How to think about Category and Account when moving over from Quicken
I've recently moved over from Quicken, and am still trying to get the hang of things w/r/t how MD does it.
One thing that I keep running into is how to think about "Category" and "Account". In Quicken, both were... recorded (?- for lack of a better word)... as the same thing in Quicken's "Category" field, e.g. "Bank: Interest" (to represent receiving interest) or "[Account XX]" to represent a transfer to account "Account XX".
If you look at the attached screenshot I have two MD windows showing the same transaction from different POVs...
- The top one shows looking at records for "Interest Income"
- The bottom one shows a Interest Income transaction from one of my investing accounts.
In the top window you can see that the name of the account shows in the "Category" field. However, in the bottom screenshot the "Category" field shows a value of "Interest Income".
If MD treats Accounts and Category as separate things, then shouldn't perhaps the "Category" field in the top window instead state "Account"? Or am I thinking about all of this wrong? :-)
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2023-01-28_10_42_41-Window.png
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2023-01-28_10_42_41-Window.png
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1 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 28 Jan, 2023 04:10 PM
In MD, a category is actually an account.....
Always enter transactions into accounts and then enter the category in the category field..
try NOT to ever view / adjust txns from a category register - you will likely get into a mess.
You can also enter an account in the category field to transfer from one account to another..
2 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 28 Jan, 2023 04:11 PM
So, don't do the top view (interest income), use the 2nd view (Greg's IRA)