An Unofficial FAQ for microsoft.public.money
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Introduction
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This unofficial FAQ for the microsoft.public.money newsgroup is offered as a
public service in hopes that newsgroup readers will quickly find answers to
the most commonly asked questions in the newsgroup.
The FAQ is hosted on the web at http://umpmfaq.info .
Text and HTML
versions are available at the FAQ web site . As an
alternative, I endeavor to post a pointer to the web-hosted FAQ in the
newsgroup weekly. Frequent readers of the newsgroup are encouraged to post
links to the FAQ in replies to other posters who may find it helpful. Specific
questions can be linked to, using key numbers for the questions which can be
identified from the URL of any hyperlink to a question in the question
listings or in the HTML version, in one of two ways (replace xxx with the
question key number):
(in traditional full FAQ page): http://umpmfaq.info/faq#Qxxx
(in new single entry page): http://umpmfaq.info/faqdb.php?q=xxx
Note that http://www.umpmfaq.info redirects to http://umpmfaq.info.
While I have tested the site reasonably thoroughly, visitors may still see
problems. If you do, please report them.
Corrections and submittals are welcome
, but I reserve absolute right to edit
and/or ignore these submittals for whatever reason including judgments about
the question's status as a FAQ. I will give credit where appropriate and
expect no less in return if you feel compelled to quote the FAQ. In addition,
suggestions and submittals of new pages dedicated to specific topics and
additional reference links are solicited. (Some things that come to mind
include a "Just for Beginners" page and a "401k" page.)
Of necessity, the scope of the FAQ is limited. Issues unique to non-US
localized versions are generally not treated, nor are some Money features
covered as well as others. In particular, I do not use any of the network bill
pay and statement features and am relatively unfamiliar with features for
stock options and have treated few related issues here out of ignorance. I
also don't use the frequent flier features and will skip the grocery coupon
tracker feature if and when it's added to Microsoft Money. Also, I haven't
treated any issues peculiar to the Essential (hereafter MEss) and Home &
Business versions since I've never used either for more than five minutes,
don't follow postings about them, and cannot judge good FAQs and answers for
them from bad ones. The M05 major rewrite (applicable to M05 through 7) added
Essential modes (apparently Microsoft's Money team likes Essential stuff) and
I'm not at all familiar with those, either. By all means, post questions that
are not treated in the FAQ to the newsgroup. Other regular posters there are
more familiar with lots of this stuff than I am.
In this edition: No questions were added or updated, but the related versions
of many questions were corrected to include M+. This update also has a number
of changes under the covers to enable a "switch" to be thrown someday soon and
the whole site--and my offline development environment--to migrate from an old
host here and PHP4/MySQL4 on the server to newer stuff all around. (27 May
2008)
Generated from database Wednesday, 28 May 2008.
How to do things in Money
-------------------------
Q) Are there any recommendations for assuring short- and long-term
"survivability" of my Money data?
A) There are a number of Q&A that deal with specific backup issues. (E.g.,
"You must help me! My only floppy backup has a data error reading. What do I
do?", "Can a new version of Money open my old version data file/backup
file/backup diskette(s)?", "I just reinstalled M98--it can't read my data
backup floppies. Now what?", and "How do I backup to CD-RW? CD-R?") None of
these treat the subject in a general way. So, here goes:
The following general practices always apply:
Always test backups to be sure they really are.
Never depend on just one backup or form of backup as your only backup.
Always have multiple generations of backup in case you backed up a problem and
didn't know it.
Never trust any media to provide "archival storage". Cheap media are worse.
Trying to save on backup media is not wise. Even if the media lasts, the
devices that can read this media may not.
Storing a backup across multiple media (e.g., spanning multiple floppies)
reduces the availability of a good copy.
Depending on what risk you are trying to protect against, an offsite backup
storage location may be a good idea.
Within these, some specific advice for Money:
The Money backup routine is not foolproof. Backing up the data file outside of
Money seems slightly more reliable.
Removing password protection before making your backup is probably a good
idea. This is true for two reasons: 1) you may forget what your password was
when you made the backup--particularly if you follow "best practices" about
changing your password periodically--but see also "Help! I've lost my
password. Now what do I do?" 2) there is no assurance that Microsoft will
perpetually support a given online authentication format or stored credential
data format. (This is applicable to those using Passport/WindowsLive
ID/whatever they call it into the future.) If you don't remove the password
before taking your backup copy, at least record what the password was at the
time and store it with the backup. The importance of removing/tracking your
password is in direct proportion to the length of time you contemplate your
backup is protecting you into the future.
Keep track of what version of Money wrote the data file/backup you are
storing. Money has generally been pretty good about opening/restoring files
made with older versions--and doing the necessary upgrade, but there is no
guarantee that this will always be so. Indeed, there have already been breaks
where getting from Money version A to C requires an intermediate upgrade to
the Money version B data format using Money version B. Money has *never*
provided a file format for data or backups that an older version of Money
could read, so if you save, say, a Money 2007 file format but at some point in
the future only have a copy of Money 2006, you will be out of luck. This issue
is also more important the longer you want a backup to be good for and the
number of versions back the file was written with.
A corollary to the previous item is that you may want to consider keeping/or
need to keep copies of the original application installation medium. (This
means your Money application installation CD or a copy of the installation
image if you bought online. Note that since OEM versions tend to be tied to
specific hardware, saving, say Money04 for Dell Model XYZ may prove useless at
that point into the future when you need it and your Dell XYZ has been since
been shredded into little nuggets to be recycled.) Note that this also assumes
that you will have a system that supports installing and running this
application at whatever point into the future you need to look at your backup
data. Depending on the time horizon you are considering, it's not all that
hard to imagine that, say, WindowsDominator x128 MegaUltimate edition won't
actually run Money97.
(Note that there are also caveats to even this last recommendation: 1) Money
files won't cross localization/language barriers. If the file was written with
M05 for UK past performance indicates it is highly unlikely that M10 US will
read it, no matter what. Present trends suggest that the future of Money holds
fewer localized versions than they've had in the past so if you are using a
non-US version you must take this into account. 2) Keeping the installation CD
alone may prove insufficient. One case where this is true is M05: the first
and only mega-service update broke file compatibility with the CD version of
the application. This might not be so bad if you could just, say, go and
download the update file and store it yourself and install it yourself. But
you can't because Microsoft's service delivery strategy for Money precludes
it--the only way to update Money is to use its Internet Updates feature. Worse
still, their present policy of terminating Internet Update service and
removing data associated with End-of-Life versions means that a file written
with M05.1 will likely be so many useless semi-random numbers in 2010 if all
you have is the M05 installation CD.)
Which brings us to the final recommendation: At some point, accessing the
information in your data may prove more important than how you do it and not
all of the information may be equally important. Given the last several
considerations, it may be prudent to periodically save a subset of the
information in your Money data file to independent, non-Money-specific file
formats. There are quite a number of ways to tackle this including MoneyLink
and QIF exports, none of which gets all of the information Money stores, but
the best way seems to be using customized reports and then exporting these
reports to some portable format like .CSV or XML. Here are some report
recommendations along those lines:
"Account balances With details" customized:
Rows & Columns: select all except Abbreviation
Account: all including closed accounts
"Investment transactions" customized:
Rows & Columns: Include fields all, Group by: none
Date range: all
Account: all including closed accounts
Investment: select all
Activity: select all
Details status: reconciled & unreconciled
"Loan amortization" customized:
Rows & Columns: Include fields all except interest amount, paid from account,
other fees amount, principal balance; Subototal by: none; Include transactions
from: account register; Show splits; omit opening balance
Chart: View as report
Date range: all
Account: (one report/output file per Loan Account)
"Scheduled bills" customized:
Rows & Columns: Include fields all; Include transactions: all; Show splits
Date range: all
Account: all including closed accounts
Payee: all; include transactions with no payee
Currency-specific versions of "Account transactions" customized:
Rows & Columns: Include fields all; Subtotal by: none; Running balance: none;
Show splits
Date range: all
Account: (one report/data file per each currency; select all accounts in that
currency including closed accounts)
Category: all; Show sub categories; Include unassigned income; Include
unassigned expense
Payee: all; include transactions with no payee
Details type: all; status: reconciled & unreconciled
(classifications): select all; show subclassifications
Note that even this will leave lots of information behind including, but not
limited to, Account/Category/(classification)/Payee/Investment details, Budget
and DRP details, bill information beyond the next item in a bill series like
end date/number and any edited series members beyond the first one. If there
is any of this that you really want to protect, you will have to identify
other means of doing so. Granted these methods are much less than ideal. But
they also might prove a whole lot better than nothing at some point in the
future.
Q) Can I do this, that, or the other with Money? Can the latest version of
Money do this, that, or the other?
A) Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes these posts are general enough to get good
answers from people who have attempted what you want to do. Other times, the
requirement is so specific that nobody knows or nobody really understands what
you want to do. In these cases, the best thing to do is download the trial
version that is available and find out for yourself.
Two caveats about the trial version:
1) Read and heed the messages it brings up about what it will do to upgrade
your data file from the previous version, if you have one.
2) If you like the trial version, don't even think of upgrading it to a full
license with the menu choice to do so online. Go to the store and buy a copy
with a CD like normal folks. You will save a huge amount of grief for yourself
later on when you have to reinstall or move it to a new computer or whatever
if you do so.
References:
Microsoft Money Trial (US version)
Q) Help! I've lost my password. Now what do I do?
A) Passwords are there for a reason. When you forget them, you've discovered
the reason. It's to make it harder for people who don't know the password to
get at your data. That is why you used a password in the first place, isn't
it?
If you use Passport authentication to control access to your Money file, just
use the Passport lost password tools at the Passport site. (This is probably
the best reason for integration of Passport authentication with Money.)
If you just used a file password, there are services and a number of software
tools that do password recovery.
See also "Why do I have to use Passport authentication with Money?" for more
information on the good, bad, and ugly of Passport and file passwords as
access authentication schemes for Money.
References:
Money password recovery
Passport lost password help n/a
Q) How can I prevent getting duplicate entries of Transfer transactions when
importing accounts via .QIF?
A) When importing multiple related accounts that have transfers amongst the
accounts via .QIF, it is imperative to select and import all the exported
account files at the same time. To do this, hold down the CTRL key and select
each file to be imported.
Q) How do I categorize multiple items all deposited at once? What about
several paychecks?
A) For things besides paychecks, the category part is easy. You use the split.
But the tougher part is if you want to list all of the payees. A Money
transaction allows one Payee, no matter how many splits. This makes it hard to
list ten payees for ten checks in one split transaction.
Some choices:
1a) Ignore the payees and put all the deposited items in one split
transaction.
1b) Put the payees in the memo(s) and make the Payee something like (various).
2) "Deposit" all the checks in separate transactions to some Money account
that is not the real-world Bank account. If you have a pocket change account,
for instance, this is a good place to do it. Then do a single transfer of the
total amount to the actual Money account where these are deposited.
3) Ignore the fact that you deposited them in one deposit and create multiple
Money transactions. This makes it slightly more difficult to reconcile vs. the
bank statement since you have to remember that all of these small deposits in
Money add up to that large deposit on the statement.
Re. #1, since a Money Paycheck is a special type of split, if one of the items
deposited is a paycheck and you do full accounting in a Paycheck transaction,
adding other checks to this deposits probably causes more confusion than it is
worth. But you could do it. Just add them to the after tax tab. You can
combine multiple paychecks in one paycheck transaction, but there are various
reasons you probably don’t want to do this: First, it will be hard to
reconcile all of the paycheck information from your stubs with one paycheck
transaction. Second, the Money Tax Estimator assigns meaning to the first
entry on the wages tab--this is the amount from which the “Before Tax” amounts
are deducted--and you should watch Tax Estimator very carefully to make sure
its results are sane if you are trying to combine paychecks into one
transaction.
#3 causes grief for those who download transaction data.
Q) How do I find out about the free credit reports/bill pay/financial
consultation/tax filing?
[Relevant to Money2003 (v.11) and up]
A) Once you have purchased and installed an applicable version, go to the task
based home page. (There's a link in the left column--below the "So and So's
Money Home Page" tripe--of the view oriented "Main Home Page" home pages.)
Once there, select the "Tell me more" link in the Financial Services section
at the top.
An alternate, probably easier, way is to go to Help|Financial Services.
