Mapping your finances to KMyMoneySo, collect your recent financial papers and explore the following sections for more information on how you can map your own finances to each of the different areas of KMyMoney. Note that each of these sections below is presented in more detail in later chapters of this handbook.
An “Account” in KMyMoney represents one of the “pots” of the previous section: it can be anywhere which holds your money and possessions that you wish to monitor. You generally create an account in KMyMoney to represent each different account you have in “real life,” whether it is with a bank or other financial institution, or a store, or even just the cash in your wallet. There are several types of accounts available, which represent different types of places your money may be.
Transactions (to be described in more detail later) are created to indicate money moving in or out of one or more accounts.
As described below, accounts can either hold money which is actually yours (assets) or money which you owe (liabilities.) Liabilities can be thought of as magic pots, which you can take beans from even if there are not actually any beans there, but which you eventually need to replace.
There are multiple types of Asset Accounts. They are all essentially the same, in holding your money, but there are some differences in the details of how money enters and leaves the different types of accounts.
- Checking
Standard bank checking account.
- Savings
Standard bank savings account.
- Cash
Money in your pocket or your wallet or in a jar or box on the shelf or under your bed.
- Loan
Loans you make to someone else.
- Investment
Money you invest.
- Asset
Property, collections, etc.
These represent financial institutions, such as banks or stores or investment brokers. They can be used to group accounts, and can show the total value of all your accounts within that institution. These do not need to reflect actual organizations, but are for your convenience in grouping your accounts. Their use is completely optional.
A Category is a special type of account used internally by KMyMoney to track income and expenses. These accounts are non-managed, because as mentioned earlier, they do not have real values, and show only what you have gotten from them or contributed to them. Each category shows the total value of transactions which mention it. The principle of double entry accounting requires that every transaction includes a category or transfer account. This will also be explained in more detail later in the handbook.
Income Categories are used as places from which you receive money, and Expense Categories represent purposes for which you spend money. On rare occasion, money can flow the "wrong" way, such as getting a refund for an over-payment of a utility bill.
Categories can be split into sub-categories, but this relationship is primarily for your convenience, and is used for display purposes. Most of the time, the sub-category totals are not included in the higher level category total, although there are specific reports and displays where this can be done.
Tags are very similar to Categories, as they are also non-managed accounts that do not have a value. However, unlike Categories, the use of Tags is completely optional. They can be used to group transactions for reporting purposes.
A Payee (or Payer) represents someone or some group to which you pay money or which pays you money. As with Tags, they are non-managed, and do not have a value. They are primarily a convenience for being able to report how much money you have sent to someone or spent at a particular store. These are optional for most transactions, but are required for Scheduled transactions, which are describe below. A transaction history, with categories, can be shown for each payee.