Using MoneyWorks Now™—MoneyWorks in the cloud

Posted on June 30, 2014 by rowan

MoneyWorks Now is MoneyWorks accounting hosted in the cloud. Cognito currently maintains several cloud servers in Auckland, New Zealand. You can have your data hosted on our server for a monthly fee without any other software costs. You still get the benefits of the full gamut of MoneyWorks Gold features, including the ability to integrate with your local desktop apps on Mac or Windows, as well as access from mobile web apps.

Making a MoneyWorks Now login account

  1. In MoneyWorks Gold, click Connect
  2. Select Connect Using: MoneyWorks Now
  3. Turn off the “I have a MoneyWorks Now account” checkbox (it will usually be off already if you have never used MoneyWorks Now)

    4. Connect

  4. Enter your email address: This will be your MoneyWorks Now username.
  5. Enter a SECURE password. The password will be used to encrypt access to every document you use in MoneyWorks Now, so it is important that it is secure. Short passwords are not allowed. Ideally, leave the Add to Keychain/Vault option turned on (unless you are not on your own computer)
  6. Click Create to create the account.
  7. Wait for someone to grant you access to a server folder (to upload to) or to a document to log in to.
  8. Do not lose or forget your password. Although passwords can be changed, they cannot be reset without losing all previously granted access records.

Getting your accounts into the cloud

First, you’ll need to arrange a hosting account. Contact Cognito to do this.

  • Open the file
  • Go to Users and Security. Multiple users must be turned on. The user you are logged in as (usually the master admin user) must have a password (cannot be blank)
  • Click Upload to Server

    • Uploading

    Your file and its associated Custom Plugins folder (including custom forms, reports and transaction and product image files) will be compressed and uploaded. Note that a MoneyWorks Now server will discard filetypes that are not on its filetype whitelist. allowed file types are: mwd7;txt;text;jpg;jpeg;png;pdf;stmt;invc;crep;impo;rept;srep;rchn;adf_;remt;prod;job_;bmp;csv;gif;tiff

  • Log in to MoneyWorks Now, select the folder to upload to, and click Upload.
  • The file will be saved, backed up, and uploaded (including plugins); also your MoneyWorks Now login will be entered into the email address field of the user you are logged into the document as.
  • Close the document.
  • Click Connect and select Connect Using MoneyWorks Now and log in; the document will be available: select it and log in.

Logging in to your accounts

  1. You must have the latest version of MoneyWorks Gold installed on your computer
  2. Click Connect on the MoneyWorks Gold Welcome screen
  3. From the Connect Using popup, select “MoneyWorks Now”, check that the “I have a MoneyWorks Now account” checkbox is on, and enter your username and password (if your password is in your keychain/vault, it will be entered automatically)
  4. Click Log In
    A list of all documents that you have access to in the MoneyWorks Now distributed cloud will be shown
  5. Select a document and click Log In

Granting access to other users

  1. Log in to the document using MoneyWorks Now.
  2. Go to Users & Security
  3. Create the user if they do not already exist.
  4. Fill in the user’s email address / MoneyWorks Now username
  5. click the Enable MoneyWorks Now Access checkbox
    Grant
  6. The user’s password will be set to a random password and an activation link will be sent to the user
  7. The user clicks the activation link and logs in to MoneyWorks Now. Their login credentials for the document will be securely stored by the MoneyWorks Now login gateway
  8. User can now use Connect in MoneyWorks Gold to access the document

Regional Formatting

Currently, reports run on the server will use the regional formats set on the server for dates and numbers, so do not be surprised if these formats don’t match what you may have set on your own computer. Our New Zealand servers are set to New Zealand date and number formats.

Getting the Best Performance

While it can be very convenient to have your data hosted in the cloud (especially if you will be accessing it from several different locations), there are some costs: the main one is that accessing anything over the internet is going to be somewhat slower than if it was on the same LAN.

Reports

The standard reports included with MoneyWorks are set to run on the server. This means that the time to generate a report will be pretty much the same as it would be if you were running it on a server on your own local network. When running reports, you will see a ⟷ symbol next to the output setting for the report. This means that the report is going to run on the server. If you don’t see this, the report is going to run on your computer, with a lot of back and forth to the MoneyWorks Now server, and may be a lot slower. If you hold down the Shift key when you click Preview, MoneyWorks will switch the “run on server” setting (so if it was going to, it won’t this time and vice versa).