M05 moved this kind of stuff all around. In M05 one way (there may be others)
is [Windows menu:] Tools|Financial Services.
Q) How do I make Money work for other WinNT/Win2k/XP Pro users?
A) Money does not deal well with the NT multi-user security model. It has to
be reinstalled for each account and each account has to run as a member of
Administrators group. (Per Cal Learner, this latter limitation is removed in
M02.) There is an MSKB entry on the subject. There are some partial
workarounds and there was a registry hack that solved some of the issues for
non-Administrator users. I won't quote the registry hack here--if you are good
enough to be mucking in the registry, you can certainly find it in
groups.google.com.
References:
groups.google.com
MSKB: Q273815 Money does not work and play well with NT/2K/XP security
Q) I just got married/divorced/re-married. How do I change the names that show
up on the Money home page?
A) Go to Accounts & Bills|Account Setup|Update personal information. Granted,
it does seem odd that setting up all of Money doesn't really seem like a
subset of setting up an account, but this is where these settings are hidden.
M05 eliminated the personalization from the home page and the path to enter
the personal information. Good riddance!
Q) I setup a Passport for access to my file because I thought I needed to, now
I realize Passport is evil. How do I get rid of it?
A) Depending on version, go to File|Password Manager or File|Login Lockbox and
remove the Passport.
See "Why do I have to use Passport authentication with Money?" for more
information on the good, bad, and ugly of Passport as an access authentication
scheme for Money.
Q) I'm using Windows XP and want to have two users access the same Money file.
What's the easiest way to do this?
A) Open "My Documents" under Windows Explorer. Find your Money file and drag
it to "Shared Documents" under My Computer. Now all users can access the same
money file in the "Shared Documents."
M05 refers to a feature they call "file sharing." It isn't. It's just a way of
adding multiple Passports to allow access to the subset of data that is copied
from the local file to MSN web servers and made available via the web
interface.
Thanks to Chris for the original answer.
Q) Is there a way to mark several hundred old transactions as reconciled in
one step?
A) There is no one step way to do this. The best way to do this is to set the
view to show only unreconciled transactions sorted by date, select the
earliest transaction you want to mark, hold down Ctrl+Shift. Hit M. You can
hit M repeatedly or just hold it down to auto-repeat. Transactions will
disappear--to reconciled status--pretty quickly, limited only by Money's
performance on your computer.
Q) Money opens with my old email address. How do I tell it about my new one?
A) This indicates that your Money data file is set to authenticate access via
Passport. So, what’s wrong here is that you need to update your Passport
account and then update the Passport used with your Money data file.
First, login to your data file using the old email address. (If you've already
changed the name at Passport and not in Money, you may have to login using the
offline mode.)
If you go into File|Password Manager (File|Login Lockbox on versions before
M04), on the File Password Settings tab, you should see Passport sign-in is
enabled for… and Change… Click on Change…Select Disable Money's Passport
features. Click on Next. Click on the Disable this Passport for use in Money
check box. Click Finish. Click OK to have no passwords at all.
Exit Money.
Now, you have to change your Passport by browsing to the Passport web site.
Select View or Edit your profile, sign in, under the old email address that is
the Passport account name, click the link "I need to change this." Follow
along from there.
Restart Money.
You should get this really annoying screen about setting up sign in security.
At this point, consider whether you need a Passport associated with your Money
data file at all. See "Why do I have to use Passport authentication with
Money?" for more information on why you might or might not want to do this. If
you conclude you don’t need it, just say no to the sign in security screen. If
you feel you must associate your file with a Passport, continue on.
Select Yes; Yes, I want to use a Passport; Use an existing Passport. Click
Next. Enter the new email address/Passport sign-in name and its password.
Click Next.
Q) What if I don't want to use Money with Passport authentication?
A) When you install Money or create a new data file in versions prior to M05,
you can "just say no" when it asks you to sign up for Passport. If you do this
the first several times you start the application or open the file, it will
give up asking.
M05 stopped trying to nag you into adding Passport authentication to your
file. If you are determined to Just Say No, you won't get nagged. On the other
hand, if you are new to Money and setting up a file for the first time, the
new process would make you believe that not authenticating access to your
Money file with a Passport (or a file password at least) is unnatural and
immoral. It's neither.
Here's how to avoid the Passport/file password "requirement" in M05:
After File|New:
- Page: Thank you for using… (click Next)
- Page: Help protect your online Privacy and Security. (It says this in BIG
TYPE--and who could argue with that? If you don't use a Passport, your data
will be public and unsecured it seems to imply.) Passport has all kinds of
issues not the least of which is we ship your data off to our servers. (It
says this in little type in a scroll box that doesn't mention the problems you
can have accessing your own data if Microsoft has a problem with the Money
Passport servers) (click Decline)
- Dialog Box: Are you sure you really want to do such a stupid thing (click
Yes)
- Page: A file password is a good thing (BIG TYPE again) don't forget it
(little type) (click the I don't want check box, then Next)
- Page: To setup accounts you'll need the name of your primary bank and your
online sign-in information from your bank (here you can click Skip Account
Setup unless you want more of the hand-holding) (By the way, this isn't true,
either. You can just select "not in list" as the financial institution and
nothing bad will happen and Money will be highly functional and will work the
way some of us have happily used it for a decade.)
If you already setup to use Passport authentication and have now changed your
mind, see "I setup a Passport for access to my file because I thought I needed
to, now I realize Passport is evil. How do I get rid of it?"
See "Why do I have to use Passport authentication with Money?" for more
information on the good, bad, and ugly of Passport as an access authentication
scheme for Money.
Q) What is the -s option? What is the Super Salvage utility?
A) These (and the File|Money File Repair menu choice added by M04) are the
file repair tools.
See "I think my file has been corrupted. How do I tell? What do I do then?"
for more information on these tools.
References:
MSKB: 182608 How to resolve file inconsistencies
How to do things in Money: Accounts/Categories/Payees
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Q) How can I note that, say, Automobile : Gasoline expenses applied to a
specific car?
A) Sometimes Money users want to be able to differentiate like income or
expenses between different objectives. Examples include determining how much
is spent on which of your automobiles and what rental income is associated
with which rental properties.
Some people think that expanding the categories list is the obvious way to do
this. E.g., Automobile : '05 Accord Gasoline. The problem with this approach
is that it doesn't scale well. Add another car? Double up the categories by
adding Automobile : '06 SL550 Gasoline. Want to track insurance and taxes? Add
Insurance : '05 Accord Auto and Taxes : '05 Accord Personal Property. It just
gets worse…
Luckily, Money provides an alternate approach called "classification". A
classification is a set of two-level tagging just like, but parallel to,
Category, with its own name like "Class" or "Tax Applicability". Money allows
two degrees of classification. Thus, a given expense can be Category
Automobile : Gasoline, and Class My Autos : '05 Accord, and Tax Applicability
Tax Year 2006 : Reimbursable Job Expense, all at the same time. This allows
you to dice and slice the data readily into all Automobile : Gasoline expenses
or all My Autos : '05 Accord expenses or any intersecting set (Automobile :
Gasoline for just My Autos : '05 Accord). You can also do things like classify
Insurance : Automobile or Taxes : License Plate Ad Valorem Tax to a My Autos :
'06 SL550. Most Money reports allow the report to select specific
classifications just like they allow selecting specific categories.
What are the downsides? It's more data to collect, but you needn't classify
every transaction, just those you'd like to be able to select this way. The
classification isn't supported by things like the "guessing" of categories by
Payee name when downloading or hand entering transactions. You can't schedule
classification of the elements of a Loan Payment, though you can edit a Loan
Payment transaction--or fix it when you select Enter in Register--to include
classification in the elements. (See "Why can't I schedule a Loan Payment with
pre-assigned classification?" for more.) Classification isn't supported in
Find and Replace. (Still. How hard could it be, Money team?) It make the
two-line register view a three- or four-line proposition. You can't get
classification data out to Excel via MoneyLink.
How to get started with Classification? It varies slightly by version and the
Help pages should provide definitive advice. In general, find your way to a
Categories & Payees screen. In the View section, you will see choices
Classification 1 and Classification 2, assuming you haven't setup
Classification already. Click on the first one and it will let you name and
Enable the first classification set. Once enabled, each transaction entry form
or register entry will let you enter the two levels of your classification 1
just as you do with Categories.
You might also want to use classification for things like Vacation : Hawaii
2004, Cell Phone : (888)555-1212, Computer : Desktop IV, Other : Daughter gets
married, Property : 123 Republican Circle and so forth.
Q) How do I setup a money market account as a checking account?
A) If you aren't downloading the information from your investment company into
Money, you can set it up and manage it as a checking account.
If you are downloading the information, Money will likely insist that the
money market account is an investment in an investment account. This will make
it harder to manage like a checking account. There is no good solution.
Q) I've entered charges in my credit card account, when I pay the bill aren't
I spending twice? Is my card a category or account?
A) These, and many other fundamentally related questions, are frequently asked
by people new to personal finance software and formalized accounting methods.
There are two ways to approach this whole issue. Let's describe the more
useful, and generally preferred, way first: You setup Accounts, not
Categories, for the tools you use to spend money. I.e., setup accounts for
your checking account and your credit card account(s).
When you spend on the cards, you record transactions in the credit card
account for WHY you spent the money. E.g., $50 to MCI WorldCom for
category:subcategory "Utilities:Long Distance."
When you pay the credit card bills, you "Transfer" money from, say, your
Checking Account to your Visa Account. Paying a bill like this is not an
expense. It's just taking money you have and applying it to expenses (i.e.,
liabilities) you already incurred--hence the transfer. The special category
"Credit Card Payment" is just a less confusing (but less insightful) way to
say "Transfer" and it behaves exactly the same except you can't create a
scheduled "Credit Card Payment" but you can create a scheduled "Transfer" and
it works exactly the same. M05 came along and added a new Expense Category
"Credit Card Payments/Transfer" just to mess with anybody who is just starting
to understand this stuff. As Cal Learner--MVP recommended, the best thing to
do is probably to delete this category. It just causes confusion.
The second way, if you are not ready to dive in just yet, is to categorize the
entire payment to the credit card as "Miscellaneous" and not worry about what,
in turn, the credit card charges were for. In this scenario you don't even
have to setup the credit card as a separate Account. If you really want to use
Money to understand where the money comes from and goes to, don't do it this
way; it masks what you are really spending the money for.
Money provides an intermediate path that can be simple to start while you are
getting up and running and can easily morph into the recommended method. When
you create the account, tell it you want to "AutoBalance" the account. (This
is the same as the radio buttons "Account tracking: I want to track individual
charges/Just track the amount I owe" on the Account Details page.) When
AutoBalance is enabled, a "Credit Card Payment:[credit card account]" or the
more normative "Transfer:[credit card account]" will popup a dialog box to
balance the account. It will also do automagically what was outlined above as
a manual task: it will enter an account adjustment transaction to expense the
entire balance as "Miscellaneous."
There is much more on this in Help, the Help videos, Audio Help, and the book
that came with Money. Also look at the sample file. The key hurdles for many
people to cross are that: 1) Accounts are HOW you spend/receive money and are
where individual expense and income transactions are recorded. 2) Categories
and Subcategories are WHY you spend/receive money and are recorded as
transactions in accounts. 3) Transfer is how you move Money from one account
(say a cash account of which checking is one type) to another (say a liability
account of which credit card is one type).
Q) My Credit Card Payments don't show up in Spending Reports--how come?
A) See the answer to the question "I've entered charges in my credit card
account, when I pay the bill aren't I spending twice? Is my card a category or
account?"
Q) When should I create an Account instead of a Payee? Aren't Payees just
Accounts? Or is my Payee really a Category?
A) An Account in Money allows recording of transactions with credits and
debits to a balance carried forward. Accounts are places to group transactions
that frequently reflect some of your real world accounts like checking,
savings, and revolving credit card accounts.
Payees are people or institutions you interact with financially. The simplest
example is the name you put in a Pay To on a check. That's always a payee.
Your employer who pays you is technically a Payer, but Money always calls
Payers Payees. A Payee in Money is a name with optional attributes like
address information, phone numbers and account numbers. Payees are typically
used to record information about people and businesses you regularly pay or
receive money from. Examples might include a grocery store, a utility company,
an ISP and so on.
