Feature Request: Transaction Date +AND+ Post Date
James
When trying to compare my bank statements with what I have in MW, it
can get awfully confusing since the dates are off. Is it possible to
have two columns? One for the transaction date and another for the
post date? This way, when comparing MW with my bank, I can sort it by
post date.
Thanks,
James
Kevin Hoctor
Hi James,
There actually is already a post date, but it is hidden. I'll look at
the possibility of exposing it.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
No Thirst Software LLC
sup...@nothirst.com
http://nothirst.com
http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com
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James
Thanks for the consideration. Making columns in/visible could be as
simple as right-clicking on the column and un/checking names in a
context box (maybe set a requirement that at least 1 column must be
visible?).
I finally upgraded to full-retail and loving it! Keep up the great
work :)
James
On Jun 2, 9:01 pm, Kevin Hoctor <kevinhoc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 2, 2008, at 9:44 PM, James wrote:
>
> > When trying to compare my bank statements with what I have in MW, it
> > can get awfully confusing since the dates are off. Is it possible to
> > have two columns? One for the transaction date and another for the
> > post date? This way, when comparing MW with my bank, I can sort it by
> > post date.
>
> Hi James,
>
> There actually is already a post date, but it is hidden. I'll look at
> the possibility of exposing it.
>
> Peace,
>
> Kevin Hoctor
> No Thirst Software LLC
Kevin Hoctor
> Thanks for the consideration. Making columns in/visible could be as
> simple as right-clicking on the column and un/checking names in a
> context box (maybe set a requirement that at least 1 column must be
> visible?).
>
> I finally upgraded to full-retail and loving it! Keep up the great
> work :)
Thanks James!
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
No Thirst Software LLC
sup...@nothirst.com
http://nothirst.com
jchaugen
On Jun 6, 11:45 am, James <jcval...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Making columns in/visible could be as simple as right-clicking on the column and un/checking names in a
> context box (maybe set a requirement that at least 1 column must be visible?).
I must second this, as there are times when some columns are in the
way (for instance on lower res displays) or are just a distraction
(description during reconcile).
I must compliment your effort to avoid preferences as failed design
concepts. But, I must also ask for some simple view preferences be
opened to the user. Some things will always be user specific and need
to be tailored to the individual's work flow.
Caleb
P.S. When I rearrange columns MW never seems to retain my changes. Is
this by design or a bug, or a pref file problem?
JGar
If you do add additional columns that are user selectable I'd love to
see a running balance column in the account buckets.
Thanks,
JGar
Kevin Hoctor
> If you do add additional columns that are user selectable I'd love to
> see a running balance column in the account buckets.
There is already a daily balance value at the bottom of the main
window. As I've explained before, the concept of a running balance is
not consistent with the actual way financial institutions run balances
so MoneyWell shows your end of day balance based on the transaction
date instead.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
No Thirst Software LLC
sup...@nothirst.com
http://nothirst.com
Blair Watkinson
Have you noticed the balance at the bottom of the panel? The thing
about a running balance is that it's notional. On my statement, my
bank typically provides me with a balance at the end of every day
during which transactions occurred, perhaps 10/12 days out of the
month. Balances in between transactions on a given day don't really
exist except in my head, so I really like what Kevin has done with the
balance at the bottom of the page.
If something isn't working out during reconcile, I can compare the
balances on these days to my bank statement. It works out great.
Those balances, and the current balance, or really the only balances I
need.
The question of running balances has been discussed before, but it
seems that for me and most others, this seems to satisfy the need....
Grace to you,
Blair
On Jun 16, 2008, at 11:19 AM, JGar wrote:
Kevin Hoctor
> I must second this, as there are times when some columns are in the
> way (for instance on lower res displays) or are just a distraction
> (description during reconcile).
>
A future version will allow users to hide and show columns. This will
not make the 1.4 release though.
> I must compliment your effort to avoid preferences as failed design
> concepts. But, I must also ask for some simple view preferences be
> opened to the user. Some things will always be user specific and need
> to be tailored to the individual's work flow.
>
> Caleb
>
> P.S. When I rearrange columns MW never seems to retain my changes. Is
> this by design or a bug, or a pref file problem?
This is a bug. It was working, but I must have broken it in 1.3. This
will make 1.4 as a fix.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
No Thirst Software LLC
sup...@nothirst.com
http://nothirst.com
JGar
that day. I've run into a couple of problems with this. The first is
that if I'm trying to match up a balance (from online banking for
example) and some of the items for a particular date have cleared but
some have not (my credit card transactions for example can take
anywhere from 1 to 5 days to post) it makes it more difficult to
match up. Also, if I'm looking for a particular balance (lowest
during a statement period for example) then I have to manually go
through and select each day for the whole month until I find the
lowest value. If there was a column in the list that showed balance I
could quickly scan the list.
