Correct Ways of Importing Personal Finance Transaction Data
You'll need to find out in what format MoneyStrands expects the data.  A .qif or an .ofx file may not be the answer.
If something in any transaction in life—financial or otherwise—doesn’t make you feel comfortable and the choice is between saving money with one thing versus another, don’t sell your personal needs short. Pay more elsewhere that treats you the way you expect to be treated. In the long run the $$$ you “save” in a cheaper transaction might cost you more in the headaches and annoyance you have to swallow in dealing with this “bargain” in the future. Your question is this: “Do his sales tactics indicate other underlying problems? How can I deal effectively with those tactics?” And you state this as well: “To make a long story short, the dealer's aggressive sales tactics have made me somewhat uncomfortable.” And finally ask: “How can I deal effectively with those tactics?” Okay, first and foremost if you feel discomfort in anything in life—not just a financial situation—just walk away. You might have to say “No…” when doing this but it’s not always the case you will have to counter aggression with aggression. And specifically in the case of a purchase like this, you need to also ask yourself: “Is this discount being offered me worth the headache I am getting?” At the end of the day money is meaningless and has it’s main worth as an economic motivator/stimulator: Someone has a need and someone else has something that can solve that need. What would it take for the side of need to connect to the side of solution to that need? This is the basic concept surrounding all economics. So that said, I have personally avoided buying things for less money and paid slightly more elsewhere for a service experience that made me feel comfortable. At the end of the day, if you feel happy in the transaction it helps in the long run more than—let’s say—the $20 to $40 you “save” by buying from someone else. Also—on the side of customer service—this person’s sales techniques sound like something out of a very old fashioned sales playbook. Nowadays it’s all about relationships and service: The immediate sale is not as important for competent and reputable businesses because they know a better customer service experience will bring people back. So it doesn’t matter how long this guy has been in business: It could be that he’s been in business a long time just because he has been in business a long time. That said—and in the case of musical instruments—maybe this guy is really good at care and upkeep of instruments but has crappy sales techniques. Keep that in mind as well and just push back on their sales methods. For things like musical instruments, people might be jerks on the sales side but in the maintenance and repair side they are great. Will you need to go to them if/when your instrument needs repair? Or you don’t care? At the end of the day, go with your gut. And if your gut says, “No…” then just go somewhere else and spend your money on an item you like from a place that treats you the way you need. A tax of 0.01 cents on a transaction though would mean you'd wait until the spread was at least 0.02 cents before making the trade. But I particularly think the offender is not even day traders, it's the completely ridiculous fact that a person will offer to buy stock at a certain price, or lower,  another person will offer to sell the stock at a lower price, and before the transaction is completed another broker buys the stock and resells it, because his computer is located closer to the data center than either of the other two persons.  That guy is making money and wasting electricity and real estate to get it, and the ultimate purchaser is getting a worse deal.  We still have that problem, but the margins have been squeezed on the HTF guy a bit, so maybe it isn't an issue. "It's never too early to start estate planning, and if you already have a family, getting your personal affairs in order is a must. The sooner you start planning, the more prepared you will be for life's unexpected twists and turns.  The following tips, aimed at those under 40, can help you approach and simplify the estate planning process:  Start now, regardless of net worth. [Estate planning](http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2013/09/19/estate-planning-tips-for-people-under-40) is a crucial process for everyone, regardless of wealth level, says Marc Henn, a certified financial planner and president of Harvest Financial Advisors. ""Many people will say, 'Well, I don't have a lot of assets, therefore I don't need an estate plan,'"" he says. ""Maybe you only have debt, but it still applies. If you want the people around you to appropriately deal with your finances, a plan is still just as important.""  This is especially true if you are responsible for financially dependent individuals, such as young children. ""The less you have, the more important every bit you've got is to you and the people you care about,"" says Lawrence Lehmann, a partner at Lehmann, Norman and Marcus L.C. in New Orleans. ""If you don't have much money, you really can't afford to make a mistake.""  Have the ""what if?"" conversation with friends and family. Before jumping into the estate planning process, it's important to establish exactly what you want, and need, to happen after you die and relay those wishes to those around you.  ""We find that the best transitions and financial transfers happen when all family members are involved in the [decision making](http://corlisslawgroup.com),"" says John Sweeney, executive vice president of retirement and investing strategies at Fidelity Investments. ""This way, after a loved one is gone, no one is squabbling over a couch or going, 'Why did person A get more than person B?' If wishes are laid out clearly while the individual is living, they can share the rationale behind the decisions.""  Focus on the basic estate plan components. Experts say life insurance, a will, a living will and a durable power of attorney are all important aspects of an estate plan that should be established at the start of the planning process.  In the event of an untimely death, life insurance can replace lost earnings, which can be especially beneficial for younger individuals, says Bill Kirchick, a partner with Bingham McCutchen law firm in Boston. ""Young people can't afford to die,"" he says. ""They are going to lose a source of income if something happens to a young couple and they haven't had enough time to accumulate wealth from earnings to put aside in savings or a retirement plan."" Also, the earlier you take out a life insurance policy, the more likely you are to be approved for reduced rates compared to older individuals.  Utilize estate planning professionals. To draft these basic estate plans, experts recommend carefully selecting a team of professionals who will educate you and draft what you need based on your individual situation. ""Don't feel like you have to jump at the first person whose name is given to you,"" Kirchick says. ""I think that people should interview two or more attorneys, accountants, trust officers, financial advisors and so on.""  According to financial planning experts, the average initial cost for the legal drafting of a will, living will and durable power of attorney documentation is between $500 and $1,200, depending on the family size and location.  