongst the accounts via .QIF, it is imperative to select and import all the exported account files at the same time. To do this, hold down the CTRL key and select each file to be imported. Q3): How do I get Money to print my name and address and the MICR information on my checks? A3): You don't. There are many sources for pre-printed checks that supply the format expected by Money. On this stock, Money will print payee, payee address, date, amount, memo, and accounting information on the stub. It will not print your name and address, the bank's name and address, or the MICR stripe across the bottom. There are also 3rd party solutions, including VersaCheck and IDAutomation Check Printing Software for printing the "pre-printed" information on blank check stock. (Thanks to Cal Learner for the link to IDAutomation.) Also, see the answer to "Back to the check stock question: Isn't it obvious that Money should print the MICR data?" References: Q4): How do I make Money work for other WinNT/Win2k/XP Pro users? A4): Money does not deal well with the NT multi-user security model. It has to be reinstalled for each account and each account has to run as a member of Administrators group. (Per Cal Learner, this latter limitation is removed in M02.) There is an MSKB entry on the subject. There are some partial workarounds and there was a registry hack that solved some of the issues for non-Administrator users. I won't quote the registry hack here--if you are good enough to be mucking in the registry, you can certainly find it in groups.google.com. References: Q5): I'm using Windows XP and want to have two users access the same Money file. What's the easiest way to do this? A5): Open "My Documents" under Windows Explorer. Find your Money file and drag it to "Shared Documents" under My Computer. Now all users can access the same money file in the "Shared Documents." Thanks to Chris for this answer. Q6): Is there a way to mark several hundred old transactions as reconciled in one step? A6): There is no one step way to do this. The best way to do this is to set the view to show only unreconciled transactions sorted by date, select the earliest transaction you want to mark, hold down Ctrl+Shift. Hit M. You can hit M repeatedly or just hold it down to auto-repeat. Transactions will disappear--to reconciled status--pretty quickly, limited only by Money's performance on your computer. Q7): What if I don't want to use Money with Passport authentication? A7): When you install Money, you can "just say no" when it asks you to sign up for Passport. If you do this the first several times you start the application, it will give up. If you already setup to use Passport authentication and have now changed your mind, see the help entry titled "Remove Passport sign-in from Money" for the procedure to remove the Passport authentication requirement for access to your file. Q8): What is the -s option? What is the Super Salvage utility? A8): [Need to draft an answer here. Answer will use the word "voodoo."] See also "I think my file has been corrupted. How do I tell? What do I do then?" References: Q9): When I print several sheets of checks the check numbers get reversed. Why? A9): Check the printer driver settings for a setting to reverse the page order. (For instance, for an Epson inkjet on WinXP, this is located at printer properties|General|Printing Preferences…|Layout|Page Order.) Many of the print drivers have this now so that pages coming out face up come out correctly collated by printing the last page first. Alternately, print one sheet or partial sheet of checks at a time. How to do things in Money: Accounts/Categories/Payees Q1): How do I setup a money market account as a checking account? A1): If you aren't downloading the information from your investment company into Money, you can set it up and manage it as a checking account. If you are downloading the information, Money will likely insist that the money market account is an investment in an investment account. This will make it harder to manage like a checking account. There is no good solution. Q2): I've entered charges in my credit card account, when I pay the bill aren't I spending twice? Is my card a category or account? A2): These, and many other fundamentally related questions, are frequently asked by people new to personal finance software and formalized accounting methods. There are two ways to approach this whole issue. Let's describe the more useful, and generally preferred, way first: You setup Accounts, not Categories, for the tools you use to spend money. I.e., setup accounts for your checking account and your credit card account(s). When you spend on the cards, you record transactions in the credit card account for WHY you spent the money. E.g., $50 to MCI WorldCom for category:subcategory "Utilities:Long Distance." When you pay the credit card bills, you "Transfer" money from, say, your Checking Account to your Visa Account. Paying a bill like this is not an expense. It's just taking money you have and applying it to expenses (i.e., liabilities) you already incurred--hence the transfer. The special category "Credit Card Payment" is just a less confusing (but less insightful) way to say "Transfer" and it behaves exactly the same except you can't create a scheduled "Credit Card Payment" but you can create a scheduled "Transfer" and it works exactly the same. The second way, if you are not ready to dive in just yet, is to categorize the entire payment to the credit card as "Miscellaneous" and not worry about what, in turn, the credit card charges were for. In this scenario you don't even have to setup the credit card as a separate Account. If you really want to use Money to understand where the money comes from and goes to, don't do it this way; it masks what you are really spending the money for. Money provides an intermediate path that can be simple to start while you are getting up and running and can easily morph into the recommended method. When you create the account, tell it you want to "AutoBalance" the account. (This is the same as the radio buttons "Account tracking: I want to track individual charges/Just track the amount I owe" on the Account Details page.) When AutoBalance is enabled, a "Credit Card Payment:[credit card account]" or the more normative "Transfer:[credit card account]" will popup a dialog box to balance the account. It will also do automagically what was outlined above as a manual task: it will enter an account adjustment transaction to expense the entire balance as "Miscellaneous." There is much more on this in Help, the Help videos, Audio Help, and the book that came with Money. Also look at the sample file. The key hurdles for many people to cross are that 1) Accounts are HOW you spend/receive money and are where individual expense and income transactions are recorded. 2) Categories and Subcategories are WHY you spend/receive money and are recorded as transactions in accounts. 3) Transfer is how you move Money from one account (say a cash account of which checking is one type) to another (say a liability account of which credit card is one type.) Q3): My Credit Card Payments don't show up in Spending Reports--how come? A3): See the answer to the question "I've entered charges in my credit card account, when I pay the bill aren't I spending twice? Is my card a category or account?" Q4): When should I create an Account instead of a Payee? Aren't Payees just Accounts? A4): An Account in Money allows recording of transactions with credits and debits to a balance carried forward. Accounts generally are setup to mirror things like checking accounts, savings accounts, and revolving credit card accounts. A Payee in Money is a name with optional attributes like address information, phone numbers and account numbers. Payees are typically used to record information about people and businesses you regularly pay or receive money from. Examples might include a grocery store, a utility company, an ISP and so on. Not all Payees you enter transactions for need to be Payees explicitly listed on the Payees page. (Accounts & Bills|Categories & Payees|Payees in M02.) See answer to question "Why do I have to create an entry in the Payees every time I spend money somewhere new?" for more information. Q5): Why don't my car Loan Payments show up as an expense in monthly expense reports? A5): The short answer is that the loan payments really aren't expenses--only the interest portion is an expense. The expense happened when you bought the car. The expense continues to happen as you pay the interest each month for the money you are still borrowing to pay for the car. If you really want the payment to look like an expense every month, then do not setup a loan account in Money and use an expense category like Automobile:Payments. You may have to create this category. Money (per standard accounting and personal finance management practice) tries to manage cash flow (like the principal component of your loan payments) as a separate issue from income and expense (like buying the car and paying rent on the money you borrowed to buy the car). It takes some getting used to but it is a much better approach to managing your money since it recognizes expenses when they occur and doesn't let simple cash flow mask where you are really spending money. See also the answer to "My Credit Card Payments don't show up in Spending Reports--how come?" How to do things in Money: Data/File Management Q1): Can I access my file on my desktop over my home network from my laptop? A1): It works fine IF you assure that only one machine has the file open at a time. This includes subtle things like MoneySide and MoneyExpress. My only file corruption in the last three of four years came from inadvertently opening Money and working in the data file on the WiFi laptop when the desktop machine also had the file open. Whatever else, have a backup strategy. Setting up a network and opening/accessing file shares is beyond the scope of this newsgroup. You might want to consult one of the operating system specific newsgroups if that is the kind of help you are looking for. Q2): How do I backup to CD-RW? CD-R? A2): First, remember that a CD-R or CD-RW is not a general purpose random access storage device and needs software (like DirectCD from Easy CD (Coaster) Creator by Roxio) to begin to pretend to be. (That having been said, the poor reliability many people experience with packet writing software in general and DirectCD in specific suggests it is a very poor choice for backing up critical data like your Money file. At less than a dime per media in quantities of 100, burning a CD-R with a copy of your Money data file seems like a better choice.) Like any file, your .MNY data file can be stored on writable optical media the same way you put other files on them. For instance, if you use WinXP, you can backup to the hard disk mirror created by WinXP and then burn a CD after you've exited Money. If you like Nero, go ahead and burn a CD with your Money data file and don't drag Money into the problem at all. Etc. Second, don't expect the "backup to floppy" choice to offer up your writeable CD. Is the writeable CD a floppy? No, it is not. Why would Money think it is? When a WinXP follow-on product supports the Mt. Rainier technology, and when you have hardware that also supports Mt. Rainier, then maybe Money will be a little more savvy about writable CDs. Read the referenced MSKB for information about using the backup methods in Money to backup to writeable CDs. Reference courtesy of Glyn Simpson, Microsoft MVP - Money References: Q3): How do I move accounts from one Money file to another? A3): The only way to do this is File|Export and Import via QIF files. Beware that duplicate account names ("Checking") in the exporting and importing account will cause problems and one or the other account should be renamed before you do the export/import. Also beware that transfers between accounts to be moved will necessitate importing all interlinked QIF files simultaneously. Finally, QIF export/import will NOT move things like bills associated with the account or account detail information. Because of all of these limitations, make sure to work in copies of the target file before you get this all tuned to produce acceptable results. Q4): How do I start over with a new data file? A4): There are two ways to do this. File|New… is an old favorite. You can also delete, rename, or move your data file so that Money cannot find it when you start Money--Money will then offer to create a new file. Answer derived from one posted by Cal Learner, MVP. A5): You don't. The only ways to undo the effects of archiving are to go to the archive file and enter/import newer transactions or to export the transactions from the archive file and import them into your current file. Both involve going through the .QIF export/import process. Neither is trouble-free. See the MSKB for Microsoft's approach. Archiving will shrink your file size somewhat. There have been some reports that archiving helps performance problems. Archiving will not remove old investment account activity. That's about all it does. For these reasons, many of us do not recommend archiving and do not do it ourselves. If you start recording all kinds of interesting memo data (like serial numbers for your toys, warranty lengths, the genus and species of plants you bought for your garden and so on) you, too, will not want to archive. If you archived recently enough, you can use the archive file you created in place of the file that Archive removed transactions from. It has all of the transactions in your entire Money file as of the date you archived, not just ones before the archive date. This is another result of the rather odd design for archiving. References: Q6): I just archived. But there are many transactions left from before the archive date. Why? A6): The more you know about archiving, the less likely you are to do it. All pain. Precious little gain. I do not recommend archiving. YMMV. First, there is little reason to archive--as you've found out, by design the impact is limited--and some reasons not to--primarily that you can't go back at all easily once you've archived and your archive file will overlap the file you use going forward since it's just a backup prior to removing transactions. If, like many of us, you record all manner