Ameridan's Microsoft Money Offline Weblog

Version 3 of my PocketSense webpage addon that incorporates Cal’s auto-OK script

ameridan — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:07:04 +0000

Version 3 is now available! No batch file needed.

Version 3 of ameridan's OFFLINE webpage addon to Money

Although I developed this webpage (click image to enlarge it) to invoke from within Microsoft Money, I find it most convenient to click on a shortcut to the webpage from my desktop instead. I know I haven’t posted anything on this blog for a while, but that is primarily because PocketSense is working so well for me in supplying OFX updates to my Sunset edition of Microsoft Money. The main reason I am posting an updated version of my webpage is to accomodate Cal’s python script Popdown2.py (originally submitted by George - thank you George!) that automatically OKs the import and error messages that appear while the OFX files are processed by Money. You will not need to locate and download this python script file, as it is included in the download package for the webpage addon. NOTE: If Cal updates this file (he mentioned working on Popdown3.py), save it as Popdown2.py to keep the links working. Also, you do not need to use or modify any batch files with this webpage (nor can batch files be invoked from a webpage).

If you would like to be able to run your Offline update scripts (PocketSense) from within your Microsoft Money program while also viewing the new quotes.htm file that is produced everytime you update your quotes, I’m sharing the new page (along with easy installation instructions) that I’ve developed for just this purpose. Since the Money GUI is really just a customized browser, this is probably the only way modules can be added to the program without hacking into the source code. I would also like to point out that everytime the quotes are updated throughout the day, the quotes.htm page is updated, even though the newer values are ignored within the Money program. And this page will also show Last Closing Price as well as Percent change in price since the last closing price! Thanks Robert!

To greatly simplify installation (it was confusing if your PC setup didn’t happen to be setup just so), I’ve created 4 different versions of the webpage for you (2 for WinXP and 2 for WinVista and Win7) and you’ll simply use the one that works properly.

To install…

Go to the folder on your hard drive that you’ve installed PocketSense into
Download my webage add-in and extract the Images folder, popdown2.py and the 4 htm files into this same folder as your scripts
Right click on getdata.py and select Create Shortcut
Right click on setup.py and select Create Shortcut
Right click on popdown2.py and select Create Shortcut
Click on one of the 4 webpages (and don’t rename them): GetOfxDataXP(1).htm, GetOfxDataXP(2).htm, GetOfxData7(1).htm or GetOfxData7(2).htm which will open it in your browser. Although all four versions look the same, only one will have links to getdata and setup that actually work. If you want a detailed explanation of the differences, see the 3/19/2010 notes in the Version 1 Blog: http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/webpage-add-in-run-pocketsense-from-within-the-money-program/
If the link(s) to GetData.py and Setup.py work, then Copy the address from the Address Bar (Highlight it and right-click and select Copy). B1inUK offers this tip for WinVista and Win7 users: You may have to Right-click the htm file, select Properties and click Unblock at the bottom to allow the links to work.
Paste into your Desktop if you’d like to access the webpage from there
Open Money and Paste that address (or type the full path to the htm file) into Money’s address bar ( as an example, my path is: C:\Documents and Settings\Dan’s\My Documents\Microsoft Money\Python Scripts\GetOfxDataXP(1).htm ) and hit Enter (or click on the GoTo button).
Select Favorites, Add to Favorites, and type in a name for your Favorite page (like GetOfxData), then click OK

You’re done; whenever you wish to access the scripts from within Money – either click on Favorites, Favorite Web Sites, and then GetOfxData OR select the file in the address bar and hit Enter (or the GoTo button)
ENJOY Microsoft Money OFFLINE!!

[ADDED 3/26/2011] I prefer the font size in the quotes window to be somewhat smaller and this is how that is accomplished: In quotes.htm the font size within the quotes table is controlled in line 64 of rlib.py (change 16px to perhaps 14px). I also prefer the font-size for the comments at 10, rather than 13, which you can change on line 57. The next time you run PocketSense, the generated quotes.htm will reflect the changes you’ve made and and be sure to make a backup copy of rlib.py after you’ve tweaked it, so that you’ll be able to apply your changes after downloading updates in the future.

