Reconnect Microsoft Money
Last updated May-2023
Microsoft killed off their Money product circa 2009 leaving longtime users with decisions to make. Fortunately, they provided a free Sunset edition that could be installed and used for free, but it no longer provided a live account aggregation service. Perhaps it would have been better to just dump Money and get it over with, going through the pain of a transition to other options, but my opinion at the time was that using Money alive for as long as possible seemed a better option. Which of the new-breed software packages will thrive and grow, and which would bite the dust? We had no idea, but some of us had decades of data at stake.
Using the Back Door
Fool me once, shame on you...
Money has a useful import feature, providing a back-door path to gathering online updates. In its simplest implementation, the user goes to each of their financial institutions and downloads their latest transactions, subsequently importing the resulting files into Money. If you only have a single online account, this option wouldn't be too onerous. By no surprise, many of us had more than two or three accounts, and repeating the cycle over and over again each time we wanted to update would have been less than satisfactory. Fortunately, we didn't have to.
Thanks to OFX transaction servers, the dirty work could be automated. I began looking into the option in late 2009 when, during a search, ran across TheFinanceBuff web site. His series, titled Replacing Money, discussed some Python scripts that appeared to do the trick. The article consisted of a series of posts describing how he got started, the changes he had made, and some alternatives he had considered. As presented, the option required a few computer skills that many users probably weren't comfortable employing, but it looked promising. The scripts weren't exactly what I'd call "robust", but it was an opportunity to build on a good idea.
