This article tackles the four or five things you have to do each time you run the Money program. It explains how to open an account register and how to record deposits, withdrawals, payments, and charges in registers. You also find out how to record a transfer of money between accounts, how to move around in a register, and how to find transactions in large registers. Finally, this article describes how to delete and void transactions. Accomplish the tasks described in this article and you are well on your way to becoming an ace user of the Money program.

The Basics: Recording Transactions in Savings and Checking Registers

After you set up an account, you’re ready to start recording transactions in the account’s register. A register is the place where checks, payments, deposits, charges,shows a checking account register. As with all registers, this one has places for numbering transactions, recording transaction dates, and viewing balances. Everybody, or almost everybody, has a savings or checking account, so these accounts are a good place to start. These sections explain how to open an account register and view it in different ways. You also find out how to record deposits, withdrawals, and checks, as well as how to record a transfer of money from one account to another. The basic techniques for recording transactions that you discover here apply to all the accounts you set up in Money investment accounts, cash accounts, asset accounts, you name it. You can get to the Accounts window in one of three ways:

 -  Click the Account List button on the Navigation bar.

 -  Choose Accounts & Bills -> Account List.

 -  Press Ctrl+Shift+A. The Accounts window is a nice place to visit, but when you’re in a hurry, you can open an account register without going to the Accounts window first. Here are the various and sundry ways to open an account register:

 -  Click an account name in the Accounts window.

 -  Right-click an account name and choose See Account Register from the shortcut menu.

 -  Choose Favorites -> Favorite Accounts from the menu bar and then click the name of an account, assuming that you opted to make it a favorite. Favorite accounts can also be reached by choosing Accounts & Bills -> Favorite Accounts.

Recording checks, deposits, withdrawals, and debit card purchases in registers

At the bottom of the Account Register window is a form for entering transactions in the register. (If you don’t see the form, select the Show Transaction Forms check box in the upper-right corner of the window.) To enter a transaction, click a tab Withdrawal, Deposit, or Transfer and then fill in the transaction form. Which tab you click depends on which type of transaction you want to enter:

 -  Withdrawal tab: Taking money out of an account? Stealing from yourself isn’t really stealing, but so that you don’t feel guilty, let Money know how much you’re taking out on this tab. Use this tab when you record check payments and cash withdrawals any transaction in which money leaves an account.

 -  Deposit tab: When you put money into an account, record the transaction on this tab. Record all deposits to an account on this tab. That includes check deposits and deposits made at a cash machine.

 -  Transfer tab: Shifting money from one account to another? Click the Transfer tab. Follow these steps to record a check, deposit, withdrawal, cash-machine withdrawal, or debit card purchase in a register:

1. Open the register of the account in which you want to record a transaction (see “Opening an account register” earlier in this article).

2. Click the Withdrawal or Deposit tab. Is money going in or going out of the account? Outgoing money is recorded on the Withdrawal tab; incoming money is recorded on the Deposit tab.

3. Tell Money what kind of transaction you want to record. In some cases, you have to click the Common Withdrawals or Common Deposits button to describe a transaction.

• Cash withdrawal: Do nothing. You’re all set.

• ATM cash-machine withdrawal: Click the Common Withdrawals button and choose ATM. If you have made cash withdrawals before, you can choose an amount on the submenu, but if you haven’t withdrawn before or the amount you want to withdraw isn’t listed, choose Other Amount. When you are done recording the transaction, the letters ATM (automatic teller machine) will appear in the Number box of the register so that you know that the withdrawal was made at a cash machine.

• Check: Click the Common Withdrawals button and choose Write a Check. Money enters the next available check number in the Number box. If this number is incorrect, enter the correct number.

• Check to pay a credit card bill: Click the Common Withdrawals button, choose Credit Card Payment, and choose the name of the credit card issuer from the drop-down list. Later in this article, “Recording a credit card payment” explains this kind of transaction in detail.

• Debit card purchase: Click the Common Withdrawals button and choose Debit Card Purchase. (If you got cash back with your purchase, see “Recording a deposit or debit card purchase with cash back,” later in this article.)