of useful data like the serial numbers of your toys and when you bought a battery for the car last, taking this data out of your main data file is not something you'll want to do. Second, archiving does not remove all transactions. Transactions related to investment buys/sells and, hence, capital gains, for instance, are not archived. Third, there is little evidence that archiving has a significant impact on performance, especially given the limitations on what data it actually removes. Fourth, hard disks are selling for around $1/GB and the smallest models being manufactured today are typically 10GB in size. Very few people have data files bigger than, say, 50 MB. That make's 200 extremely large Money data files you can store on the smallest hard disk being manufactured today. There are a number of MSKB articles on the subject of limitations of archiving. On-line help even describes it pretty well. Also, see the question “How do I un-archive?” References: Q7): I just bought a new computer with the current Money pre-installed. How do I transfer my data from the old version/old machine? A7): Go find your Money data file and copy it to the new machine. Your file will be named *.mny, so if you do not know where it is, you can search for it. Likewise, going into File|Open should enable you to see where the current file is located. The best ways to move the file are to burn a CD, use something like a network or laplink, or use some diskette copy or backup/restore routine that can span multiple diskettes. Second best is to use the Money backup to floppy capability to backup on the old version/old machine and restore on the new version/new machine. BUT BE SURE NOT TO TRASH THE OLD COPY 'TIL YOU HAVE THE NEW COPY RUNNING! Sometimes data errors and so forth occur--you'd be surprised how many people get here when their ONLY backup copy is trashed and want to know how to recover. When you first open the data file from the old version, Money will rename your existing file and create a new file from the data in the old one except upgraded to the current file format. When you start the new version of Money on the new machine be sure to tell it to skip Passport. If you find you need it later, you can go add it. If you use Money backup/restore, you might just want to first go open the sample data file, so it will skip lots of non-pertinent steps like the interview. Then you can restore the old copy from floppies using the Money File|Restore menu choice. Also, be sure to copy your Tools|Options settings by hand since many of them are NOT stored in the data file. You will also have to redo printer setups. This discussion assumes that the old system and new system both use the same region settings and both old and new versions of Money are the same localization (e.g., Money US or Money UK.) If either of these assumptions are violated, it may not be possible to do what you want. Q8): I just reinstalled M98--it can't read my data backup floppies. Now what? [Relevant to Money98 (v.6)] A8): Money98 originally didn't know how to do a multi-diskette backup. (This was bizarre since M98 was the first version where data file size grew by an order of magnitude.) If you made a Money98 diskette spanning backup using Money98, you must have installed the patch that provided this functionality and now the patch is lost. (The outcry over the lack of spanning backup and the suddenly huge data files--small by the standards of current versions--led to release of the patch.) You will need to get it and reinstall it to read your diskette spanning backup. Once installed, you will need to look not under the File menu but under Tools|Multi-disk backup. You can also see the MSKB item for more information. Possibly a better course would be to consider migrating to a newer version of Money. The never version will know how to read the format written by the M98 diskette spanning backup patch. Thanks to Bonnie Synhorst for this answer; the MSKB link was provided by Kimberly Renna-Griego, MVP. References: Q9): What is this .LRD file with the same name as my Money data file? Should I worry about it? A9): It's a record locking file used for internal purposes by the database engine Money uses. It opens when you open a Money file and disappears when you close it normally. You may see one left around if Money "abnormally ends" or ABENDs. (That's IBM talk for "crashes.") It means nothing to the user. You can safely ignore it. It will also be there when Money Express is open in the background. If you sign-in to Money with "Use Money's online features that require .NET Passport," then 2 or 3 (depending upon version) Money background processes are spawned. These background processes, mis.exe, misuser.exe (Money 2003 only) and mnyschdl.exe, are spawned and continue to run even after closing your Money file and exiting Money itself (msmoney.exe), whether or not Money Express is enabled. If you have enabled Background Banking as well, one or more of these background processes will be periodically locking your primary Money file. Additional information about situations that will create the lock file borrowed from an answer by Brent Neville. Q10): When I archive, Money complains that my floppy disk is full. How can this possibly be? A10): The archive file is a copy of your entire data file made before any transactions are removed. Archiving knows nothing about compressing data files nor does it know about spanning multiple floppies with large files. (Just because Money backup to floppy knows how to do both of these things, don't think that archive does. It doesn't.) Given these facts and the fact that virtually every data file created by Money is larger than 1.44MB, it should be obvious that unless you have that rare data file that will fit on a floppy, the message you are getting is just Money telling you a fact of life. Q11): Where is Money hiding my data from me? In the registry? In the ether? A11): This question comes up over and over again in many disguised forms. Examples include "How do I just start completely over?," "I want to move my data to a new computer but can’t figure out where it is on the old one, what do I do?," and the ever popular "How do I backup my Money data to a CD-R instead of a floppy?" Money is a file-oriented program. It stores your data in .MNY data files just like Word uses .DOC files, Excel uses .XLS files, Notepad uses .TXT files, and Access uses .MDB files. These files are all just data files that can be moved, copied, deleted, renamed, shared over the network, or burned to CDs, no matter what application originally created them. Perhaps part of the problem here is that Money users generally use the same single data file for months or years at a time--and Money always opens the last file they used--so they may not even remember that their data is in a file named what they told Money to name it and stored where they told Money to store it. Take note: there is a File|Open choice in Money, just like in Word. Money also has a File|New choice, just like Word. There are some additional considerations: 1) While Money stores all of your account and transaction data in the data file you designated when you first setup the file, it stores your Tools|Options settings in the registry. The Tools|Options settings are the only thing that you ever put into Money that is not stored in an .MNY data file. This can be an issue when you reload your system or move your data file to a new system but the Tools|Options settings get lost. Particularly painful is when printer alignment settings for printing checks get lost. Write them down before replacing your system or reinstalling the application. 2) It is generally considered a "best practice" to store your .MNY files in the My Documents folder tree, not somewhere in the Program Files folder tree. All of the reasons for this are beyond the scope of the FAQ, but think of it this way: it's like throwing your coat in the back seat of the car vs. under the hood. The back seat is your space--under the hood isn't. 3) Money can have your file open for access--and so can MoneyExpress and MoneySide. You should always avoid doing anything to the data file (like copying it to a CD-R as a backup or opening it over the network or from a different user profile) when the file is already opened since this can cause data file corruption problems. An .LRD file in the same folder with the same name is usually an indication that something has the data file open. 4) Starting the Money application directly--as opposed to opening an .MNY file from the Windows file explorer--results in Money trying to open the last .MNY file you used from the exact same location. If, say, you've moved your data file, this will result in a "file not found" type of error. This message does not mean that Money lost your data--it means that you've hidden your data from Money. Go find your data file using the Windows file explorer and r-click Open it or double click on it. After doing this, Money will now know where your file is located. 5) Because your Money file is just a file, you can burn it to CD or whatever else you want to do with it, just like any other data file. Money really doesn't care. Likewise, whatever you do with the file is at your risk, not Money's. 6) If you don't remember where you told Money to put your file or what you told Money to name it, here are some ways to find out: 7) Because your Money data file is your data file, you are responsible for protecting it as you would any other file with important data in it: this means backing it up, keeping copies before reloading your machine, and so on. 8) Money File|Backup creates files that are not identical copies of the original file. For reasons unknown, occasionally this difference is relevant. If you really have to be sure you have your data--like when migrating to a new system or reformatting your present hard disk--it's a very good idea to have both the Money backup .MBF file and the real .MNY data file both copied onto, say, a writable CD or, better, several writable CDs, before destroying the original. The best method, if possible, is to get the new installation working before destroying the original. How to do things in Money: Financial Situations Q1): How do I "mark" money in an account for future use so I don't spend it now? A1): Lots of people want to do this with some mechanism like the accounts-within-an-account "subaccounts" mechanism that Quicken provides. Money provides no similar mechanism. Money, instead, provides tools to manage budget--what you plan to spend when for what--separately from cash flow--managing the amount of cash available to execute the budget. Many of us prefer the latter approach since it leaves behavior modification--not spending money just because you have a positive balance--up to us rather than resorting to subterfuge to "fake ourselves out" by "cookie jar accounting." YMMV. When a poster said that he was looking for a "cookie jar" mechanism since lack of one meant the money "has to show in the checking account because it is there, but I don't want to think the money is mine by seeing it in the balance," David Brownridge put it very well: "The way I deal with that is to leave the money in the cheque acct, and in Bills & Deposits create a Bill (with frequency Only Once) and the appropriate future date. Until that "bill" is paid the money will show in the balance of the account; but if you look at the forecast for the account you'll see where it gets withdrawn. "The important point is that in terms of "think what money is mine" I never just look at the balances in the accounts list; rather I check out the cashflow forecasts." Q2): How do I create different payee information for two accounts with the same payee? A2): You can create two different versions of the same Payee by putting qualifiers after the name in curly braces. E.g., "Mondo Bank {his}" and "Mondo Bank {hers}". The information in the braces and the braces themselves will not print on checks or matter much of anywhere else except where it counts--you can enter transactions to the same payee and have different underlying Payee information in Money. You can also use curly braces around information in memo fields if you don't want certain information in your memo to print on your checks. Cool, eh? Q3): How do I find out about the free credit reports/bill pay/financial consultation/tax filing? [Relevant to Money2003 (v.11) and up] A3): Once you have purchased and installed an applicable version, go to the task based home page. (There's a link in the left column--below the "So and So's Money Home Page" tripe--of the view oriented "Main Home Page" home pages.) Once there, select the "Tell me more" link in the Financial Services section at the top. An alternate, probably easier, way is to go to Help|Financial Services. Q4): How do I handle employer reimbursable expenses? A4): There are a few ways to treat employer reimbusables. Some people prefer creating a cash account (entitled "Reimbursed Expenses" or similar). Treat expenses to be reimbursed as transfers in from the account used to pay for the expense, and treat reimbursements as transfers from this account to the account destined to receive the reimbursement. Another way would be to use an expense category (entitled "Job-Related Expenses:Reimbursable" or similar). Treat expenses to be reimbursed as debits against the category, and treat reimbursements as credits against the category. Depending on your Tools|Options setting, Money may complain about using an expense category for what is an income transaction, You can tell Money this is what you intend. In addition, if your taxing authority allows for the deduction/treatment of unreimbursed employee expenses (as in the United States), be sure to associate the expense category to the proper tax form/line. This way, any monies not reimbursed will appear as an outstanding balance in tax-related reports/calculations. Thanks to Derrick Cole for this answer. Q5): How do I treat my income tax refund/bill for the prior year? A5): There are several different ways to treat this. Probably the "best" way to handle this with the least side effects is one suggested by Chris Cowles: If you don't already have one, create a "bank" account (it doesn't have to be associated with any bank) for money owed to you. Flag it as a 'budget' account on the details page. Record