Looking for assistance connecting to Prudential Retirement with kMyMoney v4.72

[Jack]

On 2016.02.04 06:11, Jesse McGraw wrote:
> I did some more digging and I found this python script for  
> downloading OFX called pocketsense  
> <https://sites.google.com/site/pocketsense/home/msmoneyfixp1/p2>
> 
> After following the setup instructions I was able to successfully get  
> it to download transactions which at least let me know it was  
> possible.
> 
> For people more familiar with the OFX setup in kMyMoney than I am,  
> how does the pocketSense implementation differ?  Without digging  
> under the hood the only difference I see is that it allows me to  
> specify Prudential's constructed account number in addition to  
> username and password, whereas "kMyMoney OFX" does not (I had tried  
> including the constructed account number in the kMyMoney account  
> settings but that didn't do anything).
> 
> More info:  All of my previous transaction downloading experiences  
> (and this one too) have been using the "KMyMoney OFX" option, I'd  
> never tried KBanking/aqBanking before and am unaware of the  
> fundamental differences in the two methods.
> 
> In the interest of being thorough, I went through the process of  
> setting KBanking/aqBanking up and was eventually able to get it to  
> download transactions but what I could download is missing the  
> security that was actually purchased.
> 
> So, progress, but not all of the way there yet.
> 
> Any more suggestions?

First question - did you actually set up Money to receive the data, or  
just look at what pocketsense would have passed to Money?

I'm not a python user, and have not looked at the script yet, but a  
very quick peek into the code shows that pocketsense is pure python,  
and it looks like it directly handles the OFX connection, and then  
manipulates the OFX file it downloads before just passing it to Money.   
KMyMoney uses either libofx or the aqbanking ofx back end to handle all  
the OFX details.  As far as I know, both of those use XML libraries to  
deconstruct the received OFX message.  The need to use aqbanking  
instead of libofx in this case is because it knows how to handle one  
particular feature of the OFX handshake that libofx does not.  When  
that is not used, either will work.  When the institution requires it  
(such as Chase Credit Cards and apparently Prudential) only aqbanking  
will work, although there will eventually be updates to libofx and KMM  
for this.

Minor point - I believe the account number you can enter while editing  
a KMM account is never sent out, it is only used to possibly match the  
account number of a downloaded OFX file to suggest the account into  
which to import.

I have only used aqbanking to download credit card transactions, so I  
can't comment on how it works with investment accounts.

I'm still not sure what Prudential's "constructed" account number is.   
Does it happen to be sixteen hex digits?  If so, it is probably  
referred to as a UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier) and is really  
arbitrary, unless they require it to be created in some particular way,  
which doesn't seem to be the case.  This is the piece of the OFX  
handshaking which currently requires aqbanking instead of libofx.

Jack