The Infinite Kind Blog

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

If you were thinking about purchasing a copy of Moneydance for yourself or a friend, today is the day to do so! All of the proceeds from every Moneydance purchase today will be donated to the Virginia Tech Memorial Fund in order to help defray costs for the victims and their families.

This fundraiser is organized by Lee Falin and we are one of many independent Mac software developers. For more information and the list of developers taking part, click the image below.

I am very happy to announce that Moneydance 2007 is now available! The new version can now be downloaded from the main Moneydance download page. The primary improvements over Moneydance 2006 include:

• Budget graph in the toolbar that shows the state of your income and expenses compared to your budget
• Net worth history graph in the main toolbar showing the general trend of your finances
• New budget manager allowing much more flexible budget planning
• New budget report showing your budget status for multiple time periods side-by-side
• Improvements to investment portfolio view such as cost basis for individual securities as well as overall cost basis and portfolio value
• More polished graphing (using JFreeChart) including the ability to zoom in to any portion of the graph and to get information for each point in the graph with a simple swipe of the mouse
• Additional reports such as Income/Expenses and a true Cash Flow report
• A new summary graph on the home page that shows an overview of your expenses or income for a period of your choosing, updated instantly
• A vast number of user interface improvements, making the starting "home page" screen more informative while appearing less cluttered

We’ve also made a huge number of bug fixes - too many to include here.

Please download a copy and tell your friends!

Here is the long awaited (well, 12 days) third beta for Moneydance 2007! This release includes a (further) improved budget system and fixes to a bunch of small bugs.

The budget graph now allows you to select the time period (this month, last month, this year, etc) for which your budget status should be graphed and does away with the pro-rated status indicators which seemed to confuse most reasonable people. The graph now remembers the selected budget and time period. The budget report has been given the ability to display budget performance for any given time period and also allows you to break down a budget report into monthly, weekly, quarterly, or yearly intervals and to see your budget status for those intervals side-by-side.

For those who are having printing problems on Linux, please try the installer that includes java below. This version includes Java 6 for Linux which should solve the CUPS printing problem that occurs when using Java 5 (aka Java 1.5)

Below are links to download the full installer for Moneydance 2007 beta3. To submit bugs or feedback, please use our new issue tracking system and make sure to tag any bug reports as applicable to “2007.beta” so that we can fix them before the general release (which will hopefully be in a few hours). Thanks!

• Moneydance (full application) for Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
• Moneydance (full application) for Mac OS X 10.2 and lower
• moneydance.zip (eCS or OS/2 application, including startup script)
• MoneydanceInstall.exe (windows installer; downloads java if necessary)
• MoneydanceInstallwj.exe (windows installer; includes java)
• moneydance_linux_x86.sh (linux installer; downloads java if necessary)
• moneydance_linux_x86wj.sh (linux installer; includes java)
• moneydance_solaris_sparc.sh (Solaris-sparc installer)

The second beta release of Moneydance 2007 is now available! This release includes a bunch of bug fixes and usability improvements over the first beta.

Below are links to download the full installer for Moneydance 2007 beta2. To submit bugs or feedback, please use our new issue tracking system and make sure to tag any bug reports as applicable to “2007.beta” so that we can fix them before the general release. Thanks!

• Moneydance (full application) for Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
• Moneydance (full application) for Mac OS X 10.2 and lower
• moneydance.zip (eCS or OS/2 application, including startup script)
• MoneydanceInstall.exe (windows installer; downloads java if necessary)
• MoneydanceInstallwj.exe (windows installer; includes java)
• moneydance_linux_x86.sh (linux installer; downloads java if necessary)
• moneydance_linux_x86wj.sh (linux installer; includes java)
• moneydance_solaris_sparc.sh (Solaris-sparc installer)