Not all Payees you enter transactions for need to be Payees explicitly listed
on the Payees page. (Accounts & Bills|Categories & Payees|Payees in M02.) See
answer to question "Why do I have to create an entry in the Payees every time
I spend money somewhere new?" for more information.
Sometimes you have accounts that are associated with a Payee and maybe this is
also an Account in Money, but by no means always. The determining factor tends
to be whether the account you have with a Payee involves its own transactions
and a standing balance from month to month. Credit cards are almost always
best treated as Money Accounts. Accounts like the account your plumber has for
you and the accounts you have with your utility companies rarely need their
own Money Accounts.
The name of a Payee and an Account in Money are occasionally the same.
Categories are ways to assign income and expense to, for lack of a better
word, reasons for the income or expense. Categories could include Wage &
Salary:Bonus, Food:Groceries, Utilities:Garbage Pickup.
Examples:
I charge $55.00 for Category "Food:Groceries" to my Discover credit card
account. I enter a transaction for $55.00 for Food:Groceries in my Money
"Discover" Account, which is a Money Account of type "Credit Card." I pay the
Payee "Discover" $1,234.56 for the Food:Groceries, among other things, by
entering another, separate, transaction in my "Checking" Account in Money
using the Special Category "Transfer:Discover" which moves money from one
Account to the other.
I pay my Payee "Xcel Energy" for $123.45 of Category "Utilities:Gas" and
$65.43 of Category "Utilities Electricity" by entering a split transaction in
my Money "Checking" Account. I include my account number for my Xcel Energy
account (which is not a Money Account) in the Memo field of the check.
Q) Why don't my car Loan Payments show up as an expense in monthly expense
reports?
A) The short answer is that the loan payments really aren't expenses--only the
interest portion is an expense. The expense happened when you bought the car.
The expense continues to happen as you pay the interest each month for the
money you are still borrowing to pay for the car.
If you really want the payment to look like an expense every month, then do
not setup a loan account in Money and use an expense category like
Automobile:Payments. You may have to create this category.
Money (per standard accounting and personal finance management practice) tries
to manage cash flow (like the principal component of your loan payments) as a
separate issue from income and expense (like buying the car and paying rent on
the money you borrowed to buy the car). It takes some getting used to but it
is a much better approach to managing your money since it recognizes expenses
when they occur and doesn't let simple cash flow mask where you are really
spending money.
See also the answer to "My Credit Card Payments don't show up in Spending
Reports--how come?"
How to do things in Money: Data/File Management
-----------------------------------------------
Q) Can a new version of Money open my old version data file/backup file/backup
diskette(s)?
A) The newest version of Money is designed to open and upgrade older version
Money data files, backup files, and backup diskettes for all older versions of
Money, with caveats as noted below.
1) Upgrades are not supported across different localizations of Money. E.g.,
M99 for UK will not upgrade to M04 US. For more information, see "Why do I get
the 'incompatible versions' message when upgrading my data file?".
2) Beginning with M03, a significant number of users have had problems with
the upgrade process. For more information, see "I thought Money files were
supposed to be upward compatible. How come Money[new] crashes when upgrading
my Money[old] data file?".
3) Be sure you have a good backup file/set of backup diskettes. For more
information, see "You must help me! My only floppy backup has a data error
reading. What do I do?".
Q) Can I access my file on my desktop over my home network from my laptop?
A) It works fine IF you assure that only one machine has the file open at a
time. This includes subtle things like MoneySide and MoneyExpress. My only
file corruption in the last three of four years came from inadvertently
opening Money and working in the data file on the WiFi laptop when the desktop
machine also had the file open. Whatever else, have a backup strategy.
Setting up a network and opening/accessing file shares is beyond the scope of
this newsgroup. You might want to consult one of the operating system specific
newsgroups if that is the kind of help you are looking for.
M05 refers to a feature they call "file sharing". It isn't. It's just a way of
adding multiple Passports to allow access to the subset of data that is copied
from the local file to MSN web servers and made available via the web
interface
Q) How do I backup to CD-RW? CD-R?
A) First, remember that a CD-R, CD-RW, or any of the various forms of writable
DVD is not a general purpose random access storage device and needs software
to begin to pretend to be.
(Such software is referred to as "packet writing" software and includes things
like DirectCD or Drag-to-Disc from Easy Media (Coaster) Creator by Roxio and
InCD from Nero. That having been said, the poor reliability many people
experience with packet writing software in general and DirectCD in specific
suggests it is a very poor choice for backing up critical data like your Money
file. At less than a dime per media in quantities of 100, burning a CD-R with
a copy of your Money data file seems like a better choice.)
Like any file, your .MNY data file can be stored on writable optical media the
same way you put other files on them. For instance, if you use WinXP, you can
backup to the hard disk mirror created by WinXP and then burn a CD after
you've exited Money. If you like Nero, go ahead and burn a CD with your Money
data file and don't drag Money into the problem at all. Etc.
Second, don't expect the "backup to floppy" choice to offer up your writeable
CD. Is the writeable CD a floppy? No, it is not. Why would Money think it is?
Newer versions (M04?) say "Removable." But they still don't recognize devices
that do not have normal FAT/NTFS file systems--i.e., CD/DVD writeable.
When a WinXP follow-on product supports the Mt. Rainier technology, and when
you have hardware that also supports Mt. Rainier, then maybe Money will be a
little savvier about writable CDs.
Read the referenced MSKB for information about using the backup methods in
Money to backup to writeable CDs.
M06 updated the backup tools--the first time in many versions that backup
functionality has been improved--and provided direct access to writable
optical devices that the operating system knows how to deal with. Perhaps this
was because they broke the floppy disk backups so severely in M05?
Reference courtesy of Glyn Simpson, Microsoft MVP - Money
References:
MSKB: Q265130 backup to writeable CDs
Q) How do I move accounts from one Money file to another?
A) The only way to do this is File|Export and Import via QIF files. Beware
that duplicate account names ("Checking") in the exporting and importing
account will cause problems and one or the other account should be renamed
before you do the export/import. Also beware that transfers between accounts
to be moved will necessitate importing all interlinked QIF files
simultaneously. Finally, QIF export/import will NOT move things like bills
associated with the account or account detail information.
Because of all of these limitations, make sure to work in copies of the target
file before you get this all tuned to produce acceptable results.
Q) How do I start over with a new data file?
A) There are two ways to do this. File|New… is an old favorite. You can also
delete, rename, or move your data file so that Money cannot find it when you
start Money--Money will then offer to create a new file. Answer derived from
one posted by Cal Learner, MVP.
Q) How do I un-archive?
A) You don't. The only ways to undo the effects of archiving are to go to the
archive file and enter/import newer transactions or to export the transactions
from the archive file and import them into your current file. Both involve
going through the .QIF export/import process. Neither is trouble-free. See the
MSKB for Microsoft's approach.
Archiving will shrink your file size somewhat. There have been some reports
that archiving helps performance problems. That's about all it does. On the
down side, in addition to not providing any way to put the archived data back
in the ongoing data file, archiving will not remove old investment account
activity and related transfer transactions. In some versions, archiving seems
to have many problems adjusting the account beginning balance for removed
transactions.
For these reasons, many of us do not recommend archiving and do not do it
ourselves. If you start recording all kinds of interesting memo data (like
serial numbers for your toys, warranty lengths, the genus and species of
plants you bought for your garden and so on) you, too, will not want to
archive.
If you archived recently enough, you can use the archive file you created in
place of the file that Archive removed transactions from. It has all of the
transactions in your entire Money file as of the date you archived, not just
ones before the archive date. This is another result of the rather odd design
for archiving.
References:
MSKB: 133485 How to un-archive
Q) I just archived. But there are many transactions left from before the
archive date. Why?
A) The more you know about archiving; the less likely you are to do it. All
pain. Precious little gain. I do not recommend archiving. YMMV.
First, there is little reason to archive--as you've found out, by design the
impact is limited--and some reasons not to--primarily that you can't go back
at all easily once you've archived and your archive file will overlap the file
you use going forward since it's just a backup prior to removing transactions.
If, like many of us, you record all manner of useful data like the serial
numbers of your toys and when you bought a battery for the car last, taking
this data out of your main data file is not something you'll want to do.
Second, archiving does not remove all transactions. Transactions related to
investment buys/sells and, hence, capital gains, for instance, are not
archived.
Third, there is little evidence that archiving has a significant impact on
performance, especially given the limitations on what data it actually
removes.
Fourth, hard disks are selling for less then $0.75/GB and the smallest 2.5"
laptop drives being manufactured today are typically 10GB in size. Very few
people have data files bigger than, say, 50 MB. That makes 200 extremely large
Money data files you can store on the smallest hard disk being manufactured
today. (Capacities and costs as of 11/24/2004. The trend of larger disks
costing less money will no doubt continue. This answer may or may not be
updated accordingly.)
There are a number of MSKB articles on the subject of limitations of
archiving. On-line help even describes it pretty well. Also, see the question
"How do I un-archive?"
References:
MSKB: 191537 How archiving really works II
MSKB: 306825 How archiving really works III
MSKB: 77462 How archiving really works
Q) I just bought a new computer with the current Money pre-installed. How do I
transfer my data from the old version/old machine?
A) Go find your Money data file and copy it to the new machine. Your file will
be named *.mny, so if you do not know where it is, you can search for it.
Likewise, going into File|Open should enable you to see where the current file
is located.
The best ways to move the file are to burn a CD, use something like a network
or laplink, use some diskette copy or backup/restore routine that can span
multiple diskettes, or consider this an excuse to buy one of those neato new
USB memory keys. Second best is to use the Money backup to floppy capability
to backup on the old version/old machine and restore on the new version/new
machine. BUT BE SURE NOT TO TRASH THE OLD COPY 'TIL YOU HAVE THE NEW COPY
RUNNING! Sometimes data errors and so forth occur--you'd be surprised how many
people get here when their ONLY backup copy is trashed and want to know how to
recover.
When you first open the data file from the old version, Money will rename your
existing file and create a new file from the data in the old one except
upgraded to the current file format.
When you start the new version of Money on the new machine, be sure to tell it
to skip Passport. If you find you need it later, you can go add it.
If you use Money backup/restore, you might just want to first go open the
sample data file, so it will skip lots of non-pertinent steps like the
interview. Then you can restore the old copy from floppies using the Money
File|Restore menu choice.
Also, be sure to copy your Tools|Options settings by hand since many of them
are NOT stored in the data file. You will also have to redo printer setups.
This discussion assumes that the old system and new system both use the same
region settings and both old and new versions of Money are the same
localization (e.g., Money US or Money UK.) If either of these assumptions is
violated, it may not be possible to do what you want.
Q) I just reinstalled M98--it can't read my data backup floppies. Now what?
[Relevant to Money98 (v.6)]
A) Money98 originally didn't know how to do a multi-diskette backup. (This was
bizarre since M98 was the first version where data file size grew by an order
of magnitude.) If you made a Money98 diskette-spanning backup using Money98,
you must have installed the patch that provided this functionality and now the
patch is lost. (The outcry over the lack of spanning backup and the suddenly
huge data files--small by the standards of current versions--led to release of
the patch.) You will need to get it and reinstall it to read your
diskette-spanning backup. Once installed, you will need to look not under the
File menu but under Tools|Multi-disk backup. You can also see the MSKB item
for more information.
Possibly a better course would be to consider migrating to a newer version of
Money. The never version will know how to read the format written by the M98
diskette-spanning backup patch.
Thanks to Bonnie Synhorst for this answer; the MSKB link was provided by
Kimberly Renna-Griego, MVP.
References:
Money98 diskette-spanning backup patch (get file mdbr1.exe)
MSKB: Q179397 M98 Diskette-spanning backup/restore
Q) What is this .LRD file with the same name as my Money data file? Should I
worry about it?
A) It's a record-locking file used for internal purposes by the database
engine Money uses. It opens when you open a Money file and disappears when you
close it normally. You may see one left around if Money "abnormally ends" or
ABENDs. (That's IBM talk for "crashes.") It means nothing to the user. You can
safely ignore it.
It will also be there when Money Express is open in the background.
If you sign-in to Money with "Use Money's online features that require .NET
Passport," then 2 or 3 (depending upon version) Money background processes are
spawned. These background processes, mis.exe, misuser.exe (Money 2003-4 only)
and mnyschdl.exe, are spawned and continue to run even after closing your
Money file and exiting Money itself (msmoney.exe), whether or not Money
Express is enabled. If you have enabled Background Banking as well, one or
more of these background processes will be periodically locking your primary
Money file. The list changes slightly for M05, but the basic issue is still
the same: depending on what you enable in Money, your Money data file may
still be in use, and the .LRD file still relevant, when you are not actually
using Money.
