iCreateOFX 17th July Beta Release

Convert your csv and xls / xlsx files to OFX.

This release has several enhancements to the previous beta release.

1. Load Selected File to program Button.

On selecting a file from the treeview and pressing this button, the associated windows program will be loaded. For OFX files (if you have the files associated with MOA) the bank file upload wizard will be fired up,in the case of csv and xls files, the files will be loaded into Excel.

USES: You can use this feature to edit files to a format that iCreateOFX can use to generate your OFX file. On the other hand, it is a shortcut for uploading a bank file to MOA after creation. You can additionally launch any file with a program installed on windows and associated to it by editing the textbox. For example, entering C:\ in the textbox fires up Explorer.

2. Multi Currency support.

The program now supports EUR, USD and UGX in addition to the standard GBP. The account format supported is still only UK standard, purely because there have been no requests to support other formats. To make such a request, send your request to: mail@kkltd.co.uk clearly stating the format you require to support.

 

3. View OFX file.

You can now view the generated OFX file (for debug purposes) before you upload the file by clicking the tab labelled "View OFX". This functionality, as mentioned, is purely for debuging. Look out for the account number and closing balance ammounts to ensure congruence with your statement.

 

You can download the latest release from the download section: http://kkltd.co.uk/downloads.aspx

 

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18 November 18:49
Update on 17th November posting.

 

Further to our posting of 17th November, we can now confirm that the Bank Script help file is now up. You can access it through the help button on the "Add New Statement" dialog from version 1.0.0.45, or via this link for those who have not had the chance to upgrade to the next minor version.

 

While on the subject of upgrading / or up-versioning as we prefer to call it here at HQ, the prompting for up-versioning should be automatic if there is an update (and you are connected to the internet). There is no need to check the site and download, or indeed send request e-mails for up-versioned releases.

 

iCreateOFX Team

 

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17 November 12:59

There have been a few goings on back at HQ which have resulted in an update / enhancement further to your feedback.

 

1. Handling of files. – The default handling of files to be loaded has changed to a simpler process. All *.csv and Excel files that have the default 3 or 4 columns will be automatically loaded without need to select the account type; the result of this will be that the account type will display as either "3 Column Default" or "4 Column Default". (we thought we’d make the naming that bit more complicated to keep you all interested!) In the case of loading credit card data, you will have to select "Credit Card" from the account type drop down before writting your *.OFX

 

2. Bank Scripts. – As has been the case from the start, we are in-undated with requests to write scripts to load your specific bank statement formats. The good news first, all bank account formats will from now be supported. Yes, you heard that right! iCreateOFX  from version 1.0.0.44 onwards will support all *.csv and / or Excel files downloaded straight from your bank. And you do not even need to share "your" bank file format with us (or any other person who may find use for it!). The other news is that you will have to set it up yourself, however, this is not as hard as you may think. We’ll be updating the Readme / Help file soon (and from the site metrics it seems most of you out there refer to it frequently). All you need to do is select "Add New Statement" from the account type drop down, give your statement a name that you’d like it to be called, and fill in the zero-based comma separated column references that you would like to load. For double column statements, separate the values with the "^" (accent) key without the double quotes. The caveat for this is that the program only supports a maximum of five columns, so you will have to limit the narrative columns that you pick up t just two.

 

3. QIF import support. – Those who have been updating frequently will have noticed that we now support *.QIF file import and conversion to OFX. Just to mention, this is still in its infancy, and to be honest, the final and comprehensive support will only be available on the commercial release. At the present time, there is no implementation of split transactions. NOTE however that the principal sum is imported, therefore, we believe the target users will be limited to home users, since FURTHER that support for Investment and other accounts is not implemented. To summarise, QIF support would be ideal, in the present implementation, for home users of current accounts that do not have / would not require to import split transactions.

 

4. iCSV format change. – The format for iCSV files saved has changed (again!) to include all details pertaing to the account on all transactions. This has been done in order to improve archiving (release period to be notified) of data and for future compliance. As a consequence of this, you will not be able to save to iCSV without filling out all the account deatils, as was the case previously. Additionally, some iCSV files saved by previous versions may fail to load (if they were saved without all account details). If you encounter this problem, do not hesitate to contact us, or your vendor  to run you through the fix.

