My Money 2005 Buglist

The Completely Unofficial Money 2005 Bugs-from 2006 & Annoyance List

Last updated: 11/28/2004

As a number of folks are undoubtedly wondering "is XYZ problem happening to anyone else" in Money 2005 <insert version here>..

I've endeavored to document bug/annoyance items I’ve been able to REPRODUCE and/or directly experienced. If you don’t see yours listed here, that doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue, it just means I haven’t seen it yet.

In addition, I encourage those who’ve experienced similar issues to log those issues with Microsoft Product Support Services. This is the ONLY way that your issues will be resolved. To do so, go to http://webresponse.one.microsoft.com and open a support incident (I recommend email) by signing into your passport and selecting the links for your version of Money 2005.

Can't backup while online "updates" are in progress - produces error message indicating write failure or backup cancelled. Should indicate that backup can’t be done while online update in progress
Can't send payments from the register while online updates are in progress - produces error message and queues for later sending. However, error message doesn't indicate why send failed
Online updates unreliable (at best). I suspect this is due to the reliance on Yodlee technology. Often fail with no good error messages indicating why. SW suggests update will complete in about 5 minutes, yet never completes.

REVISED: 10/23/04 – This seems to be a little more reliable and faster of late.

App seems to periodically forget various settings such as: Portfolio view settings, "Hide" update dialog setting

REVISED: 9/22/04 – This seems to occur if you selectively decide to NOT update certain accounts. For example, if on a prior update sweep all of your accounts but one updated, and you uncheck these to “not update” the “hide” dialog setting is reset.

App seems to loose critical data changes at times. For example: merged "duplicate" accounts and when I came back into the software they needed to be merged again

REVISED: 10/10/04 – If you don’t mess around with things while updates are in progress this doesn’t seem to happen.

View from portfolio and Money Central are shared. Picking a view in the SW causes the same view to be used on the web (and the same in reverse). Prior versions allowed one view to be used on Money Central and another from within the software (for example detailed in the software and summary on the web)
Opening a file then selecting Repair typically causes the application to crash. Trying again succeeds. This should work like MSAccess when you compact and repair a file while you are in it: I.e. it should close the file, back it up, then repair it as the same name and re-open it again.
Attempting to add a budget item while online updates are in progress doesn't work (accepts changes but doesn't add it). Trying again while online updates are not in-progress works as expected.

REVISED: Doing just above any data change during an online update seems to not work. Dialogs function but changes are never reflected in the data. The same change made after online updates completes work as expected.

Attempting to delete a downloaded statement from an online update fails with "This operation cannot be performed". An attempt to retrieve more information via the "more info" button produces "ID 34, Source OBRES - No additional information is available for this error message". A search of the KB on keyword "OBRES" produces nothing
Amend (1) above with "can't do anything while online updates in progress" - this was significantly more reliable in Money 2004 (it just flat out stopped you from trying to do anything so at least you knew what to expect).
Significant portions of the application either flat don't work, don't work as expected, or produce often scary and unreliable error messages while online updates are in progress (see items 1, 2, 8, and 11 as examples).
No way to cancel an online update and if you try to exit while in progress SW prompts for backup but then can't backup (see 1 above).

REVISED: Exiting the application and choosing not to perform the backup (as if you had a choice) seems to cancel the backup quite handily.

Online services (other than MSn Billpay) for some accounts seem to be downloading transactions as withdrawals that should be downloaded as deposits (and I’ve heard sometimes the reverse).

REVISED: 10/24/04 – Microsoft Product Support Services is indicating that this is a problem with their partner, Yodlee Inc., and has no current ETA to fix.

REVISED: 10/25/04 – Microsoft Product Support Services has indicated that Yodlee has corrected many of the issues with the FI’s that this problem is occurring with and indicates that the remainder is scheduled to be completed by the end of November. As of this writing the two financial institutions I tested with both are now correctly downloading deposits as deposits. If yours isn’t, keep on them to make sure they are.

Downloaded statements for bank accounts don't appear to be allowing me to match/accept transactions. Instead they are automatically being added (incorrectly in some cases - see above) to the register. I have verified that I do NOT have the option selected to automatically accept transactions and have it searching 60 days back for matching transactions.

REVISED: 10/25/04 – This appears to be limited to downloaded statements coming from Yodlee.

Money "merge" account screen incorrectly shows accounts that can be merged (shows accounts for which there is no duplicate or doesn't show accounts that are).
Money incorrectly changes some of your sub-categories (appears to be the case when you have a sub-category that has transactions against it within a group that has no other transactions against other sub-categories) into categories. For example "Dining Out" in my case went from Category "Food" sub-category "Dining Out" to Category "Dining Out" with no sub-categories.