Additional information about situations that will create the lock file
borrowed from an answer by Brent Neville who has also provided updates.
Q) What should I do to close the year in my data file? Should I archive?
A) Lots of people want to do something to "close" out a year's worth of data
in Money. There isn't really any need to do anything. Money will happily carry
on from here. Any need to look at data by year is best accomplished with
customized reports. But you may also want to make a "snapshot" of the data to
file with your taxes or similar records for the year. Lots of people think,
reasonably enough, that Money's Archive or Backup functions are somehow useful
for this. Perhaps not.
Understand that:
A Backup is supposed to be a file that enables you to Restore a file exactly
as your data file was at the point in time where the backup was performed.
Money's backup cannot always achieve this.
An Archive is a copy of your entire data file at a given point in time but
just before the *archiving function destructively and irreversibly removes a
bunch of data from, and modifies other data in,* the main data file you intend
to use going forward. I do not recommend archiving. All pain. No gain.
If you want to have a high-probability-of-recoverability of your Money data as
far into the future as my crystal ball can see, there are two things I
recommend:
1) Make a copy (not a Money File|Backup, just a Windows Explorer File Copy) of
the .MNY file as it now exists, and burn it onto a CD-R or two. Use the
quality media for this. (The $0.02 per disc white label media may be great for
your MP3s, but this is serious data we are talking about here.) Turn off all
of the esoteric burning format options. (The system that you need to read this
on may not have been invented yet so it is best to stay mainstream.) Test the
CD-R(s) in at least one, if not several, other machines to make sure you can
read the file back correctly. (The burner that burned the CD may be the only
drive in the world that can actually read it.) Label the CD-R(s) with the
exact version of Money that wrote the file, as displayed in Help|About. (This
will be something like 14.0.115.1105.) File at least one of the CD-Rs in your
safe deposit box or other off-site location. This will be usable as long as
you can run the noted Money version or a future Money version that supports
that file format. Money File|Backup should provide a 100% path back to the
original data file. For all too many people it does not seem to do this.
2) Create two favorite reports. One is Account Transactions for all accounts
and the other is Investment Transactions for all accounts including closed
accounts. Customize them to the date range for all of the year you want to
capture and set all of the flags for every column to appear. Clear any other
customization that filters out data. Spot check the resulting reports to
confirm that you haven't accidentally left anything out. Then do one or more
of the following: a) print to paper, b) print to .PDF or Microsoft Office
Imaging files, c) "Export to Excel" .CSV (comma separated value) format files.
(.CSV files can be read by Excel but they can also be read with Notepad or any
other text editor and are easy for even savvy 12 year olds to write programs
to parse back into more usable forms.) If you make the files, follow guidance
above for what to do with them. If you print the reports, save a copy with,
say, your tax returns and associated data. These will be usable for access to
the data--but not by Money--in the event some point in the future arrives and
there is no Money version that can read the data file from #1. It will not get
all of the data (quotes, payee addresses, loan terms, account details like
account numbers, comments, and credit limit are all lost this way) but it's
about as good as Money will let you get.
Q) When I archive, Money complains that my floppy disk is full. How can this
possibly be?
A) The archive file is a copy of your entire data file made before any
transactions are removed. Archiving knows nothing about compressing data files
nor does it know about spanning multiple floppies with large files. (Just
because Money backup to floppy knows how to do both of these things, don't
think that archive does. It doesn't.) Given these facts and the fact that
virtually every data file created by Money is larger than 1.44MB, it should be
obvious that unless you have that rare data file that will fit on a floppy,
the message you are getting is just Money telling you a fact of life.
Q) Where is Money hiding my data from me? In the registry? In the ether?
A) This question comes up over and over again in many disguised forms.
Examples include "How do I just start completely over?," "I want to move my
data to a new computer but can’t figure out where it is on the old one, what
do I do?," and the ever popular "How do I backup my Money data to a CD-R
instead of a floppy?"
Money is a file-oriented program. It stores your data in .MNY data files just
like Word uses .DOC files, Excel uses .XLS files, Notepad uses .TXT files, and
Access uses .MDB files. These files are all just data files that can be moved,
copied, deleted, renamed, shared over the network, or burned to CDs, no matter
what application originally created them. Perhaps part of the problem here is
that Money users generally use the same single data file for months or years
at a time--and Money always opens the last file they used--so they may not
even remember that their data is in a file named what they told Money to name
it and stored where they told Money to store it. Take note: there is a
File|Open choice in Money, just like in Word. Money also has a File|New
choice, just like Word.
There are some additional considerations:
1) While Money stores all of your account and transaction data in the data
file you designated when you first setup the file, it stores your
Tools|Options settings in the registry. The Tools|Options settings are the
only thing that you ever put into Money that is not stored in a .MNY data
file. This can be an issue when you reload your system or move your data file
to a new system but the Tools|Options settings get lost. Particularly painful
is when printer alignment settings for printing checks get lost. Write them
down before replacing your system or reinstalling the application.
2) It is generally considered a "best practice" to store your .MNY files in
the My Documents folder tree, not somewhere in the Program Files folder tree.
All of the reasons for this are beyond the scope of the FAQ, but think of it
this way: it's like throwing your coat in the back seat of the car vs. under
the hood. The back seat is your space--under the hood isn't.
3) Money can have your file open for access--and so can MoneyExpress and
MoneySide. You should always avoid doing anything to the data file (like
copying it to a CD-R as a backup or opening it over the network or from a
different user profile) when the file is already opened since this can cause
data file corruption problems. An .LRD file in the same folder with the same
name is usually an indication that something has the data file open.
4) Starting the Money application directly--as opposed to opening a .MNY file
from the Windows file explorer--results in Money trying to open the last .MNY
file you used from the exact same location. If, say, you've moved your data
file, this will result in a "file not found" type of error. This message does
not mean that Money lost your data--it means that you've hidden your data from
Money. Go find your data file using the Windows file explorer and r-click Open
it or double click on it. After doing this, Money will now know where your
file is located.
5) Because your Money file is just a file, you can burn it to CD or whatever
else you want to do with it, just like any other data file. Money really
doesn't care. Likewise, whatever you do with the file is at your risk, not
Money's.
6) If you don't remember where you told Money to put your file or what you
told Money to name it, here are some ways to find out:
- Search your system's disks for files of type Microsoft Money File (files
using the extension .MNY).
- The Money title bar shows the name of your file, as in "MyDataFileNameIsHere
– Microsoft Money" when you are using Money.
- The Most Recently Used choices numbered 1 through 4 at the bottom of Money's
file menu are the four most recently opened Money data files
- If, with your file open, you go to Money's File|Open dialog it will show you
the directory (folder, if you prefer) where your data file is located as this
is the place it will start looking. If there is any doubt where this is, pull
down the little arrow next to the "Look In" pull-down.
7) Because your Money data file is your data file, you are responsible for
protecting it as you would any other file with important data in it: this
means backing it up, keeping copies before reloading your machine, and so on.
8) Money File|Backup creates files that are not identical copies of the
original file. For reasons unknown, occasionally this difference is relevant.
If you really have to be sure you have your data--like when migrating to a new
system or reformatting your present hard disk--it's a very good idea to have
both the Money backup .MBF file and the real .MNY data file both copied onto,
say, a writable CD or, better, several writable CDs, which you have tested in
alternate machines from the one that wrote the CD, before destroying the
original. The best method, if possible, is to get the new installation working
before destroying the original.
How to do things in Money: Downloaded transaction data
------------------------------------------------------
Q) I imported a statement to the wrong account. Now Money wants to keep
repeating this mistake. How do I undo this?
A) The basic approach is to delete the financial institution associated with
the account and then specify the financial institution for the account a
second time. For more details, there are several MSKB items that may help. The
links are courtesy of Mark and Cal Learner--MVP.
References:
MSKB: 327241 Statement imported to wrong account
MSKB: 822390 OFX statements downloaded to wrong account
Q) If downloaded data is so much trouble, why even use Money? Or, why use
Money if you have type in all of the transaction data?
A) Many recent posters in the newsgroup seem to view downloading transaction
data as the only value-add Money provides or as fundamental to any use of the
product. This is unfortunate. Perhaps they don't understand that transaction
data actually can be entered by hand?
IF all you use Money for is to keep a register, THEN it seems true that
downloading data will save a lot of labor--assuming it goes trouble free and
the downloading never fails and your payees always match and so on. But if all
you use Money for is to keep a register that matches, by definition, the data
you download from your bank--or your bank's website if Yodlee is involved,
what's the point? Why not just log into your bank's web site, look at the
data, and press on? What value did Money really add?
IF, on the other hand, you use Money to manage a budget, forecast cash flow,
track asset value, manage investments, track asset values, track
property/job/vehicle/vacation/etc. costs, estimate taxes and so forth, THEN a)
the quality and consistency of transaction data matters and dependence on
downloaded data may not be entirely compatible with this objective, and b) the
amount of time and effort spent doing manual transaction entry is a small
fraction of total time spent using Money at worst and is no more and maybe
less than the time spent keeping the download thing working and making up for
all of the things it can't do at best or screws up at worst. Examples of
things the best downloaded data just can't do are split a paycheck deposit
into its constituent parts, classify transactions for vehicle or property or
similar, or enter the splits for things like an expense at the grocery being
part Food:Groceries, part Miscellaneous:Supplies, and part Transfer:Pocket
Change. As for the "at worst" side of transaction download, just read the
newsgroup for a week. Many weeks more than half the posts or more have
something to do with problems with downloaded transaction data. Imagine if
half of the posts in the Word newsgroup had to do with typing text into the
thing.
Some posters even say thing like "[if you don't download data,] what's the
purpose of using Money instead of, say, Excel? [Excel] actually may be a
[better] solution considering all the Money limitations with transaction
reconciliation, online updates, and so on." This suggests in some circular way
that downloaded transaction data is the singular way to make Money work and
the limitations with downloaded transaction data reduce Money to the level of
Excel in terms of solving the problems at hand. It's like saying if the heated
seat in the car isn't working well, just walk instead.
The problems with downloaded transaction data are just that. There is NO
function in Money (e.g., manage a budget, forecast cash flow, track asset
value, manage investments, track asset values, track
property/job/vehicle/vacation/etc costs, estimate taxes) that is one iota
easier, or better, or more capable, or enabled uniquely by downloaded
transaction data except for downloading transaction data itself. In fact, all
of those other functions are TRANSPARENT to how the transaction data actually
gets there. Worse, many of them are only as good as the data they process. If
you enter the data, you get it right; if you let your bank and Yodlee manage
this data, you get what you get.
Maybe what we really need is two Money product lines: Money View, an AOL-like
web-only service. Make it just M05 Essential *. The user of this product just
wants a passive approach that provides value by aggregating data ala Yodlee,
delivering relevant info--aka targeted ads, and sparing effort and typing. The
second, Money Management, is the traditional Money product where the users are
actually expecting to put some effort into the whole thing and wants to use
the data to perform analysis and planning and so forth. Sadly, the first user
seems to be the Money "target market."
Q) Money says my PIN for getting my account activity must be six digits. It’s
four and works fine on their web site. What gives?
A) The Money online statement PIN/password for a given bank is frequently
different than the ATM PIN/web site password for the exact same bank. Money is
likely just quoting/enforcing the restrictions that the bank has told it to in
the online protocols. Contact the bank's customer service to find out for
sure.
Q) My bank offers several formats of file for downland and import. Which
should I pick?
A) First, your two choices are QIF and OFX. Everything else requires some
amount of conversion to one of these before Money will import it. See "How do
I import from Excel (or .CSV or etc.)?" for more information on importing
other formats.
If both QIF and OFX are offered, OFX is preferable. This is because OFX
includes unique identifiers assigned by the bank to the account and the
transactions. Money uses the unique identifiers in two ways that make OFX
import better than QIF. First, once Money has associated the account
identifier with a specific Account in Money, it will always import future
files to the correct account. QIF asks every time and is very problematic if
you accidentally give it the wrong answer. Second, Money stores the
transaction identifiers with the imported transactions. Because it does this,
future imports of a file that has the same transactions won't duplicate the
transactions. Importing QIF files that overlap requires Money and the user to
attempt to identify any transactions that appear to be duplicates. This isn't
always as easy as it seems and is prone to error and requires extra user
effort. QIF is the last choice of import format for these reasons.
