I like Cal's glossary--maybe we should get that in some finished form in the
FAQ or on a separate page somewhere.

Categories are ways to assign income and expense to, for lack of a better
word, reasons for the income or expense. Categories could include Wage &
Salary:Bonus, Food:Groceries, Utilities:Garbage Pickup.

Accounts are places to group transactions that frequently reflect some of
your real world accounts like checking, savings, and credit cards.

Payees are people or institutions you interact with financially. The
simplest example is the name you put in a Pay To on a check. That's always a
payee. Your employer who pays you is technically a Payor, but Money always
calls Payors Payees.

Sometimes you have accounts with a Payee and maybe this is also an Account
in Money, but by no means always. The determining factor tends to be whether
the account you have with a Payee involves its own transactions and a
standing balance from month to month. Credit cards are almost always best
treated as Money Accounts. Accounts like the account your doctor has for you
and the accounts you have with your utilities companies rarely need their
own Money Accounts. The name of a Payee and an Account in Money are
occasionally the same.

Examples:

I charge $55.00 for Category "Food:Groceries" to my Discover credit card
account. I enter a transaction for $55.00 for Food:Groceries in my Money
"Discover" Account which is a Money Account of type "Credit Card." I pay the
Payee "Discover" $1,234.56 for the Food:Groceries, among other things, by
entering another, separate, transaction in my "Checking" Account in Money
using the Special Category "Transferiscover" which moves money from one
Account to the other.

I pay my Payee "Xcel Energy" for $123.45 of Category "Utilities:Gas" and
$65.43 of Category "Utilities Electricity" using a split transaction in my
Money "Checking" Account. I include my account number for my Xcel Energy
account (which is not a Money Account) in the Memo field of the check.

"JDP[at]Work" <JPGMTNoSpam[at]sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:#B3y51B6DHA.3004[at]tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, JDP[at]Work wrote:

- quote -

Basic Money Glossary (prototype)

Account

A collective place to place transactions. An investment account
would normally hold stocks, bonds, and/or mutual funds. There are
also bank, credit, and asset accounts. Money Help item "account"
gives a description.

Category

The Money help item "category" says "A way to sort your income and
expenses into meaningful groups so you can see income and spending
patterns in Money reports." That seems like a good description.


Investment

A security such as stock, bond, or mutual fund. See Help item
"investment". Investment Buys and Sells are entered into an
investment (type) account, but an account is not an investment.
Normally when your broker assigns different account numbers, each
account number would correspond to an account. Each account can
contain many different types of investments.


Money File

The file that normally has the extension .mny. It contains the
data for money as well as most of the settings. It can be moved,
deleted, or copied by normal operating system means. See Help item
"file".

The Money file can be backed up to a Money backup file with a .mbf
extension. Give careful thought to your backup policy.


Watch Account

An account that is not real, but is for the purpose of watching
securities that you may not actually own. See help item "watch".

Favorite Account

An attribute of an account to give it easier access. See help item
"favorite".

I just went ahead and finished the wizard. I then deleted the Elec. and just
have one DWP.

I like the split idea, that way I can have a historical record of my own of my
energy usage.

I'm extreamly unclear about the difference between a catagory and an account. I
would think that an account is any payee(?)

TIA

JeffP....

"Geoff" <gebobs[at]yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:YjPSb.147300$Rc4.1185522[at]attbi_s54...
- quote -

"JDP[at]Work" <JPGMTNoSpam[at]sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:uzeQxh85DHA.3004[at]tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
- quote -

You want an account or a category? I can't see any reason to establish an
account for each bill you pay.

But if it's category you're talking about, you can either rename one of the
categories or create a new one.

This is where the account setup wizard goes to setup a transfer to pay this
account? Tell it whatever and then go fix the transfer in Bills & Deposits
to be anyway you'd like.

But I guess I'm still unclear. If you are transferring funds to pay the
balance on this account, a category is irrelevant--a Transfer is a Transfer.
You will have to create some transactions with categories to put a balance
in this account in the first place. Personally, I wouldn't create an account
for this. I'd just use categorized split transactions (e.g., a check for
$100 to DPW split $75 Utilities:Electricity and $25 Utilities:Water)
directly in my checking account to pay them.

"JDP[at]Work" <JPGMTNoSpam[at]sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:uzeQxh85DHA.3004[at]tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
- quote -

My water and power are from my local DWP, how can I get the Wizard to enable me
to set this account up?

Have only a choice for Water and another for Electicity.

TIA

JeffP.....