Anyway, I guess I'm a little late to the party on some of these things
(just bought MW about a month ago) and it would appear some decisions
are set in stone. My other suggestion about needing a better way to
match up duplicates and marking transactions that were downloaded was
met with a similar "we know better" response.
I've come to the conclusion that no financial app (currently available
for the Mac) is going to work exactly like I want or expect it to. MW
is a great product so I guess I'll just sit quietly and learn to live
with the things that bother me for now.
Thanks for the response.
Take care,
JGar
Kevin Hoctor
> Yes, I've seen the balance at the bottom that shows the balance for
> that day. I've run into a couple of problems with this. The first is
> that if I'm trying to match up a balance (from online banking for
> example) and some of the items for a particular date have cleared but
> some have not (my credit card transactions for example can take
> anywhere from 1 to 5 days to post) it makes it more difficult to
> match up. Also, if I'm looking for a particular balance (lowest
> during a statement period for example) then I have to manually go
> through and select each day for the whole month until I find the
> lowest value. If there was a column in the list that showed balance I
> could quickly scan the list.
>
JGar,
The primary problem with this is that if the bank has your
transactions ordered differently than they are in MoneyWell, this per
transaction running total is off. I had this problem so often with
Quicken that I just stopped trying to do it. If I can make this daily
total appear more directly for each transaction, I'll definitely do
it. It will still be a daily balance though.
> Anyway, I guess I'm a little late to the party on some of these things
> (just bought MW about a month ago) and it would appear some decisions
> are set in stone. My other suggestion about needing a better way to
> match up duplicates and marking transactions that were downloaded was
> met with a similar "we know better" response.
>
It's not so much a "we know better" but rather, "this is the path
we've decided to take" because you are correct that there is no way to
please everyone without making an application so complex that it
because useless to almost everyone.
> I've come to the conclusion that no financial app (currently available
> for the Mac) is going to work exactly like I want or expect it to. MW
> is a great product so I guess I'll just sit quietly and learn to live
> with the things that bother me for now.
Please continue to speak up. MoneyWell has evolved in the 10 months
since it has hit the market and will continue to do so in the future.
All your feedback is taken and used when we decide on new features, I
just feel that it isn't right to lead someone on thinking that a
certain change will happen any day now when I know it won't.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
No Thirst Software LLC
sup...@nothirst.com
http://nothirst.com
Blair Watkinson
I see your points.... with additional graphical tools, the lowest
balance would be readily discernible -- for example, a line graph
similar to Quicken's forecasting feature, but that also showed
historical information.
Additionally, one thing that MoneyWell doesn't handle perfectly, like
you implied, is the difference between future, pending, cleared, and
reconciled transactions.
The approach MW takes to reconciled transactions seems to work just
fine, and the report at the bottom of the screen includes both a
balance and a reconciled balance.
However, the challenge comes in in distinguishing between a "cleared"
balance and a "pending" balance. The cleared balance would be the
balance that the bank is aware of. The pending balance would be the
balance including all transactions that had not posted as of a given
date.
When we all used check registers (in the previous century), we kept
track of the pending balance. We didn't care too much about the
"cleared" balance unless we were in the habit of writing post-dated
checks or trying to beat an overdraft with a deposit--anybody else try
this in the previous era before many of these transactions now post
almost instantaneously?
We verified the reconciled balance every month with our statement. I
like to reconcile my statement only once a month when my statement
comes in, though I imagine that some do a more dynamic reconciliation
as soon as they see the transactions post to their bank on-line.
In this new era of on-line banking, it seems that the cleared balance
is more important, especially if we tend to use the bank's information
to update our information (vs keeping track of our information and
ensuring the bank got it right). Because we can easily have
transactions that we have recorded that the bank has not yet cleared.
If we frequently use the bank's website to verify our MoneyWell
documents, it can be very frustrating trying to find that transaction
that is throwing things off (personally, if I get within a few dollars
of the bank's cleared amount, I let it go, and correct it during
reconciliation--it just takes too much time since MoneyWell doesn't
distinguish between cleared and pending transactions in the daily
balance).
Here is a possible solution: The pending transaction is currently used
for future expenses. However, it could also be used to track non-
cleared transactions. Then, you would switch the transaction to
"open" (or a better name for it might be "cleared") when the
transaction has cleared your account. MoneyWell could then report a
third balance at the bottom of the screen, the cleared balance. For
me, this would make daily upkeep of my MoneyWell document easier,
especially when I am using my bank's website to update my document.
