During all that time, the application sits idle awaiting Intuit’s message. When it does arrive, the application compares what it receives with its built-in rules to decide whether it is authorized to proceed with the download. Once authorized, it will stop watching for a ‘letter from home’, and it will proceed with the download.

Any conversation that goes on between the Quicken application and Intuit must follow standard OS X communications protocols and travel on the same internal hardware bus that is used by every software application that talks over a modem port So:

What if a hack where designed to:
• Detect whenever Quicken sends a RAP to Intuit;
• Whenever such is detected, the hack Immediately puts the desired response onto the bus, addressed to the Quicken application.

It would seem that Quicken would process the message just as if it came from Intuit. By the time Intuit’s transmission arrived, it would be too late — the Quicken application would already have smiled upon the OFX file and would be busy with the download. Intuit’s message would probably not even reach the user’s Mac until it was all over.

Would that be practical?

As far as I can tell the easiest solution would be to setup a server that will respond to any request as if it was Intuit saying that the bank supports Macs. This server wouldn’t even need to look at the contents of the request, it would just need to respond “yes” in whatever manner the client is looking for.

Once the server was in place, users would just need to trick OS X into routing the requests to this server instead of to Intuit. This is fairly trivial and amounts to adding a line in the hosts file. Something like:

auth_server.intuit.com 67.123.123.123

where the ip address is the address of the server that will allow any bank code.

Once this type of server was in place, everyone could use it by simply adding a single line to their host file.

thanks,
shane

If you have an Automator script for this, please share.

Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
5550

I can’t tell if there is another user id tag that needs to change. Quicken doesn’t accept changing the bid and the fid to 3350. If anyone has an investment acct strategy please post. Thanks

Thanks for the info so far. I’ve just switched to Mac and except for the quicken problem, I’m very happy. But quicken is a real disadvantage. I’m keeping my windows pc just to be able to use quicken on windows to manage my finances. But I keep trying to get mac quicken to at least minimally work.

Also, Melanie, you have to manually download the QFX file from Chase Bank’s website. You don’t want Quicken to automatically open the file, so you’ll have to do a “Save As” or “Download File” from your browser.

I found the first line of your formula above and changed the number, but the second line, userid, I couldn’t find in text edit. So I changed the first line, and lo, my info imported.

This is so weird.

9999
4513

I haven’t ever tried importing from a windows version to the OS X version, so I’m not sure. You might try typing in the exact error message in quotes in Google and see if anyone else has had experience with it.

There’s a shareware program mentioned in a Macworld article — find it here:

http://www.thewoodwards.us/sw/QIFMaster/index.shtml

It requires some first-time setup and may have some quirks to be found. But for me, at least, it’s a lifesaver. It will let me take the downloaded QFX file from my investment account and convert it to a QIF file that I can then import into Quicken.

Much better than manually entering 20 transactions or more each month. I think this guy has earned his shareware price from me.

Thanks for this information. I was able to load my checking and savings account information from my institution. However, it did not download my credit card information. Would you happen to have a solution for this?

Mike V.

It even has an option for adding a custom bank ID to the file as it converts it from OFX to QFX. It takes some digging to find it, but you bascially have to set one of the parameters to the ‘OFX’ default script to the BID you want in the file.

I am also having trouble with UK currencies.

FYI. There’s a sweet list of ID’s ALREADY on your HD. C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Intuit\Quicken\Inet\Common\Localweb\Banklist\fidir.txt

Thanks to this guy: http://www.cobbie.com/blog/2005/12/21/importing-ofx-data-into-quicken-20052006/

This hack works great with Quicken 2006 and our E-Trade accounts, including checking and savings. Brokerage and securities appear to work with Mac (no hack) but other accounts don’t.

Thank you! Let’s hope Intuit will improve their ethics and stop crippling the program we bought from them.

They also just released a new 2007 update, which improves on a lot of things. There are some missing things (budgetting needs some more features), but it beats the hell out of giving money to crooked Intuit.

Boycott them. Put your money where your mouth is.

Check the trick in the following web page: http://www.somacon.com/p468.php

Enjoy !

Data has been downloaded for an account () that is not defined in your Quicken data file. Contact Quicken customer service [OL-362].

It worked so well the first few times for investment accounts! Does anyone know what happened?

Adam

Bob

The program is called qif master and I found it on versiontracker.com

I’ve used QIFMaster for three years now. Works great once you set it up. There is a big setup time as you train QIFMaster on how to read and then export the transactions in the data file. But once you do that, it makes things really quick. I tried letting it run on auto a couple of times, but I prefer to manually review each entry as QIFMaster converts it for the small things (getting the date right).

