Both Financial Times (FT) and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) cover business news. I like FT better. Let me explain why using last Friday’s papers as an example.

Fewer pages. Friday’s FT had 22 pages in two sections; WSJ had 46 pages in four sections. FT had one full ad page and two pages of market data; WSJ had six full ad pages and four pages of market data and legal notice. FT is more concentrated, with less fluff. 22 pages are plenty to go through already.

Tighter business focus. FT is tightly centered around business news, whereas WSJ also goes more into general news. Compare the front page headlines in last Friday’s papers:

FT:

• Surpirse slowdown in credit card losses
• SEC pledges more high-profile actions
• Banks sell switch to renminbi payments for trade with China

WSJ:

• Tech Titans in Bidding War [HP and Dell bid for 3Par]
• Iraqis Face Uncertain Future As U.S. Ends Combat Mission
• Canada Thwarts Bombing Attempt

For a business newspaper, FT’s headlines are more on topic.

More international coverage. FT’s headquarters is in London. The paper it distributes here is the US edition. It has more coverage for international business news. Compare the front page headlines in the corporate news section in last Friday’s papers:

FT (Companies & Markets section):

• HP fires fresh 3Par bid salvo
• BHP faces potash cartel backlash
• Glencore plans to list gold unit in move that could value it at $5bn [Glencore is a commodities company in Switzerland]

WSJ (Marketplace section):

• J&J’s Latest Recall: Hip-Repair Implants
• American Will Fight Record FAA Fine
• Nestlé Plans Ground Attack Over Coffee Beans
• Buyers Circle Net Security Company [ArcSight Inc in California]

WSJ feels like a home paper for Americans. FT has a lot more international coverage. It bills itself as a "World Business Newspaper."

No sob stories. FT is straight economic and corporate news. WSJ often includes stories with a personal connection, like the story about the parents still having to pay a deceased child’s student loan (because the parents are co-signers), or this story about consumers’ outrage against credit card companies for cutting their credit lines. I’m so glad Frank at Bad Money Advice came back from his short hiatus so I don’t have to raise my hand every time. I have a weak point for sob stories.

No page jumps. I hate reading half of a story and then told to go to page A14. WSJ does that a lot; FT doesn’t do it at all. FT does point to a related article at the end some articles, but the related article is a completely stand-alone article, not a continuation of another article. All articles on FT finish on the same page where they started unless a long article can’t fit the whole page.

Less expensive. The best deal to get either FT or WSJ is by using airline miles. For FT, it’s 2,000 miles for 305 issues (one year). At a value of 2 cents per mile, it’s only $40/year. You can use American, Delta, or United miles. WSJ subscription is 2,100 United miles for 254 issues or 2,100 American miles for 190 issues. You get a longer subscription with FT for about the same number of miles.

After working all day staring at a computer, I prefer reading a physical newspaper. Higher quality at lower cost — that’s why I like FT better than WSJ.

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Harry Markopolos is the guy who sounded the alarm on Bernie Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme. He submitted detailed evidence to the SEC several times over ten years, only to be ignored and deemed "not credible." After SEC finally conducted an investigation, they only asked Madoff to file some papers and register as an investment advisor. Madoff became more legit than he was ever before. He was able to claim he was examined and cleared by the SEC.

The most astonishing part of the story is that Madoff didn’t execute any trades in all those years. If only the SEC asked for trade tickets and double checked with the parties on the other side of the trade, the whole scheme could’ve been revealed very easily. SEC’s failure is bureaucracy and incompetence of the epic proportion.

Although the main story line is already well publicized in the press, the book provides a lot more details of the author’s saga with the SEC. I always prefer first-person accounts to third-person narration. Markopolos did a very good job. I gained a lot of respect for him, both for his intelligence and for his courage. You can watch his interview with 60 Minutes in these two videos.

