You might try customizing the reports to get what you are looking for. Most
all of them will let you show Transfers (and Loan Payments) in addition to
the Income and Expenses. As noted, the Budget reports should show the car
loan payment in the Debt section. (But I've found so many other issues with
Budget that I really don't mess with it much anymore and tend to forget
what's working in it and what's not.)

If you look at it from the "ivory tower" perspective, separating the current
expenses from the debt service cash flow CAN BE a powerful tool since it
enables you to make better choices separating the WHAT (the car purchase way
back when) from the HOW (the monthly interest expense in the here and now).
Likewise, separating cashflow from budget enables separate management of
ways (manipulating the cashflow so that everybody stays happy each month)
and means (can you really afford the choices you are making).

But you do have to learn to deal with the tool to get it to work for you;
thus I suggest playing with report customizations.

There is an alternative approach that may better meet your needs: don't set
the car loan up as a Money account at all. Just schedule your
Automobile:Payment expense as you would, say, your Utilities:Water bill.
This, of course, costs you visibility to the components of the loan payment
and tracking the cost/balance of the loan in Money. But that's the trade you
seem eager to make.

"PeterPla" <PeterPla[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:44E5EC1D-DD4C-45A7-AF34-43FCDFE696B6[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

Money 2007 Premium

- quote -

Thanks, that's an interesting perspective.

(Dick, this next section is directed toward Microsoft, not you!)
While some people might agree with that perspective, I do not. My reality
is that every month I have an expense, it's called a "Car Payment", and I
can't find a way to get Money to BOTH show the payment/transfer from my
checking account to the car loan account, AND categorize the expense/outflow
from my checking account as "Auto:Car Payment".

Money is a tool that's supposed to help me manage my money. Hiding my car
payment "expense" in all my spending and budgeting reports is NOT HELPING.
Every time I sit down with my wife to review these reports, I have to remind
her that "Money lies", and we can't believe anything in the report, and that
in turn guarantees that we argue about how to interpret Money's lies and the
deeply flawed reports that it produces.

I've used Money since it first came out, so I'm reluctant to change and
spend even more time learning Quicken. But I'm getting really tired of a
tool that is more focused on the needs of financial ivory tower types, than
it is on meeting my real-world needs.

Hopefully someone at Microsoft will listen; but I used to work there and I
know how things are done, and it's pretty unlikely a mere dissatisfied
customer will trigger change. Oh well ...

- quote -

Thanks Chris!

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

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If the auto loan is not configured as a 'Loan' account, you can't fix it,
to my knowledge. You must create a new account of type 'Loan'. Pick 'Other
account type' in the wizard when you create the new account. 'Line of
Credit' is right next to 'Loan' in the pick list. Be careful not to pick it
in error. It will create another credit card account.

After setting it up, payments to the loan should be categorized as 'Loan
payment: <loan account name> '. That will automatically distribute the
principal and interest portions. The interest category is defined during
loan account setup.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL



"PeterPla" <PeterPla[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:84310029-2FA9-4728-9640-1E8F670AE261[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Re. Q1: What version/edition?

Re. Q2 and beyond: A Loan Payment (the principal part anyway) is not an
Expense. It's like taking money from your left pocket and putting it in your
right pocket. You didn't get richer or poorer. Income and expenses are
things that make your richer or poorer. The expense happened the day you
bought the car. The fact that you decided to use someone else's money to do
it does not change that part of the problem. It just add the expense of the
interest.

Getting the free cash to make the payments is really a cashflow issue, not a
budget issue. Again, this is because you rolled the budget dice the day you
bought the car.

In general, that's why Money treats this the way it does.

In specific, some of the budget tools will show you the loan payment in the
Debt section so that you don't budget to spend money for which there is not
free cashflow.

"PeterPla" <PeterPla[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:84310029-2FA9-4728-9640-1E8F670AE261[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Two problems.

1) When I set up my car loan, Money somehow decided to treat it like a
Credit Card, no idea why. Is there a way to "fix" this?

2) In the Advanced Register view, withdrawal from my checking account that
are payments into loan accounts MUST have a transfer-like category, which
prevents me from assigning a meaningful expense category, and
budgeting/tracking those loan payments. Continuing the above example, my
car payment MUST have the category "Credit Card Payment : loan-account-name"
for it to show up in the loan account, whereas I'd like that category to be
"Auto : Car Payment". How can I assign a meaningful category to these kinds
of payments?

Thanks!
--Peter