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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Software picked, likely related articles at The Finance Buff:

• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 2: Quicken
• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 1: Requirements
• Smart Move: Microsoft Withdrew Offer for Yahoo!

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

---
Software picked, likely related articles at The Finance Buff:

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

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.

---
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

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

GnuCash is a free, open source application. It works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. I tried the version 2.3.4 on Windows.

I can see GnuCash is designed by people with a solid accounting background. It started in 1997 as X-Accountant. In GnuCash, everything is an account and every transaction is a transfer. That’s how an accountant sees things.

To an accountant, there is no fundamental difference between a checking account and salary. The checking account is a balance sheet account. Salary is an income statement account. But they are both accounts. When you put your paycheck into your checking account, you transfer a balance from salary to the checking account — debit checking account, credit salary.

That’s exactly how it’s represented in GnuCash.

Figure 1: Assets, Liabilities, Income, and Expenses are all Accounts

This flexible approach works great for an accountant, but it can be confusing for others. I would rather refer to accounts with my name as “accounts,” income and expenses as “categories,” and investments in my brokerage account as “securities.”

When it gets to investment, it can be even more confusing. Every stock you buy in a brokerage account is also an “account” with a parent account. You can create child accounts within the brokerage account for whatever tracking purpose: stocks vs. mutual funds, domestic vs. international, large cap vs. small cap, serious investment vs. play money, short-term investments vs. long-term investments, etc.

Figure 2: Accounts nest n-levels deep

If you have a good grasp of double entry accounting concepts, GnuCash is great. The infinite level of nesting lets you create your accounts structure however you like. To a novice, there can be a steep learning curve, until you understand why everything is an account and why every transaction is a transfer between two accounts.

On Windows, GnuCash takes a long time to start because it has to load the gnome libraries. After it starts, it runs pretty fast.

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

There is no way to set up a loan and have it calculate loan payment principal and interest automatically. GnuCash provides a financial calculator for doing the calculation manually. The user can use the bank’s payment confirmation and enter a split transaction.

I did not see anything that calculates investment returns.

GnuCash also has some business features: customers, vendors, invoices, bills, etc. Because I don’t need these features, I did not test them.

Unless you use the business module, there isn’t a concept of a payee. If you want to see how much you paid AT&T over the last 12 months, you have to run a custom report off the free-text description in the register.

GnuCash can import QIF files. In Microsoft Money, you have to export to a QIF file one account at a time. I didn’t try the import because it’s too tedious with many accounts. It will likely create duplicate entries when there are transfers between accounts in Money. Fixing bad imports can be more time consuming than not importing at all.

If GnuCash were the only application on the market, I would use it. It’s very flexible for a power user. It’s great for a small business. It’s free and open source. Because it’s open source, chances are it will live on. For personal use, however, it’s not as user friendly as I’d like.

I will review Moneydance in my next post.

---
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

This is part 2 in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. In part 1 I laid out my requirements for the replacement application.

Quicken has been around for more than 20 years. It’s in stores everywhere. If someone is new to Quicken, there are many books about Quicken. Although its publisher Intuit doesn’t offer a free trial (there is a 60-day money back guarantee), I’m pretty sure Quicken can do everything I do in Microsoft Money. However, I’m a little worried about what Intuit would do after Quicken becomes a de facto monopoly.

Intuit says Quicken can import up to 10,000 transactions from Microsoft Money. They are working on a better importer that will do more.

The current version is Quicken 2009. The 2010 version will come out shortly. Intuit usually releases a new version of Quicken around Labor Day. The 2009 version is heavily discounted right now. The Deluxe edition, which I think will be adequate for me, costs only $20 at Amazon at this time (Amazon prices change daily).

Like Microsoft Money, Quicken also downloads account transactions and stock and mutual fund quotes online. Like Microsoft Money, Quicken also has a sunset policy for the download features (I forget who started this practice). The download features for Quicken 2006 was disabled on April 30, 2009. Customers were forced to upgrade. By inference Quicken 2009 will expire in 2012 and Quicken 2010 will expire in 2013.