This was the approach that I took when I was doing this by hand with
Excel--apart from reconciliation, I had two balances, one a "cleared"
balance, and the other, an "actual" balance. This drastically
simplified helping my wife update our spreadsheet from the website--at
least one number told her that everything was as it should be, when
the cleared balance matched the banks balance.
Kevin, is there any possibility in getting a third balance added to
the bottom of the screen (thus making it worthwhile to have
transactions that occurred in the past listed as "pending")?
Account Balance (includes all transactions, including pending)
Cleared Balance (includes all but the pending transactions)
Reconciled Balance (only the reconciled transactions) -- actually I
don't know what purpose this balance serves at the bottom of the
screen? How do you use it? Does anyone use the reconciled balance in
the main panel?
What could make this feature even more usable would be to allow the
user to choose whether transactions defaulted to "pending" when
created (for the one who likes to update the transaction when the bank
clears it) or to "open" (or "cleared", for the one who let's the
balance ride until reconciliation). And lastly, allowing a more
efficient way to toggle between pending and open--either a key
combination or toggle box on the left side of the main transaction
window, where the reconciled check mark appears, that would allow you
toggle between pending, cleared, and reconciled.
Blair
Kevin Hoctor
> In this new era of on-line banking, it seems that the cleared balance
> is more important, especially if we tend to use the bank's information
> to update our information (vs keeping track of our information and
> ensuring the bank got it right). Because we can easily have
> transactions that we have recorded that the bank has not yet cleared.
> If we frequently use the bank's website to verify our MoneyWell
> documents, it can be very frustrating trying to find that transaction
> that is throwing things off (personally, if I get within a few dollars
> of the bank's cleared amount, I let it go, and correct it during
> reconciliation--it just takes too much time since MoneyWell doesn't
> distinguish between cleared and pending transactions in the daily
> balance).
>
Blair,
I tend to reconcile with each bank download and I'm going to add that
option to MoneyWell once the direct downloads are in place. Although
the "cleared" status on a transaction was understandable in Quicken,
it wasn't useful to me because it would get in the way of
reconciliation due to false positives (Quicken liked to match the
wrong transactions for me and miss others). With direct downloads,
there are two balances transmitted: current and available. These will
be shown when selecting an account.
> Here is a possible solution: The pending transaction is currently used
> for future expenses. However, it could also be used to track non-
> cleared transactions. Then, you would switch the transaction to
> "open" (or a better name for it might be "cleared") when the
> transaction has cleared your account. MoneyWell could then report a
> third balance at the bottom of the screen, the cleared balance. For
> me, this would make daily upkeep of my MoneyWell document easier,
> especially when I am using my bank's website to update my document.
> This was the approach that I took when I was doing this by hand with
> Excel--apart from reconciliation, I had two balances, one a "cleared"
> balance, and the other, an "actual" balance. This drastically
> simplified helping my wife update our spreadsheet from the website--at
> least one number told her that everything was as it should be, when
> the cleared balance matched the banks balance.
>
I guess this is where I was going with pending. If it hasn't hit my
account yet, it's pending. If it has, then it should be cleared.
> Kevin, is there any possibility in getting a third balance added to
> the bottom of the screen (thus making it worthwhile to have
> transactions that occurred in the past listed as "pending")?
> Account Balance (includes all transactions, including pending)
> Cleared Balance (includes all but the pending transactions)
> Reconciled Balance (only the reconciled transactions) -- actually I
> don't know what purpose this balance serves at the bottom of the
> screen? How do you use it? Does anyone use the reconciled balance in
> the main panel?
The reconciled balance was requested by several users and I can see
where a "cleared" balance of some sort would also be helpful. Let me
review this and see what I can do in the upcoming designs. Thanks!
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
No Thirst Software LLC
sup...@nothirst.com
http://nothirst.com
Blair Watkinson
> The reconciled balance was requested by several users and I can see
> where a "cleared" balance of some sort would also be helpful. Let me
> review this and see what I can do in the upcoming designs. Thanks!
Kevin,
This sounds great! It will give users the choice to reconcile with
each download, or wait for the bank statement (I use the latter
method--I know it's a little antiquated, but I don't really have
anything else to go on. My bank actually posts pending transactions
and adjusts my balance accordingly, but these balances will change
before they are finalized, like gas/hotel/rental pre-authorizations.
I don't want these to be reconciled!)
I don't know if these transactions are downloaded or not--it's one way
I have avoided duplicates by not downloading my transaction.
Thank you again for the incredible and consistent support!
Blair
Kevin Hoctor
Typically these are not part of the download offered by the financial
institution but the two balances are still put into the OFX file. I
wouldn't want these either so even if they are offered, MoneyWell will
probably ignore them.
> Thank you again for the incredible and consistent support!
You're welcome.