Re: How to enter Credit Card Payments by via_newsgroup
via_newsgroup
Mon Jan 17 23:53:34 CST 2005
In microsoft.public.money, NewToMoney wrote:
>I am new to MS Money. I have set up my bank account and my credit card
>account. I pay my credit card biils for my checking account.
>
>In both the accounts there is an entry for this transaction (decrease in
>checking acc. and increase in Credit Card acc.) Is this right?
That is one way to work it.
> How do I
>categorize this transaction, as I all other expenses are made from this card
>only account.
There is more than one good way to download your credit card
data and have also the payment downloaded from a checking account.
Here are two ways I like:
1. When you process the first transaction of the credit card
payment, set the category as a transfer to the other ( credit card
or bank account), or use the equivalent "SPECIAL Credit Card
Payment" category. When you process the second transaction,Money
should match it. Be careful to not just Accept if Money did not
find the match on its own for some reason. Click Change and match
it to the transfer you already made if Money did not match it for
you. I would consider this the classic of the ways I like. Note
that for this you would *not* use the Money 2005 "EXPENSE Credit
Card Payment". Instead you should consider deleting that "EXPENSE
Credit Card Payment" to avoid confusion.
2. In method 2, don't handle credit card payments as transfers or
the pre-defined "Credit Card Payment Instead create one category of
"CC payment" or some such. If you define the category as an
expense category, expect a warning when you use it to represent the
payment within the credit card account -- if you have the warning
enabled. Just click Yes in response to the warning. The category
should net at zero in reports across accounts, and you can still
customize to ignore the category if you like. [this is Bonnie
Synhorst's favorite method.]. For this method you *could* use the
Money 2005 "EXPENSE Credit Card Payment".