If my other replacement candidates can’t meet my requirements, my default choice will have to be Quicken, although I really don’t like being forced to upgrade. That’s why I’m keeping my eyes open for alternatives like GnuCash and Moneydance. I will review them in the next two posts.

---
Software picked, likely related articles at The Finance Buff:

• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 1: Requirements
• Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug
• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 3: GnuCash

Back in June 2009, Microsoft announced they would stop selling their personal finance software Microsoft Money. I have been a Microsoft Money user since it was Money ‘98. With Microsoft’s throwing in the towel, my current version will work as-is until September 2010. After that, two download features will stop working:

• download transactions from my banks, credit cards, and brokerage accounts from inside the money program, without having to go to the web site of each bank, credit card company, and brokerage firm
• download the current prices for my investments

Although I can still enter transactions or update prices manually, the download features sure make it much more convenient.

I don’t quite understand why the download service has to be disabled when they stop developing new versions of Microsoft Money. Can’t they offer the download service at $15 a year? I would pay it just to avoid the hassle of switching. Oh well, it is what it is and I’m looking for a replacement of Microsoft Money before that expiration date comes.

There are are number of free web sites that aggregate your transactions online. Mint, Wesabe, and Quicken Online are popular choices. But I’m old school. I prefer to keep those data on my own computer. I’m limiting my search to desktop applications.

Before I begin my quest, I wrote down exactly what I use Microsoft Money for. Ideally I’d like to maintain all these functionalities. I use them as my evaluation criteria for the replacement candidates.

• Categorize transactions in bank and credit card accounts, including splitting one transaction into several categories
• Download transactions for bank, credit card, and brokerage accounts
• Reconcile account balances against bank and credit card statements
• Maintain a budget and report income and expenses against the budget
• Track loan payments and allocate between principal and interest automatically
• Track investment values, purchases, sales, dividends, interest, and capital gains and losses
• Update price quotes automatically for investments
• Report investment portfolio returns over any period
• Report net worth over time

Ideally I also would like to import as much as possible from my existing Microsoft Money file into the replacement application.

My replacement candidates are: Quicken, GnuCash, and Moneydance. I will review them one by one in the next few posts.

---
Software picked, likely related articles at The Finance Buff:

• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 2: Quicken
• Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug
• Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 3: GnuCash

Speaking of money market funds, Marketplace Money Economic Editor Chris Farrell declared in Fall of the Money Market

"[M]oney market funds are no longer a safe enough parking place for cash."

I still don’t understand why safety must be measured in nominal dollars. My arguments are in my previous post Breaking The Buck Is Not a Big Deal. Both bank accounts and money market funds can and do lose money after-tax, after-inflation. You can only spend after-tax, after-inflation dollars.

Right now reward checking and online savings accounts happen to pay higher interest than money money funds, with FDIC or NCUA insurance to boot. But that’s a separate issue.

There is a allegation floating around saying the financial service industry misleads Americans into saving too much, just so the industry can have more assets to manage and charge fees on. I was going to write something about it, but Penelope Wang from CNNMoney said all what I wanted to say in Can you live on less in retirement?

The bottom line is that it’s a lot easier to deal with money issues when you are working than when you are not. It’s also a lot easier to deal with too much money than not enough money.

Professor Kotlikoff of the Saving Too Much fame sells a financial planning software called ESPlanner. I may have to shell out $199 someday to see if it’s really revolutionary. I’m skeptical because there is simply too much unknown for the future. Garbage In Garbage Out is a serious problem for any software that involves projecting into the future.

Too bad ESPlanner doesn’t offer a free trial. Otherwise I’d be happy to do a thorough review. I know there is a free ESPlannerBasic, but it’s not the same.

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Software picked, likely related articles at The Finance Buff:

• Breaking The Buck Is Not a Big Deal
• Combatting Survival Instincts
• More Risk, More Reward?