From the book and the interview, I can tell Markopolos is mad at the SEC, and he ought to be. The entire book can be seen as a case study for how regulations based primarily on documentary compliance didn’t work. Such non-regulation gives investors a false sense of protection. It’s worse than no regulation.

After the Madoff fiasco, the SEC Office of Inspector General did a post-mortem and issued a 477-page report Investigation of Failure of the SEC To Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. I read the 22-page Executive Summary. It corroborated with what Markopolos raised in the book.

[Except a review copy from the publisher's PR firm, I received no monetary compensation for this review. Links to Amazon.com are affiliate links. Amazon pays me 4% - 6.5% if you make a purchase within 24 hours.]

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The best way to get tax questions answered is of course asking a real CPA. I realize not everybody can afford a real CPA so they ask an amateur on the Internet. The next best way to get tax questions answered would be getting a tax book.

There are two popular tax book series. J.K. Lasser’s Your Income Tax and Ernst and Young Tax Guide. These books are updated every year. They are very inexpensive for their size (think yellow pages). They both go for $13.57 at this moment on Amazon.

My favorite tax book, however, is U.S. Master Tax Guide by CCH. Despite the name "Master" it’s not as huge as the J.K. Lasser’s book or the Ernst & Young book. It’s more expensive ($79.30 on Amazon) because it’s used by professionals. Yes, CPAs also use reference books.

The "Master" in the title is well justified because it answers more questions than the other two "consumer-grade" books. I consider CCH’s U.S. Master Tax Guide the best tax book.

I tested all three tax books with some of the questions I got from the readers recently.

"How can I carry forward unused foreign tax credit?"

"How to calculate cost basis in a stock when the company is taken over by another company in a part-stock-part-cash merger?"

"What to do with dependent care flexible spending account when a spouse doesn’t have earned income?"

Every time I found a better answer in the Master Tax Guide than in the J.K. Lasser’s or Ernst & Young books. When the questions go out of the ordinary, the J.K. Lasser’s or Ernst & Young books either don’t say anything or just send you straight to IRS publications, some of which are not easy to understand. A used copy of the Master Tax Guide sells for about $30 on Amazon, which isn’t that expensive.

The problem with tax books is that new editions keep coming out every year with tax law changes. However, it also creates an opportunity. After a new edition comes out, people sell their old editions. A used last year’s U.S. Master Tax Guide sells for as low as $1.48 plus $3.99 shipping on Amazon. That’s a bargain.

Given that if you buy a tax book it’s going to be out of date next year anyway, you might as well buy last year’s book for 90% off and keep as a reference. Tax laws change, but they don’t change that much. For example the answers to the three questions above didn’t change last year. If you can spare $30, get the current year’s book. For less than $6 shipped, last year’s book is a steal.

You can use software to help you prepare your tax return. It won’t help you understand taxes. For that, you need a tax book. You might as well get the best one.

[This post contains affiliated links to Amazon.com. Amazon will pay a commission of 4% - 6.5% to me if you make a purchase within 24 hours after you click on the link.]

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I don’t know what’s wrong about publishing these days. Or maybe it’s always been this way. It seems you have to make an outlandish claim in order to grab people’s attention. The book isn’t necessarily bad but it’s way overhyped. The back cover has these in large bold colored font:

Everyone is telling you it’s a “no-brainer” to invest in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan because of the employer match.

What if everyone is wrong?

That sure arouses your interest, doesn’t it? Then it continues with (italics are original):

“[the book] challenges some basic assumptions about traditional retirement plans to reveal that:

• 401(k) and 403(b) plans are laden with Porky Pig fees, poor investment choices, and conflicts of interest.
• There is a simple way to make the smartest choices in these  plans — and this book shows you exactly what to do and which funds to avoid.
• There is one investment that could be the key to a successful retirement plan. You can do it yourself, with pre-tax or after-tax money. Create your own inflation-proof pension plan that is guaranteed to provide you with monthly income for as long as you live, and beyond!”

By this time, if you happily fork over $19.95 or whatever the selling price is, you will be disappointed. I was.