• Cash deposit: You’re all set. Do nothing.

• Deposit of a check or checks: You’re all set, unless you want to record a deposit of more than one check or you got cash back after the deposit. See “Splitting deposits and withdrawals that don’t fit in one category” and “Recording a deposit or debit card purchase with cash back”.

4. Enter a number in the Number text box, if necessary. To move from place to place on a transaction form, click elsewhere, or press Tab or Shift+Tab. Only checks require a number, but you can enter deposit slip and withdrawal slip numbers if you want to track deposits and withdrawals carefully. Money should have entered the next available check number, but if it didn’t, click the down arrow to open the Number drop-down list and then choose Next Check Number. If the number that Money enters is incorrect, enter the correct number.

5. Enter the date in the Date text box, if necessary. Money puts today’s date in the Date text box, so you don’t need to do anything if you are recording a transaction you completed today.

6. Enter whom you’re paying the money to in the Pay To text box, or whom you received the money from in the From text box. The Deposit form has a From text box rather than a Pay To text box. You can simply type in the first few letters of a name (if you received or paid money from or to this person or party before) to scroll the list of names and go to the one you want. For deposits, enter the name of the person or business that wrote you the check or checks you deposited. For withdrawals, enter Cash if you withdrew cash from the bank. For ATM withdrawals, Money enters the word Cash automatically. If you’ve entered this name in the register before, the amount you last paid or received appears in the Amount text box. Not only that, but the category that you assigned to the last transaction with this person or company appears in the Category text box. You may not have to change the amount or category choices. If this transaction is identical to the one you recorded last time, your work is almost done and you can skip to Step 10.

7. Enter the amount of the transaction in the Amount text box. To enter a round number, you don’t have to enter the decimal point or trailing zeroes. In other words, to enter “$21.00,” all you have to type is “21.” Money adds the zeroes for you.

8. In the Category text box, enter a category (or category and subcategory). By assigning categories and subcategories to income and expense transactions, you can discover where you spend your hard-earned money and where it comes from critical information, especially if you itemize on tax forms. Expense categories are at the top of the drop-down list. Payments require an expense category. Deposits require an income category, which are found in the middle of the drop-down list.

9. If you care to, write a few words in the Memo text box to describe the transaction. Write a memo if for any reason you may come back to the account register in the future, see the transaction, and not know what it was for. 10.Click the Enter button or press the Enter key. Click the New button if you want to clear the entry form and record another transaction.

How’s your view of the register?

Try using the hard-to-find View menu in the Account Register window like a TV remote-control device to change channels when you get bored. You can change views by clicking the little triangle beside the word View and making a choice from the drop-down list. No, the views are not especially exciting, but there are worse on TV. Different kinds of registers offer different kinds of views. However, the options fall into four categories:

 -  Sort By options: Options on the Sort By submenu determine the order by which transactions appear in the register. The default is Sort by Date, which arranges transactions in date order, as the way they are arranged on bank statements, but you can also arrange transactions by number, by the order in which you entered them, by alphabetical order of the payee’s name, or by amount. The last two options on the submenu are for reversing the order of transactions.

 -  Sort by date options: Choose an option to show only transactions from the current month, current year, past three months, or past year.

 -  Number of transaction options: With the All Transactions option you guessed it all transactions appear in the register. However, to make only transactions that have not cleared the bank appear, select the Unreconciled Transactions option. This option is very handy when you are reconciling an account.

 -  Amount of detail options: To see more transactions on-screen, select the Top Line Only option. Only the first line of each transaction is shown. Select the All Transaction Details option to see all parts of transactions, including categories and memo descriptions. Ctrl+T is a toggle key command. Press it to quickly change views.

 -  Transaction forms options: Choose the second option, Enter Transactions Directly into the Register, if you prefer doing that to entering transactions on forms. To enter a transaction directly into a register, click the last empty row and choose options from the drop-down lists that appear in the register columns. Some find doing this very inconvenient, but you may like it.