Just Joined

[Mary C]

Hello,

Have just got BankGenie Pro to replace MS Money that we have been using on our aging desktop XP  for years. 
Just got new computer (Windows8) and managed to do something to file permissions just after installing BG causing BG to stop running. Had to do a system restore and reinstall.  Need to take a bit of time to familiarize oneself with navigating round W8.

Happy to say with a little hand holding over the phone from George the software is now safely installed and working. Many thanks George.
Have now had a bit of a practice, including Backup and restore.  Next step is to transfer data from MS. 

Watch this space!

Mary C

[ideasguy]

Well done Mary and you are very welcome to the forum.
Unfortunately we couldn't get to the bottom of what caused the initial problem with your computer.
I discovered that you have a number of years experience with computers - I hope this problem which arose as you were experimenting doesn't put you off
W7 and W8 seem to be challenging in some areas. I'm delighted you are with us on the forum. No doubt there will be more questions about W7 and W8, so the more expertise we have here the better

Nice to see you've been experimenting with Bank Genie Pro.
Importing your data from MS Money will be a comparatively simple exercise

[NightHawk]

Welcome to the Forum Mary.

George's great passion (apart from people using his software  ) is the participation in the Forum from our members.

If you have time to scroll through the many and varied categories, you will see that we don't just discuss George's garden and finance software, but pretty much everything else 

We hope that you will join in and help to keep the Forum active.

[AnthonyM]

Welcome to Bank Genie. As George said transferring your data should not be a problem. I've been using Bank Genie Pro for less than a year so far and find it very flexible and easy to understand. You will find George very helpful as are others on the forum. Unlike many other software packages you will find that the customer service here is second to non.

[ideasguy]

I'm delighted
OK, I'm very pleased to read your kind comments folk, but the REALLY delightful thing is that I think we are "getting there"
Usually when a Bank Genie user posts a message, I reply and its almost a one to one email trail thereafter!
Its nice to read the recent involvement of our Bank Genie users. This has been a trend this past few weeks.

Laurie has summarised things exactly (thank you once again Laurie!).
The forum is great for discussing a subject of general interest about any of our software items, but it needs more to keep a forum active.

Ideas Genie has been on the go since 2001 and gardeners who use it have no hesitation about discussing the joys of gardening - it makes my day to see photos of someones garden and to hear what they are up to.
Bank Genie was not introduced until 2005 so the forum was pretty much non-relevant to the initial Bank Genie users as it was all about gardening.
People are naturally cautious when talking about using money software in public, or so I thought. Initially I didn't see any way of providing common interest so that Bank Genie users could "connect" to other users on the forum in the same way as gardeners can - the old "over the garden gate" chinwag thing.

By adding Boards of common interest, Laurie has solved that!
Laurie is our devoted forum moderator
We now have very popular forum boards on Computers, photography, birdwatching, architecture music - more.

Thank you Laurie, and all our staunch band of loyal members who visit every day, share photos and their exceptional expertise and knowledge - and keep this forum vibrant!
For our Downton Abbey fans, have a look through the numerous "Houses and Gardens" postings by Eric Hardy 
Our retired architect friend knows what houses to visit and what to look for - and shares his 1000's of photos here on the forum.   

To all our new members - if you have suggestions for a new discussion Board - please let me (ideasguy aka George) or Laurie know.
As Laurie has said:

we don't just discuss George's garden and finance software, but pretty much everything else 

Yes Laurie. When I'm working on the computer its nice to take a timeout and have a wee peep at the forum - and see whats happening in the Ideas Genie Community!

[roiphil]

welcome mary i to was a ms money user for years up until about 2 months ago i now use bg pro on my desktop and laptop, if you follow the instructions on transferring files from ms money to bg, they were compiled by me with the pics  but a lot of polishing up and adding the technical info from george, if you have any problems shout out and i am sure some one will be along to help if they can

phil

[ideasguy]

Yes indeed Phil - your notes and screenshots have made it much easier for new users doing that data import exercise

[roiphil]

ah yes but your technical terms helped 

[Eric Hardy]

Welcome, Mary, to Bank Genie Pro 4 and the forum. Having used Quicken for years I changed to this and find it fantastic. The enormous bonus is the very personal help everyone receives from George.

I have my database on a small 500 gb portable drive. I use BG Pro 4 on both my computer using Windows XP and my laptop using Windows 7. At George's very clever suggestion I don't back up, I restore from the portable drive to both the laptop and computer. Good luck with your transfer of data!

Eric

[ideasguy]

Better clarify that process for others just a a little Eric.
In your case you keep your live data on that portable device and plug it in to work on either computer, making your changes to your live data on the portable.
Bank Genie can be configured to Open that portable database on startup.

When you do a restore (Program BS493), it is in effect making a security Backup, to the Core database on the computer in use.
(The alternative (same result) would be to do a security Backup to a folder on a hard disc using either Program BS481 or BS491).
Since that is the opposite to the norm, its what I call reverse logic, since normally (by default) you use the Core database as installed for live data, and do security backups to external (or portable) device.

[Eric Hardy]

Thank you George, I couldn't have explained it as clearly as that.

Eric

[Mary C]

Thanks for the warm welcome.
Eric has given me some food for thought with how he switches between his desktop and laptop saving his data on an external drive.  We spend quite a bit of time out in France, we have a little house in the Charente, and take our laptop there, so putting the data on an external drive would be a neat solution to swapping computers.
We are making progress in getting the data across and finding how everything is going to work. 
I've no doubt there will be questions cropping up in time.

Mary C

[barryl]

I do things a little differently (which is not to say it is better or worse!)

As I am paranoid about backing up, I try to keep everything on my THREE systems in step (not just my BG filesets).

I do this by using ZIP to produce zipped up versions of all my critical files (letters, documents, etc etc) on one machine and I then UNZIP these onto the other two, so all my data files stay in step.

I **also** (to show how paranoid I am) keep three backup copies of BG filesets using BG's backup mechanism - these are actually on hard drive but could be on a second hard drive or a thumb drive.