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How to do things in Money: Financial Situations

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.

Please see this disclaimer if you are using Money 2005 or this comment if you are using Money 2006.

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