Paying expenses out of multiple accounts

Hi, I just started with Microsoft Money 2004. It seems great so far... I
entered in our paychecks and bills. I have one main checking account that I
want to pay bills out of. I have another checking account for household
expenses (groceries ...etc)also daily expenses such as gasoline costs and
clothing. I also have a third account that I use for entertainment and
dining out. (this keeps me disciplined) :) The bills that I entered are all
linked to the correct acct. However, the misc. expenses such as gas are being
deducted from my savings acct. I deleted them from the acct. and tried to
reenter to the appropiate acct but they reverted back to the savings acct.
How do I tell it that I want to use another acct. to pay these expenses?
Thank you,Jenn

JB
Mon Oct 10 18:17:04 CDT 2005



"Jenn" wrote:

> However, the misc. expenses such as gas are being deducted from my savings

Are they being deducted from the wrong account as a function of a download
from your bank? Is the savings account at the same bank as the account you
expect these expenses to be deducted from? If so, this could either be a
problem with your account setup in Money or a problem at your bank.

Otherwise, if you are manually entering these transactions, try deleting the
bill completely and re-entering it. It seemed like you were saying you just
tried editing the existing bill to point to the right account.

Post back with more detail. Thanks.

Regards,
JB

A

Jenn
Mon Oct 10 19:17:02 CDT 2005

JB- Thank you for responding so quickly! I have not downloaded anything from
the bank yet and the account is with the same bank. These are not actual
bills (phone, electric, etc...that I entered during setup. They are misc.
expenses that Money suggested and I filled in during setup. If I remember
correctly, during setup, I was not asked to specify which account would be
paying the bills or the expenses. "Somehow" the bills did wind up with the
correct account. The expenses should come out of two other accts. labeled
"household spending" and "entertainment". I deleted the expenses from the
savings account and reentered them I don't know why but they ended up in
savings again. I ended up Closing the savings acct. This didn't help b/c I
added a gasoline payment to see what happened and I was only able to add it
as "one time" now it is not listed w/ any account only on my overall budget.
Is this making sense? Thanks again, Jenn

"JB" wrote:

>
>
> "Jenn" wrote:
>
> > However, the misc. expenses such as gas are being deducted from my savings
>
> Are they being deducted from the wrong account as a function of a download
> from your bank? Is the savings account at the same bank as the account you
> expect these expenses to be deducted from? If so, this could either be a
> problem with your account setup in Money or a problem at your bank.
>
> Otherwise, if you are manually entering these transactions, try deleting the
> bill completely and re-entering it. It seemed like you were saying you just
> tried editing the existing bill to point to the right account.
>
> Post back with more detail. Thanks.
>
> Regards,
> JB
>
> A

Dick
Mon Oct 10 21:28:27 CDT 2005

When you say these "expenses" are being "deducted" are we talking about
something you are seeing in Money Forecast Cash Flow and/or Money Budget
Planner or actual transactions that you are entering in actual Money Account
registers?

You say "The expenses should come out of two other accts. labeled "household
spending" and "entertainment"." Are we talking about real world accounts
and/or Money Accounts or are we talking about Categories? Further, that
appears to conflict with ""Somehow" the bills did wind up with the correct
account."

We need to get some standardized terminology here. You may already know all
of this. But I'll write it anyway. I'm concerned because I've read both of
your postings and am not at all sure we agree what the basic concepts in
Money are and what the terms for these are. You might also do well to open
the Sample file and/or the help videos to see how Money is designed to be
used.

Microsoft Money has Accounts. Accounts in Money generally mirror real world
accounts like Checking and Savings and Discover Card. If you actually have
separate checking accounts, one for, say, Food:Groceries and another for,
say, Automobile:Gasoline, so be it--these should be setup as Money Accounts.
Otherwise, your Money Accounts should mirror some (not all) of your real
world accounts. (Exceptions are things like Phone Company--not generally a
Money Account but maybe a real world account--and Pocket Change--never a
real world account but frequently meaningful as a Money Account.) If you
have these accounts in your head as an artifice to manage your money
better--cookie jar accounting it is sometimes called--that's great, but
Money really can't deal at well with this and you really shouldn't try to go
there. Trying to coerce Money to do cookie jar accounting has caused lots of
people lots of grief.