-ameridan

Erroneous Yahoo! quotes / making QFX files work with Money / UK, French & Int’l English Money 2005 1105 updates

ameridan — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:36:21 +0000

Over the last several weeks, some of the quotes from Yahoo! Finance (where PocketSense, hleOfxQuotes and TFB’s script get the quotes from) have been erroneous and we were all hoping they would just get “fixed”. It turns out a reader of TFB’s (The Finance Buff) Blog found the appropriate help link to notify Yahoo! of the issue and it was fixed soon after it was submitted. I’m posting that link here with a tag, so that next time it might be accessed sooner by one of us for a quicker resolve. See the first comment below for suggested wording.

Some other recent developments:

1. Some banks such as Bank of America and Chase no longer offer Microsoft Money OFX downloads on their website, but they DO offer Intuit Quicken Web Connect (QFX) files (or some other similar wording) and those work just as well, but you may not realize you have that option. I’ve exerpted the solution from another one of my Blog pages (read that blog page if you want to learn what’s different between OFX and QFX) here to reveal how to make QFX files work for you…

If you download QFX files from your financial institution’s website (that is the default choice on Bank of America’s Mastercard website now) , you can Save and then import them directly into Money [File->Import->Downloaded Statement...], but you may have to click on type: ALL FILES to see the file. You can skip the Save step and have the file import on it’s own by following the registry addition below.

Cal Learner has developed this registry fix that you could run, so that QFX files will behave just like OFX and will import into Money automatically:

Here is a 2-step way to create that registry file:

1. Open a new Notepad file, and paste the following lines between the ===delimiter lines=== below into the file.

==================begin QFX2OFX.reg========

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.qfx]
“Content Type”=”text/qfx”
@=”ofx.Document”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.qfx\ofx.Document]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.qfx\ofx.Document\ShellNew]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-qfx]
“Extension”=”.qfx”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\text/qfx]
“Extension”=”.qfx”

================end QFX2OFX.reg==========

2. Save the file as “QFX2OFX.reg” and Run.

2. Although the Money servers are OFFLINE for most purposes, they are still supplying quotes for some users that are using older versions of Money and/or still have time left on their subscription. Who knows for how much longer though.

3. As of today, Microsoft has finally made available the full 1105 version of UK Money 2005, and it can be downloaded here which will allow new installations to be able to read your UK Money data files. The file can be used to do a full UK Money 2005 (level 1105) install. You do not have to install a previous version and then upgrade.

4. [added 7/29/2011] Microsoft has also made available the full 1105 version of International English Money 2005, and it can be downloaded here which will allow new installations to be able to read your International English (aka ROW) Money data files. The file can be used to do a full International English Money 2005 (level 1105) install. You do not have to install a previous version and then upgrade.

5. [added 8/1/2011] Microsoft has also made available the full 1105 version of French Money 2005, and it can be downloaded here which will allow new installations to be able to read your French Money data files. The file can be used to do a full French Money 2005 (level 1105) install. You do not have to install a previous version and then upgrade.

Home Inventory Worksheet & Important Records Organizer

ameridan — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:56:27 +0000

Rather than create a Blog post regarding the Home Inventory feature in Money, I created a Reference page on the subject instead. This feature, along with the Important Documents Organizer, is kind of hidden within Money and yet could prove to be very valuable should you ever experience a catastrophe involving your home, but because it isn’t really related to the replacement of online updates to financial data, I am dedicating only one paragraph of Blog real estate to it.

Version 2 of my Money Webpage addin is now available

ameridan — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:55:33 +0000

Version 2 is now available!

