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American Express - OFX download option removed

Discussions regarding financial software
AF62
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American Express - OFX download option removed

#338297

Postby AF62 » September 5th, 2020, 11:49 am

Logging on to my Amex card this morning the OFX option for Microsoft Money has vanished and the only options now are for Quicken (QFX), Quickbooks (QBO), Excel, and CSV.

Customer Service response was don’t know and don’t care. Complaint raised and let’s see what happens.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#338339

Postby TurboukToo2 » September 5th, 2020, 1:05 pm

Thanks for highlighting this. I have just complained too.
I have also asked for American Express to recommend a safe and secure third party tool that will perform the conversion to MS Money now they have removed the option after many years. Surprise surprise they don't seem to have one.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#338368

Postby genou » September 5th, 2020, 3:20 pm

TurboukToo2 wrote:Thanks for highlighting this. I have just complained too.
I have also asked for American Express to recommend a safe and secure third party tool that will perform the conversion to MS Money now they have removed the option after many years. Surprise surprise they don't seem to have one.


You can get from CSV to QIF using this - http://xl2qif.chez-alice.fr/xl2qif_en.php .

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#338369

Postby AF62 » September 5th, 2020, 3:21 pm

What is particularly annoying is the QFX format is a modified version of the open source OFX format, which Amex would have to pay to licence from Intuit. So providing an OFX option should be trivial to them.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#338371

Postby AF62 » September 5th, 2020, 3:24 pm

genou wrote:You can get from CSV to QIF using this - http://xl2qif.chez-alice.fr/xl2qif_en.php .


I tried that when First Direct removed their QIF download option but I couldn’t get it to work with Office 2019.

peterh
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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#338372

Postby peterh » September 5th, 2020, 3:27 pm

Oops, I should have checked the forum home page first - I found another thread via Google and have posted some comments there.

I had the same problem today and did some searching as well. I found a simple solution, although it does involve editing a QFX file downloaded from Amex. The details are in the First Direct thread.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#338395

Postby AF62 » September 5th, 2020, 5:09 pm

peterh wrote:Oops, I should have checked the forum home page first - I found another thread via Google and have posted some comments there.

I had the same problem today and did some searching as well. I found a simple solution, although it does involve editing a QFX file downloaded from Amex. The details are in the First Direct thread.


From the other thread in case it gets lost -

peterh wrote:However, the Quicken QFX format is still an option and, although the downloaded file won't be immediately accepted by Money, I've discovered a simple trick to remedy this. All you need to do is use a text editor and modify one tag near the start of the file. I used Wordpad in Windows.

You need to find this statement: <OFX xmlns:ns2="http://ofx.net/types/2003/04"> and change it to <OFX>

I used the file>import menu to bring it into Money, but it might work if you changed the file type from qfx to ofx and then double clicked it.


That worked perfectly - thanks!

I had tried these solutions before posting - https://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress ... nto-money/ and https://social.microsoft.com/forums/en- ... soft-money but they threw an error about the file being invalid or corupted.

However now with your solution of editing the file and with the registry edits from the links, then double clicking on the QFX imports it without an issue.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#339875

Postby rn170uk » September 12th, 2020, 12:49 pm

I used to use qif format to import into KMyMoney but that format has gone too. I have however written something which will convert qfx / qbo (the outputs from Amex export are identical) to as near as possible to the qif extract.

Requirements - notepad++ (or another tool to pretty the output), oorexx (could easily be coded in something else as it's not complicated)
Steps - download quicken file (activity.qfx)
Open file in notepad++ - ctrl-shift-alt-b (this converts one line to an easier to read format)
rexx ofxtoqif.rex activity.qfx > ofx.qif

Code: Select all

/* paste this (including header) into ofxtoqif.rex */
parse arg infile
say "!Type:CCard"
do until lines(infile)=0
    inline=linein(infile)
    stripinline=Translate(inline,"  ","<>")
    SELECT
        WHEN POS("TRNTYPE",inline)>0 THEN
            do;debcred=word(stripinline,2);end
        WHEN POS("DTPOSTED",inline)>0 THEN
        do
            dt=left(word(stripinline,2),8)
            newdt="D"||right(dt,2)||"/"||substr(dt,5,2)||"/"||left(dt,4)
        end
        WHEN POS("TRNAMT",inline)>0 THEN
          do;newamt="T"||word(stripinline,2);end
        WHEN POS("FITID",inline)>0 THEN
          do;newfit="N"||right(word(stripinline,2),8);end
        WHEN POS("<NAME>",inline)>0 THEN
        do
            nm=substr(strip(inline),7,length(strip(inline))-13)
            call fixnames
            newnm="P"||nm
        end
        WHEN POS("<MEMO>",inline)>0 THEN
        do
            if countstr("-",inline)=1 then newm="M "||" Process Date "right(newdt,10)
            if countstr("-",inline)>1 then newm="M "||substr(inline,lastpos("-",inline)+1,lastpos("<",inline)-lastpos("-",inline)-1) "Process Date "right(newdt,10)
        end
        WHEN POS("</STMTTRN>",inline)>0 THEN call writeout
       OTHERWISE ITERATE
    END
END /* do */
exit
writeout:
    say newdt;say newfit;say newamt;say newnm;say newm;say "^";say ""
return
fixnames:
    nm=changestr("AMAZONCOUK",nm,"AMAZON.CO.UK")
    if countstr("AMAZON.CO.UK",nm)=2 then nm=changestr("CO.UK",nm,"CO.UK*",1)
    nm=changestr("WWWBEER52COM",nm,"WWW.BEER52.COM")
    nm=changestr("HALFORDS LIMITED ECO REDDITCH",nm,"HALFORDS LIMITED - E.CO REDDITCH")
    nm=changestr("MARKS SPENCER DIREC SALFORD",nm,"MARKS & SPENCER - DIREC SALFORD")
    nm=changestr("PAYMENT RECEIVED THANK YOU",nm,"PAYMENT RECEIVED - THANK YOU")
return

There are some annoying things with the ofx output. . & - * are removed so I've put them back in. The fixnames subroutine puts them back in. Amazon put * in, so there's a specific bit to for that. You WILL need to add extra lines based on where you spend.
WARNING - it seems that none of the formats that Amex exports contain the Process Date. qif did. If you import where you already have entries, you may end up with duplicates. You will have to manually remove these. Sorry. Blame Amex for not including that tag.