Microsoft Money is used to record transactions. These are real financial
activities like depositing a paycheck, paying a bill, and buying a tankful
of gasoline. Transactions are always entered in Account Registers, just like
we all used to enter checks we write in a check register. Account Register,
just like check registers, have beginning balances to which each transaction
is added or subtracted to determine an ending balance.

Microsoft Money can schedule transactions. These are things you know will
become real transactions in the future but are just projected now. Example:
I know I'll have a phone bill to pay every month. I can create a Scheduled
Transaction to project this. The one I paid last month is now a Transaction
entered in an Account Register. The series of these into the future are
Scheduled Transactions and they can be used by Money to Forecast Cash Flow
and are used by Money as a basis for budgeting future income and expenses in
Budget Planner. They are entered in Bills and Deposits and do not change any
account balances until they are entered into account registers from Bills
and Deposits.

Amounts in Money Transactions can be categorized as to why they happened.
Examples include amounts spent (Expense Categories) on Automobile:Gasoline,
Food:Groceries, Interest Expense:Credit Card, or Taxes:Social Security Tax,
or amounts received (Income Categories) for things like Wages & Salary:Gross
Pay, Job Expense Reimbursement, Investment Income:Interest or Other
Income:Ebay Sales Proceeds.

Some amounts in transactions neither make you richer or poorer. They are
like moving money from one pocket to the other. These transactions are all
somehow special to Money. These include Transfer (and its cousin Credit Card
Payment), Buy Investment/CD, and to an extent, Loan Payment. (Loan Payment
is a hybrid--a Split--with one portion reflecting an interest expense and
the other portion reflecting a transfer from an account we expect to have
money (a "Cash Account") to one that we owe money to (a Liability Account).

Transactions can be Split into multiple components. (You buy $20 worth of
gas and $5 worth of chips and salsa at the convenience store on the way
home. This can be entered as a $25 transaction split into a $20
Automobile:Gasoline component and a $5 Food:Groceries component.) Money also
provides a specialized kind of split called a Paycheck. It tracks all income
and expense components from your paystub but adds data that helps Money make
tax calculations like what amounts are wage income and what are tax expenses
and what are before and after tax expenses.

"Jenn" <Jenn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9AABC017-4FFA-4A31-93FF-98FDE4DB16E9@microsoft.com...
> JB- Thank you for responding so quickly! I have not downloaded anything
> from
> the bank yet and the account is with the same bank. These are not actual
> bills (phone, electric, etc...that I entered during setup. They are misc.
> expenses that Money suggested and I filled in during setup. If I remember
> correctly, during setup, I was not asked to specify which account would be
> paying the bills or the expenses. "Somehow" the bills did wind up with
> the
> correct account. The expenses should come out of two other accts. labeled
> "household spending" and "entertainment". I deleted the expenses from the
> savings account and reentered them I don't know why but they ended up in
> savings again. I ended up Closing the savings acct. This didn't help b/c
> I
> added a gasoline payment to see what happened and I was only able to add
> it
> as "one time" now it is not listed w/ any account only on my overall
> budget.
> Is this making sense? Thanks again, Jenn