It turns out everyone isn’t wrong about the no-brainer 401(k) or 403(b) plans. Dan Solin admitted in the concluding chapter:

“I agree with most advisors who believe the corporate match of a 401(k) and 403(b) plan is too good to pass up. Investors probably should contribute to these plans — at least the minimum amount necessary to obtain the maximum employer match.”

So what about that thought-provoking question on the back cover, Mr. Solin? He could only plant some FUD about the possibility of retroactive taxation on 401(k) money and tax rates going up in retirement.

And what about the three bullet points on the back cover? It turns out:

• Some plans have high fees, but the match largely negates all that.
• “exactly what to do” is a short list of actively managed funds that look  like an index fund. With so many different plans and different fund options, that short list can’t possibly show everyone exactly what to do.
• That one investment that could be the key to a successful retirement plan is immediate annuity, which the author says is best bought at or near retirement, with 401(k) or 403(b) money. Solin only gave the topic 3 pages anyway.

I can’t help but feel duped. I thought it was going to show me I did it all wrong all these years by faithfully sinking the maximum into my 401(k) plan.

Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Yes, 401(k) and 403(b) plans can and should be better. But even if there’s no match, in all likelihood they still beat taxable investment after you max out your own IRA (either Traditional or Roth depending on eligibility and tax deductibility). Just remember to roll it over when you change jobs. See previous post Alternatives to a High Cost 401k Or 403b Plan.

I have serious doubt over the book market’s efficiency. This book got on the New York Times Best Seller list, but not John Bogle’s The Little Book of Common Sense Investing. Why? Is it because Solin advertised “smartest” but Bogle only wrote “common sense”? Who wants common sense when you can have the smartest?

Give me John Bogle or William Bernstein any day. I’m done with Solin’s books.

[Links to Amazon.com are affiliate links. Amazon pays me 4% - 6.5% if you make a purchase within 24 hours.]

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The title is The Bogleheads’ Guide to Retirement Planning. It covers a wide range of topics on planning for retirement. The emphasis is on planning, not saving or investing for retirement, although there are still a few chapters on investing. It starts off with the planning process. Then it goes over the different savings and investment vehicles, investment strategies, how to make the most of social security, withdrawal strategies once you are retired, insurance, estate planning, how to find help if you need it and what to do if you face divorce or too much debt you can’t repay.

I like the broad approach in this book. Retirement planning is a complex subject. There can be full-scale books on each of the topics covered in this book. Every chapter covers the main points in about 15 pages so the size of the book stays manageable. If the reader wants to read more about a particular subject, there are a list of additional resources at the end of each chapter. The book serves as a good roadmap for retirement planning.

My most favorite chapters in the book are "Single-Premium Immediate Annuities" by Dan Smith and "Early Retirement" by Jeff McComas.

Most (all?) of the chapter authors are not professional writers. All the royalties from the book are to be donated to charity. The authors invested their time and effort into this book only because they wanted to help the readers. There is no hidden agenda to sell anything. I appreciate the wealth of information shared in this book.

Despite whatever impression you may get from this blog, writing is one of my weakest skills. English not being my first language does not help either. It took me several weekends to write my draft chapter. Without the great help from the editors, it would not be publishable as it is now.

You can tell this is still a finance book. It does not cover much non-monetary aspect of retirement planning such as finding the ideal location one would like to retire to. It’s heavy in information but light in step-by-step guides. There is no worksheet that helps one figure out the big numbers:

• Given what I have now and what I’m saving, when can I retire?
• If I want to retire in age X with a lifestyle budget of Y, am I saving enough now?

These are the things I will try to find out because I’ve set a goal for myself of retiring in 2020.

I would say this is a great book even though I’m biased because I participated in its creation. One of the best kept secret until now is the Bogleheads Wiki. The book mentioned the Wiki in many places. If you are not getting the book, at least bookmark the Bogleheaads Wiki. The depth of information on the Bogleheads Wiki is unbelievable.

