"Remove ABCD from Email address to reply" wrote:

- quote -

I only care to track about two or three diferent categories on about 10% of
my total transactions. With that in mind, if I don't manually assign a
transaction a category, I don't care about that transaction.

Now, I've said over and over *I* may be missing something. What do you
think Neil?

I guess I am coming very late on this but I don't understand how having
Money not filling in a category (wrong 100% of the time) is better for you
than having it filling a category (maybe wrong 2 out of 3 times) and then
going in each month and correcting the wrong ones. I guess I am missing
something.

--

Neil


"brianchris" <brianchris[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:711A5B4B-BE5F-43EE-9215-BC61B8DD0EF8[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

"Steve" wrote:

- quote -

Steve, thank you for *your* reply.

Just for the record, there are only two or three categories I need to be
very accurate, such as Job Expense : Non-reimbursed, for deduction purposes
(not 100% of the categories), but with Money auto assigning categories to
downloaded transactions, that is all but impossible (unless I'm missing
something).

Thank you!

On Jun 1, 10:06�am, brianchris <brianch...[at]discussions.microsoft.comwrote:
- quote -

I an a Money user for 12 years now and update every year also. I
record all my credit card and bank stuff manually into Money. No
automatic download. I also have set-up certain categories and sub
categories to be more general, so that for MOST payees, ONE category-
subcategory works OK. For instance, many of my payees involve a
category I use of Household Expenses. I then use a miscelaneous sub
category for anything under $100. Now, for the year, that Household
Expenses-Miscellaneous may be my largest amount, say $7,000. But, it
is usually pretty constant month to month and after a number of years,
by reviewing payees, I can usually satisfy myself what I'm spending
the money for. My point is, don't try to be too specific with each
category identification, especially small dollar amounts. I use Food-
Groceries for all my shopping in the major grocery stores. Some of the
things I buy are not Food, but are really household expenses. I don't
worry about it. Of course I could split it up each time since I
manually enter, but it's really not worth it IMHO. Good luck. Steve

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

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Once again, thanks for your response. While these suggestions still may
work, ther more I've considered them, the more I realize they may not. The
solution assumes the category for a given payee is unchaging (i.e. always
misc, or another category), and that's not the case. For example, out of
three transactions for "Staples," one may be Misc, while one may be Job
Expense : Reimbursed while one may be Job Expense : Non-Reimbursed.

I can't believe there isn't an option to turn off auto-categories, and I
can't believe I'm the first to run into this issue (Microsoft Support had no
suggestions). It makes me think I'm using Money in an unintended way / a
different way than anyone else, and that is *not* my goal.

Thanks again for your input!

In microsoft.public.money, brianchris wrote:

- quote -

You would have to do it once for each Payee you plan to do that
with.

Another thing that could be of use some time is advanced
FindAndReplace could change the category of everything that contains
a particular memo or is for a particular payee to a specified
category. You might want to experiment with a copy of your file to
see if that could be useful to you.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

Interesting suggestion......it may be the solution. How would I do this?
It would occur over time, not instantly, right?

In microsoft.public.money, brianchris wrote:

- quote -

You could make the category "Misc" for all Payees for whom there is
a variable category.

I've been using Microsoft Money since v97, and have upgraded each year,
including 2007. I've realized there are a number of different ways people
can use Money, and none of them are right / wrong / better / worse.

Until six months ago, I used to eneter *every* debit card transaction
reciept twice per month, then download and match transactions one by one
(with Money's help). That became such a time sink, that I switched to only
keeping reciepts for transactions I want to track (such as deductions), and
automatically accepting all electronic downloaded transactions.

The good news is this is a *major* time saver. The bad news is Money
automatically assigns categories to payees, and the same payee can have
different categories (job expense reimbursed / non-reimbursed is just one
example). Therefore, 4 out of 10 transactions have incorrect categories, and
since I don't know which 4 out of 10 are wrong at the end of the year, the
category data I was hoping to track is useless to me.

Ideally, I'm looking for an option in Money that says "Do not automatically
assign categories to transactions," but no such option exists. The best I
can find is *unchecking* "require a category for each transaction."

Does anyone have any advice? Its possible I *am* using Money wrong now,
right? TIA!