iBank Home Checking Acct Software

[Huntn]

Any iBank users out there? I'm trying the trial version primarily to track my expenses for the month and get a better picture of where our money is going.

I am not using the subscription they offer for online connectivity ($4 per month), but am using their web browser download. My bank account is with a credit union and I'm finding that if I use my CU's web connect feature and download my checking account directly using the Quicken qfx format, it is something that iBank can use accurately. The first time I tried it by downloading my checkbook in a spreadsheet format offered by my CU, then importing it into iBank and that turned out to be a mess.

My question- I've noticed that none of my transactions have categories attached to them and if I attach a category, I get a warning from iBank telling me that I'm about to edit a cleared transaction, and that if I edit it, my bank may no longer recognize it. I might be worried about duplicate records for future downloads, but at first glance it will demean the purpose of this software if I can't assign categories to transaction.

I also want to confirm that once a category is attached to a item, that future items with the same name will automatically use that category.

Anyone familiar with this process and care to comment? Thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

I've noticed that none of my transactions have categories attached to them and if I attach a category, I get a warning from iBank telling me that I'm about to edit a cleared transaction, and that if I edit it, my bank may no longer recognize it. I might be worried about duplicate records for future downloads, but at first glance it will demean the purpose of this software if I can't assign categories to transaction.

I also want to confirm that once a category is attached to a item, that future items with the same name will automatically use that category.

Anyone familiar with this process and care to comment? Thanks!

iBank 5?

My experience has been you can edit categories on cleared transactions and ignore that message and nothing bad happens.

I believe if you want to change a category for a future import you will need to edit the item in the Import Rules area.

 

[Huntn]

iBank 5?

My experience has been you can edit categories on cleared transactions and ignore that message and nothing bad happens.

I believe if you want to change a category for a future import you will need to edit the item in the Import Rules area.

Image

Thanks! I'm finding that when I assign a category, it offers to change all of the like transactions (same vendor) to the same category. :

From the Financial Program Thread:

You don't. iBank had made this very confusing, but you use the "Direct Download" method to DL transactions straight into iBank with no charge. It is the Direct Access service that has a fee.

I am currently using iBank 5 with Direct Download to import my Chase transactions and I am not paying any fee.

You can see the two options here when you setup an account in iBank 5.

I'm not clear on this. From iBank 5 help. It looks to me like you must pay for Direct Access:

Purchase a Direct Access subscription

To use Direct Access with your accounts, you will need to purchase a subscription for a certain amount of time. If you purchase 30 days of service, for example, you will be entitled to update all of your accounts in iBank (and in iBank for iPad, if you use it) as often as you like throughout the month. When the 30 days are up, you will be asked to renew your subscription to continue using Direct Access. You may choose to disable Direct Access at any time, whether or not your subscription has expired, and continue managing your accounts manually.

I'll look for Direct Download.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm not clear on this. From iBank 5 help. It looks to me like you must pay for Direct Access:

Correct... but Direct DL is free and that is all you need. That connects to your bank and downloads the OFX file in the background and imports it into the account without you ever seeing the OFX file.

 

[Huntn]

Correct... but Direct DL is free and that is all you need. That connects to your bank and downloads the OFX file in the background and imports it into the account without you ever seeing the OFX file.

I've been informed by my Credit Union they don't support Direct DL. However they do support web connect and Quicken QFX downloads and I've been able to download account transactions using iBank's built in web browser. The bad thing about this is that I must download for each account, which I guess is not that bad.

One disappointing thing, is that my CU has an online Money Tracker app which does something like iBank, categorizes all of my transactions. However it is not adequate due to lack of reports. I can't look at a single month which is what I need. It is a big blob of data for the account. I can scroll back through 10 day periods and see transactions that have been categorized, but the entire point of this is to fit it into some kind of a budgeting interval such as month to month, and there is no way to pull up that kind of a report. :-\

I assume iBank can do this, produce a report for a designated period? Thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

I assume iBank can do this, produce a report for a designated period? Thanks!

Too bad about your CU.

I don't use the iBank reports a lot, but it looks like you could set up a custom report to get what you described.