Because reports are generated on the server, the font used for the report has to be one that is on the server.

Forms

Because you typically want complete control over fonts and layout for invoice forms and such, these are always generated on your computer, using your fonts. If you’re using a customised statement form, you might want to check out the statement optimisation notes here

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Using MoneyWorks Now™—MoneyWorks in the cloud

How can I send email via an SMTP server that requires TLS on Windows

Posted on June 4, 2014 by rowan

this post is obsolete
see:
Using Gmail SMTP
Using Office365 SMTP
Using SendSMTPMail

As of v7.1.8, MoneyWorks includes the sendEmail tool as part of the standard install, so TLS support is available on Windows (as well as Mac) out of the box. Blat is also still included, but will no longer normally be used.

Previous version of this FAQ:

The standard MoneyWorks install on Windows includes a tool called blat (http://www.blat.net) for sending emails via an SMTP server. This is used when you select and configure the SMTP email option in MoneyWorks Preferences.

While it is light weight, blat does not support secure TLS connections to SMTP servers (such as smtp.gmail.com) that require them. If you need to send via TLS, you can install sendEmail.exe in the MoneyWorks executable folder. If this tool is detected, it will be used preferentially to blat.

Sendemail is available here: http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/ . Be sure to get the full binary with TLS support compiled in. Download sendEmail-v156.zip and unzip into (e.g.) C:\Program Files (x86)\MoneyWorks Gold\

BTW, the standard Mac install of MoneyWorks includes the perl version of sendEmail within the MoneyWorks app package, so you don’t need to install anything further to support TLS SMTP on Mac.

Note: Requires MoneyWorks version 7.1.4 or later

Posted in FAQ, Tip du Jour | Comments Off on How can I send email via an SMTP server that requires TLS on Windows

Change History for 7.1.4

Posted on June 2, 2014 by rowan

3 June 2014 Minor feature enhancements, performance enhancements, and bug fixes

  • Allow CreateSelection with *highlight, *found to apply to the Batch Creditor Mark For Payment window, and also to apply for previously unsupported files such as filters, messages and depts
  • Improved column calculation suppression for calcs that are not practical for high latency networks
  • Implemented override for column calculation suppression
  • Save command issued from script editor now flushes changed scripts before saving
  • Script Editor Help lookup now works for text that follows multibyte unicode text
  • Cache speed optimisation
  • optimised network packet decoding a bit
  • Cheque form editor: removed obsolete Cheque.DrCrCode identifier
  • Fulltext search by custom colour name now works consistently on Datacentre
  • Batch Creditor Payments, Electronic Payment Method missing bank warning icon was not showing on Mac
  • MWScript: declaring loop control variable with same name as existing variable no longer crashes the compiler
  • Job Detailed Report updated
  • Run on Server is now ON by default for new reports
  • Overlong manual log entries no longer crash
  • Cash Forecast updated
  • IRAS Audit Report (Singapore) updated
  • [critical] Windows typing =calc in a field was not doing expected processing when field exited
  • Better error message when opening a .mwxml without any accounts document open
  • Applescript Helper.scpt now more stable when quickly tabbing through fields
  • Added copies of purchase analysis reports back into main report menu
  • Console queries now shut down ssl connection in orderly fashion on Windows, eliminating spurious errors in log
  • Serverside analysis reports now work with Windows-hosted server
  • Updated tax codes for Singapore
  • Fixed hyperlinks in Datacentre Admin Guide pdf
  • Analysis reports can now run serverside on Windows server
Posted in Change History | Comments Off on Change History for 7.1.4

Change History for 7.1.3

Posted on May 20, 2014 by rowan
  • Windows: Period popups were not syncing after changing a date to a different month

