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Fee Watch!: Dodge the Cost of Money Management Software Imports

Online money management tools are gaining credibility as safe and free options with enough power to keep track of your finances. Still, many of us are familiar with Quicken or MSMoney–tools that have helped us keep our budget together for some time, tools that we’re more than familiar with. If the benefit of this familiarity outweighs the quality of online tools to you, we want to make sure you’re not paying too much for it.

There are two ways you can get your account information into these tools–

1. You can manually download the information through your online banking site.

2. You can establish a ‘direct connection’ or ‘web connection’ and download the information automatically.

The second is easier for those who aren’t internet-savvy. Yet many banks will charge if you want your account information automatically imported, while the manual download is free.

So how can you avoid this fee?

First–Contact your bank or look at their site to find out if they offer the account information for free manual download. If you reach them by phone, they can often walk you through this process. Be sure to record what you do. It may seem arduous at first, but after doing it a couple times, your muscle memory will take you to the right page easily, and downloading the information will be as easy as clicking on an ‘import’ button.

Second–if they do offer manual downloads, log into your online banking account.

Click on the account you want to download.

Then, find the ‘download’ link.

Double check you’re getting the information for the right account, the right time period, and for the right money management software.

Then open up your money management software and import the account information (usually found by clicking on ‘File’ in the menu bar and then ‘Import’).

While it’s not this simple for every money management tool, these are the basics. And this import process could save you the cost of ‘direct connect’ or ‘web connect,’ programs (up to $15 a month, depending on your bank).

Additional Link:

- About.com’s video titled “Set up an online bank checking account in Quicken” shows both the automatic import set up instructions as well as manual download instructions (which start at 1:40).

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