One thing of note about QIFMaster is that it is just a translator — if you give it bad data, you’ll get bad results. I’ve d/l the transactions from my bank on occasion with overlapping periods with the result of having duplicate entries end up in the Quicken file. Not QIFMaster’s fault, mine, but something to watch out for.

I appreciated the article MacWorld did showing alternatives to Quicken. I want a viable alternative to Quicken. Intuit bought out and then drove out all decent competition on the mac and then let the product rot… > : | They fail to follow Apple user interface guildlines routinely — the print dialog anyone?

The current version I’m using will be my last version of Quicken — it came with my last iMac I bought 4 years ago. I’ve already received the eol notices from Intuit — upgrade or be exiled/left out in the cold/excommunicated….

I need to look at iBank again and check out Moneydance…. just hate converting to a new system. oh well.

Now, if only Intuit had not bought up ItsDeductible!, I’d be ready for an Intuit free world… However, we donate too many things to not use ItsDeductible which is tied to MacInTax, oh no wait, TurboTax for the mac… grrrrrrrrrrfffffffff

Thank you for the informative article!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~csmale/mt2ofx/en/

I tried the OFX to QIF converter and it did not make any difference for me (I got the same message).

Quicken advises me that the only solution is to purchase 2008… yeah right. I can think of several other solutions that does not invlove Intuit.

Would anyone know why it would not work 2002? Is it bank specific?

Any thoughts.

Here is how it happens. After I navigate to and click on the QFX file for Financial_Institution_1 (FI#1), Quicken (that is QW.exe) connects thru the internet to ofx-prod-brand.intuit.com, and then thru the internet to a web site for FI#1. Then a message from FI#1 (really it from intuit.com) that says “…INTUIT HAS DISCONTINUED ONLINE SERVICES FOR QUICKEN 2002…”. Then another message that says “Quicken is unable to verify financial institution information for this download. Please try again later.”

Now my Quicken is CRIPPLED for FI#1. After that, whenever I navigate to and click on a QFX file for FI#1, Quicken does not connect thru the internet, and only the 2nd message appears. But if I navigate to and click on a QFX file for FI#2, the complete process as described above is repeated. Now my Quicken is CRIPPLED for FI#2.

Here is how I recovered from this unfair and unethical action of Intuit. I had a BACKUP of key Quicken Files. I restored 5 files (Q3.DIR, files ending with QEL,HCX,QSD,QDF). I download QFX files onto my computer hard drive as before. I instructed my firewall to block Quicken (QW.exe) from connecting to any address on the internet. Then I open Quicken and import the QFX file for FI#1 into the Quicken account for FI#1. Another way to block Quicken from connecting thru the internet is to disconnect the internet cable or the phone cable from your computer before opening Quicken for importing the QFX file.

Alas, I suspect the majority does not have a BACKUP. Then perhaps an uninstall and reinstall of Quicken might work. This is speculation on my part as I have not tried it.

I was also getting the error:

Data has been downloaded for an account () that is not defined in your Quicken data file. Contact Quicken customer service [OL-362].

so I had to add the substitution:

| sed -e ’s/sharebuilder.com/etrade.com/’

to get it to work.

However, I was getting that error about “Unable to verify financial institution” and noticed also that my instition did not appear under Online->Financial Institutions. This was even though I verified that my bank (EZCardInfo) does support Quicken for Mac by looking hear:

http://web.intuit.com/personal/quicken/details.cfm?type=basic&fidetails=EZCardInfo%2Ecom&qwid=qw1700&qmid=qm1600&qbid=qb1800&qbmid=qbm1700

I called Quicken Customer Service (excellent…they have you fill in a web page and call you back within 30 minutes; call 1-800-811-8766) and they had me update to the latest “patch” using Quicken’s Check for Updates. Once I did this, installed the update, restarted Quicken, and clicked “Update List” twice (??) under Online->Financial Institutions, the insitution (EZCardInfo) magically appeared. So try this. And don’t forget to Update the list twice…I don’t know why this was necessary. Maybe it was just human error (mine).

I was skeptical that the list for R6 would be different for R3, but it is. Apparently the financial institution list is different for different updates. I’m now at Quicken for Mac 2006 R6 and can use EZCardInfo just fine with Quicken for Mac 2006 (though they support Web Connect only, not Direct Connect…but at least now I can import a QFX file).

It was nice to have a positive customer service experience for once!

What an idiotic practice by Intuit. I am going to look for alternatives for Quicken and Turbotax.

Thanks again!

Piet