If a) you have separate accounts for the Visa and the checking account you
will use to send the money to Visa, b) you correctly code the check to Visa
as Transfer:[name of Visa account], and c) both accounts are set in their
details to be included in budget planner, then the Transfer should NOT show
as an expense or a transfer in/out of your budget. Expenses and Income show
in budget. Transfers between accounts included in the budget do not show.

The one-year, no interest option doesn't change this at all. Interest is
just an expense added to your Visa account in Money when you get the
statement. If they aren't charging you any, the expense is $0. That's a good
thing.

The FAQs:
---
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.

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?"

"Ed F." <edfinkle[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:063201c361fc$b4504c40$a501280a[at]phx.gbl...
- quote -

Looking for recommendations:

Trying to figure out how to best set up my budget to
reflect credit charges and the payments I then make the to
the credit card companies.

For instance, if I purchase $100 dollars in clothing on my
Visa on 8/1/2003, I allocate the charge in my Visa account
to the Clothing category. If I run the monthly budget
report for 8/2003, it'll show $100 for clothing as an
expense.

I then send a check to Visa for $100 which also shows as
an expense on the monthly budget report. It appears as
though I've spent $200 for 8/2003. Should I exclude
transfers on the budget reports?

Just not clear on how to handle credit card transactions
and how to accurately reflect the expense. Gets a bit
more confusing when they offer the 1 year no-interest
option.

Ed