no changes to Mac version

Posted in Change History | Comments Off on Change History for 7.1.3

Change History for 7.1.2

Posted on May 18, 2014 by rowan

May 2014 — bug fixes and performance improvements

  • Much faster opening of orders on network
  • Restored 32-bit support to Mac Datacentre
  • Windows pasting xml records from clipboard no longer throwing a spurious “malformed xml” error
  • Fixed a glitch in script editor syntax colouring that could change the selection while typing
  • Now run on Windows 2003 server (was erroneously being flagged as unsupported unpatched XP version)
  • Script Editor on Mac no longer changes the editor font after cutting/deleting the entire script text
  • Script Editor auto-backup now goes into std plugins not custom
  • MWScript loop control variables can now be used as sub-loop range params
  • Validation settings: “reapply” checkbox now works
  • Fixed errors thrown by some reports running on Cashbook/Express (Cashbook and Express can now use all possible default joins when running reports)
  • No longer erroneously request nameless password resource from keychain on Mac when connecting (could cause system keychain unlock request if system keychain contained an unnamed password resource)
  • Removed Build fields from Product advanced search nametable (caused crash in syntax check if used)
  • Fixed nonfunctional/crashing SortListByColumn() intrinsic function
  • View department dispatch code for navigator
  • Fixed a resource leak in choices windows
  • Fix custom controls whose names end with a colon (broken by the new custom control validation syntax in 7.1)
  • MoneyWorks Now: access granting username/email check more robust
  • MoneyWorks Now: save the newly set Require Password setting before uploading document to cloud server
  • MoneyWorks Now: enable Login button after password change warning for autocreated account
  • Disable email address changing while MWNow access is granted (ungrant to change email)
  • Fixed crash if attempt to create MWNow account while uploading a file to MWNow
  • Fixed a rare startup crash when looking for navigator extras
  • DC Console usage report generation: display alert if user has no write perm to create report (happens if user is not in staff group on Mac)
  • Set Run On Server option for Executive Summary in Dashboard Reports
  • Fixed unreliability of report library scripts when running on server
  • Better Add Part icon on BOM entry screen
  • Fixed fatal error that could happen when deleting an invalid part code line from BOM
Posted in Change History | Comments Off on Change History for 7.1.2

How do I open more than one document at once?

Posted on May 7, 2014 by rowan

That depends on what platform you are on.

First of all, on both Mac and Windows, you will need to turn on the Multiple Instances preference (this is under the Documents tab in the MoneyWorks Preferences dialog box). This is off by default, so the default behaviour when opening a new file is to close the file that was currently open.

Mac

With Multiple Instances turned on, you can open another file on Mac by choosing that file from the Open Recent menu (you will have to have previously opened it). This will cause MoneyWorks to start a new instance of the application for you.

As of v7.1 you can create a shortcut for starting new instances by entering moneyworks:// in a Safari window and then dragging that URL to the Dock. Clicking that shortcut will now start a new instance (provided the Multiple Instances preference is on, and assuming the current instance has a document open already).

Windows

On Windows, you can open a new instance of MoneyWorks by choosing MoneyWorks from the Start menu. You can then open another document. Or, you can double-click a document in Windows Explorer, and Windows will start a new instance of MoneyWorks for you. On Windows, the Open Recent menu does not start a new instance. If you double-click a report or form document, MoneyWorks will open that in the currently running instance, rather than starting a new instance, regardless of the Multiple Instances preference

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Change History for 7.1.1

Posted on May 7, 2014 by rowan

May 2014

  • Helper.scpt applescripts that implemented UserLoggedIn with no return value were aborting login
  • UserLoggedIn not being sent to MWScript scripts as documented
  • Applescript error messages containing “{}” were getting mangled
  • Fixed a potentially crashing buffer overflow in the report generator
  • Fixed a potential crash in script editor/compiler when dot notation used on for loop control variable for a textfile
  • MWNow shortcuts no longer try to autologin if the password is not in the keychain
  • Multilaunch was not working on 7.1 Windows
  • Copy/Paste records on Windows was not working for non-ASCII data
  • Transaction.DeliveryAddress was not mapping to own address for purchases

Known bugs:

  • The Ledger Report is not working in Cashbook and Express 7.1/7.1.1. Will be fixed in 7.1.2
  • Will not run on Windows 2003 Server (erroneously flagged as unsupported XP version)
Posted in Change History | Comments Off on Change History for 7.1.1

Change History for 7.1

Posted on April 9, 2014 by rowan

May 2014

Please note: Windows XP SP2 and earlier are not supported in MoneyWorks 7. If you are running XP, please ensure you have Service Pack 3 installed. MoneyWorks 7.1 will not run on XP SP2 or earlier.