: Version 2 of ameridan’s OFFLINE webpage addon to Money

To install…

Go to the folder on your hard drive that you’ve installed PocketSense (version published on or after February 16, 2011) into
Download my webage add-in and extract the Images folder and the 4 htm files into this same folder as the scripts
Right click on getdata.py and select Create Shortcut
Right click on setup.py and select Create Shortcut
Click on one of the 4 webpages (and don’t rename them): GetOfxDataXP(1).htm, GetOfxDataXP(2).htm, GetOfxData7(1).htm or GetOfxData7(2).htm which will open it in your browser. Although all four versions look the same, only one will have links to getdata and setup that actually work. If you want a detailed explanation of the differences, see the 3/19/2010 notes in the Version 1 Blog: http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/webpage-add-in-run-pocketsense-from-within-the-money-program/
If the link(s) to GetData.py and Setup.py work, then Copy the address from the Address Bar (Highlight it and right-click and select Copy). B1inUK offers this tip for WinVista and Win7 users: You may have to Right-click the htm file, select Properties and click Unblock at the bottom to allow the links to work.
Open Money and Paste that address (or type the full path to the htm file) into Money’s address bar ( as an example, my path is: C:\Documents and Settings\Dan’s\My Documents\Microsoft Money\Python Scripts\GetOfxDataXP(1).htm ) and hit Enter (or click on the GoTo button).
Select Favorites, Add to Favorites, and type in a name for your Favorite page (like GetOfxData), then click OK

You’re done; whenever you wish to access the scripts from within Money – either click on Favorites, Favorite Web Sites, and then GetOfxData OR select the file in the address bar and hit Enter (or the GoTo button)
ENJOY Microsoft Money OFFLINE!!

table {
text-align: center;
font-family: Verdana;
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 16px;
border: 2px solid gray;
border-collapse: collapse;
empty-cells: show
}

-ameridan

SUNRIISE – Could a new International Java version of Money be far off?

ameridan — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:08:36 +0000

UPDATE: Hung Le has a new build available as of 3/22/2011 that he is calling SUNRIISE available at http://sunriise.sourceforge.net/

Just download one file and open up a renamed copy of your Money file (just to be safe), and explore your Money database.

Hung Le has developed another Java app that will output the contents of your encrypted MNY data file into plain text format, which then allows you to not only archive your data, but perform other post-processing tasks like creating additional customized reports yourself using external tools or adding your own data that currently is not part of the database that would be accessible via an external program.

In theory, this could someday lead to the way for a new program that could simulate or supplement Microsoft Money using your existing data file. I find this to be pretty exciting, but this isn’t yet for normal users – it’s mentioned here more for the programmer types that wish to push this further. Since the Ultrasoft Money program for Windows Mobile platform (and the Palm platform) interface so well with the Money data file already, the combined efforts could also lead the way into taking Money into the next generation.

I think I know what Hung has in mind for now though

Since there are fields / columns / data that are no longer updated with the OFFLINE feeds like they were with the Online updates, I’ll bet he wants to see if he can expose them and process the data extraneously with his Java app such that after the new data is written into the database, Money will then, in fact, display the missing data! Ingenious, I think, and if this isn’t what he has in mind, then let this trigger that train of thought.:)

Go to Hung’s Readme.txt file in his MSISAM folder for more details.

Preauthorization charges in Discover OFX downloads

ameridan — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:21:42 +0000

I just read a comment from Anonymous (in the PocketSense Blog) regarding the appearance of $0.00 debits in his Discover downloads and wondering whether the scrubber could remove those. My download interval for Discover transactions is 7 days, so if I delete those transactions in Money, they’ll predictably reappear the following day, so I’ve learned to wait about a week to delete those charges to “clean things up”.

I googled this occurrence and noted that someone else wanted these transactions deleted in MoneyDance after they download their Discover OFX file, and apparently they can just right-click those 0.00 charges and merge it into another charge, rather than simply deleting it, thereby preventing its reoccurrence. Perhaps we can do something similar in Money by choosing the “Change” option to manually match it with another transaction – haven’t tried that yet though.

The reason I bring this up for discussion, is that I remember sometime around Money 2006 level that Money started filtering these transactions out, and I was kinda upset since Discover used these $0.00 transactions as Reminder Notes to let you know when the next payment was due, when the 0.00% balance transfer rate was expiring, etc. and I had incurred late fees after missing a couple of payments. I am glad to see these transactions reappear now using PocketSense, even though I too delete them later on. You’ll observe that if you make an online purchase using your Discover, you’ll probably see one of these Preauthorization charges in your OFX download the following day, and so these can also serve as a Credit Fraud monitor if you see these $0.00 charges when you know you haven’t made any purchases yourself.

So, in conclusion. if anyone does convince Bobby to add the deletion of these charges into the Discover scrubber, I hope he makes this optionable, as I prefer to see them show up.