a transaction increasing (or decreasing) the balance on that account, categorized to your income tax expense category, dated 12/31/[tax year in question]. That adjusts your income tax expenses to reflect reality. When you get the refund, record the deposit as a transfer to checking from the asset account. Alternately, when you pay the bill, record this as a transfer from checking to the asset account, payable to the tax man or woman as you prefer. Either way, this transaction is budget-neutral. You can also use/create categories for this that are flagged to not be included in tax reporting (federal prior year due or refunded) or are flagged to be included (state prior year due or refunded). These would be categories like Taxes:Federal Income Tax (prior year) or Taxes:State Income Tax (prior year). This has the downside of artificially reducing or increasing your tax expenses in the tax year in question. This can have budget planner complications. Q6): How do I treat taxable fringe benefits (imputed income)? A6): Imputed income is the tax accountants' term for income (typically in the form of an employer paid benefit) that the tax law says you owe tax on even though you never got any money. (This stuff gets reported in box 12 of form W-2. The cost of life insurance over $50k is reported as code C.) Here's how I handle this income in Money--it seems to work and doesn't bollocks up the tax estimator: On the wages tab of my paycheck: Q7): How do other users account for ATM withdrawals? A7): Many users setup a dedicated cash account, I call mine "Pocket Change". Transfer the money to the cash account, enter cash transactions in the cash account, and balance it occasionally against the amount of cash you have on hand, entering enter an adjustment income (Other Income:Found Money) or expense (Miscellaneous:[unassigned]) transaction to get back in sync vs. the amount of money in your pocket. You don't have to record everything. Just record the things you remember or care about or have receipts for or whatever. If the amount you are writing off seems to be getting out of hand, you can track more closely. If it's getting to be a pain, track less closely and write off more. If this is too much of a hassle or if your cash spending is sufficiently small/rare as to not be worth worrying about, you can just use splits to account for it. Say you get $50 from the ATM, spend $40 of tickets to the ball game and pocket the $10 to spend over the next week or two. You can split a withdrawal of $50 into $40 for Leisure:Sporting Events and $10 for Miscellaneous:[unassigned]. Q8): How should I handle my mortgage escrow account? A8): Let's assume you already have a loan account setup for the mortgage. Next, setup a cash account for the escrow. You can call it Escrow (Mortgage). In your Loan Payment scheduled transaction, add a split element for Transfer:Escrow for the total amount of escrow collected with each payment. Enter transactions to pay the taxes (Taxes:Property Tax) and insurance (Insurance:Homeowner's) from the Escrow account, as your mortgage servicer actually does, when they tell you what the amounts paid are. You can balance the escrow account to the statements of escrow activity. Q9): I just refinanced my mortgage; how do I enter all of this into Money? A9): There's a wizard of limited utility, you can navigate to it by going to your current loan page, click Analyze Loan|Consider Refinancing. This takes you to a page called Loan Worksheet. You can go through the steps, or, if you have already decided on if/where to refinance, skip to Comparison and at the bottom of the worksheet click on Refinance a Loan button. Thanks to Aloke Prasad for these steps. The wizard doesn't attempt to deal with all of the things like closing costs and escrow exchanges; one that did would be hard to devise given the number of different ways this could go down and the number of different ways this could be recorded in Money. This basic outline applies no matter whether you are ending in cash in or cash out--enter the splits off of the settlement sheet and all should work out. To do this by hand, remember: the split is your friend. You can enter the whole thing in two transactions that mirror the information provided on the settlement sheet at your closing. For an example (and there are certainly other ways it could be done) here are related transactions from the last time I refinanced. These are in MoneyLink format. It may be easier to read if you get the whole thing into Excel as .CSV. Acct,Payee,Reconciled,Amt,Cat:SubCat,Comment 1st transaction: [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,xxx,000.00,Other Income:Loan Principal Received,total refi {categorized as other income since M99 would not allow direct transfer from here to old loan payoff} [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(300.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,administration fee to mortgage broker [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(362.50),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,escrow waiver fee to new payee [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(zzz.94),Interest Expense:Mortgage Interest,prepaid interest on new loan [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(150.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,settlement fee to title company [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(430.00),Insurance:Title,title company [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(20.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,tax certificates to title company [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(30.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,express mail charges for payoff [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(50.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,"endorsement/100 & 8.1" to title company [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(61.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,recording fees [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(6.00),Miscellaneous:Service Charges/Fees,"assignment fee" [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(aaa.96),Interest Expense:Mortgage Interest,interest portion of payoff [temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(yyy,694.64),Transfer:[money market account],{this was a cash out balance} 2nd transaction (a Loan Payment with one split element): [temp account, pick one],[old payee],R,(yyy,190.96),Principal Transfer:[old mortgage loan account],payoff amount of old loan Note that only one new account, the new loan, was setup; some of the categories may not be standard. For the temp account, I used my pocket change account, but see below for more information. Note also that I had no escrow for insurance/taxes on either side of this deal. If you have an existing escrow account setup and plan on setting up a new one for the new mortgage, you can do the same basic thing: transfer the existing escrow balance into the first transaction and/or transfer funds as required from the first transaction to the new account. It doesn't matter which account you put the transaction in, but if you are writing a check at closing or getting a payout, you may want to include this in that account just to make things clearer. The sum of the first transaction and the second transaction should be zero unless you want to have the non-zero net of the two transactions represent cash in or out at closing. The only reason this needs to be done as two transactions is that the payoff principal payment to the old loan becomes a principal transfer in that account which Money treats like a split--and a split cannot be part of another split. Similarly, bear in mind that the only way to transfer principal to a loan account, at least in recent versions of Money, is to start with a Loan Payment and use the Principal Transfer portion of the split it proposes. You can delete the interest expense component if you want, but the Principal Transfer component of a Loan Payment is treated as sacred by Money. You original loan may show some minor debit or credit balance after the payoff transfer due to differences in how Money and the lender have computed interest over time. (Mine was $0.43.) You can just write this difference off with an Account Adjustment income or expense transaction entered at the end of the old loan before you close the account. The only other odd thing here is that Money provides no direct way to account for loan proceeds received. So, I just entered this by hand as noted. The category had to be created and was defined to not show up on tax reports. If you are an accounting maven and are concerned that this really isn't accounting income, then you can leave the category unassigned. An alternate way to account for the principal received follows a more elaborate technique outlined by Chris Cowles: setup a loan account with no balance but using the appropriate information for all else and letting Money calculate the ($0) payment. Then you enter a "Principal Transfer" of the balance in the loan account register to the settlement account. (You will have to type "principal transfer" as the drop-/pull-downs will not offer it.) Tomorrow (or roll the clock forward by a day for a moment--Money refuses to let you do this any other way), you can go to the loan Details and select Change Loan Terms and go in and set the balance. This will cause the account details to show the amount as $0, but the balance will be correct after the transfer. The interest charged may be off by a day's worth; I have not checked this. Q10): I've been lazy and haven't balanced in months. How do I catch up? A10): If you wish to start fresh and declare an account balanced, you can mark all entries balanced. Select the register view to show only unreconciled transactions, sort by date, and go to the oldest transaction. Hold down Cntl+Shift+M and let auto-repeat work through the transactions until none are left showing. Then balance, making the starting and ending balance match the known balance. Choose the balance date to be the day after your last transaction. This is not the normal procedure, it just starts you with an amnesty for former balancing. Thereafter, follow the normal procedure. Look at the balancing movie clip from your Money disk. Answer courtesy of Cal Learner--MVP. Q11): Money won't let me make a Loan Payment from my Paycheck. Why not? What do I do? A11): A paycheck is a specialized instance of the generalized form of split transaction. A loan payment is a specialized instance of the generalized form of split transaction. In Money, a transaction that is a split of another transaction cannot itself be split. Thus, a loan payment cannot be made from a paycheck. The general way to accomplish this is in two transactions via a holding account. E.g., transfer the payment amount to the associated Asset Account in the Paycheck, then schedule the Loan Payment to be made from the Asset Account. Yes, it creates a bunch of silly looking paired +x Transfer, -x Loan Payment Transactions in the Asset Account. But there is no other way to record it in Money. There is an MSKB article with more detail on doing this; the reference is courtesy of Kimberly Renna, Microsoft MVP - Consumer Products. References: Q12): My wife and I have two accounts at the same bank with different passwords. How do I enter two passwords in Money? A12): See the MSKB entry on this subject for instructions to create a second financial institution. MSKB link courtesy of Cal Learner--MVP. References: Q13): We just sold our house--how do we account for this in Money? A13): See the answer to "I just refinanced my mortgage; how do I enter all of this into Money?" for the basic technique. In the case of a sale, just add into the transaction a transfer in of the balance of your escrow account, if any, and a split element to account for the "gain" income, if any, required to get to the right payout value. How to do things in Money: Investments Q1): How do I fix bad investment names in the Buy Investment/CD pull-down? A1): The entries in the pull-downs come straight from the table of investments you have created in Money. Go to Portfolio|Work With Investments|Choose a specific investment and select investments to rename, etc, on their individual detail pages. Go to Portfolio|Work With Investments|Delete an investment to delete investments. You cannot delete any investments you have any transactions for, so you may also have to do some account register maintenance. Cal Learner suggested another technique to delete an investment that avoids some problems others have experienced if a symbol ever needs to be reused. Go to the investment details page. Clear the field for symbol. If no transactions have been entered for this investment, there will be a delete choice listed under common tasks. Click it. Q2): How do I setup a 401(k) loan? A2): There's no magic method (i.e., no "401k loan wizard.") Here's how I do it: 1) In 401k investment account, sell investments as required by the plan mechanics to 401k cash account to make funds available. The loan balance amortizes from the modified paycheck transfer via the 401k cash loan payment account. The holdings in the money market "loan" investment decline and earn interest via the manually entered interest and sell transactions. The funds get reinvested via the revised periodic investment transaction. It's just a lot of work and a lot of transaction entries. There are "lighter" schemes depending on how much detail you go into tracking your 401k investments. The scheme outlined above is the manic geek case for personal accounting anal-retentives. Thanks to Richard M. Bollar - MVP Microsoft Money for this method. Q3): How do I track savings bonds in Money? Tracking them as a CD doesn't seem to provide a way to track their value. A3): Money doesn't handle savings bonds particularly well. They suggest entering them as CDs and this seems like the least bad way to do so. Many of us use the Savings Bond Wizard to know the current value of our bonds. You can transfer, by hand, interest information from the Savings Bond Wizard to Money but you will have to enter it as reinvested interest which has other side effects including creating taxable investment income. This may be what you want--depending on your tax plans for the bond