[moneydance] How to run an account in a separate file?

[Larry Alkoff]

Gordon Alley wrote:
> I'm on a different platform (Mac), but I presume the menus are similar.
> Open Moneydance. You can open it with your own data file, if you want. Your
> data will disappear when you create your new file.
> 
> Under the File menu, select New... . MD should present a dialog asking what
> Primary Currency you want it to use, and which Account Set -- on my Mac,
> these are Standard Account Set or Minimal Account Set. Since you are going
> to be sharing only one account, the Minimal Account set should be what you
> want.
> 
> At that point your own homepage data should disappear, and be replaced by a
> very sparse page with a Checking and a Savings account. You can add
> additional accounts if you like. When you select Tools->Edit Categories,
> you'll find that you have a basic set of Categories set up for you. You can
> add to these, also, if you like.
> 
> When you select File->Save, or quit MD (and reply that, yes, you want to
> save your changes), MD will present you with a Save As dialog to set the
> location and name of your new data file.
> 
> And that's about it. I presume that Linux will start MD automatically when
> you open that new file, or an alias to it. Or you can open MD by itself or
> with any other data file, and use File->Open to navigate to your new file,
> or use File->Open Recent, which should show you a list of all the data files
> you've recently opened with MD (hopefully including your new one).
> 
> Good luck.
> 
> -Gordon
> 
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Larry Alkoff <labradley at mindspring.com>wrote:
> 
>> Bruce Marshall wrote:
>>> On Saturday 17 January 2009, Larry Alkoff wrote:
>>>> My intention was to have my business partner use the file I created and
>>>> run Moneydance after getting his own license.
>>>>
>>>> My moneydance has several accounts that should only be visible to me.
>>>> I'd like to setup a new account so that only our business account is
>>>> visible to him.
>>> Then you would want to set up a completely new file... with its own
>> accounts.
>>> And also keep your  <own>.md file out of his reach.   If both files are
>>> available to MD, then each can be opened from within MD
>> I know how to setup a new account (separate bank or investment account
>> all within a moneydance.md file)
>> but I don't know how to set up a completely new file (file in a
>> directory that can be seen with dir or ls).
>>
>> Please tell me how to set up a new account in a separate file.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Larry
>>
>> --
> Gordon B. Alley


Gordon thank you very much for your detailed explanation on how to 
create a new Moneydance file.

What kept me from understanding is this business of first opening 
Moneydance in the usual manner, then File > New account.

I mistakenly thought this would simply add another account to my 
existing list.

Now I see that I could either open Moneydance in the usual manner and 
select File > New (which I did) or something like Moneydance xyz which 
would bring up a dialog that would allow me to setup a new account.

In either case, it is critical to Save as.

I could tell the new Billybob.md was much different than Moneydance.md 
because it was only 8.4k in size vs several megabytes in the original.

Next I have to figure out how to populate it with data which is 
unfortunately in a spreadsheet - not ofx or something of that ilk.

Thanks again for your informative help Gordon.

Larry