Design Manager has looked into automating the process of online bill payments and the use of online payment information files several times and always comes away with the same issues?
The online banking files that may work fine with programs such as Quicken or Microsoft Money do not have enough detailed information about the transactions to be very useful with an advanced order management application such as Design Manager. Each transaction in an online banking file only contains the check number or tracking number along with the amount and sometimes the payee. Since there is no PO information, item cost information, descriptions of goods, or expense account information in the file, importing the file (just to get the amount, maybe the vendor) would not be adequate. This small amount of information is fine for Quicken where the goal is just to keep track of the checks written and amounts, but the goal of Design Manager is detailed order tracking along with client billing of the purchased goods.
Because of the lack of detail that can be transmitted to and from the banking system, DM will use these files as an aid during checkbook reconciliation (as a double check); this is the best the files can be used for at the present time. We will continue to keep up on the technology and there may come a time when detailed order information is available in the online banking files and something more can be accomplished.