New features and performance enhancements

  • MoneyWorks Now distributed cloud login support (and moneyworks://now/username url scheme extension).
  • Datacentre: Encrypted connection option. This can be enabled by supplying an appropriate SSL certificate for the datacentre service.
  • Extension to moneyworks URL scheme: moneyworks://ssl/ will connect with SSL.
  • Datacentre: Upload local file to server feature (includes the full custom plugins folder with images for the document (it will be merged with any existing custom plugins in the destination server folder, rather than replacing it).
  • Datacentre: saving a backup to client is now cancellable and supports larger backup files.
  • SetReportColumnWidth function can now be used within a report (within reason) (see Details report).
  • Windows Vault password storage—optionally store your server/document passwords in Vault and have them entered automatically.
  • Datacentre: “Send logs to support” option for server troubleshooting.
  • External(“helper”, …) function allows calling out to external helper programs from MWScript. For security, these must be installed in the Standard plugins/Scripts folder in App Support. Helper executables will not be loaded from Custom plugins.
  • Improved the caching performance for loading transactions (and eliminated a spurious log message).
  • SetPersistent() function can now be used to delete records by omitting the (last) data parameter.
  • Payments History is now considerably faster when used over a high latency network connection.
  • Some privilege names (used with the Allowed() function) have changed to make them unique.
  • The scripting privilege name changed from “Execute External Scripts” to “Scripting”. Since v7, no privilege is required to execute external scripts; rather external scripts are generally subject to the same privileges as the logged-in user. The “Scripting” privilege controls access to the script editor for writing, activating and deactivating scripts, and also the ability to interrupt a running script or disable script loading at login.
  • Statement generation performance has been improved by about 30% when run on a high-latency network connection. Note that statement list search functions should no longer prefix transactions fields by the table name—just use the field name. Using the “transaction.” prefix will suppress the performance optimisations.
  • Automatically suppress overly expensive column calculations on high latency connections
  • Navigator “exec” code to call mwscript public function
  • Added an alert on Windows when printer names are not sufficiently unique (they must be unique in the first 31 characters to be reliably differentiated).
  • Datacentre: Recurring transaction creation is now always done on server for improved period-opening performance
  • Import via COM now supports xml data
  • Job: Replace command now allows replacement of job.ordernum
  • Empty moneyworks:// url with no server may now be used to start a new instance without throwing up a “server not found” error.
  • Imporintg Jobs. Work-it-out is now supported for xml import of new job code
  • Navigator: It is now possible to append panels to the standard navigator by placing them in a “Navigator Extras” folder within the custom plugins folder.
  • Singapore GST: New tax code
  • Datacentre Console ASP mode usage reporting
  • Datacentre Console now allows a start port to be specified for database servers
  • Mac 7.1 now built with Clang instead of GCC
  • Gold client will now detect “machine is about to sleep” and disconnect from server if possible
  • MWXML files are now passed to the first instance of MoneyWorks even multilaunch is on (Windows)
  • Scripts can force a refresh of the Navigator using Navigator(“refr”)
  • Script access to column names containing symbols now possible (use _ for % in Disc % column)
  • Plugin download from server now displays a progress bar (in case connection to server is slow)
  • Returning zero from a UserLoggedIn script handler will now reject the user login. This makes it possible to implement script-based access control for users (e.g. time-of-day access control etc).
  • Can now import budget job sheet entries
  • Datacentre backups of files in subfolders now incorporate the subfolder path in the backup file name to prevent collisions
  • Custom text fields may now have autofill/code validation by appending a colon and the table name to validate against to the text label
  • Added Malaysia tax rates