Question nominated to the FAQ by Mark Horn; answer derived from postings by
Mark Horn and Chris Cowles.
Q) When I download account data, my scheduled transfer from Checking to [Visa]
gets duplicated in the respective accounts. Why?
A) The secret is to make sure the first one you download is set as a
Transfer:[name of second acct] and the second one you download is flagged as a
match for the other half of the transfer created out of the first one
downloaded.
Now that you've got them, you probably have to do something like void the
second one downloaded and not turned into a transfer.
I say "probably" because I really don't know--I skip all of this downloaded
transaction data stuff and all of these headaches that come as part of the
set.
Cal Learner--MVP, who does download transactions, offered up this:
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 three 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 category "Credit Card Payments/Transfer".
Instead you should consider deleting that EXPENSE "Credit Card
Payments/Transfer" to avoid confusion. See also "We had Transfer and Credit
Card Payment in M04. What's with Credit Card Payments/Transfer added in M05?"
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 M05 "Credit
Card Payments/Transfer".
3. Create a suspense account. I have one I call In Transit, and I called it a
"cash or other" account. Change each of the downloaded transactions into
transfer to/from that account. That account will normally have a zero balance
except while funds are in transit. Make your credit card payments as transfers
to and from that account.
Q) When I download data from my bank, Money grabs the file. How do I make it
stop?
A) As many applications do, Money tells Windows to associate certain file
types with Money and assign certain things to do when files of that type are
downloaded or opened. If you have Quicken installed, it tries to do the exact
same thing. Barring your intervention, the last application installed will win
this battle. You can use this fact to all Quicken to get the files by simply
reinstalling it.
But you can also take matters into your own hands. If you want to see or
change file associations yourself, you can
Start|Settings|Control Panel|Folder Options|File Types
Select OFX-- Open Financial Exchange File or QIF or whatever.
Click Advanced. Check Confirm Open After Download unless you would not like
the pop-up box. That pop-up box may be of use in that it lets you save the
file to the disk and open it with either or both programs later.
See that the "Actions" box contains "Open" in bold. If it is not bold, you can
select Open as the default action by clicking the Set Default button.
Click Edit.
When you click edit, the application used to perform action for Money would be
similar to the following line:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Money\System\mnyimprt.exe" %1
with both the quotes and the %1 after the quote. The path will differ based on
your installation. Modify it for your setup. There would be a similar string
if Quicken is handling that file type.
Answer courtesy of Cal Learner--MVP
Q) Why are my credit card charges showing as credits not debits?
A) There is more than one possibility here.
If downloaded transaction data is involved, there could be a problem in the
download file.
Another thing that sometimes happens is that a user entered an account
beginning balance as a negative number. So Money thinks the account has a
credit balance (the bank owes you) rather than a debit balance (you owe the
bank). Entering purchases makes this negative "you owe" balance decline since
the bank now "owes you" less money. Unless the bank owed you when you setup
the account, the account beginning balance should be a positive number.
Finally, some people just get confused by how liability accounts, of which
Credit Card is one example, are depicted in Money. In the account register for
a Credit Card account, the amount you owe is positive. At the bottom of the
register it normally says something like "You owe: $123.45". If it said "You
owe: ($123.45)", you would be running a credit balance.
Note that in the numbers on the Account List and Favorite Account balances on
the home page and so on, the amount you owe is shown as negative, and a credit
balance would be shown as positive. In the account register, things are the
other way around.
Answer derived from one provided by Cal Learner--MVP.
How to do things in Money: Financial Situations
-----------------------------------------------
Q) How can I transfer money (to / from) the loan I (made / borrowed)?
A) Money doesn't provide any way in the Loan Account Setup genie to account
for money transferred into a loan you are making or from a loan you are
taking. Since one typically is funding a loan from another account when you
are lending money or transferring the money into some account or transaction
(a car purchase, say), this seems a fairly fundamental omission.
If you can live with this, the easiest thing to do is just enter an expense or
income transaction with some unique category ("Other Income : Loan Proceeds
Received") or no category at all. You can enter a memo in this transaction
making clear what you were doing and why and referencing the Loan Accounts
involved.
An alternate way to account for the principal received follows a more
elaborate technique outlined by Chris Cowles: setup a loan account with no
balance but using the appropriate information for all else and letting Money
calculate the ($0) payment. Then you enter a "Principal Transfer" of the
balance in the loan account register to the settlement account. (You will have
to type "principal transfer" as the drop-/pull-downs will not offer it.)
Tomorrow (or roll the clock forward by a day for a moment--Money refuses to
let you do this any other way), you can go to the loan Details and select
Change Loan Terms and go in and set the balance. This will cause the account
details to show the amount as $0, but the balance will be correct after the
transfer. The interest charged may be off by a day's worth; I have not checked
this.
Q) How do I 'mark' money in an account for future use so I don't spend it
now?
A) Lots of people want to do this with some mechanism like the
accounts-within-an-account "subaccounts" mechanism that Quicken provides.
Money provides no similar mechanism. Money, instead, provides tools to manage
budget--what you plan to spend when for what--separately from cash
flow--managing the amount of cash available to execute the budget. Many of us
prefer the latter approach since it leaves behavior modification--not spending
money just because you have a positive balance--up to us rather than resorting
to subterfuge to "fake ourselves out" by "cookie jar accounting." YMMV.
When a poster said that he was looking for a "cookie jar" mechanism since lack
of one meant the money "has to show in the checking account because it is
there, but I don't want to think the money is mine by seeing it in the
balance," David Brownridge put it very well:
"The way I deal with that is to leave the money in the cheque acct, and in
Bills & Deposits create a Bill (with frequency Only Once) and the appropriate
future date. Until that "bill" is paid the money will show in the balance of
the account; but if you look at the forecast for the account you'll see where
it gets withdrawn.
"The important point is that in terms of 'think what money is mine' I never
just look at the balances in the accounts list; rather I check out the
cashflow forecasts."
Q) How do I budget an expected wage increase without changing my scheduled
paycheck?
A) Go into the Budget Planner, Edit the budget, go to the category in
question, Edit the "Other income for [category in question]" line and tell
Budget Planner about the amounts it isn't figuring out from history/scheduled
transactions. Here you'd just want to add the difference amounts since the
basic amount should get picked up from your scheduled paycheck transaction.
Q) How do I create different payee information for two accounts with the same
payee?
A) You can create two different versions of the same Payee by putting
qualifiers after the name in curly braces. E.g., "Mondo Bank {his}" and "Mondo
Bank {hers}". The information in the braces and the braces themselves will not
print on checks or matter much of anywhere else except where it counts--you
can enter transactions to the same payee and have different underlying Payee
information in Money.
You can also use curly braces around information in memo fields if you don't
want certain information in your memo to print on your checks. Cool, eh?
Q) How do I handle employer reimbursable expenses?
A) There are a few ways to treat employer reimbursables. Some people prefer
creating a cash account (entitled "Reimbursed Expenses" or similar). Treat
expenses to be reimbursed as transfers in from the account used to pay for the
expense, and treat reimbursements as transfers from this account to the
account destined to receive the reimbursement.
Another way would be to use an expense category (entitled "Job-Related
Expenses:Reimbursable" or similar). Treat expenses to be reimbursed as debits
against the category, and treat reimbursements as credits against the
category. Depending on your Tools|Options setting, Money may complain about
using an expense category for what is an income transaction, You can tell
Money this is what you intend. In addition, if your taxing authority allows
for the deduction/treatment of unreimbursed employee expenses (as in the
United States), be sure to associate the expense category to the proper tax
form/line. This way, any monies not reimbursed will appear as an outstanding
balance in tax-related reports/calculations.
Thanks to Derrick Cole for this answer.
Q) How do I treat my income tax refund/bill for the prior year?
A) There are several different ways to treat this.
Probably the "best" way to handle this with the least side effects is one
suggested by Chris Cowles: If you don't already have one, create a "bank"
account (it doesn't have to be associated with any bank) for money owed to
you. Flag it as a 'budget' account on the details page. Record a transaction
increasing (or decreasing) the balance on that account, categorized to your
income tax expense category, dated 12/31/[tax year in question]. That adjusts
your income tax expenses to reflect reality. When you get the refund, record
the deposit as a transfer to checking from the asset account. Alternately,
when you pay the bill, record this as a transfer from checking to the asset
account, payable to the taxman or woman, as you prefer. Either way, this
transaction is budget-neutral.
You can also use/create categories for this that are flagged to not be
included in tax reporting (federal prior year due or refunded) or are flagged
to be included (state prior year due or refunded). These would be categories
like Taxes:Federal Income Tax (prior year) or Taxes:State Income Tax (prior
year). This has the downside of artificially reducing or increasing your tax
expenses in the tax year in question. This can have budget planner
complications.
Q) How do I treat taxable fringe benefits (imputed income)?
A) Imputed income is the tax accountants' term for income (typically in the
form of an employer paid benefit) that the tax law says you owe tax on even
though you never got any money. (This stuff gets reported in box 12 of form
W-2. The cost of life insurance over $50k is reported as code C.)
Here's how I handle this income in Money--it seems to work and doesn't
bollocks up the tax estimator:
On the wages tab of my paycheck:
Wages & Salary:Imputed Income $x (I created this category)
On the deductions after taxes tab:
Insurance:Life $x
Q) How do other users account for ATM withdrawals?
A) Many users setup a dedicated cash account, I call mine "Pocket Change".
Transfer the money to the cash account, enter cash transactions in the cash
account, and balance it occasionally against the amount of cash you have on
hand, entering either an adjustment income (Other Income:Found Money) or
expense (Miscellaneous:[unassigned]) transaction to get back in sync vs. the
amount of money in your pocket. You don't have to record everything. Just
record the things you remember or care about or have receipts for or whatever.
If the amount you are writing off seems to be getting out of hand, you can
track more closely. If it's getting to be a pain, track less closely and write
off more.
If this is too much of a hassle or if your cash spending is sufficiently
small/rare as to not be worth worrying about, you can just use splits to
account for it. Say you get $50 from the ATM, spend $40 of tickets to the ball
game and pocket the $10 to spend over the next week or two. You can split a
withdrawal of $50 into $40 for Leisure:Sporting Events and $10 for
Miscellaneous:[unassigned].
Q) I don't want to send the whole amount of my phone bill this month, but how
do I categorize the whole expense?
A) (This question suggests a new FAQ section: Credit Counseling.)
Assuming that an Account for this payee is not appropriate (see "When should I
create an Account instead of a Payee? Aren't Payees just Accounts? Or is my
Payee really a Category?"), one way to treat this is to enter a split
transaction with the total amount of what you are going to pay them and splits
with the entire expense categorized and then some negative number against some
Income category like "Other Income:Screw 'em, they'll get it later" or similar
for the amount you aren't paying. When they catch up with you and you pay them
this amount, do another split in the total amount you are going to pay them
and the splits are the expense of the amount you are paying them that hasn't
been expensed before, and the next split entry is a positive amount against
the Income category "Other Income:Screw 'em, they'll get it later" in the
amount you are going to cough up. Money will complain that you are entering an
expense against an income category--tell it to get over it. Once they get all
their money from you, the total income against "Other Income:Screw 'em,
they'll get it later" will fall to $0.
If you need to do this with several payees simultaneously and want to keep
track of the separate unpaid balances due, probably the only good choice is to
temporarily create liability accounts for each unpaid balance. The basic steps
here would be to create the liability account(s), record the expenses and the
addition to the liability in a split transaction when you pay the partial
amount, and then pay down the liability with transfers. Example transactions
with a newly created liability account--created with $0 starting
balance--named "Unpaid Phone Co Balance":
First transaction total $10 (paid amount), split #1: $45 Utilities:Telephone,
split #2: ($35) Transfer:Unpaid Phone Co Balance
Nth transaction (paying it off): total $65 (paid amount, split #1: $45
Utilities Telephone, split #2 $20 Transfer:Unpaid Phone Co Balance
When you get the liability account balance back down to $0, you can just close
the liability account.
Q) I entered a transaction for something I bought. Now I returned the thing
for credit. How do I enter that?
