[Kmymoney-devel] Feature request

Sun Apr 14 02:06:40 UTC 2013

I
n addition to the kwallet limitation I also have my KMM file encrypted so
it can't be opened without the password. I guess options could be added to
the command line to supply both the KMM password and the kwallet password
but that's not a very secure way to go. Kind of defeats the purpose of
encrypting the file and storing the password safely. Or maybe this feature
would only work if you left KMM running (not a simple cron job).

Given the amount of effort required to manually enter the transactions that
are more than 30 days old it seems like it would be much easier to have a
reminder emailed to you every 2 or 3 weeks and do it manually until this
feature is added. You don;t have to reconcile your accounts every time you
download.

Another option you may explore is finding a way to run a cron job to
download the OFX file from Chase every couple of weeks and storing them so
that you can import them when you get around to using KMM every quarter.
Not sure if there is a command line interface available to do this in the
OFX tools. Or you could look for a bank that lets your access YOUR data for
more than 30 days:-)

I have been using KMM since before you could download OFX files from the
bank from within the program. I use to download them manually from each
bank and import them into KMM. I was so happy when I could finally do this
from within thee program, I did not see the need to have the automated. I
prefer to download them frequently so I know if there is any fraud going on
in any of my accounts. I use to think I wanted to have KMM update in the
background (probably because MS Money could) but haven't felt that way in
years - mostly because of the security issues it would cause..

In the future I would suggest avoiding comments like "which is an absurd
requirement...". The developers work for free and they are usually very
accommodating if you ask nicely and are patient. You should also plan to
help debug these changes when they are made if you want to make sure they
work as you hope. I was compiling KMM  with patches a few months ago and
got exactly the features I had asked for and more (the Not Marked, Not
Reconciled counts on the home screen). The process usually works great but
not always as quickly as we'd like. The again Microsoft never added any
features that I requested in MS Money:-)

I have been reading the user and developer groups since I started using
KMM. I don't think automatic bank downloads have been requested very often
(maybe once or twice) and I assume that's a factor in determining which
features are added next (along with degree of difficulty and ...).

*
----
Brendan*

On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Jack <ostroffjh at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> On 2013.04.13 13:20, TIm Dawson wrote:
>
>> One of the most basic features that I would have assumed would have been
>> a "gimme" in any financial management package that can be utilized in
>> conjunction with a financial organization (IE, can upload transactions from
>> a bank) would be the ability to actually schedule those uploads to happen
>> *WITHOUT* any user intervention.  Either I am totally blind, or in the 5+
>> years that I have been using KMymoney, this feature has been painfully and
>> notably absent.
>>
>> Perhaps it's just my patterns as a user, in that I don't necessarily
>> reconcile my accounts monthly (more like quarterly, unless there is an
>> issue) and what happens is that Chase only keeps 30 days of online
>> transactions uploadable, so inevitably, I spend way too much time hand
>> entering stuff that should have been uploaded.  Barring my remembering to
>> do this on a periodic basis (which is an absurd requirement . .  .) a
>> mechanism to schedule this via cron (or other process scheduler) to run
>> *WITHOUT* user intervention would appear to be an obvious need - and need
>> not be anything more sophisicated than a command line option such that
>> kmymoney can be run such as "kmymoney --update-all" and have an OFX update
>> occur, the same as if update-all was selected from the gui, but with no
>> intervention, and no need to load the gui to a desktop.
>>
>> Seems like all the parts are there . . . again, I can't fathom why this
>> isn't available (or have managed to miss it for years . . . ).
>>
>>  Tim,
>
> I don't think you have missed anything, although I don't see the absense
> of this feature to be either painful or notable.  However, to make sure it
> does not get forgotten, you can open a ticket at bugs.kde.org, using the
> severity of "wishlist."
>
> As for whether it's simple and essential or not - that's up for debate.
>  Personally, I prefer to download transactions more frequently, and
> interactively, so I can assure correct matching of payees and categories.
>  Also, if there were a command line option that could be scheduled with
> cron, it would mean that the password  to the OFX account would need to be
> available.  That may or may not be an issue for you - but it likely is for
> some people.  I have my passwords stored in kwallet, and the first time it
> is accessed in any session, it requires me to enter my password to open the
> wallet.  If you remove the requirement for a password to the wallet, some
> people would consider that a security issue.  I know KMM can store the
> password itself, but some don't consider that sufficiently secure.  Yes -
> KMM could have the feature, and the paranoid among us could keep the
> password on kwallet and just not use the feature, but this leads to a
> second point (as has been pointed out on this list) developer time is
> somewhat limited, and all the developers are volunteers.  They add features
> and fix bugs because they want to, not because someone says it is essential.
>
> As a short term workaround - you could have cron send you a message
> reminding you to download your transaction.
>
>
> Jack
>
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