interest. If you elect to defer paying interest until maturity, you should set the tax deferred setting for the investment account holding the bond investment. In order to keep track of individual bonds, you should create separate investments for each series/denomination/issue date of bond you hold. (E.g., "$100 EE 2002-03" could be an investment name.) Then enter the number of like bonds you bought as a Buy Investment. You might also consider storing the serial number(s) in the memo field of the buy transaction. Thanks to Michael Gordon for an important correction to this answer. References: Q4): How do you change a mutual fund investment to money market investment? A4): It is not trivial, but not as hard as it first appears. A few minutes should do it. In the details, remove the existing symbol, and rename the existing "mutual fund" to something you will never use. Let's suppose you choose zzzz. Create a new money fund with the correct name and symbol. Go back to investment zzzz and choose View: Investment Details. Change each transaction to the fund using the drop-down list. You may have a problem if you have sells intermingled with buys--it may try to sell more shares than you have at some point. If so, at some date before the first transaction, enter a LARGE buy--larger than your maximum share holdings of this investment at any point--with no source for the investment funds. This will assure that you always have enough shares to cover all sells. Don't move the large buy transaction. Just delete it when you are done. In any case, keep going until there are no more zzzz transactions remaining except for the large buy to assure sufficient shares for any sell. Once all of the real transactions are changed to the new investment, you can delete the temporary buy and "delete" investment zzzz. Answer derived from one originally posted by Cal Learner--MVP. Q5): I don't hold investments anymore but they still show on the investments page. Why? A5): To prevent an investment from appearing on the Money Home page, go to the "Details" page of the investment and use "Delete this Investment". Don't be alarmed, this only deletes the specified investment from the list of investments. Any transactions for the specified investment will remain in the closed account(s). Later, if you attempt to use this investment again, Money will simply ask if you wish to add the investment back to the list of investments. Answer provided by Brent Neville. Q6): I hold the same investment in two accounts. But when I try to enter the same symbol again Money complains. Why? A6): You only define an Investment once. The symbol is an attribute of the Investment, not the Account holding of the Investment. When you want to Buy the same Investment for another Investment Account, choose the Investment from the drop-down list instead of trying to define the Investment again. An "Investment" is just a name and a symbol and some price history. The Investment Account keeps track of holdings of a given Investment. Answer derived from one by Doug Wilson. Q7): My 401(k) cash account is going negative. How do I enter employer contributions? A7): There are several ways to accomplish this. Which one to choose depends on whether you want to track the cash as it is associated with your paycheck or not. Probably the easiest way is to schedule a deposit to your 401(k) contributions/cash account in the Bills & Deposits section, the amount and date of which correspond to the match. Use an income category setup to be excluded from tax reports like "Gross Pay:Employer Matching," so these funds aren't factored in to tax reports and Tax Planner calculations. The disadvantage to this method is that it decouples the match money from your paychecks which, depending on your plan, may cause problems for things like matching money associated with overtime income. The more elaborate way that gets the contributions tied to your paycheck--assuming that your plan matches on a pay period basis--but doesn't hose up the Tax Planner is to enter an income entry on the After Taxes tab (use a negative number--trust me on this) against the "Gross Pay:Employer Matching" or similar, tax-neutral, category. Then do a Transfer of the same amount to the 401(k) contributions account on the next line of the split. Thanks for Derrick Cole for contributions to this answer. How to do things in Money: Option Settings Q1): How can I make this infernal MoneySide thing go away? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10) and up] A1): Click Help in MoneySide, then Settings. Under "Open MoneySide" select "Never" and then "Done." Answer provided by Bryan Escher. Once you've gotten rid of MoneySide you will probably notice that Money has also dropped an icon onto your IE toolbar. To remove it, select View|Toolbar|Customize. Select MoneySide on the column on the right. Click Remove. Q2): How do I stop Money from talking to me? A2): R-click on the speaker icon in the upper right corner of the Money home page and select Turn all Audio Help off. Q3): How do I turn off the ads? A3): Tools|Options|General|Turn off sponsorship and shopping links is as good as it gets. MSN ads will still be all over the thing. This also will not prevent Microsoft from sending you ads in the form of Money Updates, though they have only done this occasionally. Q4): I made the cash flow forecast and upcoming bills disappear from my register. How do I get them back? A4): Try the settings in Tools|Options|Feedback|Personalized Feedback in the Account Register and Portfolio|Options… Q5): What is the icon in my SysTray? How do I turn it off? How do I get it back? A5): The icon in the System Tray is the Money Express icon, and is turned on by default with a new Money installation. It has several functions when enabled. It notifies you of upcoming bills and deposits, allows for quick transaction entry without opening Money, and provides easy configuration of events and alerts. If you don't want to use it, you can turn it off using one of two methods. If Money is open, click on Tools, Options, Bills and Deposits tab. Uncheck the Use Money Express option. If Money is not open and you want this feature disabled, right mouse click on the icon in the System Tray, choose Exit Money Express, and then click the No option so that Money Express is disabled and will no longer run on your system. If you decide after turning it off that you want to use it again, simply open Money and go to Tools, Options, Bills and Deposits tab. Check the Use Money Express option and click OK. Your Money Express icon will return. Answer courtesy of Kimberly Renna-Griego. Q6): Why do I have to create an entry in the Payees every time I spend money somewhere new? A6): You don't. Set Tools|Options|Editing|Confirm new payees and, every time you enter a Payee you've never entered before, Money will ask you if you want to add the Payees to the explicit Payees list or not. Q1): After I added MSN Bill Pay to online services, Money 2002 stops downloading direct bank statements. Why? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10)] A1): Go to Online Services setup and click the Modify Services link for the bank. Click "No, I wish to discontinue using online services for [bank]". Then setup online services for the affected bank again. Q/A courtesy of Doug Semler. Q2): How come my cash flow forecast refuses to display? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10)] A2): Usually one or more scheduled bills/deposits is, for reasons unknown, causing this problem. The offending bill/deposit can be identified by trial and error as follows: 1) make a copy of your Money data file This has returned cash flow planner to its usual less-than-perfect self for many of us. Some users have reported that just editing every scheduled transaction memo--not necessarily changing anything, just "touching" them--has restored cash flow. Microsoft has also admitted this can happen, of course without so much as hinting that a problem in their code could be causing it. See the MSKB item for the odd ways they propose you resolve this issue. MSKB link courtesy of Laurence. References: Q3): I can't download quotes since installing M03. What do I do? [Relevant to Money2003 (v.11)] A3): There are quite a number of "fixes" for this that alone or in unidentified combinations seem to fix this for most people--some of these may just be unrelated incidental serendipity: 1) Uninstall/reinstall Money 2003. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Investor\StockQuotes] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Investor\StockQuotes\QuoteServerURL] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Investor\News] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Investor\News\NewsServerURL] If you aren't used to mucking in the registry, don't go there. Mucking in the registry incorrectly can result in your computer turning into your doorstop and nobody will be able to help you and I will not accept any responsibility. There is a .REG file with these keys that can be merged with the registry by R-Click|Merge attached to a newsgroup thread on the subject. See groups.google.com. References: Q4): I see checks to be printed. Money says there aren't any. What gives? A4): Money keeps an internal counter of checks to be printed that can get out of synchronization with reality in the registers. Most people have resolved this by either the msmoney -s or salv.exe data file repair tools. There is an MSKB article that describes this issue, the link is courtesy of Bonnie Synhorst - MVP. References: Q5): I think my file has been corrupted. How do I tell? What do I do then? A5): "Corruption" of user data files is a popular topic of the newsgroup. Sooner or later, it seems, every Money user will experience this. But there has been lots of confusion over what is and isn't corruption, and there have been attempts to blame non-specific "corruption" for lots of things that probably aren't "corruption" induced. Many problems blamed on corruption are not corruption related at all and some that are may not be able to be solved with the available file repair procedures and will require different techniques to fix if they are even fixable. For the readers who haven't experienced corruption yet and are getting bored and are about to skip the rest of this answer, remember this one thing: the one sure way out of these problems is having backups that really are and that have, in turn, their own backups. Further, if you are still reading, remember that a corrupt file can generate a corrupt backup--so be sure and have multiple generations of backups available. In general, "corruption" refers to problems in the logical integrity of the data file. Corruption does not mean the operating system reports data errors reading your file. Though that is a form of corruption, it's not what we are talking about here. The corruption we are talking about are cases where the data in your file is read and written acceptably by the operating system but doesn't make sense or isn't consistent to Money itself. In general, a Money file that a) produces unexpected results or improper behavior of the application, b) cannot be reproduced with a new Money file or the sample file, and c) can be reproduced on different systems using the same Money file, is likely corrupted. With this in mind, your troubleshooting process should follow something like this when you are facing possible file corruption. 1. Create a new file or open the Sample Money file. "Money cannot create a temporary file in C:\Windows\Temp" "Money cannot locate '<file path and name>' or cannot open it, possibly because it is a read-only file. You can change the read-only attribute in the Windows Explorer. If you have chosen the correct file and it cannot be accessed, you will need to open your most recent backup file." "<Path>/<file name> is corrupted or is not a Money data file. Make sure you are opening a file with an .MNY extension. If you have chosen the correct file and it could not be accessed, you will need to open your most recent backup file to access your data." If you attempt to convert a Money data file from an earlier version, and you receive the following error message: If you attempt to create a new file, you receive several error messages, beginning with the following error message: When you click OK, you may receive the following message: When trying to enter or delete a transaction or go into a particular area of Money, you receive the error (quite common--these are the "trinity" of corruption indicators): Checks are available to print but there are no "Print checks" prompts. This is common enough that it has its own FAQ and an MSKB reference to boot. See the question "I see checks to be printed. Money says there aren't any. What gives?" Very whacko balances (the trillion dollar balance syndrome). Balances disagree from one place to another in the app. These are frequently pilot error and there was a bug that produced this, depending on reconciled/unreconciled register view, back in M01, which was fixed with a patch. But some of these cases have turned out to be corruption. Cash flow fails to display in M02. This one also has its own FAQ entry. See "How come my cash flow forecast refuses to display?" Other indications of corruption have included sudden radical degradation in performance, transactions that refuse to be edited or marked as reconciled/cleared (usually you’ll get the "operation cannot be performed" message), and application crashes at repeatable places and/or when doing repeatable things with the data. Reports that refuse to display and/or crash the application can be caused by corruption or can be caused by problems with, say, printer or video drivers. Problems with reports should be isolated by recreating your favorite report from the basic report and/or playing around with the customization settings to see if there are some data sets that work and others that cause the problem. Finally, there are many things that are not corruption but are occasionally blamed on corruption. Some examples follow. Reports that don't show what you want may very well be customized incorrectly. Register views that are not in the order you want may be sorted by something you don't recognize. When Money is generally slow, it is likely just Money being generally slow. When Budget Planner produces results you