To answer some of your questions...

- quote -

Yes, I manually enter my bills in Money, but No, I pay via Money, which
sends a payment instruction to the bank, and the bank then pays the
bill. The payment shows up instantly on the bank's website interface
just as if I entered from there.

- quote -


KJTV wrote:
- quote -

A little bit of both. I enter my bills in "scheduled bills," primarily for
convenience in using features such as the DRP & the budget, although I don't
find either one of those all that useful. Theoretically, it would remind me
if one was missed, but, to be truthful, I have so damn many of them, a
missing one doesn't register at all. I generally do "skip transaction" on
about half of them, which brings me to the second part.

I download from the bank's website once a week. Once you get used to the
program trying to match a couple of bills to weird future transactions, it's
easy enough to change those. Usually, I have about 20 transactions. Two are
weirdly matched, four or five are unmatched although they have matches (thus
the skipped transactions), and the rest are right. Why some scheduled bills
match and clear, while others do not, is one of life's little mysteries.

I have automatic downloading set up on three accounts. It works fine, but
the ones that have it are the kind that have two or three transactions per
month, so it is neither that wondrous a timesaver or that big an annoyance,
depending on your point of view.

There are as many ways to use Money as there are users, and there is no good
way to figure out which way is best for you, other than using &
experimenting a bit. Make a backup copy of your data file before you try
anything too drastic, and always have at least one current backup available,
in case you don't like something you try, or that tries you..

You don't have to use every feature at once, either. Start with inputting
account information, & add features as you have time & feel interested. That
way is easier to roll back, too, in case you get something unexpected.

Good luck.

Susan



"KJTV" <KJTV[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:86693E90-8F9C-4C04-A3EC-F9561F506816[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Answers inline.

"KJTV" <KJTV[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:86693E90-8F9C-4C04-A3EC-F9561F506816[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Yes, more or less. Some bills require paper checks. Many things I track
never have discrete bills--I charge virtually everything I can to Discover
and enter these transactions in the Discover account register. I do as you
describe once a month to pay them. And I balance the Money account against
the Discover paper statement.

- quote -

I don't import bank statements. For people who do, Money makes a more or
less valiant attempt to match up the downloaded transaction data with
transactions already in the registers or scheduled to be entered into them.
It also offer you the opportunity to tell it what it matches up with. Some
people have great luck with this whole process. Many do not. If you have
luck, the very real issue you describe of "doubling up" the transaction is
avoided. If not, well, things get more tedious.

I am trying to understand how you use this program to manage your money - in
terms of how you work the program.

For example:

Do you manually enter the bills you get into the program, as a reminder,
then pay the bill over the internet the usually way through your bank website
- then go to the Money program and enter the payment and receipt number?

Then what happens when you import your bank statement? Does this mean you
double up your payment when you rconcile your imported statement? Or should
you not enter anything and import your statement once a week and only
reconcile the statement and forget entering payments altogether?