[This post contains affiliated links to Amazon.com. Amazon.com will pay a commission of 4% - 6.5% to me if you make a purchase within 24 hours after you click on the link.]

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Fellow blogger Mike Piper apparently agrees. He wrote a small book called Investing Made Simple. He’s making the PDF available as a free download until October 1. [Free PDF download is no longer available.]

Table of Contents

Introduction: Investing is Not Complicated

1. The Building Blocks
2. Types of Accounts
3. Risk and Return
4. How to Know How Much You Need
5. Don’t Bother Picking Stocks
6. Index Funds Win
7. Asset Allocation
8. Putting the Pieces Together
9. Think Long-Term
10. How to Find a Good Financial Advisor
11. Automate Your Investments
12. Beware the Hot Fund
13. Turn Off the Television
14. Steer Clear of Stock-Picking Newsletters

Conclusion – Keep It Simple

Appendix: Helpful Resource Guide

Simplicity wins. The simple approach is very straight forward. I was able to finish the book in half an hour. I agree with pretty much everything Mike wrote in the book.

I sent the link to several co-workers who asked me about investing in the past. If you have friends or family members who don’t have patience to read a larger book, send them Investing Made Simple.

Mike also wrote several other small books. If you find reading IRS publications unappealing or the 800-page J. K. Lasser tax guide too daunting, get Taxes Made Simple. It looks like a perfect gift book for someone who’s new to filing taxes.

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Those scripts will take care of the transactions. They will also update the prices for the securities held in the investment accounts that provide transaction download. However, if you have holdings in accounts that do not provide transaction download, the prices for those holdings are still not updated.

With the help of a book from the library, Learning Python, and a lot of Googling, I came up with a new script that gets the quotes from Yahoo! and writes a dummy OFX file for importing into Microsoft Money. Being a Python newbie, I’m sure the script can be made much more elegant, but what I have now works.

I tested it with Microsoft Money 2006. The online service in Money 2006 already expired. I created a new Investment account in Money called Dummy Investment. I ran the script, which imported a dummy statement with the current prices into the Dummy Investment account. Because the number of shares is set to zero (thanks to suggestion from John Brinnand), the import will not add any shares to the Dummy Investment account. It only updates the prices for your other accounts.

The script is very easy to use. You put the ticker symbols in two lists, one for stocks and one for mutual funds. Depending on how you set them up in Money, ETFs can be either stocks or mutual funds.

stocks = ["AMZN",
"GOOG",
"YHOO"]

funds = ["VTSMX",
"VBMFX"]

You still need either ActivePython 2.6.2 or Python 2.6.2. Then you just create a shortcut with

python quotes.py

Double click on the shortcut. Follow the prompts with a few more clicks and you are done.

Because it simulates importing a statement from a broker, Microsoft Money will only update the prices once per day. It’s best to run the script after the market closes. If you run the script more than once when the market is open, only the first price update will get into Money; you will not get the closing price.

With the Python scripts that download transactions and price quotes, I intend to use Money past its official expiration date.

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This little book is all about the messy money dealings between family members and friends: lending and borrowing, gifts, inheritance, sharing expenses, disparity in income and spending priorities, keeping and breaking promises, and so on.

It takes a Q&A format. Every chapter is about one particular topic, with maybe 10 questions and answers in “Dear Abby” style. The answers are both serious and with a touch of humor. I enjoyed them and I learned a lot about human nature.

Money can become tricky when you are dealing with family and friendship. I’ve heard some people say “never mix money with family or friends.” After reading all the stories in this book, I can see why. Some people have different moral standards than we’d like. When these people happen to be in the family, they cause distress. Avoiding the problem preemptively is certainly one way to deal with it.

On the other hand, limiting financial dealings strictly to arm-length commercial transactions causes a lot of inefficiency.

If one family member has money sitting in a bank account earning practically nothing while another family member borrows from a credit card, it’s not efficient for the two of them collectively to have the bank earn the spread in the middle.