A) This question also comes up in other contexts like "I bought lunch for a
friend on my credit card last week; he paid me in cash today. How do I deal
with that?" The concern in these cases is generally that the amount of
spending in the original category may get distorted for reporting and budget
purposes.
The best way to treat this is to put in another transaction against the same
expense category you used originally but make it a deposit or a credit amount,
as appropriate to the account type. Depending on the setting of
Tools|Options|Categories|Require the correct type of category for each
transaction, Money may issue a warning about using an expense category for an
income. You can tell it that you know what you are doing and it will let you
do it. (This setting is at Tools|Settings in M05.)
Some reports, e.g., Spending by Category, may require customization to include
both debits and credits against the expense category for this to show up.
Thanks to John Buschman for pointing out that this FAQ should be in the UFAQ.
Q) I get a pay advance on the 15th and a full paycheck less the advance at the
end of the month. How do I track this in Money?
A) The best bet here is to use a paycheck on the 15th that just has one entry
on the after tax tab of "negative" after tax expenses in the amount of the
check, expensed against some category like Other Income:Advance Pay. Then, on
the alternate paycheck, after taxes tab, have an exactly equal but positive
amount against the same category. Thus, these two net to $0. Money tracks
everything else off the entries on the end-of-month complete stub. The after
tax tab is to keep Money Tax Estimator happy. When entering an expense against
an income item, Money may complain depending on your Tools|Options settings.
Tell it to get over it.
An alternate method that should work, pointed out by Artie, is to put the
advance in as a positive Wage & Salary:Gross Pay (or similar) on the Wages tab
and then reduce the amount of the same category on the final paycheck
transaction by the advance amount. This may be the best approach depending on
how the stubs depict all of this and how much math/lookup you want to do by
hand. You have to be very careful what you do with the first entry on the
Wages tab of a paycheck as it holds special significance to Tax Estimator.
However you set it up; if you use Tex Estimator, check to make sure that the
results you are getting are sane.
Q) I paid the phone bill, but my roommate owes me half of it. How do I track
that in Money?
A) There are two basic approaches to this. Which you pick depends on how
frequent this requirement is and how carefully you want to track this
obligation--i.e., is the roommate really all that trustworthy.
The first approach: Pay the Utilities:Phone bill. Then record some
Utilities:Phone income when your roommate reimburses his share. Depending on
your settings, Money will whine about an income categorized as an expense.
Tell it that this is really what you want to do.
The second approach: Create a cash account to track your roommate's balance.
Pay the Utilities:Phone bill. Add a second transaction for the same category
depositing half the amount into your roommate's balance account. (This is a
receivable--an asset--so it is a deposit here. Using the same category
effectively reduces your spending in this category.) When your roommate pays
her share, transfer the amount from the roommate's balance account to whatever
account you deposit it in. Whatever the positive balance of that account is
what she still owes you.
Q) I'm distributing my 401(k)/withdrawing from my IRA--how do I categorize the
transfer as income?
A) The question frames the issue. This transfer from a tax-deferred Investment
account to a Cash Account is not Income in the accounting sense. It's already
your money. You didn't get richer by moving it from the tax-deferred account
to the cash account. Thus, in the accounting sense favored by Money, Transfer
is correct and categorizing it as Income isn't correct. But the problem is
that the IRS treats money coming out of the tax-deferred accounts as taxable
earned income. (Even that is a muddled picture. If the principal includes
after-tax contributions, then not all of the distribution/withdrawal is
treated for tax purposes as taxable earned income.)
While the Tax Estimator in Money is smart enough to ignore various earnings in
the accounts set as tax-deferred, it isn't smart enough to deal with
distributions/withdrawals from these accounts. (The before/after tax
contributions problem may be one of the reasons they've elected to "not go
there.")
So how do you get Tax Estimator and the tax reporting to deal with your
distribution/withdrawal?
There are a number of possible ways, each of them imperfect. Possibilities
include:
You can use some tool besides Money to manage the tax estimating. Excel is
frequently a handy tool to have around to solve things Money can't.
You can enter the income in Tax Estimator by hand. You can do this buy going
into Tax Estimator, on the Income page. click on the Wages income link, and
then use the option to add additional income that's not in your Money file.
If you do not have an Investment Cash Account associated with the Investment
Account that you are selling down, your choice is probably limited to the "two
transaction" method posted by Cal Learner--MVP. This is doing the Sell
transaction with no Transfer To account for the proceeds in one transaction
and doing an Income transaction, for the same amount, in the cash account
receiving the funds. One downside to this is that the transactions are not
joined in any logical way in Money, only in your head.
You can use the "unassigned split" option posted by Michael Gordon. Here you
to have the Transfer from the Investment Cash Account be part of a split with
a similar amount categorized as some Income Category that is set to work and
play well with the Tax Estimator, etc. The split is unbalanced--the elements
don't add up to the transaction net--to keep from "creating" money. Say the
transferred amount is $2,000; the split would have the $2,000 transfer and
$2,000 of income--adding up to $4,000, not the $2,000 desired total for the
transaction. You'd tell Money you know there is unassigned income in the split
and you really want to do it that way when it complains.
If the unassigned split offends your sense of precision, a variant of this is
to add a separate expense to balance the transaction against some made-up
expense category, say Miscellaneous : Tax-Deferred Income Offset.
Jeff M suggested an interesting alternative to these last two: use a Paycheck
transaction. In this case, you'd probably have to enter the Paycheck in the
account that you are transferring the money to. (The umpmfaq has not tested
this to see which works best with Tax Estimator.) The Paycheck would have some
income on the wages tab, the after-tax tab would have a Transfer from--in a
negative amount--the Investment Cash Account. You could either save the
transaction with unassigned income or have the bogus offsetting expense
category. This method might also prove valuable for 401(k) distributions,
since these distributions are typically required to have taxes withheld. This
tax withholding could be entered directly in the Paycheck transaction.
Likewise, using a Paycheck would provide a ready model for separating the
before taxed income portion of a distribution and the after-tax, i.e., already
taxed, portion.
Q) I've been lazy and haven't balanced in months. How do I catch up?
A) If you wish to start fresh and declare an account balanced, you can mark
all entries balanced. Select the register view to show only unreconciled
transactions, sort by date, and go to the oldest transaction. Hold down
Cntl+Shift+M and let auto-repeat work through the transactions until none are
left showing. Then balance, making the starting and ending balance match the
known balance. Choose the balance date to be the day after your last
transaction. This is not the normal procedure; it just starts you with an
amnesty for former balancing.
Thereafter, follow the normal procedure. Look at the balancing movie clip from
your Money disk.
Answer courtesy of Cal Learner--MVP.
Q) Money won't let me make a Loan Payment from my Paycheck. Why not? What do I
do?
A) A paycheck is a specialized instance of the generalized form of split
transaction. A loan payment is a specialized instance of the generalized form
of split transaction. In Money, a transaction that is a split of another
transaction cannot itself be split. Thus, a loan payment cannot be made from a
paycheck.
The general way to accomplish this is in two transactions via a holding
account. E.g., transfer the payment amount to the associated Asset Account in
the Paycheck and then schedule the Loan Payment to be made from the Asset
Account. Yes, it creates a bunch of silly looking paired +x Transfer, -x Loan
Payment Transactions in the Asset Account. But there is no other way to record
it in Money.
There is an MSKB article with more detail on doing this; the reference is
courtesy of Kimberly Renna, Microsoft MVP - Consumer Products.
References:
MSKB: Q148280 Loan payments from paycheck
Q) My wife and I have two accounts at the same bank with different passwords.
How do I enter two passwords in Money?
A) This answer used to point to an MSKB item that has since been "disappeared"
from the Microsoft Support site. (Thanks to Jon Anderson for pointing this
out.) The old method was to define a new FI with a slightly different name
("First Galactic Bank of the Milky Way {his}" and "First Galactic Bank of the
Milky Way {hers}") so that you can still have one user name/password
associated with each FI. Now that Money tries to make you use FIs they define,
so that the whole Yodlee thing will work, this probably doesn't work. What
does work is still an open question. If anybody figures it out, let me know
and I'll update this answer.
Q) Why don't my transfers to savings show up under some category in my
budget?
A) Transfers do not have an income or expense category because they are net
worth neutral. Expenses make you poorer, Income makes you richer; Transfers do
neither.
For this reason, Transfers between accounts that are included in the Budget
Planner (see the account details for information) will NOT show up in your
budget. Only by excluding the savings account from the Budget Planner will you
see the scheduled transfer (and then only grouped under the "Transfers out of
budget accounts" Budget Group.
Answer derived from one provided by Derrick Cole
How to do things in Money: Investments
--------------------------------------
Q) How can I adjust the asset allocation of my investments?
A) Money has only limited asset allocation capability and some features just
plain don't work. (This much improved in Money 2007 so if this is important to
you, then consider upgrading.) First, we'll review available Investment Types
and Asset Classes, and then we'll look at what you can and cannot with asset
allocation in various versions of Money.
Investment Type
When you first tell Money about an investment, you must assign it to one of
these Investment Types:
1. Bond
2. CD or US Savings Bond
3. Equity or Index Option
4. Money Market
5. Mutual Fund
6. Stock
7. Employee Stock Option
This is a pretty comprehensive list, but if you have investments types that
are not here, then the Money reports that use these types won't be very useful
to you. You cannot create your own Investment Types.
Asset Class
In order to get an asset allocation report in Money, each investment must be
assigned to an Asset Class. The available Asset Classes are:
1. Money-Market/Cash
2. Bond
3. Small-Cap
4. Mid-Cap
5. Large-Cap
6. Other
Again, this is a pretty good list, but if you have an investment that doesn't
fit into one of these classes, you are out of luck. You can't create your own
Asset Class, and every investment has to fit into a single Asset Class. Things
like lifecycle funds obviously don't fit well in this scheme.
Assigning Asset Classes
Money assigns Asset Classes for everything except Stocks and Mutual Funds when
the investment is created. For example, Money always assigns the "Bond" Asset
Class to the "Bond" Investment Type. For stocks and mutual funds, however,
there are several possible Asset Classes, so you or Money need to make a
choice. Here's how it works.
Stock Asset Classes
For stocks that are listed and have a symbol, Money will automatically assign
an Asset Class every time you do an online update of investment prices. You
can go into the Investment Details screen and change the Asset Class, but
Money will change it back at the next online update. If the stock is not
listed, then online updates have no effect, and money will use whatever Asset
Class you put in the Investment Details screen.
Mutual Fund Asset Classes
This is where things get weird. For mutual funds that have investments that
fit into a single Asset Class, things work pretty much as you would expect.
However, for mutual funds that have investments in multiple Asset Classes,
things don't work at all.
Mutual Funds with a Single Asset Class
For mutual funds that are listed and you have entered a symbol, Money will
automatically assign an Asset Class the first time you do an online update of
investment prices. This Asset Class cannot be changed and the only way to see
it is to run an asset allocation report and see where the investment shows up.
Note that you cannot see this Asset Class in the investment details screen.
(See below.) You can beat Money to the punch by assigning an Asset Class
manually before doing an online update.
If the mutual fund is not listed or if you want to assign an Asset Class
manually, then you can do so. Unlike stocks, you do not do this in the
Investment Details screen. Instead, what you need to do is go to Investing |
Asset Allocation and click thru the "Learn about Asset Allocation" to see the
portfolio's asset allocation. The new investment will be highlighted as one
without an Asset Class. If you click on it, you will be able to assign any of
the allowed Asset Classes for mutual funds.
You can also use the manual process to assign an Asset Class to a listed
mutual fund. To do this, you must do the manual assignment before you do an
online update. Once you have assigned the Asset Class manually, it will not
subsequently change when you "Update Prices Online". And, as noted above, you
can't view it or change it manually either. This is different from stocks,
where any manual changes will be overridden by the next Online Update.
Mutual Funds with More than One Asset Class
If you have any mutual funds that have investments in more that one Asset
Class, the asset allocation features and reports will not be useful. Money
will either assign a single Asset Class at the first online update or will
force you to assign a single Asset Class manually. This is not immediately
obvious, because the Investment Details screen for mutual funds appears to
allow you to assign a mutual fund investment to a percentage over the
following Asset Classes:
1. Cash
2. Bond
3. Small-Cap
4. Mid-Cap
5. Large-Cap
6. Other
This would seem to be just what is needed for "blended" or "target date"
("lifecycle") mutual funds. Unfortunately, this doesn't work. You can enter
the data but:
- Money doesn't use this information in the asset allocation screens or in
any reports
- You can only view the data in the data entry screen
- When you update prices online, Money will change the values you entered to
other values. Frequently, these other values will bear no relation to reality
and will not even add up to 100%.
