Archive for future reference via Excel, etc.

[Greg Grote]

Hi All.  After a few years of on-again-off-again contemplation of various options, we have finally decided to move to another personal finance program. I've used MS Money for 27 years and I've loved it, but it's starting to show some quirks in Win 11 and I don't want to risk the next Windows update or whatever pulling the rug out from under me.

With 27 years of data (11 currently in the program, and 16 in archives), we've decided to just start from scratch on Jan 1, rather than trying to transfer all (or even some) of the data, because that allows us to rethink categories and such now that we're both retired.  I'll run Money in parallel for at least a few months, just to be sure, but then I'll retire it.

Of course I still want to be able to access the data in the future, and as nearly as I can tell, the most straightforward option is to export each applicable account to QIF and use a QIF-to-CSV converter so that I can open the files in Excel or whatever.

Are there other options that I should consider?  Thanks!

[Stephen Google]

We are dying to know what software you are moving to. I have no problems with Money 2005 which was the last UK version in Windows 11.

[Cal Learner]

Greg, what quirks do you see introduced with Windows 11 that were not present on Money Plus Sunset running on Windows 7? Money has the advantage of no-new-bugs-being-added.... We know how to deal with those known to exist, including the mnyob99.dll patch.

As to fear of a future Windows incompatibility, I expect Windows 7 or Windows 98SE could run in a virtual processor. There has even been some success described here running with WINE with Linux. That reportedly has quirks so far.

[Cal Learner]

Correction, not Window98SE, but XP should work I think.

[Greg Grote]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Stephen, I'll assume that first comment was tongue in cheek, so I won't bother you with my opinions on other packages, LOL.

Cal, that's a good point about the upside of having a static version.  I had not heard of (or didn't recall) the dll patch you mentioned ... doing a quick read online, it appears that it was created to help with Win 8, which I never used (I went straight from 7 to 10, and now 11), but perhaps at some point I picked up the new dll, either intentionally or unwittingly.

I really should've created a note document to list the "quirks" to which I referred, but I guess I'm typically in the mode of accomplishing the task at hand and don't stop to document the issues I bump into (I would make a lousy software tester, I guess).  But I can offer one example that I can recall because I have to do a manual workaround every month: after moving from my old Win10 PC (which was bought as a Win7 PC and then later moved straight to 10) to my new Win11 PC a year ago, I noted that I am now unable to update my mortgage payment details.  I don't recall the exact error that I'm getting, but after spending too much time trying to figure it out, and since I only have a few payments left, I simply reverted to letting the payment post each month and then I update the escrow amount.

I admit that there are a lot of potential variables here ... for example, I can't say for sure that the version I downloaded and installed on this PC (17.0.150.3817) is exactly the same as the one I was running on my old PC, which had been running on that PC since I bought it over 15 years ago. So I guess it's not 100% confirmed that it's purely a Win11 thing.

The other thing with Money is how slow it can get when it has a lot of data ... it's better on my new PC, but still not great. (Side note:  I'm familiar with the tip about replacing rather than editing entries in the Bills summary.)

So, at the end of the day, count me as a longtime fan, but I'm afraid I view Money as a tool and not a hobby, so after 26 years I think it's time for a new tool.  Thanks again for your replies.

[Cal Learner]

Cal, that's a good point about the upside of having a static version.  I had not heard of (or didn't recall) the dll patch you mentioned ... doing a quick read online, it appears that it was created to help with Win 8, which I never used (I went straight from 7 to 10, and now 11), but perhaps at some point I picked up the new dll, either intentionally or unwittingly.

Patch is needed for Microsoft Sunset versions for all Windows versions and future versions.

https://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/windows-8-64-bit-version-compatibility-with-sunset-money/ is some good info. The bug takes  a somewhat random jump, and what code is at that random target can change with even Windows updates. Sometimes there is no noticable problem, but other times big problem. If you search for mnyob99.dll here or elsewhere, you will find a lot of info, and almost all is talking about this bug/patch.

[Dick Watson]

Over the years I've been quite a ways down this rabbit hole.

Start with this thread:

https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft-money/c/h9_grqAsKGo/m/KPa9cFx2AAAJ

Here's another:

https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft-money/c/DN55_IOpD9g/m/GVxpmHcvAAAJ

TL;DR: 

Money Reports can be exported to Excel/.CSV. They come across messy and are of limited utility but may be useful depending on what you want to achieve.

There used to a tool called MoneyLink from a company called UltraSoft and a guy named, IIRC, David Kendall. It was an Excel (32-bit!) Add-In developed in some closer than outsider relationship with the MS Money team. It extracted tables for Transactions, Investment Transactions, Accounts, and, IIRC, Bills, with filters for things like Account and date range. It wasn't perfect in what it extracted (i.e., no Class1/Class2, no split root transaction memos, and some other things) but was a *lot* better than nothing. *IF* you can lay hands on a version of MoneyLink that matches your version of Money--MoneyLink needed some Money DLLs to, apparently, do some of the heavy lifting of the SQL to take data out of the Money schema and make it useful, so these DLL linkages were Money version specific--and *IF* you still have Excel 32-bit, this is another route.

Hung Le has a tool out in Git or one of the repositories (not sure where now or if it's still available but IIRC some of those details are in the thread referenced above) associated with some code he wrote called Sunriise. It's in Java and depends upon another piece of Java from a second organization ("Health Market Sciences?") that, combined, has a utility that knows how to take a .MNY file and copy out all the table data to a .MDB (MS Access/Jet/ACE database) file. From there, the sky is the limit if you know a bit of SQL and want to reverse-engineer the Money schema. If this sound like a route you are up for, I can help as I've reverse engineered a *lot* of the schema. It's not trivial. I spent months and had to create lots of case-specific Money files to get to the point where I could re-create an equivalent of, say, a Money Account register that balanced. Some things I've never solved include how exception bills are stored in the schema and how account numbers are encrypted/can be decrypted. It's also inherently limited to things I have data to test. 
(Notably I've *never* added a transaction to my ongoing Money file via downloaded FI data. So anything kinky in the schema to support that is something I've not mucked with.)

Armed with these .MNY->.MDB files, for which I am entirely dependent upon the tools noted above, I've developed--to semi-operable states--two tools I use. One imports the Money schema transactions, categories, accounts, payees, classification, limited subsets of the account/category/payee details, etc, to a schema of my own design (MS Money colored by GnuCash, basically) but for which I've never developed a UI to use as a Money replacement. (It was really a proof-of-concept effort that was my first trip down the path of MS Money schema reverse-engineering.)

I also have a MoneyLink-compatible Excel add-in that works with 64-bit Excel. (Build and test environment is presently a VB.net VS22 project using the VSTO "Visual Studio Tools for Office" library. It also involves an associated with a Access database that I use to test the heavy-lifting SQL and generate various chunks of machine-generated-code for paste into the VS VB.net source.) It also has some enhancements over MoneyLink but involving Excel saved query definitions that are not backward compatible with classic MoneyLink. The issue is it's just not a production ready tool that I can just hand to somebody and expect good results for them. The range of issues here include documentation (lack of/unorganized/incomplete), to the requirement for the Java stuff to also be present, to the fact that I've not paid for a code-signing key and an unsigned Office Add-In is treated with great hostility by Excel. I've done next to nothing on this in several years. Though I use it on a monthly or mor frequent basis, it's not even installed on my newest laptop because it's a headache. Bitbucket is threatening to remove my repository soon for inactivity.

I wish I had a cellophane-wrapped solution for you (and me).

Dick

[Dick Watson]

Me too. I just wish there was a new tool out there that came *remotely* close to satisfying the requirements Money has satisfied for me for 32+ years

[Stephen Google]

I found a download link to Money link here http://moneymvps.org/downloads/moneylink.aspx I have no problems using MS Money 2005 (last UK version) on several Windows 11 PCs and the response is virtually instant despite having 25+ years transactions in the money file.

[Greg Grote]

Thanks Dick, interesting stuff, but my coding days are long behind me at this point (and I was never a high level coder in any case, just an engineer creating occasional tools to solve problems, LOL).

And thanks for the link, Stephen ... I may see if I can find and install a 32-bit version of Excel and use MoneyLink if I don't come up with a better solution.