If you are not trying to track the "who" part with categories, then this
scheme works probably pretty well. One more though: you can get it to 2
categories or even 1 by using "negative" income or expense transactions.
Depending on your settings Money may ask if you really want to categorize
what looks like income as an expense category or vice versa. But the
reporting can be setup to show running balance for postivive and negative
transactions and this can be handy. E.g., Loan Money $100 for the loan, Loan
Money -$100 for the payment. Total of Loan Money category is now $0.

"Satish Appasani" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks for the response. I am planning to use categories. In all i created 4
categories: Lend Money, Lend Money Received, Borrow Money, Borrow Money
paid. Using these 4 categories and the Payee view could make it easier to
track.

I don't want to create an account for every $1 i give to somebody.

Asset and Liability accounts are becoming difficult to maintain. I lend $550
to a friend and he pays me back $600. If i transfer $600 from My Assets back
to my personal account, the balance in my Assets is going to -50. Actually
that 50 should go to My Liabilites as i owe it to my friend. Then i have to
make it a split transaction. All this is turning in to a big mess.


"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:24374822-30EE-454D-A4EC-76ABEC763975[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

There is no One Right Answer. What you are doing is certainly one approach.
The separate accounts is another way. Separate loan accounts with the
interest term set to zero is a third. Classification may be a fourth.
Separate categories or subcategories by person is a fifth--at best as it
doesn't scale neatly at all. In short, it all depends...

"Satish Appasani" wrote:

- quote -

How do i track money i lend to friends and relatives and the money i borrow
in MS Money? These transactions don't have any interests.

Currently i created an Asset account and a Liabilty account. I transfer all
my lending to Asset account and move back from Asset account when they pay
back. The same for my borrowings. When i borrow, i transfer from the
Liability account and transfer back when i return the money.

This path servers to major extent but little difficult when i want to track
how much does X owe me and how much do i owe to Y. Do i have to create a
seperate account for each person? If i try to track it by the Payee view,
the balance shows zero because it is a Transfer transaction.

Should i replace my Asset and Liability accounts with categories?