As noted above, Money 2007 fixed this problem. It does allow mutual funds to
be split using the Investment Details screen and the asset allocation report
works properly.
Answer provided by Bill Becker. Bill also graciously provided a document with
some supplemental information.
References:
umpmfaq.info: Asset Allocation
Q) How come Money whines about a symbol used on a deleted investment? Why are
deleted investments not really?
A) Create a dividend in some investment account for the security in question.
This will resurrect the "deleted" investment. Then you can go into its details
and delete the symbol. Then you can delete the dividend transaction. Then you
can go in and "delete" the investment again, if this is your wish. Nobody here
knows exactly why Money remembers "deleted" investments.
Q) How come my bond fund investment is off by a factor of 100?
A) Bond funds are not bonds. They are mutual funds. Bonds in real life and in
Money are priced as a percentage of total face (par) value, as they are in
quotes from brokers. The price of a bond bought at a 10% discount from face
value would be 90.0. Prices over 100 would be bonds bought at a premium.
Mutual funds, like bond funds, are priced in Money by the price per share.
(Thanks to Cal Learner -- MVP for an important rewrite to this question.) See
also "I bought a $1,000 bond for $850--Money tells me it cost $85. What
gives?" for the corollary question about the pricing of real bond investments.
Q) How do I download/import historical quotes?
A) Money won't download any quotes besides current. There is no easy way to
import historic quotes, either.
Q) How do I fix bad investment names in the Buy Investment/CD pull-down?
A) The entries in the pull-downs come straight from the table of investments
you have created in Money. Go to Portfolio|Work With Investments|Choose a
specific investment and select investments to rename, etc, on their individual
detail pages. Go to Portfolio|Work With Investments|Delete an investment to
delete investments. You cannot delete any investments you have any
transactions for, so you may also have to do some account register
maintenance.
Cal Learner suggested another technique to delete an investment that avoids
some problems others have experienced if a symbol ever needs to be reused. Go
to the investment details page. Clear the field for symbol. If no transactions
have been entered for this investment, there will be a delete choice listed
under common tasks. Click it.
Q) How do I handle a mutual fund merger?
A) There are two methods that work. You can pick one depending on whether you
previously held both of the funds involved in the merger or not.
The technique suggested by Cal Learner for the case where you didn't hold both
funds previously:
- enter a split for the share ratio involved (you can use the NAVs at the
exchange times 100)
- go into the Investment Details and change the name and symbol
- record the event in the investment comments.
If you previously held both funds, there is no solution without side effects.
Kevin suggested what is probably the least bad solution:
- sell the retired fund for your exact cost basis
- buy the correct number of shares in the surviving fund for the total amount
of the old cost basis. Let Money figure the share price.
The side effect of this is that it will create a one-time unrealized capital
gain to match the entire gain you were carrying for the retired fund on the
date you set for the transaction. This will likely cause inaccurate
performance reporting and may propagate to things like long-term/short term
capital gains reporting.
Q) How do I rename an Investment Cash Account?
A) Go to the Investment Account Settings (or Details in versions prior to
M05). There's a text box there for Cash Portion Account Name. You can change
it there directly (M05?, M06) or by clicking on the Rename… button (M05?, M04
and previous back to ???). It seems obvious that an Investment Cash Account
should have an Account Settings (Details) Page of its own like all other
accounts. It doesn't.
Q) How do I setup a 401(k) loan?
A) There's no magic method (i.e., no "401k loan wizard.") Here's how I do it:
1) In 401k investment account, sell investments as required by the plan
mechanics to 401k cash account to make funds available.
2) In 401k cash account, "buy" a new "loan" money market investment in amount
of loan amount.
3) Create a new "loan" account with amount and terms of 401k loan.
4) Schedule a periodic loan payment from 401k cash account to pay off the
loan. This is like any other loan in Money.
5) Revise periodic scheduled paycheck deposit to add an after-tax split item
to transfer the loan repayment payment amount to 401k cash account.
6) Revise periodic scheduled investment from 401k cash account to 401k
investment account/investment options as required by the plan mechanics to
reinvest the loan payment amount.
7) At each loan payment to the 401k cash account also enter an interest paid
from the "loan" investment in the 401k investment account to the 401k cash
account and a "sell" of "loan" from the loan investment in the 401k investment
account to the 401k cash account. This is the worst thing since there is no
way to automate it and you have to get the principal and interest appropriate
to each period from either the "loan" account payment entries or a separate
amortization table. (Mine's in Excel.)
The loan balance amortizes from the modified paycheck transfer via the 401k
cash loan payment account. The holdings in the money market "loan" investment
decline and earn interest via the manually entered interest and sell
transactions. The funds get reinvested via the revised periodic investment
transaction.
It's just a lot of work and a lot of transaction entries.
There are "lighter" schemes depending on how much detail you go into tracking
your 401k investments. The scheme outlined above is the manic geek case for
personal accounting anal-retentives. One light weight scheme is listed in the
MSKB.
Thanks to Richard M. Bollar - MVP Microsoft Money for this method.
References:
MSKB: 223174 401(k) loans the MSKB way
Q) How do I track savings bonds in Money? Tracking them as a CD doesn't seem
to provide a way to track their value.
A) Money doesn't handle savings bonds particularly well. They suggest entering
them as CDs and this seems like the least bad way to do so.
Many of us use the Savings Bond Wizard to know the current value of our bonds.
You can transfer, by hand, interest information from the Savings Bond Wizard
to Money but you will have to enter it as reinvested interest, which has other
side effects including creating taxable investment income. This may be what
you want--depending on your tax plans for the bond interest. If you elect to
defer paying interest until maturity, you should set the tax deferred setting
for the investment account holding the bond investment.
In order to keep track of individual bonds, you should create separate
investments for each series/denomination/issue date of bond you hold. (E.g.,
"$100 EE 2002-03" could be an investment name.) Then enter the purchase price
for the total number of like bonds you bought as a Buy Investment. (Say you
buy 5 $100 bonds--investment name, say, "US $100 EE Bond - 2005-08"--at their
$50 purchase price, you enter 250 as both quantity and value.) You might also
consider storing the serial number(s) in the memo field of the buy
transaction.
Thanks to Michael Gordon for an important correction to this answer.
References:
Savings Bond Wizard
Q) How do you change a mutual fund investment to money market investment?
A) It is not trivial, but not as hard as it first appears. A few minutes
should do it.
In the details, remove the existing symbol, and rename the existing "mutual
fund" to something you will never use. Let's suppose you choose zzzz.
Create a new money fund with the correct name and symbol.
Go back to investment zzzz and choose View: Investment Details.
Change each transaction to the fund using the drop-down list. You may have a
problem if you have sells intermingled with buys--it may try to sell more
shares than you have at some point. If so, at some date before the first
transaction, enter a LARGE buy--larger than your maximum share holdings of
this investment at any point--with no source for the investment funds. This
will assure that you always have enough shares to cover all sells. Don't move
the large buy transaction. Just delete it when you are done.
In any case, keep going until there are no more zzzz transactions remaining
except for the large buy to assure sufficient shares for any sell. Once all of
the real transactions are changed to the new investment, you can delete the
temporary buy and "delete" investment zzzz. Answer derived from one originally
posted by Cal Learner--MVP.
Q) I bought a $1,000 bond for $850--Money tells me it cost $85. What gives?
A) Bonds are not priced by the amount of the bond. They are priced as a
percentage of total face (par) value, as they are in quotes from brokers. The
price of a bond bought at a 10% discount from face value would be 90.0. Prices
over 100 would be bonds bought at a premium. A bond, of any value, bought for
a price of 88.5 was "bought at a discount" and cost 88.5% of its face value. A
bond bought at a price of 105 was "bought at a premium" and cost 105% of its
face value.
There is a reference in the MSKB that describes this correctly except that the
sentence that starts "If the current value of the bond exceeds the par value
..." is wrong. The example that follows that sentence is correct.
The Bond Market Association has a really good site explaining bond investing.
Clicking glossary in the left hand column, then looking up "price" gives a
good description of how this works as well.
Thanks for this answer go to Cal Learner -- MVP.
See also "How come my bond fund investment is off by a factor of 100?" for the
corollary question about the pricing of bond mutual fund investments.
References:
Bond Market Association's page on bond investing
MSKB: 121903 How bond investments are priced in Money
Q) I don't hold investments anymore but they still show on the investments
page. Why?
A) To prevent an investment from appearing on the Money Home page, go to the
"Details" page of the investment and use "Delete this Investment". Don't be
alarmed; this only deletes the specified investment from the list of
investments. Any transactions for the specified investment will remain in the
closed account(s). Later, if you attempt to use this investment again, Money
will simply ask if you wish to add the investment back to the list of
investments.
Answer provided by Brent Neville.
Q) I hold the same investment in two accounts. But when I try to enter the
same symbol again Money complains. Why?
A) You only define an Investment once. The symbol is an attribute of the
Investment, not the Account holding of the Investment. When you want to Buy
the same Investment for another Investment Account, choose the Investment from
the drop-down list instead of trying to define the Investment again. An
"Investment" is just a name and a symbol and some price history. The
Investment Account keeps track of holdings of a given Investment. Answer
derived from one by Doug Wilson.
Q) My 401(k) cash account is going negative. How do I enter employer
contributions?
A) There are several ways to accomplish this. Which one you should choose
depends on whether you want to track the cash in association with your
paycheck or not. Probably the easiest way is to schedule a deposit to your
401(k) contributions/cash account in the Bills & Deposits section, the amount
and date of which correspond to the match. Use an income category setup to be
excluded from tax reports like "Gross Pay:Employer Matching," so these funds
aren't factored in to tax reports and Tax Planner calculations.
The disadvantage to this method is that it decouples the match money from your
paychecks, which, depending on your plan, may cause problems for things like
matching money associated with overtime income.
The more elaborate way that gets the contributions tied to your
paycheck--assuming that your plan matches on a pay period basis--but doesn't
hose up the Tax Planner--is to enter an income entry on the After Taxes tab
(use a negative number--trust me on this) against the "Gross Pay:Employer
Matching" or similar, tax-neutral, category. Then do a Transfer of the same
amount to the 401(k) contributions account on the next line of the split.
Thanks for Derrick Cole for contributions to this answer.
How to do things in Money: Mortgages and stuff
----------------------------------------------
Q) How do I record additional principal paid with my house payment?
A) Add an extra entry in the details of the Loan Payments and/or scheduled
Loan Payments. This extra entry should be the amount of extra principal you
want to pay. Use category Principal Transfer for this entry; the loan account
for the payment will be the recipient of this transfer.
Q) How should I handle my mortgage escrow account?
A) Let's assume you already have a loan account and scheduled payment setup
for the mortgage. If you haven't already setup the loan, you can setup the
account described below and then specify the transfer as an "Other Fees" item
to the create loan wizard.
Next, setup a cash account for the escrow. You can call it Escrow (Mortgage).
In your Loan Payment scheduled transaction, add a split element for
Transfer:Escrow for the total amount of escrow collected with each payment.
Enter transactions to pay the taxes (category Taxes:Property Tax or similar)
and insurance (category Insurance:Homeowner's or similar) from the Money
escrow account, as your mortgage processor actually does, when they tell you
what the amounts paid are.
You can balance the escrow account to the statements of escrow activity.
Microsoft has added an MSKB item to answer the same question. The link was
posted in the newsgroup by Himanshu Gohel.
References:
MSKB: 899623 escrow account How-To
Q) I just made an extra principal payment to a loan. Why can't I just use
Transfer to show this in Money?