Jenn
Tue Oct 11 21:37:11 CDT 2005

WOW. That was a lot of info to digest. Thank you so much for being so
thourough!
It really is what is probably a simple issue. Real world...I do have three
checking accts. one that I pay fixed bills with, another w/ a debit card that
I use at Walmart, Home Depot and the Gas station. The third w/ a separate
card that I use to go to the movies or out to dinner. My husband is a n
impulse buyer and a spender so if I didn't separate these accts we would not
have money for the mortgage or groceries. The fixed bills were not a problem
to enter into money and are automatically listed under my bill pay acct.
/When i actually pay these bills they will be included in that register. The
software generated other misc. categories such as monthly gasoline expenses.
I entered in an estimate(to be reviewed over several months to come up w/ a
good average). When I went under Account List and chose my savings acct I did
a cash flow projection and the Gasoline, dining out, books, etc... were
accounted for there and deducted from that "budget" . my savings should not
have a budget I just put $ in and if i need it for a lrge purchase i make a
withdrawal. I want each checking account to have a separate budget and a
separate ledger. I want to put whichever expenses or bills into whichever
account that I want and at the end of the month balance each one out and see
where I am spending too much money. Does this make sense? Jenn

"Dick Watson" wrote:

> When you say these "expenses" are being "deducted" are we talking about
> something you are seeing in Money Forecast Cash Flow and/or Money Budget
> Planner or actual transactions that you are entering in actual Money Account
> registers?
>
> You say "The expenses should come out of two other accts. labeled "household
> spending" and "entertainment"." Are we talking about real world accounts
> and/or Money Accounts or are we talking about Categories? Further, that
> appears to conflict with ""Somehow" the bills did wind up with the correct
> account."
>
> We need to get some standardized terminology here. You may already know all
> of this. But I'll write it anyway. I'm concerned because I've read both of
> your postings and am not at all sure we agree what the basic concepts in
> Money are and what the terms for these are. You might also do well to open
> the Sample file and/or the help videos to see how Money is designed to be
> used.
>
> Microsoft Money has Accounts. Accounts in Money generally mirror real world
> accounts like Checking and Savings and Discover Card. If you actually have
> separate checking accounts, one for, say, Food:Groceries and another for,
> say, Automobile:Gasoline, so be it--these should be setup as Money Accounts.
> Otherwise, your Money Accounts should mirror some (not all) of your real
> world accounts. (Exceptions are things like Phone Company--not generally a
> Money Account but maybe a real world account--and Pocket Change--never a
> real world account but frequently meaningful as a Money Account.) If you
> have these accounts in your head as an artifice to manage your money
> better--cookie jar accounting it is sometimes called--that's great, but
> Money really can't deal at well with this and you really shouldn't try to go
> there. Trying to coerce Money to do cookie jar accounting has caused lots of
> people lots of grief.
>
> Microsoft Money is used to record transactions. These are real financial
> activities like depositing a paycheck, paying a bill, and buying a tankful
> of gasoline. Transactions are always entered in Account Registers, just like
> we all used to enter checks we write in a check register. Account Register,
> just like check registers, have beginning balances to which each transaction
> is added or subtracted to determine an ending balance.
>
> Microsoft Money can schedule transactions. These are things you know will
> become real transactions in the future but are just projected now. Example:
> I know I'll have a phone bill to pay every month. I can create a Scheduled
> Transaction to project this. The one I paid last month is now a Transaction
> entered in an Account Register. The series of these into the future are
> Scheduled Transactions and they can be used by Money to Forecast Cash Flow
> and are used by Money as a basis for budgeting future income and expenses in
> Budget Planner. They are entered in Bills and Deposits and do not change any
> account balances until they are entered into account registers from Bills
> and Deposits.
>
> Amounts in Money Transactions can be categorized as to why they happened.
> Examples include amounts spent (Expense Categories) on Automobile:Gasoline,
> Food:Groceries, Interest Expense:Credit Card, or Taxes:Social Security Tax,
> or amounts received (Income Categories) for things like Wages & Salary:Gross
> Pay, Job Expense Reimbursement, Investment Income:Interest or Other
> Income:Ebay Sales Proceeds.
>
> Some amounts in transactions neither make you richer or poorer. They are
> like moving money from one pocket to the other. These transactions are all
> somehow special to Money. These include Transfer (and its cousin Credit Card
> Payment), Buy Investment/CD, and to an extent, Loan Payment. (Loan Payment
> is a hybrid--a Split--with one portion reflecting an interest expense and
> the other portion reflecting a transfer from an account we expect to have
> money (a "Cash Account") to one that we owe money to (a Liability Account).
>
> Transactions can be Split into multiple components. (You buy $20 worth of
> gas and $5 worth of chips and salsa at the convenience store on the way
> home. This can be entered as a $25 transaction split into a $20
> Automobile:Gasoline component and a $5 Food:Groceries component.) Money also
> provides a specialized kind of split called a Paycheck. It tracks all income
> and expense components from your paystub but adds data that helps Money make
> tax calculations like what amounts are wage income and what are tax expenses
> and what are before and after tax expenses.
>
> "Jenn" <Jenn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:9AABC017-4FFA-4A31-93FF-98FDE4DB16E9@microsoft.com...
> > JB- Thank you for responding so quickly! I have not downloaded anything
> > from
> > the bank yet and the account is with the same bank. These are not actual
> > bills (phone, electric, etc...that I entered during setup. They are misc.
> > expenses that Money suggested and I filled in during setup. If I remember
> > correctly, during setup, I was not asked to specify which account would be
> > paying the bills or the expenses. "Somehow" the bills did wind up with
> > the
> > correct account. The expenses should come out of two other accts. labeled
> > "household spending" and "entertainment". I deleted the expenses from the
> > savings account and reentered them I don't know why but they ended up in
> > savings again. I ended up Closing the savings acct. This didn't help b/c
> > I
> > added a gasoline payment to see what happened and I was only able to add
> > it
> > as "one time" now it is not listed w/ any account only on my overall
> > budget.
> > Is this making sense? Thanks again, Jenn
>
>
>

