Thank you, Money community

"Scott Tyler" <agent_scotty-at-hotmail-dot-com> wrote in message
news:u2V7fiSHEHA.2744[at]TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
- quote -

> Second attempt at sending this. The first attempt appeared to get
> auto-nuked, possibly because of having "Microsoft" in the subject
(possibly
> a heavy-handed defense against Swen.A and other such worms?) The original
> title was "Thank you, microsoft.public.money community".

Ugh. Either Outlook Express barfed, or the server sent a bogus "no article"
reply. I just checked via the web, and both posts went through. Oh well, I
guess I'll have to unsubscribe and resubscribe to fix Outlook Express...

Second attempt at sending this. The first attempt appeared to get
auto-nuked, possibly because of having "Microsoft" in the subject (possibly
a heavy-handed defense against Swen.A and other such worms?) The original
title was "Thank you, microsoft.public.money community".

I've been thinking of posting something like this for quite awhile.

I started using Money 2002 in December 2001, after learning of the trial
version in one of the many emails I get from Microsoft. I started lurking
in this newsgroup almost immediately.

From reading the posts in this newsgroup, I've learned many things that I've
been able to use to better manage my Money file. A few I can think of off
the top of my head:

* Using a cash account to track out-of-pocket expenses. I'm *really*
surprised Money doesn't set this up by default in a new file, or at least
suggest it when a user enters his/her first ATM withdrawal.

* Using a cash account as a place to create a tax refund or liability
transaction on December 31st of the tax year, then using a transfer to/from
checking the following year when the tax return is processed, which
eliminates needing to use the kludgy "Income tax - Previous year" category.

* Entering returns as a deposit against the original expense category. I
later used the same technique to handle salary advances, short-term loans to
friends, etc.

* Setting up assets and loans with a zero balance, which allows down
payments, trade-ins, sale-and closeout, etc. to be handled properly, as well
as extended warranty, title fees, etc and a transfer for the actual amount
borrowed.

* Export/Import. The third course of action after "msmoney.exe" -s and
"salv.exe". I've had to export/import twice, and hopefully never again.
Reading about it here (particularly the part about preceding the investment
portion of investment accounts with an understrike) made it a lot less
painful to do.

One thing I miss from the old days is that someone from the Money team (or
an MVP with a contact on the Money team) would sometimes ask users to send
in Money files that couldn't be fixed by one of the first two methods. As I
already know the three courses of action that Tech Support would have me
take, and the fact I currently use an OEM copy of Money, rules out my
contacting Tech Support to make them waste their support dollars on the
"corruption" issues that are allegedly uncommon/nonexistent.

* Sometimes I get a good laugh reading the posts here. "[Very] Poor
Performance" and "Cookie Jar Accounting" were a few I got a kick out of.
:-)

--
Scott Tyler
agent_scotty-at-hotmail-dot-com