don’t understand, it’s likely just Budget Planner’s way of reminding us that some future version of Money will be able to claim improved budgeting among its features. Problems importing statements or with the statement data itself are in all likelihood problems with the data the bank provided. If you have any doubts about what is normal--if undesirable--behavior and what may be "corruption," the newsgroup is probably a better place to start than the repair tools. So, if you are to the point where you've determined that your file is likely corrupted and are ready to journey down the road of file repair, here are your options and some recommendations for how to go about the process, sorted by order of complexity and potential loss of data: - There are two file repair tools provided by Microsoft for Money. Details on the repair tools: File Salvage (the "msmoney -s" startup parameter): This repair utility checks the data integrity to make sure the data is self-consistent. It does not check that the data is correct; it only checks that the validation rules that are supposed to be applied on data entry are indeed being applied. Super Salvage (salv.exe): This repair will work with any version of Money but will NOT work on backup files. It does low level checking for file integrity. It checks the format and stability of the file itself. It does NO data checking. Salv provides 2 different levels of checking; each just goes deeper in its checking than the previous. (Some older versions supported three levels of checking but level 3 has been removed, apparently because it caused more harm than good for many users.) Guidelines for use of the repair tools: msmoney -s When running Money 99 and above, always run File Salvage first. This usually works if you go to Start, Run and type "msmoney -s" without quotes. Be sure that the data file opens displaying the message "Repairing file…working" or the repair is not being performed. For more information on running this utility, see item # 182608 in the MSKB. salv.exe This tool works on versions 98 and later. Although it is available on the Money CDs in the PSS folder in versions 2001 and later, you can download it (and should to be sure that you are running the latest and greatest version of the utility). See item # 274584 in the MSKB to download the current version and get more information. General information on file repair tool processes: A good course of action to use when encountering a file corruption issue and attempting repair with these tools is to: If using versions of Money prior to 99, press CTRL + ALT + DEL and select Task Manager (NT, Win2K, WinXP) or bring up the Close Program box directly (WinMe and prior versions of "dirty Windows"). Highlight Microsoft Money and click End Task to terminate the application and close your data file. When you reopen the file, Money should tell you that the file was not closed properly and that it needs to be repaired. Details on binary search identification and elimination: Frequently, you can localize a problem because it only shows up on a specific transaction, or a specific report or similar. Since many corruption problems seem to be focused on a specific transaction or bill or similar, narrowing your problem down to the specific item causing the problem can make it possible to fix your problem without resorting to the repair tools--or if they fail--or the more destructive methods. There is no fixed procedure here. The general method is to try binary methods to narrow down the focus of the problem and then delete, edit, or otherwise eliminate the problem item and then you can re-create it. For example, a problem report may work if you customize it to report either the first half of the date range or the last. The half that doesn't work can again be divided in halves, repetitively, until you narrow your problem down to, say, one day's worth of transactions. For bills, you can delete (but please read and heed step 0 under the repair tools for guidance to work in copies of your data file) bills until the problem goes away. For more general problems that may be located somewhere in your account registers, the basic approach (this is NOT a procedure) is to make a copy of your data file, and, in the copy, progressively delete things (accounts, scheduled items, whatever) until happiness is restored. When you delete the nth account (or whatever) and the operation in question starts working, go back to the original file, make another copy, go into the copy, and repeat just that last deletion. If the problem operation still presents itself, go into yet another copy and try further narrowing. If, say, deleting one account restores happiness then go at transactions in the account--delete, say, one month's worth at a time or one half or the other. (The reason the latter approach is called binary search is that when you get to the point where there are lots of cases--like transactions to delete--it is frequently faster to delete half at once and then, assuming your problem went away, you delete half of the same half in the next copy of the original. This kind of search will rapidly narrow down to a specific transaction—for example, 10,000 transactions reduce to 1 in 14 tries.) Of course, there are cases where two or more problem transactions (or accounts or bills or whatever) are in play--this makes it harder, but the same general principles apply. (One slight digression into Money technique is in order here: if you have to delete transactions in an investment account you will frequently find yourself in the situation where Money says you can't delete a buy because it will cause a negative share balance. Add an Add Share transaction, older than any other transaction in the account in question, for some outrageously large number of shares in the investment in question. You can delete it later.) When you narrow it down to a specific focus, you go back to the original data file and try to figure out what to do about it. Can the transaction be edited? Deleted and replaced? Change the payee, amount, split, account, etc? Can it be moved to a temporary account and then delete the temporary account? This can be very tedious but frequently can narrow down a problem to one transaction or entry. Sometimes this one problem item cannot be deleted by itself. Then you end up doing things like creating a temporary account, moving every transaction but the problem one, deleting the problem transaction account, renaming, etc., the temporary account to the old account's name, and then re-enter the now missing problem transaction. Details on restoring a backup: If none of this has worked, hopefully you have a recent backup. (After this experience you probably will the next time it happens.) Be sure and restore your data file to a different name or location so as to preserve your original file--if there are problems with your backup you may end up back there. It is possible that you "backed up" this problem. In these cases, you may restore it as well. Hopefully you have kept multiple versions of backup. Details on export/import: If all of this has failed you, the only choice left, and it is generally quite a poor choice, is to try to preserve as much data as you can using QIF export and then to start over in a new data file, restoring the exported data. MSKB article # 1778830 addresses this approach. Unless you have 5 or more accounts, you should work really hard to resolve the issue without getting to export/import. This should be your last resort and should only be your resort if you have exhausted every possibility that the problem is not really corruption, not only because of the amount of effort involved in the export/import process, but also because if the problem is not corruption and you go through the whole process, it'll be extremely frustrating to find out that the issue is still there. Export/import also only brings over the information in transactions. This means that your bills, budget, planner, etc., are gone and must be recreated. Loan accounts cannot be exported either. The good news on this is that, if your corruption was in one of these areas, it is left behind once you are in the new file. If you only have a couple of accounts, by all means go the export/import route rather than spending hours trying to dink around with repair (unless, of course, you have a lot of data in the bills/budget/planner). Now that we've discussed corruption to excess, some other information is in order. What causes corruption? Certainly none of us in the "outside world" are sure what causes corruption. But it tends to happen at rates and in places that tend to suggest that it's not because of cosmic rays. And it happens to people who do not kill Money from task manager every time they see the hourglass and 100% CPU. My suggestion/suspicion is that there truly are lurking defects in the Money code that get hit under the right circumstances and leave the database in these unstable states. Even the MSKB item for the "damaged scheduled item" in M02 makes it sound like demonic possession or some other force beyond the developer's control--but of course they fixed that one in M03, so there must have been a real root cause in the code. I wish I felt that these cases were a priority for identification and elimination and did not feel as though Microsoft considers the -s and salv and the QIF export/import cycle as all they need to do--or maybe even more than we deserve--on these issues. For some other users, corruption happens in places none of the rest of us has ever seen problems and it happens repeatedly. In these cases, an environmental root cause seems much more likely than a problem that has a defect in Money as root cause. Or there may be some user habit that Money just doesn't like. For instance, some users apparently panic every time they see the hourglass for more than a second or two or see 100% CPU usage by Money, like that's a bad thing by definition, and terminate the application. These cases are much harder for the newsgroup to help with. The environmental causes are even less well understood. The causes likely include DLL conflicts, driver problems, video settings, BIOS settings/problems, IE installation problems, and so forth. Finding these types of problems can certainly be very difficult, but if you are having recurring corruption problems you should pursue these issues rather than just depending on the repair tools to save your data. They may not always be able to do so. Is Money unusually prone to corrupting its own data files? (Compared to what?) Maybe. Who knows? Are later versions more prone to corrupting their own data files than earlier versions? Generally, versions from M98 forward seem worse than prior versions and versions since M98 seem to be improving, based solely on postings in the newsgroup. But then each version also seems to introduce a new problem like the "damaged scheduled items" in M02. Money may well be unusually prone to environmental problems. It is a poster child for bleeding edge Microsoft development techniques like COM, DHTML, XML, and so on. Remember also that the workhorse tools in the whole house of cards are not even developed by the Money group: MSISAM and IE. Money just bolts some business logic and a UI on top of all of this. For this reason, it is likely very exposed to all of the issues with object contamination by other applications and DLL conflicts and so on. Even flushing Internet temporary items from the IE cache has made strange Money problems disappear. Go figure. It is amazing that after all these years, Money still detects these problems (that's where messages like "operation cannot be performed" are coming from) but does nothing to resolve them. You'd think that the Money designers would have figured out how to put code at the places where these messages are generated to do something more helpful than just tell us what Money cannot do, leaving us to figure out what it all means and what to do about it. What should a user do about corruption problems going forward? Well, recommendation #1 would be to make sure you have a backup strategy that assures you have multiple generations of backup, are not depending on any one type of backup media, and that your backups really are. Restoring from your last weekly backup and re-entering three or four days of transactions is probably easier than most any technique for repair described here. Finally, some users who have been here, done this, decide to start regularly using the repair tools as a prophylactic against future file corruption. There is no evidence that this is an effective strategy. Worse, there is significant anecdotal evidence that the repair tools can emit meaningless messages about problems in your data file when there are absolutely no other indications of any problem. Given how little we know about these tools and how little is documented and how little we know about what they are designed to do/fix and how rigorously they are tested and so on (why I refer to them as voodoo tools), this fixation may be misplaced. Some people have reported more problems after using these tools than before. There is no reason to believe these tools are tested anywhere near as rigorously as the application is. Using them "just in case" seems like a profoundly bad idea. Thanks to Bonnie Synhorst for contributing the bulk of the answer here and the inspiration for getting it in the FAQ. The good parts are hers--the bad parts I probably edited in. The first person opinions are definitely mine. References: Q6): Money appears to hang when I enter transactions. Why? A6): Many reports of "hanging" on entry have turned out to be reports of poor performance. Money may spend minutes doing whatever it does after entering a transaction. If you have waited a LONG time--this may be five minutes or more depending on your environment--and Money is not doing anything and is not using CPU (this is easy to tell on WinNT, 2000, and on XP) then you have a different problem. See "Why is Money so slow?" for more information on performance problems. Q7): Money says "This operation cannot be completed." What's up with that? A7): Money may also say "This operation cannot be performed." These messages are most likely related to internal database problems and/or problems related to specific scheduled transactions. For the former, your best bet is to pursue the