Dick
Tue Oct 11 22:41:59 CDT 2005

OK. Now we are getting on the same page. See comments inline.

"Jenn" <Jenn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:360D7749-BE4D-4845-8882-5BCCC4C25A0B@microsoft.com...
> WOW. That was a lot of info to digest. Thank you so much for being so
> thourough!
> It really is what is probably a simple issue. Real world...I do have
> three
> checking accts. one that I pay fixed bills with, another w/ a debit card
> that
> I use at Walmart, Home Depot and the Gas station. The third w/ a separate
> card that I use to go to the movies or out to dinner. My husband is a n
> impulse buyer and a spender so if I didn't separate these accts we would
> not
> have money for the mortgage or groceries. The fixed bills were not a
> problem
> to enter into money and are automatically listed under my bill pay acct.
> /When i actually pay these bills they will be included in that register.

All so good so far. Hopefully Money will enable you to manage the money
without the separate accounts. Then you can simplify your financial life and
get a better result.

> The
> software generated other misc. categories such as monthly gasoline
> expenses.
> I entered in an estimate(to be reviewed over several months to come up w/
> a
> good average). When I went under Account List and chose my savings acct I
> did
> a cash flow projection and the Gasoline, dining out, books, etc... were
> accounted for there and deducted from that "budget" . my savings should
> not
> have a budget I just put $ in and if i need it for a lrge purchase i make
> a
> withdrawal.

OK. Here's the drill. For budget items or items Money is trending for you,
it makes some assumptions about what account to use. You can control the
acccount it will assume implcitly (what was the last account with any
spending for this stuff?) or explicitly. To control it explicitly in M06, go
to Account List|Categories & Payees|Categories. For each one you want to
explicitly specify where it should get assigned for cash flow projection,
select the category and r-click select Go To Details. There is a choice here
for "Assign cash flow transactions in this category to" and you can tell
Money where to put the projected income or expenses.

> I want each checking account to have a separate budget and a
> separate ledger.