Supplied without any warranty. I am not responsible for damage to your files, loss of hair, income, or global thermonuclear war.

AF62
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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#340486

Postby AF62 » September 15th, 2020, 5:47 pm

An update call from Amex today advised me that the withdrawal of the OFX downloads for Microsoft Money was not deliberate but part of the site update which hasn’t gone to plan and they are working to restore the facility (although had no timescale).

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#348419

Postby AF62 » October 17th, 2020, 8:41 am

And as an update, Amex appear to have updated the Quicken format so it no longer contains the troublesome <OFX xmlns:ns2="http://ofx.net/types/2003/04"> section and the files now import into MS Money with any issue.

iand
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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#348671

Postby iand » October 18th, 2020, 2:57 pm

I had the same problems (using Money 2000).

Manually editing the Quicken file worked for me at the end of September, but now it doesn't. Unlike AF62, the non-edited version of the file isn't working for me either - error message from Money saying file is invalid or corrupt.

Looking into the file with Notepad, the format of the file appears to have changed in the last few weeks. Unfortunately I can't find the one from September that I edited.

Any suggestions very welcome.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#348702

Postby AF62 » October 18th, 2020, 4:47 pm

iand wrote:Any suggestions very welcome.


Did you try the amendments to the Registry which I mentioned I had done in an earlier post in the thread?

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#349870

Postby peterh » October 22nd, 2020, 4:48 pm

iand wrote:I had the same problems (using Money 2000).

Any suggestions very welcome.

How are you trying to import the file? I did it successfully again a couple of weeks ago for my October statement.

Downloaded the Quicken activity.qfx file
Edited it as per my post upthread
Brought it into Money (I have v14 - Money 2004) using file > import > download statement (select the 'all files' option and navigate to the edited file).

I seem to recall when I tried it last month, double clicking the file didn't work, but I didn't try that again this month - the manual way worked again.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#351794

Postby Milford2020 » October 29th, 2020, 6:57 pm

Called Amex today they told me they were waiting for microsoft to update their software! I'm going to look for a credit card that has OFX/QIF support as standard but in the interim I tried some of the more straightforward options in the thread above but still got the file corrupted message. This website worked for me (Money 2002) csvconverter.biz (sorry I'm not approved to post links)
[*]downloaded the CSV file from Amex,
[*]accepted the default mappings,
[*]check the box for credit card (otherwise they will come in as credits rather than debits)
[*]download the Qif file (the ofx option did not work for me - got the same corrupt file message)
[*]double clicked, money opened and requested which acct

Hope this help someone

BTW can anyone suggest a UK creditcard that has money support as standard?

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#351841

Postby AF62 » October 29th, 2020, 9:47 pm

Is the issue that you are using Money 2002?

Microsoft did release the 2005 UK version free of charge but unfortunately it is no longer available from their website (only the US versions), although it is available from other websites if you search for Money 2005 UK - QFE2 but up to you whether you trust them or not.

https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en- ... orum=money

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#351982

Postby Milford2020 » October 30th, 2020, 2:53 pm

Thanks. Unfortunately I used money with passport and did not disable it when it was withdrawn, so although afew years ago I bought 2005 I could not open the file because of the passport authentication I think. I would need to export all the qif files seperately and with over 20 yrs worth of data it feels like too much work

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#352244

Postby AF62 » October 31st, 2020, 4:12 pm

Milford2020 wrote:Thanks. Unfortunately I used money with passport and did not disable it when it was withdrawn, so although a few years ago I bought 2005 I could not open the file because of the passport authentication I think.


Have you tried this to remove the password authentication - http://moneymvps.org/faq/article/557.aspx and have you tried the salvage tool in case there are any errors in it - http://moneymvps.org/faq/article/328.aspx (obviously taking backups first).

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#353419

Postby Milford2020 » November 4th, 2020, 1:21 pm

Thanks for the suggestion and link. Money 2002 has a "login lockbox" which gives me the option to disable passport but then comes back with "Passport has encountered an error please try again in a few minutes"

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#353435

Postby bluedonkey » November 4th, 2020, 1:58 pm

Count yourself lucky. The John Lewis credit card download is 20th Century. As an example, the dates are all formatted as text.

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Re: American Express - OFX download option removed

#353488

Postby AF62 » November 4th, 2020, 5:26 pm

bluedonkey wrote:Count yourself lucky. The John Lewis credit card download is 20th Century. As an example, the dates are all formatted as text.


This website will convert the JL credit card csv downloads into QIF (although obviously you would have to be comfortable uploading your financial data to it) - just make sure you tick the 'this is a credit card' box - https://csvconverter.biz/

Alternatively just give up on the JL credit card and choose a card that still does QIF/OFX downloads (Amex, First Direct, HSBC - rather ironic since JLFS is run by HSBC..., Halifax, etc.). I stopped using the JL card due to their pathetic lack of customer service.


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