To change category or subcategory assignments throughout your account registers, follow these steps:

1. Click the Categories button on the Navigation bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+C to go to the Categories window.

2. If necessary, click the Categories button on the window to make the categories and subcategories appear. To see the categories and subcategories, you may need to open the View menu and choose Categories and their Subcategories.

3. Scroll down the list and select the name of the category or subcategory whose transactions you want to reassign. For example, if you erroneously assigned transactions to the Education: Kids subcategory when you should have assigned them to the Childcare category, select the Education: Kids subcategory from the list. Remember, the category or subcategory you select is deleted from the Categories window after you finish reassigning the transactions. Be sure to examine transactions carefully before you delete anything.

4. Click the Move button. This is where you tell Money where to reassign the transactions in the category or subcategory you chose in Step 3.

5. In the Category drop-down list, select the category or subcategory to which you want to reassign the transactions.

6. Click OK. In the Categories list, the category or subcategory you chose in Step 3 has been deleted. Meanwhile, all transactions in your registers that were assigned the old category or subcategory are assigned the one you chose in Step 5.

Reassigning transactions to new categories

Instead of making a wholesale reassignment of one category or subcategory to another, you may decide to examine transactions one at a time and choose which ones need reassigning. To do that, you have to search for transactions in the account registers, examine each transaction, and then either choose a new category or subcategory or move on without moving the transaction. Here are shorthand instructions for finding and fixing transactions that were assigned the wrong category or subcategory:

1. Choose Tools -> Find and Replace, or press Ctrl+H. You see the Find Transactions dialog box.

2. Select Category from the In This Field drop-down list; then, from the Find This Text drop-down list, select the category or subcategory whose transactions need reassigning; finally, click the Next button. The Search Results list shows transactions assigned to the category you chose. At this point, you can reassign the transactions one at a time or click the Replace button to reassign several transactions simultaneously.

3. Assign the transactions to new categories:

• One at a time. Double-click a transaction that needs a new category. You see the Edit Transaction dialog box. Choose a new category or subcategory from the dropdown list and click OK.

• Several at one time. Click the Replace button. Select the check box next to each transaction that needs a new category assignment, choose Category from the Replace drop-down list, choose a new category from the With list, and click the Next button. Then click the Finish button on the next screen, which asks, Are you sure? By the way, when you reassign a transaction that has been reconciled, Money beeps and warns you not to change the amount of the transaction you are about to edit. Don’t worry about the warning. You’re concerned with the category assignment, not the amount of the transaction.

Reconciling, or Balancing, an Account

Until they start using Money, many people never reconcile, or balance, their checking or savings accounts, not to mention their credit cards. But Money makes balancing an account very easy indeed. No kidding, you can do it in four or five minutes. This article explains what reconciling is, how to reconcile the transactions in your records with the bank’s records, and what to do if you can’t get an account to reconcile.

How Reconciling Works

Reconciling is your opportunity to examine your records closely and make sure that they are accurate. When you reconcile an account, you compare your records to the bank’s, fix any discrepancies you find, enter transactions that appear on the statement that you forgot to enter in the register, and click in the C (for Cleared) column next to each transaction that appears both in the register and on the bank statement. In an account register, transactions that have cleared the bank transactions that have been reconciled show an R (for Reconciled) in the C (for Cleared) column. Here, you can see that some transactions have cleared the bank and some are still waiting to clear.

Balancing an Account

Balancing an account is a two-step business. First, you tell the program how much money in interest the account earned (if it earned any) and how much you had to pay the bank for checks, ATM withdrawals, and other services (if you had to pay anything). Then you move ahead to the Balance dialog box, where you make your records jibe with the bank’s and click off each transaction that appears both on your bank statement and in the register. Before you begin comparing the register to the bank statement, lay the bank statement flat on your desk. And you may want to put checks in numerical order (if you intend to reconcile a checking account), and your ATM slips in date order (you have been saving your ATM slips, haven’t you?). With a little luck, you can reconcile without having to glance at checks and ATM slips. But if something goes amiss, you may have to examine the paperwork closely.

Telling Money which transactions cleared the bank

Follow these steps to tell Money which transactions cleared the bank and reconcile an account:

1. Click the Account List button on the Navigation bar to go to the Accounts window.

2. Click the Balance an Account link. You can find this link under Common Tasks on the left side of the window. A link called Balance This Account is also available on account register windows. After you click the link in the Accounts window, you see a list of your accounts that includes the day they were last reconciled.

3. Click the name of the account you want to balance. You see a Balance dialog box. This dialog box is where you enter information from the bank statement. The Starting Balance text box shows the amount of money in the account as of the last time you reconciled it (or the account’s opening balance, if you recently opened the account).

4. If necessary, enter the date listed on the bank statement in the Statement Date text box.

5. In the Ending Balance text box, enter the closing balance from the bank statement.

6. If you have to pay a service charge, enter it in the Service Charge text box, and categorize the service charge as well. Banks are like mosquitoes: They like to bite. Banks do it by charging customers all sorts of miscellaneous fees. The fees appear on bank statements. You may get charged for ordering checks, or calling for information, or using an ATM, or sneezing too loudly. Scour the statement for evidence of service charges and enter the sum of those charges in the Service Charge box. For a category, choose Bank Charges: Service Charge, or something similar.

7. In the Interest Earned text box, enter an amount if the account earned any interest, and categorize the interest payment as well. You may use the Investment Income: Interest category and subcategory, for example. Before you click the Next button to move ahead, compare what you entered in this dialog box to what is on your bank statement one last time. Entering numbers incorrectly in this dialog box is one of the primary reasons that people have trouble reconciling their bank accounts.

8. Click the Next button to move ahead to the Balance Account window Only transactions in the register that have not been reconciled appear in the window. Deposits and other transactions that brought money into the account appear at the top of the window; following that are withdrawals and other transactions that record when money was taken out of the account. Many people think that reconciling accounts is easier when transactions are shown on one line rather than two. To show transactions on one line, open the View menu and choose Top Line Only.

9. Examine your bank statement and click the C column next to each transaction on the statement that also appears in the register. The left side of the window lists the difference between the ending balance on your bank statement (you listed it in the previous dialog box) and the amount as tabulated by Money. When you click the C column in the register to clear transactions, this amount changes. Gradually, as the account is reconciled, the number changes to 0.00. To remove a check mark in the C column, click it again. The next section in this article explains how you can fix mistakes in the register while you reconcile. The section after that offers strategies for recognizing and fixing reconciliation problems. If you have trouble finding a transaction in the register, open the View menu and choose Sort -> Sort by Date or Sort -> Sort by Number. The Sort by Date command lists transactions in date order, and the Sort by Number command lists them in numerical order in the Num column.

10.Click the Next button when the difference amount is 0.00 and the account is reconciled. You will find the Next button in the lower-left corner of the window. A Balanced! screen appears and tells you that your account is balanced.

11.Click the Finish button. Back in the register, all those check marks in the Balance Account window turn to R’s in the register. The transactions you clicked off in the Balance Account window have cleared the bank and are reconciled with your records. If the reconciling business makes you tired or if you find something better to do, click the Postpone button. Later, you can pick up where you left off by clicking the Balance This Account button in the Account window.