OS/2 e-Zine! - moneyplex v1.0

moneyplex v1.0 - by Marco Steinbach

After the ultimate barrier between me and my money, the plain "We're closed!" sign, evolved into a blinking "Out of order..." display due to the dramatic achievements in banking technology today, I decided to make use of all the machinery I have at home to get my financial jobs done. Homebanking is the magic word.

Instead of throwing my money out the Window(s), I wanted a native OS/2 application to replace the somewhat primitive BTX-interface (which is provided by German Telecom) for homebanking. Also, I prefer to work off-line and only connect for actual data transfers. Being in Germany, where homebanking is fairly advanced, I thought I should be able to find such a solution. So I went looking for a homebanking application to meet my needs.

And here is what I have found: moneyplex from Fleming & Partner.

Installation

Installation is... well... straightforward. Insert the CD. Double-click SETUP.EXE. You're done.

F&P recommend a display-resolution of at least 800x600 and a color depth of 16 bits ("Deep Color", 65536 colors). This seems unusual for an application whose main purpose is financial tasks, but after starting the multithreaded PM-based installation-program (GIF, 44.0k) you will immediately understand why they recommend these capabilities. (This sample GIF was sized 800x600 in real life.) Yeah, right, OS/2 apps are designed without style...

Note: All screen shots in this review have been reduced to at least 256 colors. I have tried moneyplex in 1024x768x65535, 1024x768x256, 800x600x256 and 640x480x256. It had no problems with any resolution, but 640x480 was a pain...

After entering your licence-code, the program asks for the directory to install, installs about 9 Megs of data (which includes a BTX-decoder based on the very popular Opalis-package), puts a moneyplex-folder on the Desktop, and you can start working immediately, for example, by importing your account data from apps which are able to export QIF or DBF files.

The first time...

The first time I started moneyplex, a very helpful assistant popped up. With its help, configuration was done in a rush. I was finished in about 10 minutes, including the creation of cash (GIF, 9.2k) and bank (GIF, 11.2k) accounts and configuration of my T-Online access data (GIF, 11.7k). Modem and ISDN connections are supported.

In order to be able to use your TANs ("Transaktions Nummer", or Transaction Number), you have to contact your bank via BTX, as usual. This is annoying: the Opalis decoder built into moneyplex is unable to do this. You have to install the one which is delivered with OS/2.

After this, I called up T-Online to reach my bank. During the first call, moneyplex sent a registration-message to Fleming & Partner, based on what I had entered in the registration-dialog (GIF, 8.4k). I would like to have had an additional warning before the data is sent, just for psychological reasons.

Communication with the bank is done via the so-called ZKA-standard, so there is no need to configure this separately. All you see is a small window, where the built-in Opalis-decoder is shown doing its work. A few German banks simply ignore this very popular standard, so it is best to ask your bank first (e.g. the German SPARA bank does not support ZKA, but the latest update of moneyplex includes support for this bank, also).

A note to those people who, like me, do not like to spend additional money for a T-Online account: moneyplex can make use of the so called Container-Accounts (the German term is exactly the same), which eliminate the need to be a registered T-Online user, if your bank supports this mechanism. Let your bank pay your account. Nice idea!

You can even transfer your data via diskettes, as moneyplex supports the DTA standard, which is very popular in Germany. And yes, hardliners will be happy too: you can print out the documents on standard forms...

The looks

All my data are now presented in a nice graphical environment with moneyplex. F&P did a good job representing all the documents on-screen. They look exactly like the "real" ones -- and they consume a lot of space on my screen. This is annoying sometimes, since moneyplex is a so-called MDI (Multi Document Interface) application. This means that all windows which are created by moneyplex can not be moved outside of the main application window. It seems like the designers did not like this behaviour either since they implemented a rollup button. Applause!

Readability is improved through the use of nonstandard dialog elements, like new containers (GIF, 8.8K), where a single click on a column's title changes the order of the displayed items.

Another interesting feature are the program's push-buttons (GIF, 0.5K), which remind me of those good old BWCC.DLL-times. But there are others (GIF, 1.3K) too, each with its own icon.

moneyplex has a toolbar to access the most frequently-used items. I would not comment on this toolbar, except for the fact that you can not move it. Nor can you use smaller icons. And there is no way to switch it off completely. Okay, the icons (GIF, 11.9K) are nice, and I did not need the manual to figure out what they stood for, but... it is TOO LARGE. Believe me, it is. 870x65 pixels (at 1024x768).

It is automatically exchanged for a smaller one (as is everything else!) when using a smaller display resolution, but...

Daily work

My usual transactions mainly consist of simple tasks. Remitting of money ("Überweisungen"), paying standing orders ("Daueraufträge") and getting excerpts ("Auszüge").