A) It seems like many versions ago you could. Then we could use just a
Principal Transfer. Somewhere along the way even this became too simple. The
way to do it now is to use the Special Category named 'Loan Payment'. Money
(at least recent versions) will then ask if you want to include both principal
and interest. You have to say yes, even if that's not what you want to do. The
next panel will ask you to pick a loan or enter a new loan account name. Pick
the name of the loan you want to transfer principal to. Then you can go into
the split where you will find a Principal Transfer, an interest expense item
and possibly other items depending on how you defined your loan payment; you
can delete every element but the Principal Transfer. Note that Money may be a
little testy about changing your amount to the appropriate amount for the next
regular payment, your memo to the account number, and your payee to the
pre-defined payee. You can fix all of this to the way you want it if you are
persistent. You can add or change other elements of the payment for things
like service charges or whatever. But if you need to do this, now's the time
to do so as noted next.
If you reduce the Loan Payment to just the one Principal Transfer element,
when you enter it in the register, it will be displayed in the future as just
a Principal Transfer and it cannot be split back into a Loan Payment. Seems
like a long way to go to get to the Principal Transfer you wanted when you
started.
Thanks to Chris Cowles for recommending this Q/A and providing a draft.
Q) I just refinanced my mortgage; how do I enter all of this into Money?
A) In some versions, there's a wizard of limited utility, you can navigate to
it by going to your current loan page, click Analyze Loan|Consider
Refinancing. This takes you to a page called Loan Worksheet. You can go
through the steps, or, if you have already decided on if/where to refinance,
skip to Comparison and at the bottom of the worksheet click on Refinance a
Loan button. Thanks to Aloke Prasad for these steps. Somewhere along the way
they removed even this wizard. Can't say exactly where, but it's missing from
M07.
The wizard doesn't attempt to deal with all of the things like closing costs
and escrow exchanges; one that did would be hard to devise given the number of
different ways this could go down and the number of different ways this could
be recorded in Money. This basic outline applies no matter whether you are
ending in cash in or cash out--enter the splits off of the settlement sheet
and all should work out.
To do this by hand, remember: the split is your friend. You can enter the
whole thing in two transactions that mirror the information provided on the
settlement sheet at your closing.
For an example (and there are certainly other ways it could be done) here are
related transactions from the last time I refinanced. These are in MoneyLink
format. It may be easier to read if you get the whole thing into Excel as
.CSV.
Acct,Payee,Reconciled,Amt,Cat:SubCat,Comment
1st transaction:
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,xxx,000.00,Other Income:Loan Principal
Received,total refi {categorized as other income since M99 would not allow
direct transfer from here to old loan payoff}
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(300.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,administration fee to mortgage broker
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(362.50),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,escrow waiver fee to new payee
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(zzz.94),Interest Expense:Mortgage
Interest,prepaid interest on new loan
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(150.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,settlement fee to title company
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(430.00),Insurance:Title,title company
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(20.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,tax certificates to title company
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(30.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,express mail charges for payoff
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(50.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,"endorsement/100 & 8.1" to title company
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(61.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,recording fees
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(6.00),Miscellaneous:Service
Charges/Fees,"assignment fee"
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(aaa.96),Interest Expense:Mortgage
Interest,interest portion of payoff
[temp account, pick one],[new payee],R,(yyy,694.64),Transfer:[money market
account],{this was a cash out balance}
2nd transaction (a Loan Payment with one split element):
[temp account, pick one],[old payee],R,(yyy,190.96),Principal Transfer:[old
mortgage loan account],payoff amount of old loan
Note that only one new account, the new loan, was setup and that some of the
categories may not be standard. For the temp account, I used my pocket change
account, but see below for more information.
Note also that I had no escrow for insurance/taxes on either side of this
deal. If you have an existing escrow account setup and plan on setting up a
new one for the new mortgage, you can do the same basic thing: transfer the
existing escrow balance into the first transaction and/or transfer funds as
required from the first transaction to the new account.
It doesn't matter which account you put the transaction in, but if you are
writing a check at closing or getting a payout, you may want to include this
in that account just to make things clearer. The sum of the first transaction
and the second transaction should be zero unless you want to have the non-zero
net of the two transactions represent cash in or out at closing.
The only reason this needs to be done as two transactions is that the payoff
principal payment to the old loan becomes a principal transfer in that account
which Money treats like a split--and a split cannot be part of another split.
Similarly, bear in mind that the only way to transfer principal to a loan
account, at least in recent versions of Money, is to start with a Loan Payment
and use the Principal Transfer portion of the split it proposes. You can
delete the interest expense component if you want, but the Principal Transfer
component of a Loan Payment is treated as sacred by Money.
You original loan may show some minor debit or credit balance after the payoff
transfer due to differences in how Money and the lender have computed interest
over time. (Mine was $0.43.) You can just write this difference off with an
Account Adjustment income or expense transaction entered at the end of the old
loan before you close the account.
Money provides no direct way to account for loan proceeds received. So, I just
entered this by hand as noted. The category had to be created and was defined
to not show up on tax reports. If you are an accounting maven and are
concerned that this really isn't accounting income, then you can leave the
category unassigned. Alternately, see "How can I transfer money (to / from)
the loan I (made / borrowed)?" for the workaround.
Q) I just took out an interest only mortgage; how do I setup such a loan in
Money?
A) Set it up like any other mortgage loan except set a balloon payment equal
to the borrowed amount. If you know the payment amount, leave the interest
rate blank and Money will calculate it for you. It may differ slightly from
the quoted rate for lots of reasons that aren't worth losing sleep over. If it
differs by a lot, more investigation is probably in order. Answer derived from
one provided by Cal Learner -- MVP.
"ltrox43" pointed out that there is now an MSKB item on this subject. They
take a lot more words to say what's above.
References:
MSKB: 893719 interest only mortgage
Q) We just sold our house--how do we account for this in Money?
A) See the answer to "I just refinanced my mortgage; how do I enter all of
this into Money?" for the basic technique. In the case of a sale, just add
into the transaction a transfer in of the balance of your asset account, if
any, and a split element to account for the "gain" income, if any, required to
get to the right payout value.
Q) We just wrote an earnest money check to buy a house. How do we deal with
all of this in Money?
A) Buying and owning a house creates the most complex set of Money
transactions and accounts of any activity most of us engage in. But it's
really fairly simple and easily managed by breaking down the activities. Many
of these activities are treated in other places in the FAQ. This answer will
refer to those and provide an overview to the whole process.
Buying a house involves transactions before purchase, transactions when the
purchase closes, new liability for paying the mortgage--unless you paid cash
for the entire purchase, a new asset added to your net worth, new bills to pay
every month, and quite likely a new account holding some of your money in
escrow for your mortgagor to pay some recurring expenses like insurance and
property taxes.
The first thing to deal with is the earnest money deposit and any pre-purchase
expenses. The pre-purchase expenses (a property inspection or a credit report
or similar) are just expenses you can account for like any other expense. Some
category like Miscellaneous:Fees and Service Charges might be appropriate. The
earnest money deposit is another matter. You can think of this as contributing
to your equity in the house, and eventually you should do this, but that's
something you may want to defer since things may happen between now and
closing and maybe now is not the best time to set all of that up. So, the best
bet now is to expense it against some category like Miscellaneous:Deposit,
Credit to Follow. (You may need to create a category like this.) When you
enter the transactions for the closing, you can put in a split element to
reverse the amount of this transaction against this category (use a negative
number against the original category, Miscellaneous:Deposit, Credit to Follow
if you are following the example,) then add this amount to the amount you
transfer to the Asset account.
When you close the purchase, you will receive a settlement sheet itemizes all
of the debits and credits on your half of the transaction. Debits include
things like your payment to purchase the house and various buyer-paid fees.
Your credits include things like the proceeds of the loan you accepted and the
earnest money deposit. With several exceptions, this activity is similar to
and can be handled the same way as a mortgage refinance. See "I just
refinanced my mortgage; how do I enter all of this into Money?" for more
information. Since buying a house typically doesn't involve an existing loan
payoff on your behalf, you should be able to enter the closing transaction in
Money with one Money transaction. The splits of this transaction should total
the amount of money you take to the closing.
As the refinance FAQ notes, follow the settlement sheet, and remember the
split is your friend. The exceptions to the refinance FAQ are handling the
earnest money deposit, adding the asset to your net worth, and handling setup
of escrow accounts. Treating the earnest money deposit was covered above.
Treatment of the asset and escrow accounts is covered below.
Mortgage loan accounts are easily created in Money. Setup a new loan account
(you can specify Loan or Mortgage as the kind of account) and follow the
prompts of the create loan wizard. Several notes are in order. First, there is
no good way to "transfer" the proceeds of the loan from the loan account to
the closing transaction. As noted above, techniques and a workaround can be
found in the refinance answer. Second, the loan wizard may not like the exact
principal, interest rate, payment, and term you enter. You can leave the
interest rate blank and it will compute the appropriate interest rate for you.
Note that the "additional fees" the Loan Account setup wizard mentions may
well be transfers to an escrow account that are treated below.
Buying the house adds to your net worth, even if most of this addition is
offset by the liability for the mortgage. A Money Asset Account provides a way
to account for this. It also provides a handy way to keep track of the cost
basis of the investment. Cost basis is something you may eventually need to
know for tax purposes. An Asset Account is not required, but for these
reasons, creating one is recommended.
When you create a mortgage loan, Money prompts you to create an Asset Account
or associate this loan with an existing asset account. You can set an Asset
Account up now or set it up separately later. If you set it up separately
later, Money will ask if you want to associate any loan accounts with this
asset account. You should specify the Money Loan Account you created for the
mortgage. The dialog for setting up an Asset Account asks for initial value of
the asset. We recommend $0. We'll establish its value in the next several
steps.
One of the "buying a house" exceptions cited above to the refinance FAQ is the
problem of accounting for the net worth impact of the new asset. Here it is:
you transfer the entire purchase price from the closing transaction to the
Asset Account with a split element, category Transfer:[name of asset acct], in
the closing transaction. This will be essential to making that transaction
balance.
Once this is done, you can account for additions to your cost basis (like
adding a swimming pool, but not like painting the place) by transferring the
increase in cost basis to the asset account rather than expensing it outright.
So, while you might call painting the house Housing:Maintenance, you can call
building the pool Transfer:[name of asset account]. You invested and made the
house worth more: this is how you can track it.
Many mortgage lenders require you to pre-pay expenses like insurance and
property taxes with your monthly payments and then they pay the bills on your
behalf. This arrangement is called an escrow account. "How should I handle my
mortgage escrow account?" discusses escrow accounts. Your escrow account may
need some transfer from the closing transactions for money retained at closing
to build up the initial balance of the escrow account if this is a buyer
expense. On the other hand, you may want to create the escrow account with a
starting balance if there is seller money transferred to your escrow account
to cover their portion of, say, taxes paid in arrears. Your settlement sheet
should explain all of this; if it's not clear, by all means ask the mortgage
company representative who presides over the closing to explain it to you.
One final thought: if you anticipate owning multiple houses or just want to
better understand why expenses occur, it may make sense to consider using what
Money calls Classification. Classification provides up to two additional
two-level attributes that can be assigned to transactions similar to Category.
For instance, you could define the first classification as Class with Classes
and Subclasses like Property:123 Elm St. Then you can use Class in addition to
Category to aggregate transactions for reporting and the like. As an example,
Taxes:Property Tax and Insurance:Homeowner’s expenses could both also be
associated with Property:123 Elm St. Read more about classification in on-line
help to learn more.
How to do things in Money: Option Settings
------------------------------------------
Q) How can I make this infernal MoneySide thing go away?
[Relevant to Money2002 (v.10), Money2003 (v.11)]
A) Click Help in MoneySide, then Settings. Under "Open MoneySide" select
"Never" and then "Done."
Answer provided by Bryan Escher.
Once you've gotten rid of MoneySide you will probably notice that Money has
also dropped an icon onto your IE toolbar. To remove it, select
View|Toolbar|Customize. Select MoneySide on the column on the right. Click
Remove.
This thing was so popular that when they eliminated it from M04 many months
went by before there was a single mention in the newsgroup that it had
disappeared.
Q) How do I stop Money from talking to me?
A) R-click on the speaker icon in the upper right corner of the Money home
page and select Turn all Audio Help off. Perhaps because they got too many
support calls asking just this question, Microsoft removed the audio help from
M05.
Q) How do I turn off the ads?
A) Tools|Options|General|Turn off sponsorship and shopping links is as good as
it gets. MSN ads will still be all over the thing. This also will not prevent
Microsoft from sending you ads in the form of Money Updates, though they have
only done this occasionally. M05 moved this to [Windows menu:]
Tools|Settings|Program Settings|General|Display|Turn off sponsorsh