Each account does have a separate ledger. That's easy. But Money views the
budgeting problem as a systemic problem and solves it globally. After all,
it really doesn't matter out of which pocket you spend the money. It gets
spent. This may take you some getting used to but the effort and time will
be well spent--because it will let you see spending and income in a holistic
way and not just one pocket at a time.

> I want to put whichever expenses or bills into whichever
> account that I want and at the end of the month balance each one out and
> see
> where I am spending too much money.

Money, as noted, doesn't budget at the account level. This way what account
spent the money is not even relevant. What really matters is you spent
$145.67 on gasoline, not that some was cash and some was one credit card,
some another, and some with a check or two. You get to see the total
picture, by income and expense category and without regard (generally--there
is some control over this) to the accounts involved. Instead of looking at
account balances of arbitrary accounts to see if there is more money left
you can spend this month, you can use the budget reporting features to see
overall how your spending and income compare, category by category, to the
plan you set out to follow. If you get over the hurdle to dealing with the
problem Money's way, I suspect you will find it more effective and you find
it enables you to make choices that simplify your financial life and enable
better cash management than just using a cookie-jar mix of accounts.

> Does this make sense? Jenn

I think so. I hope my answer makes as much sense to you.

Andylecht
Sat Oct 15 06:51:02 CDT 2005

Dick - re the comment below. I have the same issue using Money 2001 and tried
to follow your instructions but found no "Assign cash flow transactions in
this category to" option. Do you know if there's a way to do this in 2001, or
am I wasting my time?

Thanks

Andy

"Dick Watson" wrote:

>
> OK. Here's the drill. For budget items or items Money is trending for you,
> it makes some assumptions about what account to use. You can control the
> acccount it will assume implcitly (what was the last account with any
> spending for this stuff?) or explicitly. To control it explicitly in M06, go
> to Account List|Categories & Payees|Categories. For each one you want to
> explicitly specify where it should get assigned for cash flow projection,
> select the category and r-click select Go To Details. There is a choice here
> for "Assign cash flow transactions in this category to" and you can tell
> Money where to put the projected income or expenses.
>

Dick
Sat Oct 15 07:27:27 CDT 2005

The whole thing of it projecting the budgeted items into the cashflow
post-dates M01. I'd guess it came in M02. At first, there was no control
over what account the budgeted items were put against. That made the feature
useless for many of us. In your case, you can't get there from here without
upgrading. It's not obvious that this is a great choice for many users. I
skipped M05 (http://umpmfaq.info/Money2005.htm) and am in my longest dual
trial ever for M06 without yet deciding I really want to jump to it
(http://umpmfaq.info/Money2006.htm).

"Andylecht" <Andylecht@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:103315E3-07CB-48C7-A655-A4E8DC43C688@microsoft.com...
> Dick - re the comment below. I have the same issue using Money 2001 and
> tried
> to follow your instructions but found no "Assign cash flow transactions in
> this category to" option. Do you know if there's a way to do this in 2001,
> or
> am I wasting my time?

Chris
Sun Oct 16 16:12:51 CDT 2005

Download the 2006 trial and install it parallel to your existing 2001.
There's nothing to lose. If you like it, buy a copy from a warehouse store
somewhere. Whatever you do, don't download it. There are many cries of
anguish here about that method of acquisition.

If you don't like it, consider buying a copy of 2004 Deluxe on eBay or
something. Many users are happy with that version. There would be no refund
or trial period, but you can install it in parallel with 2001, just as you
can 2006. If you like that, keep it; if not, ditch it.

2004 may be expired with respect to downloading some things like quotes, if
you do that.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL


"Andylecht" <Andylecht@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:103315E3-07CB-48C7-A655-A4E8DC43C688@microsoft.com...
> Dick - re the comment below. I have the same issue using Money 2001 and
> tried
> to follow your instructions but found no "Assign cash flow transactions in
> this category to" option. Do you know if there's a way to do this in 2001,
> or
> am I wasting my time?