I think you are on the right track. But I wouldn't make them deposits, per
se. Create an Asset account (it's a defined type). Then change existing
expenses in the accounts you entered them--which you can't make go away
since this would hose the account's balance--to Transfers to the asset
account.

E.g.,

existing transaction in Discover Account: $2,345.67, Payee: Home Depot,
Cat:SubCat: Housing:Building Materials, memo: buy a truckload of 2x4s for
new house.

change this to: existing transaction in Discover Account: $2,345.67, Home
Depot, Cat:SubCat: Transfer:456 Republican Circle, memo: buy a truckload of
2x4s for new house.

Your Discover card still reflects the "expense" incurred of the $2,345.67.
But the money actually shows up as a contributor to the asset value in the
456 Republican Circle Asset account. You didn't get $2,345.67 poorer. You
just transferred the money from your checking account through your Discover
to the value of your house.

Make sense?

If you want to get really fancy, you might also consider adding
"classification" to help track the expenses that, after this change, aren't
expenses. You can read up about it in online help under classification.

"Randy" <anonymous[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1c4df01c4521f$b046a4a0$a001280a[at]phx.gbl...
- quote -

Thanks Dick

I think you are on the right track. I have entered all
the purchases for the house as expenses and I now want
them all to show up in an account that would have a
positive balance versus a negative balance. So I believe
what you told me to do, though labor intensive would be
to edit all the expenditures as actually deposits into an
account I would call the houses net worth or something. I
would then end up with an account for the house which
shows all the purchases as assets and the mortgage would
be a liability against the house asset account. Does this
sound right? Randy


- quote -

I'm not fully sure I understand what you want to do. You **may** be able to
get there with Tools|Find and Replace. (But then again, I just tested this
and Money Find and Replace once again seems a little too lame to solve a
real world problem.) But I really don't know what you mean by "asset
category" nor "listing [] as assets".

Typically, one creates an Asset Account. The starting balance is the amount
you paid for the asset. When you make improvements, these kinds of
transactions are typically either entered as expenses (Housing:Maintenance)
or Transfers to the Asset account balance (Transfer:[name of Asset
Account]).

In your case, you probably want to reduce the Asset Account starting balance
to what you value the house at less what you spent in transactions in Money
then do a LOT of transaction editing to convert all the transactions to
Transfer:[name of Asset Account]. When you are done, all of the transactions
you changed will add to the balance of the Asset Account--the balance should
be back to what you value the house at.

As always, keep copies of the file from before you start something radical
like this.

So, bottom line, there is a way, just not an easy one.

"Randy" <anonymous[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1b5b501c4509b$d7ecf480$a601280a[at]phx.gbl...
- quote -

I built a new house and kept track of every purchase as an
expense category. I now have a mortgage listed within
Money and would like to convert all the expense category
listings now as assets. Is there an easy way to just
convert all these entries. Thanks.