If two brothers have separate cell phone service with the same provider, they can get a family plan and alternate in paying the bills.

If two neighbors need Internet service, one of them can place a router in the neighbor’s home and share the same pipe. With the right wireless antenna, both can have satisfactory service.

You get the picture. It’ll be great if extended family members, friends, and neighbors can pool their resources and lower the cost for all involved, especially in difficult times. The problem is they don’t trust each other. If only people keep their promises, we will have much fewer problems in this world.

Take a look at this small book: Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check by Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz. It’s entertaining and educational. You can certainly get a taste of it from the authors’ column Do The Right Thing on CNNMoney.com.

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I still haven’t found a perfect replacement for Microsoft Money. Money isn’t perfect either, but it’s working. Well, sort of. I already know the bugs and limitations and I know how to work around them.

Having suffered from being at the mercy of one software vendor, I really don’t look forward to jumping into the arms of another vendor with the same policy of automatically disabling features. Meanwhile, the contenders GnuCash and Moneydance still don’t match all the functionalities I’d like to have.

If only the downloading features won’t work in Money, why junk the whole thing? Why not just fix the downloads?

Having seen how GnuCash and Moneydance can download transactions directly from the financial institutions, I wondered if there is a way to use an alternative application for downloading. I can then import the downloaded files into Microsoft Money. If it’s only a one-time setup and a few more mouse clicks, I can live with that.

With the help of Google and GnuCash Wiki, I found two great Python scripts (ofx.py and ofx-ba.py). With some trial and error, I figured out how to use them on Windows.

[The rest of this post contains detailed technical instructions. I provide enough details to make it work even if you are not that technical. Skip if you are not interested.]

1. Download and install Python. I used ActivePython 2.6.2 for Windows. I think the 2.6.2 version from python.org will work too.

2. Download the Python scripts: ofx.py and ofx-ba.py. Just save them in a folder. Open ofx.py and ofx-ba.py in a text editor. You will see something like this:

sites = {
“ucard”: {
“caps”: [ "SIGNON", "CCSTMT" ],
“fid”: “24909″,
“fiorg”: “Citigroup”,
“url”: “https://secureofx2.bankhost.com/citi/cgi-forte/ofx_rt?servicename=ofx_rt&pagename=ofx”,
},
“discover”: {
“caps”: [ "SIGNON", "CCSTMT" ],
“fiorg”: “Discover Financial Services”,
“fid”: “7101″,
“url”: “https://ofx.discovercard.com/”,
},
“ameritrade”: {
“caps”: [ "SIGNON", "INVSTMT" ],
“fiorg”: “ameritrade.com”,
“url”: “https://ofx.ameritrade.com/ofxproxy/ofx_proxy.dll”,
}
}

These are the address and IDs used in downloading from the sample financial institutions. You will need the address and IDs for the financial institutions you use.

While you have the scripts open, make two small changes necessary for Windows. The scripts will not work on Windows without these changes. By the way, if you are still using Notepad, download and install the free, open source program Notepad++. Notepad will work. Notepad++ is much better.

Replace this line (line 2 in both ofx.py and ofx-ba.py):

import time, os, httplib, urllib2

with

import time, os, httplib, urllib2, uuid

Replace this line (line 37 in ofx.py; line 27 in ofx-ba.py):

return os.popen(”uuidgen”).read().rstrip().upper()

with

return uuid.uuid4().hex

Save the scripts.

3. Look for OFX settings. The settings for some financial institutions are listed in OFX Direct Connect Bank Settings on GnuCash Wiki. There is another searchable list at a web site OFX Home. If the companies you use are not listed there, you will have to find them yourself in the next step.

4. Download online banking directory. This is a zip file. Unzip the directory files into a folder.

If your zip utility can’t handle the .tgz file format, download and install the excellent open source program 7-Zip. You may have to extract twice: first from the .tgz file to a .tar file, then from the .tar file to the individual files. In the end, you will have 3 index files and more than 5,000 details files in a fi subfolder.

