When I get my monthly credit card statement, I go to the left-hand pane, and
click "Balance this Account." This brings up a dialogue box where you enter
your new balance. The date and previous balance are already filled in for
you.

At the bottom of that box. there is a field to enter the interest expense,
as shown on your statement. It is pre-categorized as just "bank charges,"
but I have changed all mine to be "bank charges:interest expense." It
remembers that assignment, so you only have to do it once per credit
account.

I have a couple of cards that download automatically, and they work exactly
the same way. The interest charge downloads, and the first time you assign
"bank charges:interest paid," it will show up like that thereafter.

It might help if you recall that the interest accrues on your unpaid
balance. It doesn't really have anything to do with your payment, so trying
to tie those two transactions together really doesn't make any sense.

Money has never calculated the interest charge for you. If you recall that
your cards have many different rates, for cash advances, purchases, and
balance transfers (some even charge different rates for certain TYPES of
purchases), it would be awfully hard to write an algorithm that would be
accurate enough to give you a true balance. It's easy enough to enter it,
especially if you use the balance function.

HTH,

Susan

"Mike" <Mike[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news7038801-F837-4B23-AB17-AF7EB9B0E774[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Bank Charges : Interest Paid works fine if it works for you. I've changed
some categories over time--or they've changed them, can't remember which.

I'm using M07 Deluxe. But I've been using Money since before dirt and pretty
much have my own categories by now.

"Mike" <Mike[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E3A771F6-2439-43B6-B9C2-AD5C4AAA273F[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Dick,

Thanks so much for your responses. This really does help :-)

You mention the following:
$80.00 Credit Card Payment:[name of acct]
$20.00 Interest Expense:Credit Card

I see a category for Credit Card Payment:[my acct name]
But I do not see one for Interest Expense:Credit Card

I do, however, see one for: Bank Charges:Interest Paid. Is this what I
should use?
Also what version of Money are you using?

Thanks Dick

-Mike

I've described how I handle it. I don't download transaction data.

"Mike" <Mike[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news7038801-F837-4B23-AB17-AF7EB9B0E774[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Ok, I begin to see how I can get money to work with my credit card account.

Is this how all you folks handle credit card accounts?

Thanks so much Dick and Bob for your responses. :-)

"Mike" wrote:

- quote -

Let's make sure I understand your issue.
---
You have a credit card owe balance in your Money credit card account
register of, say, $1,000.00.

You enter a Credit Card Payment:[name of acct] transaction for, say,
$100.00.

Money now shows an owe balance of $900.00.

Next statement shows $920.00 because of interest expense.

What you want is some way for Money to split the $100 transaction into two
parts:

$80.00 Credit Card Payment:[name of acct]
$20.00 Interest Expense:Credit Card

And you want Money to figure out the numbers breakdown for the $100.00 total
transaction.
---
Money can't do that.

But to keep your balance right, instead of entering just the one Credit Card
Payment:[name of acct] transaction, you need to enter two transactions:

Enter $20.00 Interest Expense:Credit Card from the statement when it says
that's what you spent on interest. It's just like what you do when you spend
$35.69 on Automobile:Gasoline. You enter a transaction for the expense. The
account register balance will be $1,020.00. This should match the statement.

Then enter the $100.00 Credit Card Payment:[name of acct] when you pay the
bill.

The new Money account register balance will then be owing $920.00.

"Mike" <Mike[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6F29939E-BF83-48F4-8275-AA1DD0C4E117[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Have you thought about using the Debt Reduction Planner to automate all
this?

The DRP will work out your payment based on the interest rate and rules that
you give it and will set up in Bills & Deposits the relevant transfer from
your current account to the CC account.

Take a copy of your .mny file before you start in case you don't like the
result!

--
Regards
Bob Peel,
Microsoft MVP - Money

For UK tips & fixes see
http://support.microsoft.com/default...d=fh;EN-GB;mny.


I do not respond to any emails that I have not specifically asked for.

"Mike" <Mike[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E44CEFD4-2ED8-448E-886A-14A879A94EBF[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Thanks Cal and Dick for your responses :-)

Cal: I've tried both negative and positive values as initial balances but
Money seems to behave the same way just in opposite directions: negative
getting smaller with no interest, positive getting smaller with no interest.

Dick: I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "... interest expense
transaction...". Does this mean that I need to apply payments that have the
interest amount already calculated as part of the payment?...

My goal is to get Microsoft Money to behave similarly to how my bank behaves
as reflected in my monthly statement. The formula that I've seen is similar
to the following:

NB = (CB * (1 + ((AIR / 12) / 100))) - PAY

Where:
NB = New Balance
CB = Current Balance
AIR = Annual Interest Rate
PAY = My Payment

For example:
Given CB = 1000, AIR = 10% and I make a payment of $100 I should see:
908.33 = (1000 * (1 + ((10 / 12) / 100))) - 100
So my NB should be 908.33 which includes the interest charged for that month
and which is shown on my monthly statement.

Instead, what I'm seeing from Microsoft Money is NB = 900 even. Microsoft
money does not seem to be calculating the monthly interest which is not what
I see on my monthly statement.

Any clues on how I can solve this mystery?
Have I set up my credit card account incorrectly? If so details on how to do
it correctly?

Thanks so much for your responses. :-)

-Mike

"Mike" wrote:

- quote -

Money only calculates interest on Loan Payments. The data you entered is
just stored in Details but isn't used to compute a transaction value.

You should be entering/downloading an interest expense transaction to match
the interest added to the balance.

"Mike" <Mike[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E44CEFD4-2ED8-448E-886A-14A879A94EBF[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Mike wrote:

- quote -


In the account register for credit card, 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.


You may have entered the amount you owed as an initial balance as a
negative number in the account details. I suggest you make that a
positive number.

Note that in the numbers on the Account List, the amount you owe is
shown as negative, and a credit balance would be shown as positive.
But in the account register, things are the other way around.

Hi all.

I'm having difficulties having a Credit Card account work properly. I've
created the account as a credit card account, specified the interest rate,
etc. I have also entered a monthly payment in the bills and deposits pane and
the category is Credit Card Payment : account I'm using.

However, when I enter my payment each month from the bills and deposits
pane, the balance maintained my MS Money reduces the balance by the entire
amount I've entered. It does not seem to be calculating interest (ideal but
not real-life :-/ )

Is there some trick in getting credit card accounts to behave like the bank?
I want my balance to exacltly match my statement.

I'm using MS Money 2003 (I Know its old but everthing but this seems to work
well).

Thanks

-Mike