mapping accounts

[Jack]

On 12/17/20 6:12 AM, Aaron Mehl wrote:
> Another question since I can't test OFX for my bank. Is the importing 
> of statements via OFX automatic or must I make a request to get the 
> statement each month?
I beleive there is an open wishlist to be able to schedule downloads, 
but for now, the user needs to explicitly update the account.
> Are we only talking about statements or does each transaction at the 
> bank get shown?
Updating the account downloads transactions.  The start date for the 
request is configurable, and can be set to a specific date, N days 
before  today, or the date of last update.   (For the last one, it 
actually uses a few days before the actual date.  The user should know 
this in order to not get confused when a duplicate transaction appears.  
This can happen if the user changed the previous transaction in a way 
that causes KMM to not automatically match the new one to the old one.)  
KMM had no real concept of a statement, other than it makes the most 
sense to reconcile an account to match a statement from the bank.
>
> On Thursday, December 17, 2020, 06:02:23 AM EST, Aaron Mehl 
> <mehlzaidy770 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hmn, I see OFX in the handbook, but  KBanking (aqbanking) is missing.
I'll have to check on this.  We really should at least mention it, but 
see below for why we won't provide any significant details.
> Is this information about the plugins being separate  relevant anymore?
KMM continues to use plugins to provide an increasing amount of its 
functionality.  From your perspective, whether or not a plugin is used 
for a particular action is probably not relevant to the user. The main 
reason for pointing out that KBanking is a plugin (and other terminology 
might be as effective) is that when KBanking is used to configure an 
account or download data, the UI used is part of KBanking and not KMM, 
so in many if not most cases, the problem needs to be referred upstream 
to the KBanking team.
>
> As per your suggestion of it being a subset of importing data. This 
> isn't relevant to a user. They need to know that they can connect to 
> their bank (or not) so they can read and manipulate their bank 
> statements etc.
I disagree, but I know I have a very strong personal opinion that if you 
can get a user to understand something of the why and how things are 
actually done behind the curtain, then they will be more resilient to 
problems.  For example, if direct connect fails, a temporary workaround 
is to use webconnect, which is just a shortcut for manually downloading 
the data as an OFX file and then importing it.  Should a user think that 
is a totally new procedure, or a modification of what was already being 
done?  I know it's a philosophical question we won't solve now.
> My bank only gives me pdfs, I had to turn them into csv in order to 
> import statements into KMyMoney. But I wouldn't have liked the idea of 
> entering each transaction by hand. All these functions deserve to be 
> labeled in a user friendly manner and easily available.

Have you requested that your bank provide transaction data (whether csv, 
ofx, qfx, or qif)?  While your individual request may not have any 
effect, the bank will never act unless they know their customers want 
something.

Jack

>
> On Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 07:50:28 PM EST, Aaron Mehl 
> <mehlzaidy770 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Wow, that's lots of useful info.
> Thanks
> Aaron
>
> On Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 06:58:09 PM EST, Jack 
> <ostroffjh at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
>
> Intuit is a big bully in this world.  In many cases, they have a
> special deal with the bank to be able to pull your info using their
> proprietary methods.  If you use their product, you then get your data
> from Intuit, not directly from the bank.  Intuit is big enough to have
> serious clout with the banks. That's often why banks say they only
> support Quicken, even though their underlying software really supports
> the OFX standard.  They bought the software, and they really have no
> idea how it works.  If you say you are using something else (especially
> open source) they just say it's not supported.
>
> One thing you MIGHT do, is to run something like wireshark to capture
> the packets between your PC and Intuit when you map an account and then
> when you download transactions. Unless they are using encryption to
> hide your data even from you, you might be able to see if it's OFX or
> not.  If it IS, you might even be able to find out those bits of data
> you need to map.
>
> By they way - that mapping action just does an OFX request to the bank
> (so you need that info to start) and it sends a request to report all
> available accounts for the name/password provided.  Yes, that's a bit
> oversimplified, but that's the core of it.  If you are using libofx
> (the KMM built in OFX) then there is a security setting somewhere in
> the Configure/KMyMoney to turn on ofx logging.  On Linux, it puts a
> file ofxlog.txt in your home directory, with the full transaction.
> Note that also includes plain text passwords, so treat it with care,
> but it sometimes has a more detailed error message than gets surfaced
> to some pop-up.
>
> On 2020.12.16 18:12, Aaron Mehl wrote:
> >  Thanks, That helps.I wonder what Intuit Mint is using to connect to
> > my bank since it found it right away. It must be something other then
> > ofx.Aaron
> >    On Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 05:54:23 PM EST, Jack
> > <ostroffjh at users.sourceforge.net 
> <mailto:ostroffjh at users.sourceforge.net>> wrote:
> >
> >  On 2020.12.16 09:34, Aaron Mehl wrote:
> > > I am trying to map an account.I see two options:Kbanking doen't
> > list
> > > banks. I see the routing number and account number for my bank. The
> > > online accounts window is empty. What do I need to do to get this
> > > working?
> > > I next tried oxfimporter. My bank wasn't listed so I choose
> > manual.
> > > It asks me for org, fid and url, but I have no idea what I am
> > > supposed to enter into these fields.
> > > Any help would be most appreciated,Aaron
> > Expanding and repeating to the list some info sent by private email,
> > to
> > make available for searching.
> >
> > First, I suggest thinking of online mapping an account as a special
> > subset of importing transactions, even though it's not completely
> > accurate.  File imports can handle multiple file types, but online
> > import is essentially OFX. However, there are two overall frameworks
> > for online access to account information:  KBanking (aqbanking) and
> > OFX
> > direct connect.  A user is likely to need only one of these, and
> > which
> > one depends on what your institutions support.  KBanking is of us
> > primarily in europe, and direct connect/OFX in the US. (I simply
> > don't
> > recall much discussion relative to other geographic areas.)  KBanking
> > also handles actions other than simple download of transactions, but
> > I
> > only use libofx, sp that's all I can say about KBanking without
> > guessing.
> >
> > At least for libofx, if the automatic mapping does not find your
> > institution, it is most likely that your institution simply doesn't
> > support direct connect.  The ability to manually enter those fields
> > is
> > for the rare cases where the institution does support download, but
> > does not publish that info in a way that the usual channels find it.
> > On rare occasion - the bank will actually give a customer those
> > numbers, but usually not.  In that case, a web search MIGHT find
> > them.
> > Further discussion about this topic can get philosophical and
> > political, but based on my personal experience and some discussions
> > on
> > this list, banks don't do their own OFX support, they buy it from
> > someone else, and to keep costs down, they say they only support
> > Quicken, for example.  If you have a problem, they direct you to call
> > intuit.  They often explicitly say they don't support anything else,
> > and you are often lucky if they will talk to you at all, and are even
> > luckier if they are actually able to help you.
> >
> > For example, many banks do not provide adequate error messages when
> > they can't complete an OFX request, and only say that an invalid user
> > name and/or password was used.  They often wont tell you which
> > versions
> > of Quicken they support, so you may have to guess and try different
> > values when attempting to map the account.  They also won't generally
> > tell you whether the ClientUID is required, so you may have to guess
> > and try with and without.
> >
> > To your specific questions: when you say you see the routing and
> > account number - where do you see them?  If you entered them when
> > creating the account, and see them in a KBanking window, it's
> > probably
> > just because it found them in the KMM info for the account.  I doubt
> > very much they will help in finding the correct mapping information
> > for
> > the institution.
> >
> > I'll expand further, if I think of anything else to add.
> >
> > Jack
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