Continue to review your plan over time. Finally, your estate plan should never be a ""one and done thing,"" according to Henn. ""Every five to seven years, the documents should be readdressed to adapt to significant life events, tax law changes or even the addition of more children,"" he says. It is also important to keep tabs on your insurance policies and investments, as they all tie into the estate plan and can fluctuate based on the economic environment. If you have to make revisions, Henn says it will cost as much as it did to create the documents in the first place." Quant has been an interesting part of finance, but I always thought they missed something really important.   The standard methods of statistical analysis can’t explain what’s going on with economy and firms. Otherwise, quant hedge funds would have been making money all the time.   The conventional quants find patterns in data, test them then go live. These models work until some fundamental (or not so fundamental) shifts in the market. Then they find themselves back in the drawing board looking for their next model. This kind of analysis seems like a lot of grind for fairly  unpredictable returns.   There are more and more companies that don’t lend themselves well to fundamental analysis as we know it. Financial data and some poor flawed human analysts insights alone can no longer explain much.   This is a unique set of challenges that Data Science, more specifically AI could solve. The speed at which AI can learn and process information is just mind boggling. AI can learn the entire financial history of decision making in minutes. It can recognize patterns, make sophisticated analysis and constantly update its probability tables as the new information comes in. This is something no human can compete with.    Imagine a quantitative engine that adapts as the economy changes. It could draw heaps of unstructured data about a company, learn from it in real time, make course corrections and spit out its recommendations.   To the degree that human decision making is involved in the strategic decision making of companies, we will need the depth of context that can be provided by humans, but I see the field moving away from excel spreadsheets with fairly poor predicting capacity to AI models with strong predictive capacity. My answer is with respect to the United States. I have no idea about India's regulatory environment. You are opening yourself up to massive liabilities and problems if you deposit their money in your account. I managed investment accounts as a private investment advisor for years (those with less than 15 clients were not required to register) until Dodd-Frank changed the rules. Thus you would have to register as an advisor, probably needing to take the series 65 exam (or qualifying some other way, e.g. getting your CFP/CFA/etc...). I used a discount broker/dealer (Scottrade) as the custodian. Here's how it works: Each client's account was their own account, and I had a master account that allowed me to bill their accounts and manage them.  They signed paperwork making me the advisor on their account.  I had very little accounting to handle (aside from tracking basis for taxed accounts). If you take custody of the money, you'll have regulatory obligations. There are always lots of stories in the financial advisor trade publications about advisors who go to jail for screwing their clients. The most common factor: they took custody of the assets. I understand why you want a single account - you want to ensure that each client gets the same results, right? Does each client want the same results?  Certainly the tax situation for each is different, yes?  Perhaps one has gains and wants to take losses in one year, and the other doesn't. If their accounts are managed separately, one can take losses while the other realizes gains to offset other losses. Financial advisors offer these kinds of accounts as Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs). The advisors on these kinds of accounts are mutual funds managers, and they try to match a target portfolio, but they can do things like realize gains or losses for clients if their tax situation would prefer it. You certainly can't let them put retirement accounts into your single account unless the IRS has you on their list of acceptable custodians. I suggest that you familiarize yourself thoroughly with the regulatory environment that you want to operate under. Then, after examining the pros and cons, you should decide which route you want to take.  I think the most direct and feasible route is to pass the Series 65, register as an investment advisor, and find a custodian who will let you manage the assets as the advisor on the account. Real estate is another matter, you should talk to an attorney, not some random guy on the internet (even if he has an MBA and a BS in Real Estate, which I do). This is very much a state law thing. "Yodlee and Mint are good solutions if you don't mind your personal financial information being stored ""in the cloud"". I do, so I use Quicken. Quicken stores whatever you give to it for as long as you want: so the only question is how to get the credit card transactions you want into it? All my financial institutions allow me to view my credit card statements for a year back, and download them in a form Quicken can read. So you can have a record of your transactions from a year ago right now, and in a year you will have two year's worth." Actually banks aren't required to (and don't) report on 8300 because they already report $10k+ cash transactions to FinCEN as a Currency Transaction Report (CTR), which is substantively similar; see the first item under Exceptions in the second column of page 3 of the actual form. Yes, 8300 is for businesses, that's why the form title is '... Received In A Trade Or Business'.  You did not receive the money as part of a trade or business, and it's not taxable income to you, so you aren't required to report receiving it. Your tenses are unclear, but assuming you haven't deposited yet, when you do the bank will confirm your identity and file their CTR. It is extremely unlikely the government will investigate you for a single transaction close to $10k -- they're after whales and killer sharks, not minnows (metaphorically) -- but if they do, when they do, you simply explain where the money came from. The IRS abuses were with respect to people (mostly small businesses) that made numerous cash deposits slightly under $10k, which can be (but in the abuse cases actually was not) an attempt to avoid reporting, which is called 'structuring'. As long as you cooperate with the bank's required reporting and don't avoid it, you are fine. "I expect that data may be copyright. Data that's published (e.g. on a newsfeed or web site) is subject to terms of use. Standard & Poor's web site says, about the Shiller indexes, Who do I contact at S&P to license my   use of these indices?   Questions   regarding licensing the   S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices   can be addressed to:  Bo Chung    Managing Director    bo_chung@standardandpoors.com,   +1.212.438.3519 As for 'recording' the information yourself, that may depend on how and where (e.g. from what source) you're recording it. If for example you tried to record prices from the Canadian MLS (Realtor's) network, they too have their own terms of use on the data they publish. Copyright laws vary from country to country (and terms of use certainly vary): for example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural which is case law about copyrighting a phone directory in the USA, and contrast that with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right which is European legislation. So who owns data if it is determined by free market? I guess that ""determined by free market"" means that buyers and sellers are publishing their offers-to-buy and their offers-to-sell, and I guess that the publisher (e.g. the stock exchange) has 'terms of use' about the data (the offers) that they're publishing."