The Infinite Kind Blog

Shawn Parr has some more information on the status of NetBank accounts that were taken over by ING Direct after NetBank’s shutdown. Apparently a customer service rep for ING indicated that online bill payment via OFX will stop working at some point.

As of yesterday (7 October) I was able to submit bill payments using Moneydance through my formerly-NetBank account, so this policy apparently hasn’t yet taken effect.

Not coincidentally, I first started paying attention to my investments around the time Moneydance gained support for tracking them. Keeping all of my investment records in Moneydance forced me to pay attention to the transactions, fees and securities. Alan Haft has posted a nicely written set of guidelines for investing that I think are very helpful.

My favorite, predictably, is this one:

5. Watch your money No one else will ever keep track of your money like you will. Don’t get lazy and stop paying attention. Read your statements every month and monitor your progress and returns. This is your hard earned money we’re talking about, and don’t ever forget that.

via boboroshi, who also happens to have designed moneydance.com and is an incredibly enthusiastic Moneydance user.

From the Personal Finance Blog comes a story of how NetBank is suddenly no more. NetBank is the bank where Reilly Technologies’ (the maker of Moneydance, in case you haven’t noticed) accounts were kept and this is the first I’ve heard of their closing.

All accounts at NetBank were apparently transferred to the FDIC and quickly sold to ING Direct, which is a relief but I’ll be happier when I can regain access to our accounts and make sure that any pending payments and deposits will be processed. I have recommended NetBank to a few friends and acquaintances over the years because of their excellent support of OFX and free online banking and bill payment (both via the web and directly from Moneydance).

So now we find ourselves ING Direct customers. Can any other ING Direct customers vouch for their support of OFX connections? How about international money transfers (I’m currently living in the UK)? Anyone have any horror stories of their bank suddenly disappearing?

I’ve been researching UK bank regulations, law, and practices for a couple weeks now in an effort to better understand the UK Banking community. Since we have quite a few users who are located in the UK (including our wonderful developer, Sean), I thought I might point out a neat little blog I’ve found that covers the (very) confusing world of Bank Law in the United Kingdom: Bank Law Blog Archived content, courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

It’s probably not the best place to start if you’re completely unfamiliar with the subject, as some of the shorter entries take the reader’s expertise for granted. Take, for example, March 6th’s entry:

Business rates are an administration expense

"The House of Lords has decided that business rates must be paid before administrators take their remuneration.  The effect of the ruling in re Trident Fashions, Exeter City Council clarifies a position that has been uncertain since early 2006."

I spent a few minutes on Google after reading that one. But generally a cursory knowledge of finance and law will let you access the insight and commentary that “1BankBlogger” provides on a regular basis.

Feeling like you have no influence over your bank? Check out the story of students who, by organizing on facebook, managed to get HSBC to change their plans to charge interest on overdrafts. The smallest, most innocuous sounding changes in bank policy can result in extremely negative consequences for unsuspecting customers. Let’s hope that all financial institutions start feeling pressure from social networks to provide better services.

Please feel free to post links to any facebook/orkut/myspace/etc groups that are promoting the interests of bank customers. We’d also love to hear about any financial institutions that have particularly impressed you with customer-friendly policies.

It’s been a long time coming, but the first public update to Moneydance 2007 is now here. This update includes a bunch of new features and a lot of bug fixes or minor interface improvements. If you are already running Moneydance you can click on the “check for new updates/extensions” link on the main screen or the updater extension.

This update is free for everyone who has purchased a license on or after January 1, 2004. The upgrade is half price ($15) for all other customers and a paltry $29.99 for everyone else. Of course, we have a free download and a very liberal trial period to let you get a good feel for what Moneydance can do before committing.

Some of the highlights of the update:

• Added print function in account and category list windows
• Added Open Recent sub-menu with recently opened files
• Added non-prorated budget interval option
• Added batch change feature to quickly change certain fields for many transactions at once
• Improved matching algorithm for downloaded transactions
• Improved interface for editing split transactions
• Many minor interface improvements and bug fixes

For the full list of changes, click the read more link below.

• Added print function in account and category list windows
• Added Open Recent sub-menu with recently opened files
• Fixed calculation of some budget item intervals
• Incorporated full German translation from project Geldtanz
• Allow matching of investment transactions with invalid CUSIP IDs to the correct security
• Use newer account selectors in account and category properties windows
• Accounts and categories are immediately re-sorted after being changed
• Removed redundant file window when the File->Import OFX/OFC menus are selected
• Improved conversion of OFX investment transactions into Moneydance investment transactions
• Made it so that both the backspace and delete key will delete a transaction in the register
• Fixed problem with +/- buttons in budget window not appearing properly on windows
• Reversed sign on balance display for income category register
• No longer confirm unsaved transaction changes if the don't-confirm-transaction-changes option is set
• Updated certificate handling to accept Hewitt and Fidelity certificates
• Many minor GUI updates
• Added initial Persian/Farsi translation from Moin Ayazifar
• Added non-prorated budget interval option
• Allow bypassing the change-PIN part of setting up an OFX connection
• Fixed bug where the fee was being deducted from sell transactions improperly
• Added batch change feature to quickly change certain fields for many transactions at once
• Added account balance popup/overlay to bank and credit card registers
• Fixed sort order for investment transactions in list of pending downloaded transactions
• Made scroll wheels work in account/category popups
• Account sections on home page will now remember their expanded/collapsed state
• Made online transactions marked as DEBIT, but with positive amounts, be recorded as negative
• Transaction report now sorts by date, check#, and then amount
• For dividend reinvestment transactions, the fee is now included as part of the dividend amount instead of being taken from the cash balance
• Fix bugs in and improve transaction matching when attempting to locate similar transactions from which to copy the payee and category
• Switched to the built-in java URL connection handler which includes proxy support
• Added new OFX certificate from Verisign. This fixes a problem connecting to Florence Savings Bank or any bank that doesn't include the new cert in its cert chain.
• Improved the display of investment transactions in the list of downloaded transactions
• Embedded downloaded investment transactions list in investment register
• Use new investment transaction editor for downloaded transactions. This allows users to change the transaction type or any other settings before recording the transaction.
• Reduced limit on number of items displayed in upcoming reminders window
• Excludes transactions after the "end" date from the quick-view net worth graph
• Improved matching algorithm for downloaded transactions
• Fixed a bug that prevented Moneydance from working properly when categories that were referenced in budgets were deleted
• Added mnemonics to menus
• Portfolio panel now updates when a security within that portfolio changes
• Reset transaction download synchronization when online banking is disabled for an account
• Added ability for extensions to add property fields when editing accounts
• Bill payment connections will now submit new payments as part of synchronization requests
• Fixed bug in which report text was cut off vertically if the user's default font size was greater than normal
• Added price field to the add-security/currency window
• Fixed minor bug and improved performance in monthly calendar display
• For transactions that have security prices, add the price to the security history if it isn't already there
• Fixed bug that caused new currencies with something other than two decimal places to not be able to parse and format amounts properly until a restart
• Will now continue reading OFX response, even if an HTTP error code was reported in order to get a more detailed error message
• Fixed focus issue with edit-splits window and transaction editing in general
• Made split totals update as the amounts are typed
• Fixed net worth calculation by applying stock split ratios to all graphed transaction values
• Switched second two colors in the thermometer graph to aid visibility