Switching from essential to advanced budget fails

If you try to change to the advanced budget from the essential budget (using the 'use advanced budget' option in budget settings), this sometimes will fail, and you stay with the essential budget.

The failure to switch is typically caused by damage in your file. You can search for and open the Sample.mny file to see if you have the same behavior. If not, run the Repair on your file (File - Repair Money file) to see if that resolves your issue.

If you still see the issue, then it could be that you have a broken entry in your budget, and you need to clear it before you can proceed. Unfortunately, you may need to clear the whole budget to proceed.

Because you will be making large changes to your file, it is recommended that you backup your Money file first, before making these changes. Once you start deleting data, you cannot easily undo this, and so if you need to revert, a backup is probably the safest and quickest solution.

The easiest way to fix this problem is to go to the budget - select the Income option and then press remove. When finished, go to expenses and remove each entry one by one. It would be worth restarting Microsoft Money at this point.

You should then be able to change to the advanced budget. Because the old budget has been deleted, you'll need to recreate your new budget - but as the budget systems are so totally different, this is probably advisable anyway.

If you choose to go back to the essential budget, note that you'll need to recreate that too, or go back to your backup file.

This article only applies to Microsoft Money 2005 and later. Thanks also to Bree for part of the information quoted here.