-ameridan

UK Banks & OFX downloads

ameridan — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:48:28 +0000

Money and UK Banks

Availability of OFX connection is quite common in the US, but seems to be very rare in Europe, even for business accounts and since there seems to be many questions regarding downloading UK Bank data, I thought I would start this thread that I’d be happy to keep up-to-date with feedback from my Blog readers.

Chances are that the OFX download solutions promoted in my Blog won’t work with any of the institutions listed and having a N in the OFX or QFX columns, which is a good many of them. but this can serve as a forum to discuss this further. The initial table is courtesy of Moneydance

Bank	OFX	QFX	QIF	OFC	CSV
Abbey Bank Plc.	N				Y
Alliance & Leicester	Y		Y		Y
BarclayCard	Y		Y	Y	Y
Barclays Personal	Y				Y
Barclays Business	Y				Y
Clydesdale	N		Y
Coutts & Co	Y		Y
Egg	N
Fidelity UK	N
First Direct	N		Y
Halifax	Y		N
HSBC	N	Y
Lloyds TSB	N	N	Y		Y
Nationwide	N	N	N	N	Y
NatWest	Y
Royal Bank of Scotland	Y		Y
Smile.co.uk	N	N	N	N	N
Tesco	Y		Y
Yorkshire	N		Y

Hung Le is putting significant effort into coming up with a Java app version that is tailored to UK needs:

Join in on the Java app Blog page for more…

has support for two additional quote sources: ft.com and Google Portfolio. Both have good coverage for UK fund (in particular ft.com).
has support for mapping a quote source symbol to MM symbol.
both ft.com and Google Portfolio provides currency in its data so we have enough information to write out symbol’s specific currency in the generated *.ofx file. It is unclear if MM honor that. I don’t use multi-currency to be able to test that area.
there is an outstanding issue with Money05UK, in that import statement with zero share does update the quote price. We are looking into a work-around: generating fake share count to force MM into creating transactions.

In general, most of us US developer have no access to Money05UK and are likely having zero knowledge on multi-currency usage. So we can use some testing and feed back on above issues

-ameridan

2010 in review for Microsoft Money Offline Blog

ameridan — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:51:18 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow!

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 28 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 16 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was September 20th with 536 views. The most popular post that day was PocketSense ~ Discover downloads work now!!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were social.microsoft.com, thefinancebuff.com, mymoneyblog.com, microsoft.com, and fatwallet.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for ofx viewer, ofx file viewer, pocketsense, .ofx viewer, and microsoft money ofx viewer.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

PocketSense ~ Discover downloads work now!! February 2010

Java app to update quotes February 2010
17 comments

Webpage add-in ~ Run PocketSense from within the Money program February 2010
22 comments

Microsoft releases Sunset editions of Money Plus Deluxe and Money Plus Home & Business May 2010
14 comments

OFX File Viewer March 2010
2 comments

Java apps (not Python) to update quotes into Money

ameridan — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 19:02:00 +0000

For those that only need to update quotes (no Account Statement updates) and don’t wish to install Python scripting, Hung Le had written a Java app a year ago. It has recently been updated (thank you Mike V. for debugging) and the link in the original Blog page has been updated with the new version that Mike V. has tested. [NOTE] Keep in mind though that the Yahoo interface is a “work around” intended solely for tracking things that aren’t held in an OFX-enabled account. If your investments are held in accounts for which you have an OFX download option, that is the prefered method.

Thank you Hung Le for updating the app!

-ameridan

PocketSense appVER upgrade

ameridan — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:53:38 +0000

From Quicken’s site, I found the following: On April 30, of each year, Quicken discontinues its support for any of its versions more than 2 years old. As of April 30, 2011, Quicken will no longer support Quicken 2008, which implies that we may have to upgrade the default in PocketSense at that time since Quicken forces financial institutions to promote Quicken upgrades by not allowing “obsolete” versions to communicate with their servers.

I’ve observed that Moneydance is already using version 1900 (Quicken 2011), rather than version 1700 (Quicken 2008) that we’ve been using, so I’m hoping some of you will help test this prior to my requesting that Bobby incorporate this into his next version of PocketSense.

[Update 12/26/2010 - Turns out that the default Quicken version is 1800, so the change isn't so imminent. I've manually changed the setting to 1900 in site_cfg.py and everything seems to be fine ]

For further clarification on appVER, see my Blogpage on the subject.