Fixes

  • Sales Enquiry movements list no longer shows payments on invoices for the customer; just sales.
  • Datacentre: searching by colour now uses colour names from preferences.
  • Transaction Details report now includes totals by transaction type again.
  • Fixed a long standing problem that caused DNS/SD (Bonjour) records to lose some information (this would manifest as enabled user/password fields for servers which did not require them).
  • Fixed a crash that could happen in rare cases when adding a new record to a list sorted by a non-indexed field.
  • Fixed an “illegal lock extension” error that could happen in Payments History in some circumstances.
  • Fixed a cosmetic glitch when turning on/off the Show Typing option for password fields on Mac.
  • Disable the Refresh option for report Previews after a network connection is closed.
  • Datacentre: ignore control characters in REST requests.
  • Fixed crash in SetReportColumnWidth when Use Standard Report Width is turned off
  • Fixed privilege testing in number of standard reports
  • Search optimiser could choke on public script function calls
  • Fixed parsing of adjacent mail merge fields in form text boxes
  • Fixed error when adding an item to a build recipe and changing the recipe order
  • Fixed Express/Cashbook error in on-the-fly account creation from product entry window
  • Fix spurious error when copy/pasting accounts on Windows
  • Show log file toolbar command could sometimes crash after a script error in a transaction entry handler
  • Fixed overdue creditor invoices warning display Navigator
  • Importing a product build now works if the product did no already have “we build it” set (it sets it for you)
  • Fixed an issue with custom plugins being downloaded from server too often
  • Hitting ‘9’ key in navigator no longer selects the first folder
  • PDF generation with non-PDF-std fonts no longer fails if Windows is not installed on C: drive
  • Added page break in Cash Forecast
  • Fixed a problem with disconnecting idle clients from Datacentre introduced with v7.0
  • Mac Datacentre Console ownership/permissions check now more reliable
  • Importing new job with work-it-out code now respects Job/Quote/Invoice syncing
  • Fixed problems with launching certain external executables on Windows with paths containing spaces
  • Product BuyPrice default format if added to list view is now more sensible
  • Plain Statement fixed
  • Script editor syntax colouring improved when pasting and when comments contain unicode characters
  • Importing (unicode) text copied from Excel on Windows now works reliably
  • Usage text in Windows CLI
  • Datacentre install on Windows now quotes the service executable path
  • Fixed Cashbook Windows crash on Find Related Trans -> Name
  • Detail report not printing account description (fixed now)
  • EC Sales report (UK) showing incorrect country code (fixed now)
  • GST report run on server with output = Print was crashing
  • Std Balance Sheet report no longer defaults to Include Unposted
  • Speech now reliably enabled on Windows
  • CLI login with folder and doc password no longer fails where doc password is blank
  • Custom transaction format now working again
  • Ledger report, description field now word wrapped
  • Stock receipt journal was bad if stock received is zero
  • Fixed a potential race condition with opening documents on Datacentre
  • Importing General Journal transaction no longer evaluates work-it-out for tax
  • OrderTotal now updating more reliably when order freight code changed
  • Compatibility with flaky MKAbel font that has a visible return character glyph (Mac)
  • Fixed a security issue with external scripts
  • Enabled validation functionality on Name.Salesperson field
  • Transaction.MailingAddress now loads reliably in invoice forms
Posted in Change History | Comments Off on Change History for 7.1

Change History for 7.0.9

Posted on January 17, 2014 by rowan

Bug fixes — January 2014

  • Fixed a potential crash when using Analysis reports with long file names
  • Fix crash on stocktake list when entering the search box from an active stock count field
  • Fix TLS SMTP email on Mavericks
  • Fix UK Prompt Payment Discount calculation when there are non-discountable items on an Order
  • Fix error when cancelling a transaction from the Bank Reconciliation on a network
  • Fix a crash on Windows when turning on Heading Only checkbox for some account types
  • Fix a problem with posting the necessary adjustment when a stock item with Append Salesperson on the Cost of Sales passes from negative to positive stock on hand (and also for the write off journal when stock was received ahead of the invoice). For both of these cases, the last department code in the relevant group will be used. If you encounter the situation with any regularity, you may wish to add a department specifically for these adjustments so that they don’t go against a salesperson. Use a code that is alphabetically/lexically the last in the group.
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Change History for 7.0.8

Posted on December 18, 2013 by rowan

December 2013

  • Aged Receivables/Payables: Speed improvement and fixed omit-zero-balances for retrospective case
  • Fixed a crash when statement importing window is left empty
  • Fixed an accounts setup crash with the Malaysia locale on Cashbook
  • Datacentre Console windows are now centred
  • Datacentre Console will now check for unrestored session files before allowing an update
  • Datacentre REST server SSL mode fixed
  • Datacentre log file rotation on Windows now working
  • Fixed Caseware export
  • Fixed Calculator launching on Windows
  • Job Detailed report no longer shows processed PO in the unprocessed list
  • Canada Purchase Sales Tax drill down arrows were not drawing on Mac
  • Fixed crash in Save a Clone when transaction list open
  • Fixed a subtle problem with Backorders: PO processing failed to drop backordered lines if Sales Order option “Include Backordered” is turned on
  • Cosmetic fix to news feed on Windows
Posted in Change History | Comments Off on Change History for 7.0.8