Money data file repair tools msmoney -s or salv.exe. (Also, see the question "What is the -s option? What is the Super Salvage utility?") Read more about these tools in the MSKB. Be sure you have backups that really are before going down this path and/or work on a copy of your file. In the latter case, try deleting and re-entering the scheduled transaction. Thanks to Derrick Cole for this answer. See also "I think my file has been corrupted. How do I tell? What do I do then?" References: Q8): Money says "This transaction cannot be entered." What's up with that? A8): Try the steps outlined in the MSKB identified by Cal Learner--MVP. See also "I think my file has been corrupted. How do I tell? What do I do then?" References: Q9): My scheduled bill (deposit, transfer, etc.) just morphed from a normal split into a Paycheck. What's up with that? [Relevant to Money2003 (v.11) and up] A9): Who knows? This is a little present the Money developers left behind. If you Cancel the first time you see this, it might be right the next time you edit the series or a specified occurrence. If not, you will have no choice but to delete the item and recreate it. Maybe this "feature" will be "improved" in the next version? Derived from an answer provided by Derrick Cole. Q10): Why do I get a disk space error installing Money 2002? I have gigabytes of free disk space. [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10)] A10): If you get a message like "Microsoft Money 2002 cannot be installed. Please make sure you have 4,095Mb free on drive C: and try to install again" when trying to install Money 2002, read the referenced MSKB--the error message is misleading but there is a workaround. Reference courtesy of Glyn Simpson, Microsoft MVP - Money References: Q11): Why do I get the "incompatible versions" message when upgrading my data file? A11): This problem arises from trying to convert a file from one localized version (say Money UK) to another (say Money US.) The workaround it to export accounts using QIF and re-import them. The fix is to obtain a newer localized version for the same country as your original data file. Answer courtesy of Glyn Simpson, Microsoft MVP - Money, and Cal Learner References: [Relevant to Money2001 (v.9) and up] A12): There have been a number of design changes in Money over the years and many of them have had negative impacts on performance. M98 changed from a purpose-built database and user interface to IE rendering the UI and Jet as the underlying database. These changes freed the development team to add features galore but they had negative impact on performance and file size. Money 2001 and up have a number of features that run continuously and seem to affect performance. Debt Reduction Planner and Budgeting seem to be offenders. One way to improve performance in these versions is to turn off the personalized register feedback. (This is at Tools|Options|Feedback|Personalized Feedback Options|Do not display personalized feedback.) Poor performance in Money 2001 and up does not seem to affect everyone and, in the worst cases, is clearly not a problem with resources. People have tried any number of things: 1) salvaging the file; see the MSKB for details There may be several components to this issue including slow performance as a consequence of design choice (i.e., they didn't design it to be faster.) There have been discussions that some of this issue is attributed to some lurking bug. The good news on this front is that M03 appears to be no slower in any case than M02. Many users perceive it to be slightly faster in general and a lot faster in certain areas like entering the Budget Planner. A few users report perceiving it to be much faster overall. YMMV. The FAQ used to say "it is not clear that Microsoft views this as a bug or an issue or a problem worth fixing." They complained and said they "do take performance problems very seriously [and] devote time and energy to improving performance." It is unclear whether they take performance more or less seriously than, say, adding features like Frequent Flier Mileage tracking. Clearly performance is a much harder problem to solve; and the results from the time and energy they spend on performance are here for us all to judge. References: Q1): What does the envelope with the lightning mean on a scheduled payment? A1): It means the transaction is setup as an Epay. LisaLisa (the Money marketing manager) got a page put up to decode many Money icons. You might want to refer to it. References: Q2): What does the lightning bolt next to the account name mean? A2): It means that Money knows something about doing electronic data interchange with the financial institution you named for this account. Q3): What is the "bleeding envelope" icon in the register? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10) and up] A3): This icon indicates that Money thinks this transaction is a candidate for being added as a recurring scheduled transaction. If you click (double click?) on it, a dialog will pop-up allowing you to enter it as a recurring scheduled transaction or you can tell Money to quit bugging you about it. Check "potential recurring transactions" in Help. Thanks to Cal Learner for the Help file topic reference. It turns out the bleeding dagger is really a question mark. LisaLisa (the Money marketing manager) got a page put up to decode many Money icons. You might want to refer to it. References: Q1): I can't find where to download Money updates on the Microsoft web site. Why not? A1): Microsoft hasn't provided Money fixes on their web site for any version of Money still supported. The updates that are available will be downloaded when you do an "Internet Update." [What's in the updates, how do you tell if you've got the most recent update, and similar questions all deserve answers that we don't have.] Q2): Is Money better than Quicken? A2): Many of us here prefer Money to Quicken. Some of us started using Money after having used Quicken. Your mileage may vary. Q3): Is there/when will there be a Mac version of Microsoft Money? A3): This is much less frequently asked than it used to be. It is not clear what can be inferred from that. Nobody here is aware of any Microsoft plans for Money for the Mac. If they were, they couldn't say anyway. Money has been on the Windows platform for more than ten years now. It seems that Microsoft would have done Money for the Mac long ago if they thought they could make a decent return by doing so. The barriers are pretty high given Money's dependence on Microsoft core technologies like COM, IE, and MSISAM, none of which exist in the same form or at all on the Mac. And it's not as if Macs have become more popular or common over the years, "switchers" like Ellen notwithstanding. Q4): What's the difference between the various Money packages? Between M03 and previous versions? What's new in M03? A4): The Microsoft Money web site has a page that compares the features included in the various packages. There is another page that highlights what has changed with each version of Money from M99 through M02. Finally, there is one that summarizes what's new in M02. Check them out. Answers courtesy Richard Bollar - MVP Microsoft Money and Kim Renna, Microsoft MVP - CSO Consumer References: Q5): When will the next version of Money release? What will it do? A5): Anybody reading the newsgroup who knows has likely signed a non-disclosure agreement and cannot say. If the past is any guide to the future, the next version of Money will be available starting in August. Microsoft's press release announcing the product will use the word "great" a dozen or more times. It will have some features that will be really cool to some people. It will have some features that will be minor improvements to lots of people. It will fix some of the worst issues created with the last version. It will create some new issues of its own. It will have many minor changes that are annoying and unnecessary to long time users, added in the name of "ease of use" but mostly just serving to dumb the product down further. It will have more hooks to other services that Microsoft hopes we will use and that Microsoft hopes will produce ever more vigorish. It will incorporate any really neat features Quicken incorporated last year if those features generated much "buzz" amongst reviewers or by the Intuit marketeers. Quicken will release a new version about the same time. Magazine reviewers will like each product about equally. They will not mention any of the major issues since they will not have used the product enough to find them. A rebate will be available to all purchasers having the effect of reducing the average sell price to less than some people will pay and more than others would have paid at the cost of a hassle for those of us in the latter category. If the past is any guide to the future, that is. Conversion, Programmability, External interfaces Q1): Can Money import my Quicken data? How about my current version Quicken data? A1): Money has provided Quicken conversion tools in all recent versions of Money. These converters have supported import of the "previous" version of Quicken and older versions. Since Quicken changes their file format every year and Microsoft and Intuit release about the same time each year, Microsoft cannot provide a converter for the current version of Quicken in the box with the current version of Money. They have generally released a converter to get from the current version of Quicken to the current version of Money in late spring, though M02 never had a converter for Q02. What they will do in the future, nobody here can say. Check the Money web site. It could be worse. Since Quicken has so much market share and Money so little, the last time Quicken bothered offering a converter to import Money data was in Q99 to convert M98 files. Previously, I was unaware that it had ever happened, this correction is courtesy of Russ Paul-Jones. References: Q2): How do I access the Money API (OLE, XML, ODBC, object model, Jet database, MSISAM database, etc)? A2): Any external programmatic interfaces for Money are undocumented, unsupported, and without any promise of retention in the future. Certain ISVs (Ultrasoft and Kiplinger/H&R Block come to mind) have implemented programmatic interfaces to Money, presumably with help from Microsoft. Try contacting Microsoft directly. Let us know how this works. Money does support OFC/OFX for interchange with financial institutions. (E.g., statement download, EPAY.) If this is what you want to do, refer to the Microsoft Partner, Microsoft Active Statements Interface, and Open Financial Exchange links. Thanks to Cal Learner for the OFC/OFX interface info. References: Q3): How do I export to Excel (or .TXT, .XML, .CSV)? A3): There are several approaches to exporting data. None of them solve all problems. Money has always supported "export to QIF." QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) is documented and an Excel Macro exist to write to this format. You could extrapolate from this macro how to go the other way. Money reports can be copied to the clipboard. They can then be pasted as plain text into Excel cells. Money 2002 added some enhanced capabilities in this regard with a direct "Export to Microsoft Excel" that writes .CSV files. (Obviously, there is nothing unique to Excel about .CSV files.) They can also be exported to a tab-delimited .TXT file from the "Export..." r-click menu on the report. Money 2003 added a choice to export reports as "Send to Desktop." This writes .CSV, .TXT, and .XML files to you desktop with the report data. Finally, there is the MoneyLink Excel add-in. This add-in provides a number of queries (e.g., account transactions for specified account for specified date range) that can retrieve data from your Money data file into Excel. It's a one-way trip only. Money-version-specific versions of the add-in are available for Money 98 through Money 2003. The MoneyLink add-in was a download for Money 98. Then it was included on the CD with Money 99 and Money 2000. With Money 2001, Microsoft thought nobody would notice if they removed it. After a great upheaval on the newsgroup and on the support lines, they relented and made MoneyLink available on the web. Beginning with Money 2002, they have left it off the CD. For Money 2002 and 2003, it is available, for free, from Ultrasoft. What transfer of responsibility for this tool from Microsoft to Ultrasoft means for its future, no one can say. Thanks to Myrna Larson for the tab-delimited export method. As of March 8, 2003, the links for the M98 and M02 download are broken. This is probably a bad sign if you need these tools and don't already have them. References: Q4): How do I import from Excel (or .CSV or etc.)? A4): Money can only import QIF format data (or entire Quicken 2002 or earlier files). Once upon a time, Microsoft provided an Excel macro that wrote .QIF format files from Excel. Unfortunately, that macro is an old XLM style macro and that type of macro has not been supported by Excel for many versions now. Microsoft has never seen fit to issue any new capability like this. As of this writing, it appears that even the Knowledge Base article has been disappeared. Having said that, it is worth noting that QIF is just a text file with a format that is not, apparently, all that complex. It should be reasonably straightforward for someone used to mucking around in VBA for Excel to write code to generate passable QIF files. The QIF file format is an ad hoc standard semi-documented by Quicken. The references, all identified from a search at google, may help you get there. There were many more references that were not included here and these references may not be good currently. If you create some code for this, please report back here and offer it up to the community. One reader, Didier Lachièze, has done just that. Several readers have reported good results with Didier's macro. Didier has also developed a web page that provides resource links to other similar tools. Another reader, Ron Rosenfeld, reported on a shareware CSV to QIF converter written by James Lavery of Monthtwo Systems. There has been no other feedback on this tool. (These things must be really popular lately.) There's another one written by a guy named John. No user reports on it yet, either. Chris Cowles reported yet another CSV to QIF converter--built to go with a personal finance manager application for Palm, the web site for which provides yet another spin on QIF documentation. References: Q1): How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers? A1): Remember that everybody who replies here is doing so voluntarily. 