Work-around:

From the categories screen - create a new category such as "Food-Temp" – since you probably already have a category called “Food” that was moved from a sub-category to category
From the same screen - Create a new sub-category for "Food-Temp" calling "Dining Out-Temp"
From the same screen - MOVE the existing "Dining Out" to the "Dining Out-Temp"
From the same screen - RENAME "Food-Temp" and "Dining Out-Temp"

During online updates, Money indicates that one or more downloads are successful (while others are still in progress) and one or more statements are available to review (from the Accounts List). However, transactions will not appear to be reviewed until online update completes for all accounts.
Links from within the credit center section to Experian don’t work in Money 04 upgraded files

REVISED: 9/21/04 – You can work around this by manually going to the Experian web site in your browser

REVISED: 10/10/04 – To sign up for the free service, create a new money file, use the link from within that file and then you can delete the new file and manually go the Experian web site.

REVISED: 11/28/04 – The update released in November 2004 appears to have resolved this issue. The links from within the credit center now appear to work as expected.

Many of the banks, brokerages, etc. advertised/listed on the online web site are not available from within the software when attempting to setup accounts for online services.

REVISED: 09/24/04 – The web site has been updated. A large number of institutions previously listed are no longer available

Closing the application signs you out of passport sites you may have been signed into on the web

REVISED: 9/21/04 – I guess I can understand this to some extent. I mean, if you weren’t signed into passport at the start of your Money session for security reasons it shouldn’t leave you signed in. And, I suspect that Microsoft Windows’ own security may be preventing Money from determining that you’re signed in to begin with… But I have to imagine at the very least an option could be presented to allow you to remain signed in (on the web).

REVISED: 9/22/04 – It appears that just signing into Money signs you out of other passport enabled sites.

Downloaded statements for 401K accounts are being incorrectly imported into Money. The OFX download exchanged between your bank or brokerage and Microsoft Money may contain multiple items for the same position. Money should be summing these and using the SUM to compare to the total quantity held in your local file to determine whether shares need to be added or removed. It appears that only the LAST entry is being recognized in the downloaded xml (OFX). In the example below, two quantities for the same position are reported. Prior versions of money correctly summed the “Units” by “SECID” and “UniqueID” and would report your total long position as 219.975 (the sum of 189.905 and 30.07). M05 is only seeing the LAST entry (30.07) and as a result attempts to remove shares to alter your position incorrectly (leaving your portfolio a mess).

<POSMF>

<SECID>

<UNIQUEIDTYPE>CUSIP</UNIQUEIDTYPE>

</SECID>

<HELDINACCT>OTHER</HELDINACCT>

<MEMO>Price as of date based on closing price</MEMO>

</INVPOS>

</POSMF>

<POSMF>

<SECID>

<UNIQUEIDTYPE>CUSIP</UNIQUEIDTYPE>

</SECID>

<HELDINACCT>OTHER</HELDINACCT>

<MEMO>Price as of date based on closing price</MEMO>

</INVPOS>

</POSMF>

REVISED: 11/28/04 – It appears this is resolved with the latest Money update issued November 2004.

The “last paid” column in the bills and deposits section does not accurately reflect the correct last paid date. If you check the “last paid” date in the “Payees and Categories” section, it shows the correct date.

REVISED: 10/24/04 – This appears to have been caused by duplicated “payees”. To resolve, I merged (via rename) the duplicate payees to one payee. After doing so the bills summary area correctly reflects the last paid date.

Summary:

As you can see from the above, there's a common theme to many of these ONLINE UPDATES... Unfortunately, Money now relies heavily on technology from Yodlee (www.yodlee.com). The upside of this is that many institutions not previously available for use with Money are now available. The downside is that from experience the technology is unreliable (at best sometimes). While I can’t say this is necessarily the fault of Yodlee (it can easily be issues with the target web site), nevertheless it's much less reliable than the "direct connect" (read custom) technology prior versions of Money used.

REVISED: 10/25/04 – Microsoft is continuing to work with its partner, Yodlee, to resolve many of the outstanding issues with Money 05/MSn/Yodlee. As of this writing downloads are becoming more reliable as well as a little faster. In addition, little by little, they’re cleaning up the issues causing problems with downloaded statements and un-known errors causing problems with FI signup.

Issues Reported by others:

1. In case of a joint account between two online logins, M05 will download the account and its transactions for each login, i.e. all transactions will be downloaded twice. For instance, if husband and wife have each a personal account in bank X and they also have a joint account in bank X, they will create two logins in Money, and then Money will download not 3 but 4 accounts. There's no way around it. In Money 2004, it was possible to skip one account during the online setup process; however in 2005 it is not possible. The result will be everywhere: reports, budget, taxes, etc. Workaround: manually un-specify one account from all reports, budget, etc.

2. (Old issue, though they say it's by design) If in budget I schedule $500 for car insurance on annual basis, Money assumes that I must pay them in monthly installments. If I pay in one installment, Money generates overspending alerts. Note that Money allows you to schedule monthly spending or annual spending, but it always treats it as monthly - the annual option is only for calculation purposes, when someone can't divide by 12.

3. Probably not a bug, but it might better be a bug rather than insanity: an attempt to delete one online-enabled account will cause deletion of all accounts from this bank, with their transactions. Workaround: disable online services for this bank, then delete becomes possible.