[moneydance] Reconcile Accounts

[kmenningen tds.net]

I certainly can empathize. I imported *both* a Quicken file *and* a MS Money
file into a single Moneydance file, and it was tricky getting everything
right. What I like about Moneydance is that it is actually _possible_ to get
it right, unlike the other apps. Here are some tips:

1. Make lots and lots of backups: a) Back up your file, b) Do some sort of
cleanup c) If the result is good, back up the file again d) Do the next
little bit of cleanup, e) If the result is good, back up the file again.
That way, you never lose any progress. If something gets screwed up, go back
to the last backup.

2. Pay attention to the account starting balance. It's like a "hidden"
transaction that affects everything. Select the account you wish to inspect,
then Account -> Edit Account... The Initial Balance needs to be correct. If
you start in 2009, you'll want that to be the 1/1/2009 balance.

3. If you import everything, even before 2009, you may wish to use the Find
and Replace plugin <http://www.mennesoft.com/findandreplace/index.html> to
clean up the data. You can consolidate categories, replace text with
meaningful information, mark transactions with tags, etc. I'm the author of
the plugin, and I wrote it to make the import process smoother.

4. Sometimes Quicken or Money would even get the account type wrong. In
other words, it made an Expense category into a Bank account or an Income
category. To fix this, I had to export the Moneydance file to XML, find the
account info in the XML (which is just text but hard to look at), fix the
data in XML, and then import the XML file back into Moneydance.

5. Don't mark any accounts as "Hide on the home page" until you're all done
and everything looks good. Sometimes a glitch in one account with a transfer
will cause another account balance to be off. So you want to pay attention
to all account balances until you're all done and all balances are good.

Good luck!

--Kevin


On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Barry Miller <barry56 at dejazzd.com> wrote:

> I imported my account information from Quicken a couple of months ago
> and my import details were different from quicken so I attempted to
> import only details from 2009. I figured everything would turn out
> okay after I reconcile my bank statements. It's been two months and I
> still can't get it right. I'm and at a loss on how to get it right.
> Help!
>
> Barry Miller
> barry56 at dejazzd.com
>
>
>
>
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