Question about which version will fit my need...

[tedzo]

Hello,

I want to purchase Fundmanager and I am not sure whether the Personal or Professional versions meet my needs. Here is what I want-

1. I have a list of all buy/sell transactions over the past 10 years or so. I want to be able to load the buy/sell information into the software and let IT get all historical dividends and compute my current holdings. In other words, I don't want to have to key in all the dividend/cap gains reinvestment transactions.

2. Be able to plot graphically portfolio performance over different periods of time.

It appears that the personal edition can do #2 above. Can the personal edition do #1 above? I couldn't exactly tell after reading the web page that compares the 3 versions.

Thanks,

Ted

[Mark]

Hi Ted,

Thanks for your interest in Fund Manager.

You're right, all Fund Manager versions can do #2.

The answer to #1 is not so straight-forward. There are several different ways you can get your distributions into Fund Manager. The best method depends on your situation:

1) Retrieve from your broker. This is by far the easiest method. A potential problem in your case is the length of time you are looking at. Most brokers don't keep 10 year's worth of transaction data available on their OFX server. For more on this feature (available in all versions of Fund Manager), please read:

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/tintrtv.html

2) Import your distribution (and/or other transaction) data from a file. If you have your distributions in any electronic format now, you can most likely import them into Fund Manager. You can use the "Generic (.CSV or .TXT)", "Quicken Interchange Format (.QIF)", or "Open Financial Exchange (.QFX or .OFX)" formats in all versions of Fund Manager.

3) Retrieve historical dividend data from Yahoo (Historical). The Professional and Advisor versions of Fund Manager can retrieve the dividend data available on Yahoo for a variety of stocks and mutual funds. A potential drawback of this approach is when Yahoo doesn't have all the distribution data available for a particular stock or mutual fund you own. You can evaluate this by browsing to Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com) and looking up the quotes for the securities you have owned. Click on "Historical Prices" on the left side, and then choose the option for "Dividends Only".

4) Of course you can also manually enter any distribution data. You may also edit/add/delete any data imported/retrieved with any of the methods above.

You can download and try out any version of Fund Manager before making any purchase decision. All of the trial versions are fully functional, but limited to 60 starts.

[tedzo]

Thanks for the information.
Entering manually is out of the question because it is too hard I don't have dividend information in any electronic format. So I guess I have to settle for the professional version.

I noticed that Yahoo hasn't updated distribution information for several of the funds I own (It has info only until Sep-2007 for some). I guess this is what you were referring to in your response. Is it common for Yahoo to not have this information for so long? Would it make a difference if I used any of the other servers in the list (MSN etc)?

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi Ted,

I'm not sure how far behind Yahoo normally is on posting dividends, but I'm not too surprised they don't have some December dividends posted yet. You could try emailing Yahoo, and asking them about when their data will be updated.

Yahoo Historical is the only quote server capable of retrieving dividends.