Suppose you are looking for the settings for a credit card. You open creditcard.xml in a text editor (open bank.xml for banks and brokerage.xml for brokerage).

In creditcard.xml, search for the name of the credit card company you are looking for. For example, for Chase, I find

<prov>
<name>Chase</name>
<phonetic/>
<guid>7685</guid>
<label>User ID</label>
<type>1</type>
<webcr>1</webcr>
<weben>1</weben>
</prov>

The number between <guid> and </guid>, 7685, is the key. It tells you which details file has more information for Chase. You open the details file 7685.xml in the fi subfolder. You look for 3 values in the details file:

<Org>B1</Org>
<FID>10898</FID>
… …
<ProviderURL>https://onlineofx.chase.com/chase.ofx</ProviderURL>

These are the values you need in ofx.py. By the way B1 means Bank One. Chase bought Bank One in 2004.

Find and gather all the values for each of your financial institutions.

5. Update Python scripts. Open the Python scripts ofx.py and ofx-ba.py again in a text editor. Replace the sample settings in the scripts with the settings for the companies you use. Give each entry a short name. Put Org in fiorg, FID in fid, and ProviderURL in url. Add or remove more entries in the “sites” area if necessary.

For credit cards, make them look like ucard and discover in the original ofx.py with a CCSTMT. For brokerage accounts, make them look like ameritrade in the original ofx.py with a INVSTMT. Add bank settings to ofx-ba.py. You will also need the routing number for your bank.

Just in case the financial institutions don’t like our scripts, replace

config["appid"] = “PyOFX”
config["appver"] = “0100″

with

config["appid"] = “QWIN”
config["appver"] = “1800″

This makes our scripts look like Quicken 2009 for Windows.

6. Run Python scripts. Open a command prompt (Start -> Run … -> cmd). For credit cards and brokerage accounts, type

python ofx.py [name of the site] [your online login] [your account number]

For bank accounts, use ofx-ba.py instead of ofx.py:

python ofx-ba.py [name of the site] [your online login] [your account number] [CHECKING or SAVINGS]

When you are prompted for the password, type your online password and press Enter.

The script will download a [site][yyyymmdd].ofx file. Open Microsoft Money. Double click on the downloaded .ofx file. The Microsoft Money Import Handler mnyimprt.exe will take it from there.

Upon closer inspection, I see the ofx-ba.py script can actually handle all types of accounts: credit cards, brokerage accounts, and bank accounts. I made additional changes to my script to make it work with Vanguard (hat tip to Costin Manolache). You can look at my modified script. It works with American Express, Chase, Fidelity, Vanguard, and presumably USAA (I don’t have a bank account to test).

So far, this is still not much different from going to each financial institution’s web site and downloading the transactions manually. With more modifications, I made the script:

• take the password as a parameter instead of prompting the user for the password
• trigger the Microsoft Money Import Handler automatically after each download

You can download my automated script. To use the automated script, insert your online password between your login and your account number. For credit card or brokerage account:

python ofx-ba-tfb-auto.py [name of the site] [your online login] [your online password] [your account number]

For bank account:

python ofx-ba-tfb-auto.py [name of the site] [your online login] [your online password] [your account number] [CHECKING or SAVINGS]

To download one account after another, a batch file calls the automated script for each account (remove the .txt extension from these scripts). Because you have to put your logins, passwords, and account numbers into the batch file, I suggest you put the scripts and the batch file on a portable USB drive. Plug the USB drive into your computer only when you import. Unplug when you are done.

I placed a shortcut to the batch file on my desktop. Now I have my own one-step update. In a round-about way, after looking at the alternatives, I realize I don’t have to replace Microsoft Money after all.

