unofficial microsoft.public.money FAQ and A
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Q) Back to the check stock question: Isn't it obvious that Money should print the MICR data?
A) No, actually, it isn't.
Money assumes you are using pre-printed check stock. The pre-printed check stock has bank, payer name/address, check number, and the MICR stripe. Money doesn't print this stuff because, at least for the MICR stripe, very, very few (if any) Money users are equipped to print this stuff in ways that conform to the requirements for these features. MICR stands for magnetic ink character recognition. As the name suggests, special ink is required to print proper MICR characters.
Yes, you can print checks with VersaCheck, etc., that "look" right and, at most banks that use optical instead of magnetic equipment, work acceptably. You may also find that those that aren't using optical equipment are within their power to reject the check and they will certainly have problems with them even if they don't reject them. These problems may delay payments, etc. Despite whether they "work" or not, they still don't meet specifications and standards for such things. For one discussion of the special toner requirements from somebody in the MICR font business, see the MICRfonts page. VersaCheck stays below this radar by being small and selling MICR toner cartridges for those users who care to do it right. If mass-market software like Money from a company of the profile of Microsoft enabled lots of ignorant or devious (or cheap) people to ignore the FRB requirements for such things, you can bet they'd hear about it. They call this type of activity "aiding and abetting."
Money is now common enough that most any company that prints check stock can print in the formats Money expects. This competition has brought the prices down to the point where the pre-printed stock is always a better choice than any of the other ways to do this.
References:
MICRfonts page about printing checks
Q) How do I change the category groups?
A) You can't, quite. Category groups are used internally by Money. You can create new categories and subcategories, or use classifications, but the 'category groups' cannot be changed.
There are, however, a variant set of groupings, called Budget Groups, derived from the default Category Groups and associated with each budget. These **can** be modified, deleted, or supplemented in M02 and beyond. To do this, when editing the budget, use the context (R-click) menus on the budget group labels or select New to add a Budget Group. (Note that some of the Budget Groups, like Debt, cannot be modified.) These Budget Groups are not reflected back to the Category Groups that can be assigned to each category and subcategory from category details, and, being attributes of each budget, they are deleted when a budget is deleted or reset. (To my shame, I went over a year without knowing this could be done until another poster, Carl Draus, pointed it out. This capability is pretty well hidden.)
So, this leaves the immutable Category Groups which must be used somewhere else in Money. We will award the newsgroup post of the month award to the first poster who can identify two or more remaining uses for these Category Groups besides their being the defaults for the Budget Groups. Honorary mention for even one other use of any consequence. These things are truly cryptic. Given this, there seems no point in fretting about modifying the default Category Groups, even if it were possible.
Q) How do I schedule a bill to recur every six weeks/third year/fourth Wednesday of the month?
A) Sorry, you can't get there from here. What you see is what Money can schedule. One of the greatest single weaknesses of Money--and one of the easiest to fix if they only chose to--is that the recurrence model is pathetic. Outlook provides a great example of how this should work. But the Money designers don't seem to care.
The only workaround (that really doesn't work very well) is if your desired frequency is something that is a nice factor of one of the frequencies provided: for instance, six weeks can be faked, almost, by two identical "every three months" transactions set six weeks apart. As I said, this really doesn't work very well.
Q) I want to use a different budget month/financial year. Where do I set this in Money?
A) You can't. Quite simply put, you can't because Money doesn't offer a way to change it. You will have to find a way to make do.
Q) Why can't I schedule a Loan Payment with pre-assigned classification?
A) Only the Money development team knows for sure. It's always been this way. When you enter the transaction in a register, or once it is entered, you can classify the split transactions in a Loan Payment. You just can't schedule it this way.
Please see this disclaimer if you are using Money 2005 or this comment if you are using Money 2006.
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Last update: 10 December 2006 |
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