1) Make your subject meaningful. "Money problem" isn't. "M02: how do I setup my stock options?" is. Somebody who knows how to do the latter might read your post and answer. Many of us won't even look at the former. 2) Don't whine. Oh, and DON'T SHOUT. 3) Provide sufficient environment information. As a minimum, this always includes the version of Money. Many times this also includes the operating system. If you are having problems printing, tell us the kind of printer. 4) Describe what you are trying to do, what is happening, and what you have attempted to do about it. 5) Please use the same terminology for things that the help file and the screens and the printed documentation uses. Some questions don't get answered because none of us can figure out what you are talking about. 6) Please state your question. "I want to track savings bonds." is a poor question. "Should I enter my savings bonds in Money or just track them in Savings Bond Wizard?" is better. "When I entered my savings bonds the way Money told me to, it seems there is no good way to track their value. Is there a better way than making them CDs?" is likely to get some meaningful responses. All too often people post things like "Subject: Money crashes. When I installed Money it crashes." and expect help. This will get nowhere. It's not even a question and it provides insufficient information about environment and an insufficient description of the problem. 7) Don't expect miracles. The newsgroup is very good for "how-to" and usage case information. It is less useful, generally, for non-pervasive application crashes, installation problems, and so forth. If your installation of Money v. 4 on your WindowsXP dual-Athlon system stopped working after you installed the Mk. XVII VideoBlaster unless your modem is disconnected and you are simultaneously running Laura Croft Chases World Terrorism, you are unlikely to get help here. You likely have a unique configuration and problem that nobody else in the world shares. The fact that nobody here replies means nobody has a clue, not that nobody cares. 8) Don't post the same thing multiple times thinking it increases your chances of getting a reply. It doesn't. Quite the opposite. 9) Finally, remember why you posted and remember that Money is what it is. When you want to rant about how a feature works or doesn't work for you, we can suggest workarounds or offer alternative ways to solve your problem, but we can't change the product. Ranting at us about why the product should be changed and ignoring our suggested workarounds and solutions won't encourage people to try and help you in the future. Q2): I've been using M95 on Win95 happily for years now. All of a sudden I have a problem. Why can't anybody here help? A2): Unfortunately, the world and most of us here have moved on. While we'd like to help, many of us here haven't used this combination (or others that may be slightly newer like M98 on Win98) literally for years. It is an unfortunate fact of life that personal computer hardware and software technology has advanced very rapidly, one in lockstep with the other. While you may find your environment just fine for your needs it is nonetheless as functionally obsolete as a DC-3 or a 1932 Packard. The good news is that new Money licenses are very inexpensive--watch the sales; $40 or less, before rebate, is very common in the Sunday ads--and new versions import the data files from all old Money versions for the same locale, generally with a minimum of complications. Of course, the new version of Money probably won't work on your old hardware. Again there's a bit of good news among the bad: many inexpensive new PCs include OEM Money licenses. Q3): Where else can I go for help? A3): First, use the resources Microsoft provides with the product. On-line help has always been provided with Money and the amount and richness of this information has improved with every version of Money. Money 2002 comes with audio and video help, the traditional help file, the on-line Money user's guide, links to Microsoft resources on the web, the "Managing Your Finances…" book, and help for former Quicken users. Money 2003 omits the book in favor of a book of ads. (Not many people read the old book. It's hard to imagine the ads will be more effective at reaching Money users.) Many of the "how-to" questions posed in the newsgroup are answered in on-line help. There is this newsgroup. The Microsoft news server has several months of this group available. Repeatedly "get more headers" until you have all of the messages and search from there. See "How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?" for advice about posting to the newsgroup. If newsreaders make you uncomfortable or your proxy server blocks NNTP, there is also a web interface to the newsgroup. groups.google.com has years worth of posting from this news group and a very sophisticated search capability. Select Advanced Groups Search and enter "microsoft.public.money" in the newsgroup field. There is a Yahoo! group on the subject, though it seems to have very little traffic and it does post a public membership directory, which may put you off. The Microsoft Knowledge Base has lots of "how-to" answers and some--but by no means all--of the bugs and issues Microsoft knows about. Glyn Simpson also has one--it has some unique items tailored to the UK version of Money along with much else. There are many books available for users of Microsoft Money. No endorsements are offered. Opening a support incident with Microsoft Support may be the only possible solution to many installation, setup, crash and data file corruption issues. But remember, you bought the program for less than $100--in some cases a LOT less--and they will not fly programmers to your house to debug your problems. References: Q4): Why doesn't Microsoft issue a fix for this terrible problem immediately? A4): The only Money problems Microsoft has ever remedied prior to the next release are high-impact, pervasive problems that are not usage or "how-to" in nature. High-impact in this context typically has meant those that result in display of incorrect balance information or the application abnormally ending in common circumstances. Problems with reporting and the finance management tools (budgeting, cash flow forecasting, debt reduction planner, etc.) have typically not been fixed prior to the next release which has typically fixed some and added others. Pervasive in this context has typically meant that the problem was likely to be visible to a majority of all Money users--not just those who read the newsgroup. They do this because they do not want to undertake major rework of the code on the fly due to concern about regression problems, they don't want to change how the product works--even when we don't like it working that way, and because they have limited resources for working on the code itself and most of these resources are dedicated to working on future versions. Q5): Why won't anybody answer my question posted here? A5): See the answer to "How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?" Q6): Why won't Microsoft Support answer my question posted here? A6): This newsgroup is not a Microsoft-to-user support vehicle. It is for user-to-user support. Some Microsoft folks monitor this out of personal and, occasionally, professional, interest. They are not here--indeed, this forum is not here--to provide support from Microsoft to you. Try contacting Microsoft Support more directly. References: Q7): Why won't the MVPs answer my question posted here? A7): The MVPs are all unpaid volunteers with real day jobs who give their time and talent to try and help where they can. Perhaps they're busy. Perhaps they don't know how to help. See "How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?" for general advice on making your posting more likely to get help. Whining, begging and complaining that the MVPs haven't solved your problem is unlikely to help you solve your problem even if it does make you feel better. Worse, such behavior may get your name in their kill file so that your future postings will be invisible to them. Q1): Back to the check stock question: Isn't it obvious that Money should print the MICR data? A1): No, actually, it isn't. Money assumes you are using pre-printed check stock. The pre-printed check stock has bank, payer name/address, check number, and the MICR stripe. Money doesn't print this stuff because, at least for the MICR stripe, very, very few (if any) Money users are equipped to print this stuff in ways that conform to the requirements for these features. Yes, you can print checks with VersaCheck, etc., that "look" right and, at most banks that use optical instead of magnetic equipment, work acceptably. You may also find that those that aren't using optical equipment are within their power to reject the check and they will certainly have problems with them even if they don't reject them. These problems may delay payments, etc. Despite whether they "work" or not, they still don't meet specifications and standards for such things. For one discussion of the special toner requirements from somebody in the MICR font business, see the MICRfonts page. VersaCheck stays below this radar by being small and selling MICR toner cartridges for those users who care to do it right. If mass market software like Money from a company of the profile of Microsoft enabled lots of ignorant or devious (or cheap) people to ignore the FRB requirements for such things, you can bet they'd hear about it. They call this type of activity "aiding and abetting." Money is now common enough that most any company that prints check stock can print in the formats Money expects. This competition has brought the prices down to the point where the pre-printed stock is always a better choice than any of the other ways to do this. References: Q2): How do I change the category groups? A2): You can't, quite. Category groups are used internally by Money. You can create new categories and subcategories, or use classifications, but the 'category groups' cannot be changed. There are, however, a variant set of groupings, called Budget Groups, derived from the default Category Groups and associated with each budget. These **can** be modified, deleted, or supplemented in M02 and beyond. To do this, when editing the budget, use the context (R-click) menus on the budget group labels or select New to add a Budget Group. (Note that some of the Budget Groups, like Debt, cannot be modified.) These Budget Groups are not reflected back to the Category Groups that can be assigned to each category and subcategory from category details, and, being attributes of each budget, they are deleted when a budget is deleted or reset. (To my shame, I went over a year without knowing this could be done until another poster, Carl Draus, pointed it out. This capability is pretty well hidden.) So, this leaves the immutable Category Groups which must be used somewhere else in Money. We will award the newsgroup post of the month award to the first poster who can identify two or more remaining uses for these Category Groups besides their being the defaults for the Budget Groups. Honorary mention for even one other use of any consequence. These things are truly cryptic. Given this, there seems no point in fretting about modifying the default Category Groups, even if it were possible. Q3): How do I convert my data back to a previous version of Money? I upgraded and now I wish I hadn't. A3): In general, you don't. For this reason, any Money version upgrade should be done with this in mind. If you are reading the newsgroup in a panic because you just now realized that you made a mistake deciding to upgrade months ago you will be disappointed. You may want to consider maintaining your data in both your current and new version simultaneously for some period before committing to the new version. All of these issues are explained in excruciating detail in the screens that led you through this process. When you first open your data file with a newer version of Money, it saved a copy of your old file--with a renamed file extension of the form .mnx, where x is the version number of Money that the file came from up until Money2003, or, for a Money 2002 file save by Money 2003, .M10. You can go back to this file--with the old version of the application--and enter transactions that have occurred since you converted. You can do this by manual means (print a report and re-key the stuff in) or by exporting the accounts via QIF before uninstalling the never version. Once exported, you can edit them in Notepad or similar to remove the transactions that were in the original file before importing the files into the old file. For more information, see the MSKB article on reverting a data file to a previous version. References: Q4): How do I do batch submittals of Epays? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10)] A4): You don't. Money 2002 took away this capability since Microsoft thought it caused problems for some users. Possibly based on feedback here and on the support lines, this capability returned in Money 2003 as the "new feature" called Bills Outbox. Q5): How do I schedule a bill to recur every six weeks/third year/fourth Wednesday of the month? A5): Sorry, you can't get there from here. What you see is what Money can schedule. One of the greatest single weaknesses of Money--and one of the easiest to fix if they only chose to--is that the recurrence model is pathetic. Outlook provides a great example of how this should work. But the Money designers don't seem to care. The only workaround (that really doesn't work very well) is if you frequency is something that is a nice factor of one of the frequencies provided: for instance, six weeks can be faked, almost, by two identical "every three months" transactions set six weeks apart. Like I said, this really doesn't work very well. Q6): I just moved my Money file to a new computer. All of a sudden Money wants a password. Why? A6): You need to make sure that the version of Money on the new machine is the same or higher version. If not, this is the bizarre way Money elects to tell you that Money files are not backward compatible to older versions. Q7): I think open source software is pants! Why won't Microsoft release the Money source code under the GPL? A7): Because they want to make money by developing software and using that software to vector us all to other things that generate revenue for them as well. You might want to check out GnuCash. Please report your findings/experiences back here. Q8): I think Quicken is pants! (Or, Quicken has some neat feature Money doesn't.) Why don't you all change to Quicken? A8): If you would prefer to use Quicken, by all means, be our guest. Send specific feature feedback to MSWish or via the Money Registration/Feedback pages. References: Q9): I think this new version is terrible. How do I exercise the 30-day Money Back privilege? A9): Assuming that you are in the United States or Canada, call Microsoft Customer Service at (800) 426-9400. You will have to send the product back to them with additional information (like a receipt for purchase and the reason for return) and they will send you a check. Microsoft has a web page with more details on this process. References: Q10): I tried the (M03) trial version and didn't like it. Now (M2K) wants a password to open my file. What gives? A10): Didn't you read the screens that popped up when it upgraded your file to M03 telling you that you could not reopen an upgraded file back in your original version? That's what they put them there for, it turns out. The password message you are getting from M2K when trying to open your M03 data file really has nothing to do with you setting a password on it--it's just a lousy message meaning Money data files are not backward compatible. You will need to go find your old file that the upgrade procedure left behind. The screens told you all about this, too. It'll be in the same directory as your [whatever].MNY file--which you can rename [whatever].M11 or just delete--and will be named [whatever].MN8 (if I remember my version numbers correctly). Rename it to [whatever].MNY and double-click on it (assuming you've uninstalled M03 and reinstalled M2K) and you should be right back where you were before you started messing with M03. See also the answer to the question "How do I convert my data back to a previous version of Money? I upgraded and now I wish I hadn't." Q11): I'm having problems with Money. Should I reinstall the application? A11): You can certainly try that. In most cases it does nothing to fix your problem though it may make you feel better. Before you spend the time, you might want to try opening the sample data file that installed with the application. If it opens and works fine, then your problem probably has origins in your data file, not the application's program files. Q12): I've been reading this newsgroup and wondering: why is Money so full of bugs? A12): Looking at posts in this newsgroup should no more be used to infer the defect rate in Microsoft Money than a trip to a auto body shop should be used to infer the likelihood of automobile accidents. People come here because they need help or because they are looking for different or better ways to do things. Many Money users (who may or may not have similar issues) never find their way here. Some of them may be having problems. Most of them are not. You can reasonably expect that issues that are discussed here frequently may be issues for you as well. Likewise, many posts here about crashes, data file problems, and installation issues reflect issues that are not common--many are not even rooted in Money--and you are unlikely to encounter them. (You may, however, encounter your own set of issues. As always, your mileage may vary.) Many of us have used Money for many years and many versions and have learned to live with its characteristics and deal with the new set of cards the Money development team deals each fall. Q13): I've got a really neato feature idea. How do I get it to Microsoft? A13): You can submit product suggestions to MSwish or via the Money Registration/Feedback series of web pages which seem endless but probably give them a better chance to get the item to the right place. The corollary to this FAQ is: how come M[next] didn't incorporate the really neato feature I've always thought it should? This is a problem area for many of us. Generally each fall there is a period after the release of the annual update when we all get a little crazy here comparing what we'd hoped for in the new release with what Microsoft delivered. The Money team has occasionally been upset with us here because they are really proud of their new baby and many here fail to share their elation. There are a lot of unfortunate dynamics at work here. Microsoft wants to a) increase market share vs. Quicken, b) reduce their support costs, c) make the program ever more accessible to late adopters, d) leverage Money to get more business directed to their own ventures and to their partners (preferably ongoing metered relationships where they can send us bills each month instead of having to hope we spring for the upgrade next fall--above all, Microsoft has extreme AOL-envy), e) make some return on their investment in Money development. Since the largest single variable cost they have is Support, the only way to reduce that cost is, unfortunately, to dumb down the product over time. Further, all of the eager adopters--the people who will read the Help and try different things and who are generally self-selected to be likely to have success with the product--are already using it. As the market continues to mature, each new adopter will be harder to get and will be less likely to understand the product as it is. They also feel the need to match Quicken feature-for-feature, get the magazine review points (none of the reviewers, apparently, make serious use of either product) and earn a place with OEM licensees for installation on new machines. The hardware manufacturers probably dislike support costs even more than Microsoft and they bear support costs for the OEM licenses. All of these factors work against incorporation of the sophisticated features many of us here would like to see in the product. People say "I'd buy the upgrade if only they would put feature X in," but it doesn't matter. Many of us buy the upgrades essentially every year. We pay so little for them that Microsoft makes next to nothing off these sales. Worse, the numbers are probably small in comparison to the OEM license volume anyway. Finally, remember that your cool feature may be my major annoyance. These are probably the kinds of factors that the Money development team is balancing as they decide what direction to take the product. References: Q14): What happened to "Updated"/~/multiple recurrences/multi-select balance and enter on my scheduled transactions? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10)] A14): M02 completely redesigned the scheduled transactions implementation and interface. Before M02, there was the estimated tilde (~), the "updated" status message for a changed next occurrence, the ability to see all bills in a series for time X not just the next occurrence of each series, and the ability to multi-select transactions and see a projected balance after these transactions or enter them all into the register. M02 brought us the ability to change any of the next twelve future instances of a repeated scheduled transaction series. M03 came along and added back the estimated tilde and multi-select projected balance but did nothing to show more than one future instance of any recurring transaction for some window of time, the updated status of individual scheduled items, or allow multi-select enter. You can see multiple occurrences of scheduled items over time using "Forecast cash flow." Q15): Why can't I schedule a Loan Payment with pre-assigned classification? A15): Only the Money development team knows for sure. It's always been this way. When you enter the transaction in a register, or once it is entered, you can classify the split transactions in a Loan Payment. You just can't schedule it this way. Q16): Why do I have to use Passport authentication with Money? [Relevant to Money2002 (v.10) and up] A16): You don't. Use of Passport authentication with Money is only required for certain features. (See "What if I don't want to use Money with Passport authentication?") Passport has been required for use of the "Money data on the web" feature since that feature was first offered in Money 2000 (? when was this first offered?) Its use was expanded with Money 2002. It is now required for "background banking." As of Money 2002, Passport authentication enables password recovery for continued access to your data file via the Passport methods for password maintenance--a much better method for password recovery, if you insist on using file access authentication. Passport authentication is also required for Money to do online activity in the background. It is likely that there are other reasons why Microsoft is trying to encourage Money users to use Passport. Passport may be more important in future versions of Money than it is now. If you or Microsoft have connectivity or service problems with Passport authentication, it can complicate access to your data. Q17): Why does Money install insist on installing Internet Explorer? I despise Internet Explorer… A17): Microsoft has used Internet Explorer (IE) components to implement the user interface for Money versions starting with Money 98. Without IE, Money will not function. This in no way means that you have to abandon your web browser of choice. Browse the web using whatever you want. But install IE if you want Money to work. This newsgroup is not the place for discussions about web browser politics. Q18): Why don't budgeting, cash flow projection and debt reduction planner produce sane results? A18): There could be a number of factors here: 1) Budget picks up some value from DRP and declares it in your budget. The value from DRP is calculated who knows how, but it can be off-the-wall sometimes. Q19): Why is my Money file so large? [Relevant to Money98 (v.6) and up] A19): Money files have grown in size dramatically since early versions. The reasons for this are no doubt complex and numerous. Added functionality certainly accounts for some of this increase. Design choices accounts for some of this--in particular, the choice to use the Jet database instead of the custom ISAM, made with release of Money 98, increased file sizes by factors of three or more. (Certainly, those of us who follow this also continue to collect data each year.) Whether its storage is efficient or economical is beyond the scope of the newsgroup. We see no evidence that Microsoft considers compact Money data files a priority in the design process. Archiving is one way to reduce file size. See "How do I un-archive?" for reasons not to do this. Some files imported from Quicken have been reported to be huge. Jet- and MSISAM-based versions of Money support periodic or as-required compacting of the database. Salvage (see "What is the -s option? What is the Super Salvage utility?") has been reported to help some cases of this. The wide availability of huge hard disks and writeable CDs has reduced the significance of this problem over time. (My Money 2003 file has had continuous data entry since March, 1993, and has never had entries archived. As of April, 2003, MoneyLink retrieves almost 27,000 transactions and over 3,700 investment transactions. The file is almost 40 MB and backs up, compressed, on seven 1.44 MB floppies. Your mileage probably varies.) Q20): You must help me! My only floppy backup has a data error reading. What do I do? A20): If you are dependent on restoring a Money data file from floppies and are getting a message like "cannot read from the specified device," there is nothing anybody here can do to help you. It's really sad how many people show up at the newsgroup with this story because they were depending on a $0.10 floppy to hold one of their most important data files. Error messages stating that the system cannot read from the specified device are typically due to poor quality media (what do you really expect when you buy white box diskettes for $0.10 apiece?), media damage (scratches from dirty floppy drives or worn out diskettes), or media interchange problems (writing floppy drive out of alignment one direction and different reading drive out of alignment the other direction). Other things like CRT proximity to floppy drives can cause transient problems--though this doesn't happen much anymore. Morals of story: #1) Always test backups to be sure they really are. #2) Never depend on just one backup or form of backup as your only backup. #3) Bad Money files can produce bad backups--so have multiple generations of backup. #4) Never trust floppy drives and diskettes. Corollary: the less you use the floppy drives, the more likely you are to have problems with data errors. They get dirty and the dirt chews up diskettes. Corollary 2: using diskettes cleans the drives by ruining the diskette. My Money data is **far and away** my most important data file. It gets backed up over the net to a second system on every exit. Once a week it gets backed up to floppies and a) copied to another system, b) copied to an MO drive on primary, c) copied from the second system backup file to a Jaz drive on primary system, and d) copied to a MemoryStick on the laptop. Every time I do anything major I make a copy before doing it and keep it around until the next time I do something radical. This way if a problem creeps in and doesn't get noticed for a while, I can go further back than one week. Think all that's anal? Every time I go to the safe deposit box (twice a year minimum) I take either or both of a Jaz cartridge and an 8cm CD-RW or CD-R with a copy of the Money data file as a minimum. On top of all that, after my most recent problem with corruption, which occurred on the day of the weekly backup and also corrupted the "on-exit" backup, I wrote a script which I run as a scheduled task every night that maintains a weekly cycle of rotating daily backup copies on the primary system. YMMV. But consider yourself advised. |
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