account number storage?

[Bruce]

Mark,
Lots of posts about account number / password security. This one is probably the closest to what I'd like to continue with. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3742 It talks about how the .dat files have account numbers as part of the file names. Part of your reply, relevant here, included "You can adjust the default filename of new investments to not include the account number. See "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Transactions / New Investment Options...". You can also re-save an existing investment to a new filename using "File / Save Investment As...". The filename does not matter to Fund Manager, it can be anything you want."

Here's my issue: Assets in some accounts are being named with the account number, but IMO, FM should be "dumb" to the account number so should be unable to do that.

Here's the timeline.
Several years ago I experimented with transaction downloads. FM needs the account number for that. I didn't like how downloads works with my workflow so disabled the feature and deleted the account number. (Highlight a portfolio, "Properties", deleted account number, "Transaction retrieve settings", uncheck.)

Per your post to the previous thread, I check ("Edit / Internet Retrieve / Transactions / New Investment Options...") and see the box unchecked.



But (finally) to the point of my question, where in FM is my account number being stored such that assets created in the last few months STILL have a default file name with my account numbers? How do I sanitize FM of that information?


Thanks.
Bruce.

[Bruce]

Additional information:

For assets owned when the "transaction download experiment" was going on, Investment Properties dialog has the account number AND the file name has the account number.

For assets created after the experiment (after when I deleted the account number from the Portfolio Properties), the Investment Properties dialog does not have the account number BUT the file name does have the account number.

The account number must be stored somewhere I've missed.

Thanks.
Bruce.

[Mark]

Hi Bruce,

FM doesn't care about the account number in the *.dat filename. It is an option for the user's convenience, in case you close an investment, and later decide you want to re-open it. It is handy to know what account a particular investment belongs in, so you can re-add it easily.

The account number used in new investment filenames comes from the sub-portfolio's account number property. It is only used if you have the default filename set to the <symbol>_<account #> format.

Once an investment is created/saved, the filename doesn't change, unless you re-save it under a different filename. So, even if you delete the account number, this doesn't change the filename of already existing investments. You'd have to do a "File / Save Investment As..." to rename them.

It looks like you don't have an account number in the properties of your sub-portfolio, so are you sure you're referring to new investments? Maybe it is for a different sub-portfolio than the screen shot showed? Is this something you can still reproduce now if you create a new investment? How are you creating a new investment? Manually?

[Bruce]

Apologies for the slow reply; been offline.

No, I can't recreate it. I'm apparently confused about when I ended the download experiment (which is in my notebook) and when I deleted the account numbers from the portfolio properties window.

One amendment to my message below (changes in caps): "For assets owned when the "transaction download experiment" was going on, Investment Properties dialog has the account number AND the file name has the account number, AS DOES THE INVESTMENT PROPERTIES DIALOG."

To sanitize FM of an account number, it needs to be deleted in the portfolio properties dialog, and from every investment properties dialog and then rename the investment DAT file. (delete account number from Investment Properties dialog, then (highlighting investment) File / Save Investment As, and then deleting (erasing if really paranoid) the old DAT file with the account number.

I do like your idea of knowing which portfolio a particular DAT file belongs. I ran an experiment (you probably already know this); the account number field doesn't care what is in it. I created a portfolio named FOO and put "foo" in the account number field. I then created a fake position in Facebook. When I look at the file it is FB-foo.dat. I like that.