The files generated by these scripts only work with Microsoft Money. Attempting to import the same file into an older version of Quicken gave me this error:

[Update on Sept. 3, 2009: These transaction download scripts only update the prices of securities held at the institutions that provide direct OFX downloads. If you have stocks or mutual funds at institutions that don't offer OFX transaction downloads, you need a different script for updating the prices. See follow-up post Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug.]

Once again, the downloads are:

• ActivePython 2.6.2 or Python 2.6.2
• The original Python scripts: ofx.py and ofx-ba.py
• (optional) A better text editor: Notepad++
• Online banking directory files for the server address and IDs
• (optional) A better zip/unzip program: 7-Zip
• TFB’s modified script for downloading interactively. Remove .txt extension. Test your settings with this one first.
• TFB’s automated script and batch file. Remove .txt extension.
• TFB’s script for downloading price quotes. Remove .txt extension.

Special thanks to:

• GnuCash community for the inspiration
• OFX Direct Connect Bank Settings on GnuCash Wiki
• Jeremy Jongsma for hosting the Python scripts and the OFX directory files
• Costin Manolache for the fix for Vanguard
• Google, for helping me find the resources above

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This is part 4 in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. I gave my requirements in part 1. I looked at Quicken and GnuCash in parts 2 and 3. This time I’m looking at Moneydance.

Moneydance is a Java application that runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Unlike GnuCash, MoneyDance is not free. It’s made by a small company called The Infinite Kind. As far as I can tell, the application is primarily developed by one developer Sean Reilly. A Moneydance license costs $40. There is a trial version that limits to 100 transactions. I tested Moneydance 2008r4 on Windows.

Moneydance starts up quickly. The home page looks nice and clean. The default setup gives you a checking account, a savings account, and a number of income and expense categories. You can edit these income and expense categories however you want.

Moneydance is more intuitive than GnuCash. The terminologies are familiar. There are Accounts, Categories, and Securities. You can still nest accounts within another account. For example, you can create a sub-account in Savings for the next car and create another sub-account in Savings for the next vacation.

Figure 1: Moneydance home page

Entering transactions is somewhat non-intuitive. New transactions are entered at the bottom of the register, as opposed in the register itself. There is not a concept for a payee. The “Description” field is used for payees. Each entry in the bank account register uses two lines by default. There is no way to view only one line. You can choose to see only one line (see comment from Joe).

Figure 2: Bank account register

I was quite confused when I was trying to enter a stock purchase. The price per share is entered below the number of shares. I expected them to be on the same line. Every entry in the investment account register uses two lines. There is no way to view only one line.

Figure 3: Investment account register

Figure 4: Lot matching when selling a stock

Once I get over the register entries though, Moneydance works just fine. Loan payments can be automatically calculated to split between principal and interest. They can post automatically to the register monthly.

There are some reports in Moneydance but the reports are not very customizable. You can select one account or all accounts, but not some-but-not-all accounts. There is a report for capital gains and losses but I didn’t see anything related to investment return percentages.

If you’d like to see more screenshots, there are ten of them for Windows and Mac on Moneydance’s web site.

Here’s a summary of what Moneydance can do against my requirements:

Like GnuCash, Moneydance also imports QIF files. Moneydance provides step-by-step instructions for importing from Microsoft Money. When I posted a question about the instructions on their support forum, I got an answer in 15 minutes. That’s very impressive.

Unfortunately the answers from the Moneydance support staff were not what I was hoping for, although it’s not necessarily Moneydance’s fault. Importing QIF files still requires exporting from Money one account at a time. The transfer transactions in Money will likely create duplicates. They said it’s impossible for them to develop an importing tool that works on the entire Money file.

Overall Moneydance is a good application. I’m not used to its user interface in some areas, but I’m sure I can get over them. The prospect of taking off the straitjacket for downloading transactions and quotes is really enticing.

If I end up using Moneydance, I will just start fresh and not bother with importing.

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Software picked, likely related articles at The Finance Buff:

• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 2: Quicken
• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 1: Requirements
• Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug