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Editing payees and categories

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Ed

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Mar 3, 2007, 1:19:39 PM3/3/07
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Is there a way that I can edit payees and categories in Money 95?

Preferably without having to manually edit a couple thousand
transactions?


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Dick Watson

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Mar 3, 2007, 2:11:20 PM3/3/07
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Depends on what you mean by edit payees and categories. Are you wanting to
change data in a bunch of transactions? Tools | Find and Replace might help
but there are some things it doesn't make as easy as you might like. Are you
saying you Would rather that all of your Payee WalMart transactions should
be Payee Wal-Mart or all your Food : Groceries Transactions should be Food :
Grocery? Then you go into Categories & Payees | Payees or Categories &
Payees | Categories and rename them.

I'm not clear on the value of signing a message from an anonymized email
address.

"Ed" <apo...@REMOVETHISpeculiar.homeip.net> wrote in message
news:Xns98E87D67...@127.0.0.1...

Ed

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Mar 4, 2007, 1:19:07 AM3/4/07
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"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
news:#g0ovecX...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl:

> Depends on what you mean by edit payees and categories. Are you
> wanting to change data in a bunch of transactions? Tools | Find and
> Replace might help but there are some things it doesn't make as easy
> as you might like. Are you saying you Would rather that all of your
> Payee WalMart transactions should be Payee Wal-Mart or all your Food :
> Groceries Transactions should be Food : Grocery? Then you go into
> Categories & Payees | Payees or Categories & Payees | Categories and
> rename them.

An example of what I'm talking about:

There's a bunch of Wal Mart transactions, and another bunch of Wal-Mart
transactions, and still more for walmart. I'd like to get all of them
changed to Wal-Mart and remove the other two versions completely. Thing
is that this file goes back to 2001 and I'd rather not have to do all
that manually if I can avoid it. Especially since there are several
such changes that need to be made.

> I'm not clear on the value of signing a message from an anonymized
> email address.

That's not anonymized, It's merely obfuscated to slow down the spambots.
All anyone need do is delete the "REMOVETHIS" and there's the address.
They can also look up the PGP key on public servers and find addresses
on that.

Now take something like "From: Nomen Nescio <nob...@dizum.com>", THAT is
anonymized.


> "Ed" <apo...@REMOVETHISpeculiar.homeip.net> wrote in message
> news:Xns98E87D67...@127.0.0.1...
>> Is there a way that I can edit payees and categories in Money 95?
>>
>> Preferably without having to manually edit a couple thousand
>> transactions?

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Dick Watson

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Mar 4, 2007, 9:31:57 AM3/4/07
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See inline...

"Ed" <apo...@REMOVETHISpeculiar.homeip.net> wrote in message

news:Xns98E933DC...@127.0.0.1...


> An example of what I'm talking about:
>
> There's a bunch of Wal Mart transactions, and another bunch of Wal-Mart
> transactions, and still more for walmart. I'd like to get all of them
> changed to Wal-Mart and remove the other two versions completely. Thing
> is that this file goes back to 2001 and I'd rather not have to do all
> that manually if I can avoid it. Especially since there are several
> such changes that need to be made.

Depending on whether you have added both forms to the explicit list of
Payees, I believe both methods I highlighted earlier will work. Can't test
to give better directions at the moment, sorry. Try r-clicking on one of the
transactions. Select the Fot to Payee option. There you can rename the Payee
and it will update the Payee in all line "payee-ed" transactions. At any
rate and to directly answer your question, there are ways to do this that do
not involve editing many transactions one-by-one.

>> I'm not clear on the value of signing a message from an anonymized
>> email address.
>
> That's not anonymized, It's merely obfuscated to slow down the spambots.
> All anyone need do is delete the "REMOVETHIS" and there's the address.
> They can also look up the PGP key on public servers and find addresses
> on that.

Understand. Given the effort involved--since the PGP plug-ins won't do any
of this gyration automagically, and the marginal benefit to be gained from
authenticating a message from Usenet (i.e., what do I care if someone is
spoofing you or even if you are a spoof of someone else, in a Usenet
posting?), I'm still at somewhat of a loss, but if it works for you...


Ed

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Mar 4, 2007, 3:02:54 PM3/4/07
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news:eD7NenmX...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl:

[snip]



> Depending on whether you have added both forms to the explicit list of
> Payees, I believe both methods I highlighted earlier will work. Can't
> test to give better directions at the moment, sorry. Try r-clicking on
> one of the transactions. Select the Fot to Payee option. There you can
> rename the Payee and it will update the Payee in all line "payee-ed"
> transactions. At any rate and to directly answer your question, there
> are ways to do this that do not involve editing many transactions
> one-by-one.

Thanks, I think that will take care of my problem.

>>> I'm not clear on the value of signing a message from an anonymized
>>> email address.
>>
>> That's not anonymized, It's merely obfuscated to slow down the
>> spambots. All anyone need do is delete the "REMOVETHIS" and there's
>> the address. They can also look up the PGP key on public servers and
>> find addresses on that.
>
> Understand. Given the effort involved--since the PGP plug-ins won't do
> any of this gyration automagically, and the marginal benefit to be
> gained from authenticating a message from Usenet (i.e., what do I care
> if someone is spoofing you or even if you are a spoof of someone else,
> in a Usenet posting?), I'm still at somewhat of a loss, but if it
> works for you...

I guess mostly it's personal preference. I've been spoofed before and
had some trouble over it (I got accused of spamming). I decided then to
sign all msgs even if it's not important. This way if something appears
to be from me and somebody has a problem with it I can say "If it
doesn't have a valid signature, then I didn't write it."


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Michael Gordon

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Mar 5, 2007, 8:05:33 PM3/5/07
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MOVE works as well and, in some ways, is better than RENAME.

--
Michael Gordon


"Ed" <apo...@REMOVETHISpeculiar.homeip.net> wrote in message

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Dick Watson

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Mar 5, 2007, 9:52:12 PM3/5/07
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Move will work for explicit Payees. For implicit Payees, it isn't an option.
But trying to Rename an implicit Payee to match the name of an explicit
Payee doesn't work either as you'll end up with two different Payees that
"look" the same. (Perhaps this is the way you are thinking Move is better
than Rename. It is somewhat of a shocking allowance in the DB logic.) In
this latter case, you either have to make the implicit variant Explicit then
Move it or you have to Find|Replace Payee with the explicit one.

"Michael Gordon" <gor...@denison.edu> wrote in message
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Cal Learner-- MVP

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Mar 5, 2007, 10:04:05 PM3/5/07
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In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

>Move will work for explicit Payees. For implicit Payees, it isn't an option.
>But trying to Rename an implicit Payee to match the name of an explicit
>Payee doesn't work either as you'll end up with two different Payees that
>"look" the same. (Perhaps this is the way you are thinking Move is better
>than Rename. It is somewhat of a shocking allowance in the DB logic.) In
>this latter case, you either have to make the implicit variant Explicit then
>Move it or you have to Find|Replace Payee with the explicit one.

What is an implicit Payee?

Dick Watson

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Mar 5, 2007, 10:21:41 PM3/5/07
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A term I use to refer to a Payee that exists in the data file but isn't in
the explicit list of Payees. (I have something like 1,300 "Payees" in the
data. I only have about fifty on the Payees page.) Do you have a better term
or is there some other term in the Help files or what not?

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_ne...@please.tnx> wrote in message
news:lgmpu25ulpaabq65v...@4ax.com...

Cal Learner-- MVP

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Mar 5, 2007, 10:37:51 PM3/5/07
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In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

>A term I use to refer to a Payee that exists in the data file but isn't in
>the explicit list of Payees. (I have something like 1,300 "Payees" in the
>data. I only have about fifty on the Payees page.) Do you have a better term
>or is there some other term in the Help files or what not?

I think the list only shows those used in the last year. If that is
the case, perhaps inactive or dormant?

Dick Watson

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Mar 5, 2007, 10:45:09 PM3/5/07
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I've got ones I used yesterday that are not shown in the list.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_ne...@please.tnx> wrote in message

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Dick Watson

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Mar 5, 2007, 10:54:43 PM3/5/07
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I'm wondering if we are talking the same thing.

I see Payees on the Categories & Payees | Payees page that haven't had a
transaction in several years. (Though there is a scheduled transaction to
them. It gets skipped monthly.) Can't say about explicit (my term--i.e., I
said yes when it asked if I wanted it added to Payees) ones that are not
used in scheduled bills and haven't been used in years since I cull the list
precisely to avoid a rarely used Payee sitting there.

I agree that the pull-down list exposed in transactions, etc., gets pruned
down from the "explicit" (again, my term for those that show on Categories &
Payees | Payees) list based on usage in the last (year?).


Cal Learner-- MVP

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Mar 6, 2007, 12:00:38 AM3/6/07
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In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

>I've got ones I used yesterday that are not shown in the list.

I just looked and I have some really old ones. I should have checked
before posting that response. My idea was wrong.

Dick Watson

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Mar 6, 2007, 8:44:19 AM3/6/07
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Given all of that, do you understand the distinction I'm making between an
implicit Payee (looks and smells and acts like a Payee except doesn't show
up in Categories & Payees | Payees or the pull-downs/auto-completes) and the
explicit Payees (do show up in these places/auto-complete)? Propose a better
terminology?

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_ne...@please.tnx> wrote in message

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Cal Learner-- MVP

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Mar 6, 2007, 9:17:29 AM3/6/07
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In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

>Given all of that, do you understand the distinction I'm making between an
>implicit Payee (looks and smells and acts like a Payee except doesn't show
>up in Categories & Payees | Payees or the pull-downs/auto-completes) and the
>explicit Payees (do show up in these places/auto-complete)? Propose a better
>terminology?

Doesn't show up in the auto-completes either? So they show up only
in transactions but are not in the list?


I searched back to earlier discussions. I had somehow not noticed
all of this. It's not an area I have paid much attention to.

Unlisted payees? No, implicit payees is descriptive and has a body
of discussion already.

Dick Watson

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Mar 6, 2007, 12:01:05 PM3/6/07
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Right.

Take WalMart. They are not in my Payees list (Categories & Payees | Payees).
When I type out wal in a transaction payee field, it doesn't propose
WalMart. It also isn't in the pull-down. but when I type the balance of mart
and hit the Tab, it auto-completes the rest of the txn with amount,
category, memo, etc. I can r-click put in an address for the Payee. I can
r-click go to Payee WalMart and see/edit Payee details just like for the
explicitly listed ones.

Any of this is only meaningful if you turn on the setting for confirm adding
new payees and routinely say not to adding payees that are occasional or
one-off.

As Michael Gordon pointed out way back, there are some issues when the
implicit ones meet the explicit ones. For instance, and I tested this last
night and reminded myself of it, say you have a Payee in the Categories &
Payees | Payees list named WalMart. Say also you have one in (a)
transaction(s), but not in the Categories & Payees | Payees list, named Wal
Mart. If you r-click on the Wal Mart transaction and go to Payee Wal Mart,
you'll see the ones that got in the db that way. If you rename Wal Mart as
WalMart, it will allow this, not ask if a Move would be more appropriate or
ask if you want to move these to the explicit WalMart payee. It just renames
Wal Mart as WalMart. This is all well and good until you discover that
WalMart, the explicit payee, and WalMart, the renamed implicit Payee Wal
Mart, are NOT one in the same. It seems the only way to prevent this is to
use Find and Replace Payee or to make Wal Mart explicit and then do a move
from Categories & Payees | Payees.

It is shocking (but not surprising or out of family) to me that the Money db
design permits two separate non-identical payees in the data both named
identically (seems like a big time normalization violation), but there you
have it. Perhaps there's some reason they do this. I can't imagine what it
is, but just perhaps...

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_ne...@please.tnx> wrote in message

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Michael Gordon

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Mar 6, 2007, 8:10:20 PM3/6/07
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Couple of things:
1. I don't remember what I pointed out "way back" but it's nice to know
someone's keeping track.
2. I prefer MOVE to RENAME, because I don't have to type anything and
therefore deal with typos.
3. I've always assumed that what you refer to as "implicit" payees are ones
that I've deleted from the Payees list -- they really aren't deleted (a
search will find them). I also thought that the only way to really delete
them was to archive, but I now know that isn't the case.
4. When you do a RENAME to one that's already there, you used to be told the
name was already there and did you want to combine the two. So the ability
to have two distinct payees with the same name has been there for quite a
while. (Which is not to say that I think this is a desirable situation.)
5. Finally, I can't think why I would ever want to MOVE/RENAME a current
payee (one in my list) to one I've deliberately deleted. This assumes that
#3 above is correct.

--
Michael Gordon


"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in

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Dick Watson

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Mar 6, 2007, 9:40:29 PM3/6/07
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Comments inline.

"Michael Gordon" <gor...@denison.edu> wrote in message

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> Couple of things:
> 1. I don't remember what I pointed out "way back" but it's nice to know
> someone's keeping track.

I was referring to earlier in the thread and assuming that the advantages to
move vs. rename that you didn't elaborate on included issues with the logic
behind Rename.

> 2. I prefer MOVE to RENAME, because I don't have to type anything and
> therefore deal with typos.

Move only works if the Payee you want to move From and To both exist in
Categories & Payees | Payees. At least in my data that's 50 or so cases in
over 1,300. YMMV. But in cases where it is suitable it is surely the best
way to achieve the objective.

> 3. I've always assumed that what you refer to as "implicit" payees are
> ones that I've deleted from the Payees list -- they really aren't deleted
> (a search will find them). I also thought that the only way to really
> delete them was to archive, but I now know that isn't the case.

They are there as long as there is one Transaction that uses them. But
**they may never have needed deletion** from Categories & Payees | Payees
**if you have the setting for confirm addition and do not confirm adding**
many Payees. Otherwise, yes, what I refer to as an implicit Payee mirrors,
in all regards I'm aware of, how a Payee behaves if you delete them from
Categories & Payees | Payees but still have them used in at least one
transaction.

> 4. When you do a RENAME to one that's already there, you used to be told
> the name was already there and did you want to combine the two. So the
> ability to have two distinct payees with the same name has been there for
> quite a while. (Which is not to say that I think this is a desirable
> situation.)

Can't recall it asking--it's not something I do frequently--but it sure
doesn't do that now. (Now=M07 Deluxe in a testcase as outlined previous in
this thread.) Having "apparently" identical Payees that are two separate
entities in the DB seems like fundamentally poor design and DBMS operation,
regardless of whether it's been there for one version or 15. But, as always,
Money it is what it is.

> 5. Finally, I can't think why I would ever want to MOVE/RENAME a current
> payee (one in my list) to one I've deliberately deleted. This assumes that
> #3 above is correct.

I can't really imagine that specific scenario, either, but I'm not sure that
scenario has been discussed in this thread. (Indeed, I don't think the Move
option will work since the deleted one won't even be offered.) What I can
imagine is downloading 50 WalMart and 37 Wal_Mart and 11 WALMART and 12 WAL
MART and 10 WMART4675 and so forth and never adding a single one to
Categories & Payees | Payees but then feeling the need to try and normalize
the chaos. Sure, it would have been easier before you got yourself in that
situation to use tools like Payee Rules Manager to avoid the problem, but
many new users don't yet know that and have been led to believe that the
downloaded data thing is the best thing since sliced bread. So when they
realize that they miss the utility of having this Payee name normalized--for
reporting or looking in Payee details to see all transactions or
whatever--and they want to go do something about it, what are they to do?

From Categories & Payees | Payees, there's Move. But we already said that
these weren't added to Categories & Payees | Payees, so this option isn't
available for the Froms or the Tos. (Granted a newb is unlikely to change
from the default setting of Tools|Settings|Transaction Confirmation
Options|Confirm new payees. But we do get people here asking why they need
hundreds of Payees, some of which will only ever be used once, in the list
and the pull-downs. My answer to that has always been you don't. Change the
setting and Just Say No.)

There's Find/Replace.

There's r-click, Go to Payee|Rename. But there are clearly some issues here
if you want to get the Payee names well and truly normalized with others
that exist in the DB. (I just checked to see what happens if I try to rename
Payee ABC that isn't listed in Categories & Payees | Payees to Payee ABCD
that also isn't listed in Categories & Payees | Payees. It will happily let
you do this and there will then be two versions of ABCD. Very tacky, it
seems to me. But what do I know about UIs and DBMSes? Surely not as much as
the folks developing Money. (The argument may go along the lines of "what if
the user wants ten different addresses for ten different WalMart stores?"
Yes, this design surely allows that. But how do you control which one you
are entering if the names are IDENTICAL?) So, I guess I get to where you
started. Payee details Rename is evil and should basically be avoided unless
**you** are SURE you are not renaming to a name that already exists since
**Money** won't _even_ attempt to save you if you do.

There are all manner of permutations that involve "adding" Payees that are
not in Categories & Payees | Payees to Categories & Payees | Payees, Moving
as required, and then "deleting" them later, etc.


Michael Gordon

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Mar 7, 2007, 8:21:04 PM3/7/07
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Just to complicate matters: "confirm new payees" doesn't work if the new
payee arrives via a download. Nor does "require a category" for that matter.

--
Michael Gordon


"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in

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Dick Watson

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Mar 7, 2007, 8:24:35 PM3/7/07
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So all downloaded Payees are added to the "list" and must be deleted?
(Another nail in that coffin in my book...) And all downloaded transactions
don't prompt for a category?

"Michael Gordon" <gor...@denison.edu> wrote in message

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Michael Gordon

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Mar 7, 2007, 8:30:24 PM3/7/07
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Yup -- evidently there's no way to change the behavior. OFX import takes
precedence over any individual settings.

--
Michael Gordon


"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in

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Paul Shapiro

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Mar 8, 2007, 3:22:52 PM3/8/07
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When my credit card transactions download with a payee, I can change the
payee before accepting the transaction. If I change the payee, the
downloaded payee name seems to get added as an alias for the selected payee,
instead of creating a new payee. That behavior works well for me. I don't
ever see the downloaded name again, and the next time a transaction is
downloaded with that payee name it's automatically matched to the correct
existing payee.
Paul Shapiro

"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in

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Dick Watson

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Mar 8, 2007, 10:18:37 PM3/8/07
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The account I use the most often has, as of today, 676 unique Payees in it.
My Payees list has about 50, of which maybe 20 or 30 are from the 676 Payees
represented in that one Account. (My total file has 1,449 unique Payees.) I
appreciate Money's ability to normalize the de-normalized downloaded names.
I wouldn't appreciate the need to add every one to the "explicit" list if
I'm just going to have to delete 95% of them. As with everything, YMMV.

"Paul Shapiro" <pa...@hideme.broadwayData.com> wrote in message
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