All these tasks are quite easy, since moneyplex helps me fill out the necessary forms, and (as stated above) they look exactly like those I have to fill in at my bank. There are also some small, but very helpful enhancements, which my new "eForms" have:

Automatic recipient-data completion from an address book
Forced use of the categories (but there is a "none"-category preconfigured also)
Calculation of some numbers based on which recipient I select, like maturity and discount
I do not need to look for a pen to fill them in...

As mentioned above, moneyplex organizes income and expenses into categories. There are many preconfigured, which I changed to meet my needs.

An address book for recipients is also included, which is used to complete recipient information when filling in a form and some other things which ease the pain of losing money. Of course, every transaction is logged, and can easily be reviewed and printed.

One of the main advantages for me is that I can administer all my transactions off-line and send them bundled (even those for different accounts) during a single connection. In addition I can receive my excerpts within the same connect, and organize all incoming bookings later.

Another useful mechanism is the suspension of standing orders with a few mouse clicks, and though I do not use it frequently it is good to have it. Also, it is easy to use, so I do not have to consult the documentation for each and every occasional use.

A single mouse click fills the screen with an overall view of my financial status, including bar and pie graphs on my expenses/income per category. In addition to this overview, I am able to create evaluations based on selected categories and accounts, again with detailed graphs on what happened in a given period of time.

At first I was somewhat sceptical about all this colored stuff, but now it is of great use to me for finding an answer to one of the main questions in human life: where did all my money go?

Security

You can password protect moneyplex to prevent others from paying their bills with your money.

In addition to your personal access data, the PINs (Personal Identification Number, "Persönliche Identifikations Nummer) and TANs (Transaction Number, "Transaktions Nummer") are stored encrypted.

When there is light . . .

...there is surely some shadow.

I was really disappointed to discover that the right mouse button is not used at all in this application. Although I can easily achieve everything I want with push-buttons (no need to pull down menus) and other dialog elements, I am used to right-clicking on things to get their properties. It seems as if a lot of people have requested this RMB functionality, so F&P added this support in their latest update, which can be downloaded directly from their site.

Many people may also consider the lack of context-sensitive help to be a major flaw. I did not miss it since moneyplex displays hints on what to choose to accomplish a given task.

The program has no printed manual, but installs some INFs, which explain the application and some other things in detail.

The upcoming German TCP/IP-based HBCI (Homebanking Computer Interface) is not yet implemented, since German banks are still negotiating on the exact implementation. Telecom is said to be including the HBCI in the next release of their decoder, but I assume this will still use the BTX-interface in the background, hidden from the user. The technical support people told me that moneyplex will be able to use the new standard as soon as there are final specifications and a reference model for implementation.

Finally, moneyplex does not support the use of debits ("Lastschriften"), and is not able to administer different client accounts ("Mandanten"), which would be of great use to small companies. Again, technical support said that both problems will be addressed in the next major release.

A Competitor

German company StarFinanz (StarDivision and Sparkasse are involved) is supposed to release a product called StarMoney for homebanking. They made their first public appearance at Cebit Home in Germany, then they were at Cebit this year previewing their product. The preview is a 16-bit MS Windows application (it tries to mimic the MS Windows 95 user interface), which comes with the complete Telekom BTX-Dekoder for MS Windows.

The preview is very limited as was my time to take a look at. Nearly all of its features only work with special branches of the German Sparkasse. And my request for an overview of my financial standings was answered with a "Not implemented yet"-message...

As you can imagine I was not that happy with this "preview". The README states that all features will be implemented for all banks "shortly". I suppose StarMoney either tries to make use of the not yet existing HBCI 2.0 or the guys from StarFinanz have a lot of work left to do in order to support "all" banks.

So what ?

I can do all I want and need in terms of homebanking with moneyplex, and even some more things as well. Support was responsive (e-mail, Fax and telephone) and reacted constructively and helpfully (mostly). As they are relatively new to the market though, F&P do have some difficulties keeping up with all the requests which come in.

At a suggested price of DM 149,- (Deckarm gave it away for DM 95) moneyplex was an excellent choice for me, and I recommend users to have a look at the demo-version.

Computer used in this review:

AMD DX4/120 w/32mb RAM
OS/2 Warp 4.0
ATI Mach32 Graphics Ultra Pro (VLB) at 1024x768, 65k

moneyplex v1.0
by Fleming & Partner
download a demo from Fleming & Partner's web site
MSRP: DM149.00

Marco Steinbach is a student of computer science in Siegen (NRW, Germany), and has been using OS/2 since release 2.1. He is a member of Team OS/2 and the OS/2 Usergroup Siegerland. Currently he is searching for a permanent OS/2 related job.

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