Original Overview

PalOMoney Overview

Forward

Imagine my shock when, at the beginning of October, 2012, I fired up my trusty version of Microsoft Money '99 Personal and Business, and discovered that the online quotes feature no longer worked! When I purchased this software in 1999 or so, there was no mention in the literature or documentation of quote servers not working sometime in the future. Over the years, I read with some degree of self-congratulation and relief as owners of upgraded Money versions complained of problems, etc., finally culminating in loss of their services, the discontinuation of Money, and the belated release of Money Sunset, a progression that greatly disturbed me. But, my Money '99 quote services continued to work! I thanked my lucky stars that I had never upgraded.

Then, on that fateful day in October, the servers that powered the '99 services no longer returned quotes. My first reaction was to complain to Microsoft, but, really, they do not care you and me, and I had never upgraded (thank goodness), so I decided that would be a waste of time. Not to mention, what about Vista? It is still my wish and desire that Microsoft will either sell Money to another publisher or otherwise somehow rejuvenate it.

Alternatives

I read about some python software that could download bank and brokerage statements, and I had started to use this software to update my bank accounts via ofx/qfx. The same idea has been applied to updating quotes by setting up a dummy account to hold very small quantities of all of your securities, then creating a fake broker statement using publicly available quote sources, importing the statement, and having the resulting prices produce manual quote updates. The problem is that only one quote per day can be done this way, and that quote sticks for the entire day. This is ruinous if you want a mid-day update. Obviously, there needed to be a way to import these mid-day quotes as 'online' and not 'update' (which means manual). These alternatives are not acceptable to me, and make me unhappy with Money.

The Money QIF export function results in a very hard import into other software. Importing into GnuCash and Quicken was difficult and incomplete. Nonetheless, I spent hours doing just that, but I did not like using these products for a variety of reasons (to be written). So I continued with money.

Money Sunset

Well, if Money '99 no longer had the online quotes functionality, and never had the direct connection to the banks, why not upgrade? 

What a miracle that Microsoft decided to release a free version of its latest Money software, Money Sunset. This act alone might save some of their management from immediate dispatch to the depths of Hell. Could someone out there write a book about this decision? Money Sunset seems to be the latest Money version (2008), but with the online and activation functions functions removed. However, the majority of the interface that used to launch Money web sites, now just displays Page Not Found content. These were not removed. I wish they had disabled only the activation and left the online functions, along with a means to redirect these functions to alternative web services. Or kept the activation and all the features, and instead supplied an alternative activation server or software so that existing copies of later versions of Money could be reactivated when moved to another computer. I mean, how hard could this be?

Money Sunset has a several additional helpful features than Money '99, but it also loses the straightforward user interface in which you could always get to anywhere from anywhere. The current Money interface annoys me no end because of this. For example, to get to an account portfolio view, you must go to Banking, then look up a security, then you can click on Manage Portfolio. Or try getting to the Statements Summary page! I have not been able to add a shortcut to the shortcut bar to just go where I want. Also, the later versions of Money are not crisp and responsive. I get the feeling that the product has become bloated with layers and layers of software this and that. 

Upgrading was more difficult than expected because Money '99 could not be imported into modern Money versions. The process was to download a limited use copy of Money 2005, and convert to 2005, then uninstall Money 2005, download Money Sunset, install, and convert to the current (version 17) software.

Abandonment

You would expect that if a company has abandoned a product that they would provide the means to export the data that their loyal customers had entered into their product. But, no, the Money database format interface is not readily accessible to other developers. Why not?

Although there is an open source project to access the Money .mny file database, it is currently read only, and does not seem to work on the newer versions of Money. It would be good to support this software and incorporate it into this product, once it is fully functional. Currently, PalOMoney uses an poorly-documented interface (or, at least, we don't have complete documentation) to the Money database engine. I hate using this sort of unsupported interface, and am worried that somehow, something bad is going to happen to my financial data.

Compensating for this risky approach, we will back up our .mny file every day, and also save the update information in an Import folder, so that we can easily update any backup any time into the future. Really, disk space is pretty inexpensive these days, and getting cheaper, so it makes sense to do these steps anyway. Besides, the data can be used to update parallel versions of GnuCash and Quicken.

Concepts

PalOMoney uses a poorly-documented public interface to the Money .mny file database engine. A planned future enhancement will add a menu pick to use a well-documented engine, once it is developed.

PalOMoney currently addresses the problem of broken OnLine quotes. It connects to one of several publicly available quote sources, downloads quotes for your securities, and updates the prices. It can import previously saved quote files, or connect in real time.

PalOMoney can be extended to connect to any quote server, including paid services for which you might purchase a subscription.

If there is sufficient interest, it may be possible to start a subscription service that would reinstitute the online functionality of Money 2008 and earlier. This service would provide delayed or perhaps even real time quotes. This would not be practical without a corresponding reinstitution of the Money activation server at Microsoft, so that the old software could be re-installed on a new computer.

Some Money users have access to real time quotes via their brokerage accounts. It is possible that these quote sources could be added to PalOMoney.

PalOMoney consists of two independent modules, the PalOMoney user interface, and the MoneyPal command line updating utility, which can be called from any other program, or scheduled to run periodically. MoneyPal can be used without PalOMoney to update money.

Product Status

There are many alternatives to Microsoft Money. Regrettably, the author has not found anything better to use.

I use Quicken for some entities, but I absolutely hate the product and the company, and I also hate the perversion of the publicly open OFX standard into a proprietary and costly QFX derivation (which works as an OFX file, by the way).

I do not trust the various on line services to not abuse or disclose my financial information, inadvertently or otherwise. I also hate the idea of screen scraping as an interface to financial software. Much better to have a robust direct connect type of ecosystem.

This free version is being released to gauge the interest, if there is any interest at all, in continuing to use Microsoft Money given the proposition that online quotes, and online bank services, could be reinstated. 

If there is sufficient interest, the product may be further developed. There are no plans to market this product. If you are interested in developing and marketing PalOMoney, please contact the author on the support forum. 

Support

Support is to be determined. Support is free during this free evaluation period.

We can start using a support forum somewhere. There would have to be some sort of revenue source to pay for the support, which could then include telephone besides web based support.

There is no warranty for this product whatsoever. We believe but cannot guarantee that using the product should not violate anyone's rights or obligations. You are responsible for your impact on the quote servers. Generally, there is no such thing as a free lunch, so the users of this product are encouraged to use fully freely available public quote servers, and not too often, or a properly licensed private subscription.

Future

Not included. See Enhancement Requests

Please send to "dev" (development) your wish list to (make a valid email address on) palomoney.com.

Copyright (c) 2012 PalOMoney.com
Revised