You are clearly on the right and encouraging track in your thought process.
Prepare for a "light bulb moment".

1) Use Advanced Register, not Essential Register.

2) The "special category" Transfer is what it seems you are looking for. It
does just what it sounds like. removes money from one account and adds it to
another all in one transaction that cross-links the accounts. It is neither
expense nor income. You put a transfer in one account and specify the other
account where the subcategory would go in a normal income or expense
transaction. E.g., a transaction in Checking that has the special category
Transfer : Discovercard to move money from the Checking cash account to the
Discovercard liability account. (Note: there is also a special category
"Credit Card Payments" which is just Transfer by a confusing and
non-normative name that made some people feel a lot better. There is also a
default expense category "Credit Card Payments / Transfers". This is
useless, stupid, and confusing and should be deleted.)

See some more comments inline below.

"Tristan Wolfe" <Tristan Wolfe[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F8086C9C-1C1C-4AAC-B034-6F76B5982CC6[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

As noted above, you __cateorize__ them as Transfer which isn't realy a
category at all (in the sense of Income or Expense) but is a "special
category". Classification is a different subject.

- quote -

No. It's net worth neutral. It made you neither richer nor poorer. Thus
Transfer.

- quote -

No. The principal amount transferred is net worth neutral. It made you
neither richer nor poorer. Thus Transfer. The interest is an expense. Add an
Expense transaction to the account earning the interest or split the
transfer into to components--one the total amount moved and the second an
interest expense. Say you had a $500 payment but the account accrued $100 in
interst this period. Total transaction amount is $500; split into $400
Transfer:[name of account getting the money] and $100 Interst Expense :
Credit Card Interest. The $400 transfer component will decrease the balance
in the cash account by $400 and decrease the balance in the laibility
account by the same $400.

- quote -

You were certainly on the right track. But Transfer is what you are looking
for. Convert Essential Registers to Advanced REgisters and NEVER LOOK BACK.

- quote -

Transfer is your friend.

- quote -

Not when using Transfer.

- quote -

Not sure I understand this issue--but lets get first things first and then
get back to this if it's still a problem.

- quote -

Transfer. Try it, you'll like it.

I'm new to MS Money Plus and have hit a stumbling block recently:

I have four linked accounts at my credit union: checking, savings,
Mastercard, and line of credit. I often transfer from my line of credit to
my checking account for some extra money, and then often pay off the balance
at some future date.

I'm uncertain as to how to classify these transactions. Is transferring
from a line of credit considered an expense to my line of credit account and
income to my checking account? When I pay the "loan" (with interest), is
this an expense to my checking account and income to my line of credit
account?

Some considerations:

1. I want internal transfers (from, say, my checking to my savings account)
to not be counted as either income or expenses, so I have created an
"Internal Transfer" [Income] category, which I can exclude from reports and
the budget. Is this advisable?

2. For expense reports, I've specified that all types of transactions be
included--both deposits and withdrawls--so that refunds will be included when
looking at expenses for a particular category. I've also specified that
transfers be included so that payments to my line of credit account, which
are transfers, will be included; I've categorized such payments as "Loan
Payments" in order to track these in my budget.

Lastly, I've created a "Credit Income" category so that I can track the
amount transferred from my line of credit and Master card into my savings and
checking accounts.

I'm wondering if, generally, this is an advisable arrangement. One problem
I've noticed thus far is that on the Home page, the pie chart showing
Spending by Category shows internal transfers, whereas when I view Spending
by Category on the Reports page, given the customized settings described
above which exclude the "Internal Transfers" category, the Internal Transfers
nor any other income is shown--as expected. Why are the two pie charts
different as viewed on the Home page and the Reports page, and can I
customize the pie chart on the Home page?

Thank you for bearing with me!


Best regards,
Tristan Wolfe