Gift Transfer Between Accounts
Hi,
I wonder the best way to enter this type of transaction:
Example:
I gave my kid $1,000 as a gift, then registered it as a transfer between my checking account (000-111) and her savings account (000-222).
My question is: How do I add a category to this transaction so that when I run a year-end report, this $1,000 gift will show up under my Financial Expenses:Gifts category?
Thank you.
Jay
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1 Posted by dwg on 01 Dec, 2024 04:15 AM
A transaction cannot be both a transfer and have a category assigned, that would create a 1:2 transaction i.e. one source and two destinations - both an account and a category on one side. All transaction in Moneydance are 1:1 since it follows accounting rules.
Using a couple of categories you can enter it as two discrete transactions or as a single split transaction.
2 Posted by sth on 01 Dec, 2024 04:23 AM
transfer it from one account to the "gift" category, and then transfer it to the other account from the "gift" category.
(NOT IK Support)
3 Posted by dwg on 01 Dec, 2024 05:15 AM
I would expect that to net out to 0 in the gift category.
Support Staff 4 Posted by Ethan on 01 Dec, 2024 10:54 PM
If I'm understanding your setup correctly, it sounds like you are tracking both your checking and her savings account in the same data file? If so, I'm not sure if there's a way to cleanly do this. The program wouldn't know from an accounting perspective how to distinguish between a savings account that was yours versus one you are running for someone else, and any transfers between accounts can't also be income or expenses, since they're staying within your financial control. The actual expense comes when that money is spent from the savings, which I assume is also what you are tracking within the program? If we think through what happens in that case, you'd effectively be recording this $1000 as an expense twice: first as a gift to this savings account, and then again when the money is spent on goods or services. That would mean this $1000 would be responsible for $2000 of expenses, which wouldn't be an accurate measurement.
I'm not sure if there's a clean way to do this, so maybe others will have additional suggestions. One additional idea would be to just remember to run a report on transfers to this savings account at the end of the year, and consider these things to be expenses on your own even if that's technically not correct within the program.
Ethan
Infinite Kind Support
5 Posted by dwg on 01 Dec, 2024 11:33 PM
To do what you want to do we have to turn one transactions into two. You want the transaction to appear in 3 places:
1. Your account
2. Your Child's Account
3. An expense category
That just isn't valid, Transactions are and can only be in two places
We can make this happen with an extra category that you leave out of reporting
So for example we could have
1. Your account
2. Your Child's Account
3. A category: Gift to Child
4. A category Gift from Dad
You can use two transactions
In your account you enter the transaction using the category Gift to Child
In your child's account you enter a transaction using the category Gift from Dad.
If you want to you can combine these both into one transaction in your account using a split transaction.
6 Posted by Jay on 02 Dec, 2024 05:56 PM
Hi,
Thanks everyone for the replies.
Yes, Ethan. I am using Moneydance to track our family finances using the same file." So, I have a cheque, savings, cash, investment accounts, etc., for each family member. I tried using Tags, but they don't show up on the report, or at least didn't work for me.
DWG's suggestion will work: I will create a debit transaction from my account to my kid, categorized as Misc Expenses:Gifts:Jay and one credit transaction to her account, classified as Income:Gifts:Saoirse. So, when I run the yearly report, I can see both values: Expense from my side and Income from her.
Thanks, everyone!
Jay
7 Posted by sth on 02 Dec, 2024 06:41 PM
Yes, it should net to zero in the gift category. BUT if I ask for a report with only the source account and not the destination account, I will see a total spent on the gift category.