Migrating from Microsoft Money 2005 to Microsoft Money Plus Sunset

techno79

I've been using Money 2005 for a while. It still does what I need it to do but being 6 years old, I thought I'd sample a few more modern alternatives to see what new functionality they have. After doing a forum search I found this Alternative to microsoft money.

I'm intrigued by the Money Sunset product it talks about and was wondering what if anyone had any experience migrating over to Money 2005 to Money Sunset? Does Sunset contain all the functionality of Money 2005?

Also, what other new products are available as replacements to Money 2005. I'm only interested in well supported products and preferably one which has a good forum community to help out if there's any issues.

I don't use a huge amount of features in Money so I'm fairly sure most budget software would do the job. The features I do use are:

1. Adding downloaded statements to accounts (credit cards, current accounts and saving accounts).
2. Ability to specify transactions as deposit, withdrawal or a transfer between my own accounts.
3. Customisable table views for reporting.
4. Customisable graph views for reporting.
5. Ability to categorise transactions (and customise the categories with at least 2 levels of depth).
6. Like Money, requiring to accept transactions after they are imported/added.
7. Must be a desktop application running on Windows. (i.e. not interested in a cloud/online based solution).
8. Must allow data file to be loaded/save from a network share.

TIA

Paul_Herring

I had a look at Sunset over a year ago, and I was unimpressed (though can't quite remember why) - I'm still using Money 2002.

As with you, it does everything I need it to, so I see no reason to change.

NFH

Beware MS Money Sunset is a US version, and is incompatible with files created by UK versions of MS Money. It also means that all the options (and vocabulary) are tailored for US users. For example, when creating a new recurring bill, the only payment method is "write check" [sic]. No concept of standing orders or direct debit exists. It is now possible to create a non-USD account in this version (but well hidden), whereas multiple currencies were not supported in previous US versions.

Paul_Herring

NFH wrote: »

Beware MS Money Sunset is a US version, and is incompatible with files created by UK versions of MS Money.

Ah - that rings bells. Too much effort to transfer the data across.

agrinnall

There's a longer thread about this on the DFW board https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3594015

anselld

Why not just bite the bullet and migrate to Moneydance. It is well supported, UK friendly, and can import from MS Money. Seems crazy to go to the effort of migration and still have a "sunset" product.

Paul_Herring

anselld wrote: »

Seems crazy to go to the effort of migration...

Well quite, especially when (personally) what I'm using already is more than enough.

Oh - I see what you're getting at; regarding 'Moneydance' specifically, I'll save my $50 TYVM, especially since I think their '100 entry free trial' won't suffice to show whether it can import 10 years worth of data from MS Money, especially when it seems to only support QIF format which I suspect loses data.

anselld

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Well quite, especially when (personally) what I'm using already is more than enough.

Oh - I see what you're getting at; regarding 'Moneydance' specifically, I'll save my $50 TYVM, especially since I think their '100 entry free trial' won't suffice to show whether it can import 10 years worth of data from MS Money, especially when it seems to only support QIF format which I suspect loses data.

I would agree that the old version works fine, but OP specifically said they want a "well supported product". This does not apply to any version of Money, but it does to Moneydance, hence the recommendation.

It is capable of 10 years worth of migration with a little effort. I did it as I wanted to move to Mac.