Here's what I'd do. YMMV.

I use Classification1 as Class. I already have an expense category
Miscellaneouseposit/Credit.

When I buy, say, a $1,000 Piggly Wiggly gift card, I'd create an expense
Miscellaneouseposit/Credit, class: Gift Cards as Money:Piggly Wiggly in
the account where the money came from for the card. When I buy $125 worth of
food groceries deducted from the Piggly Wiggly gift card, I'd enter a
***$0*** transaction in my pocket change cash account ***split*** into a
$125 Food:Groceries expense and a ($125) Miscellaneouseposit/Credit
negative expense, class: Gift Cards as Money:Piggly Wiggly. Then I'd report
transactions for class: Gift Cards as Money and for category
Miscellaneouseposit/Credit, subtotaled by subclass, and make sure the
running balance(s) for each subclass--i.e., each "brand of gift
card--converge back to $0. I.e., they'll go negative at purchase of the
cards and climb back up as the credit is converted to some other real
expense.

Classifications are pretty cheap, so if it takes a dozen of them or more I
think this is much lighter weight of a solution than, say, a dozen cash
accounts.

<semi_political_social_commentaryIt's bizarre that the best ways we can come up with to fund schools in this
country is through such incredibly inefficient--for us and the schools--and
profitable--for the gift card issuer--schemes. Go figure.
</semi_political_social_commentary
"KenDev" <KenDev[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B1E7FB95-F7DD-4FA6-842D-E23A3A025FAA[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

The amounts can be rather large, I typically purchase $250-$750 at a time and
sometimes over 1000. The time span when the the cards actually get used
range from 1 month to a year or more. For these reasons, I don't like to
mark them as purchases until they are actually used because it makes it hard
to budget.

Additionally, not all cards are consumer spending. Sometimes I use the
smaller denominations for gifts.

Your suggestions have given me the idea that I could combine the two methods
and create fewer accounts that are easier to track. Like one for dining out,
one for home improvement, etc...

Thanks for your help.

Ken

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

- quote -

"KenDev" <KenDev[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B1E7FB95-F7DD-4FA6-842D-E23A3A025FAA[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Treat the entire card as a single purchase categorized as you would
any other transaction with the same vendor. If you want
subcategorization that won't work but, for example, I categorize all
department stores as "department stores". That's all the detail I care
to track. It's simply consumer spending. I pay closer attention to big
ticket items but for the most part, it really doesn't matter.

The amounts in question can't be so great that it matters which month
you exhaust the gift card in, can it?

My school offers gift cards for various retailers as a funding source. I am
trying to determine the best way to handle these gift cards using Money. I
have thought of two options:

1. Treat all the purchases of gift cards as transfers into a cash account
and then track each card as spent. (I think this would require some
additonal diligent tracking on my part as each card is used and assigning the
cash spent to the right category)

2. Create a separate account for each gift card vendor (I think this would
add too many accounts as I use at least 12-15 different gift card vendors).

I am leaning towards method 1, but I would like to here if anyone has any
better suggestions as I am sure there are quite a few people out there who
have to deal with this. (I don't even want to think about the issue that
purchasing the gift cards also generates some credits towards school tuition.)

So, I welcome any great insights someone might have.

Thanks,

Ken