 

Finally, May I thank you all for the feedback (and some of you the donations!) without which we’d never have published the "accomplished" prouct that you have. Thanks again and until next time "Mind the credit crunch by tracking your finances, iCreateOFX is just your tool!" – iCreateOFX Team

 

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18 August 14:40 Just a note to all who have been asking the question about the format of the files.   The "ideal" file format is a *.csv or a spreadsheet file with the following fields: 1. Date – This is in the format of UK Date & Time i.e 01/02/2008 for 1st February 2008 2. Details – This is the legend to describe the transaction being recorded e.g Cash withdrawal 3. Amount – This is the transaction amount e.g 200.23 NOTE: For amount, the number can be signed for Negative (e.g -200.23) for withdrawals from a current account; bear in mind that the signs are reversed for Credit Card accounts and certain dealing accounts. For further assistance please get in touch with customer support on icreateofx@kkltd.co.uk

 

24 September 18:44 September 2008 release.   Refresh Treeview Button – Use this to update the tree view when you save files to your working directory. Account Types – There are three account types supported at the moment. CHECKING and SAVINGS account types are treated as the normal current accounts i.e debit transactions reduce your balance and credit transactions increase your balance. This above noted treatment of transactions is reversed for the MONEYMRKT account (similar to a credit card account). Save to iCSV – we have replaced the save to CSV with the save to iCSV (which is an iCreateOFX extension) to improve the handling of files processed via the program i.e the added headers that are required to generate an OFX file. This means that no new columns will be added to the file when loading and the header row will not be loaded automatically. If you saved without the header and need to include one, do so via the “Insert Header” button. This, we hope, will improve users’ archiving and distinction of files processed by the program. NOTE: The format of iCSV is the same as that of any *.csv and can be opened with your favourite text file viewer. View OFX Tab – It has come to our attention that this functionality is greatly used by beta testers. Though it was intended as a debugging tool, we are happy to shed some more light on how to make use of it. You will need to have installed the program via the setup.exe that it shipped with in order to access the screen. Alternately, have the files mentioned below in the same directory from which you are executing the “iCreateOFX beta.application.exe”. Additionally, for those interested in “tweaking” the report format, you will need to edit two files / style sheets that ship with the program, OFXView.xsl and VoiewOFX1.xsl.  Finally, thanks for all the feedback and keep enjoying it while it is still free!

 

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18th October 2008

Another release with enhancements.

 

Its has been a while since we updated the blog, however, for those of you who have been checking for our regular releases, there is no doubt that a lot of activity has been going on in the background, and this, we are confident, you can see in the program’s abilities. Just to expound on some issues that have been raised by some of our late adopters.

1. There have been increased incidences of new adopters having their files rejected / termed as incorrect format by MOA (both the express and professional editions). As we pointed out in our September mail-shot, MOA is quite rightly very "sensitive" shall we say, to the format of the file. It expects a file that does not contradict its elements, for example, most people forget to set the statement dates on writting the *.ofx file. This will cause MOA to reject the file UNLESS all transactions that are in the file are dated for today (being the date on which you ran the program). FIX – We have now included a fix for this, the dates will default to the earliest and latest dates that are in the loaded file. Attention is again drawn here to instances when you add further transactions after loading the file. Ensure that the dates fall within the span selected at loadtime, or ensure that you change the dates to reflect the transactions in the grid.

 

2. Support for Money is also on of the agenda. Currently, you can import iCreateOFX authored files into Money, however, we do not support all the accounts and message set at the moment. For current and savings  accounts, the support is already there as per MOA. It may be of interest to the technically minded to note that support for transactions and implementation as per Microsoft specifications, is very different for Microsoft Money and Microsoft Office Accounting! Now there is something for you to mull over the weekend.

 

3. Bank Scripts – We were in-undated with requests to include support for bank scripts by many of you in the early developement, however, at the time we did not believe we had enough capacity to cater for these. It may be of interest to you to know that we are now fully behind the idea of incorporating scripts for different banks. If you would like your bank supported, please send us an anonymalized file of your bank download file, and we’ll gladly include it. You will be able to select the script of your bank via the account type drop-down button.

 

We really hope that you are enjoying or even benefitting from the use of this program, should you feel the need to support the further developement, I am sure you ahve noticed the begging buttons all over our pages, please feel free to be generous! And until next time, "Mind the credit crunch by tracking your finances, iCreateOFX is just your tool!" – iCreateOFX Team