When you start KMyMoney, the Home View, or Home Page, shows a high level overview of your finances. It is divided into several sections, and you can customize which are displayed, and in what order. Along the left, there are icons for each of the major Views. Each view is used by KMyMoney to present a different type of data for entry or review.

Unless you keep your money under your mattress or under the floorboards, you probably make use of one or more institutions, where you have accounts, which may be in credit or debit. In order to familiarize yourself with the way KMyMoney works, choose an account you want to track with KMyMoney and select the File → New menu item in order to set up a data file.

If you have used another personal finance manager, you may be able to import the data from it into KMyMoney.

If you have some regular receipts into or outgoings from this account, you can go to the Payees View and enter the names of both the payers and the payees involved; then go to Scheduled Transactions View and fill in a New Schedule for each recurring transaction. If you haven't entered the payee or payer, KMyMoney will offer you the opportunity to do this in the middle of entering the Schedule.

To add other transactions go to the Ledger View; you can add new payees and categories while entering a transaction or by going to the Payees or Categories View before entering the transaction.

Depending on which option you chose when setting up the data file, you will probably find that the default Categories do not exactly match your needs; you can easily delete ones you know you are never going to need and add others that you do need. But when you are entering a transaction, you only have to type a few letters of a category and KMyMoney will offer you a dropdown list of the matching categories from which to choose.

You can add different accounts managed by different institutions; the favorite ones (also called preferred) will show when you open KMyMoney but you can quickly switch to any of the others.

When you make a payment, KMyMoney will work out what the next check number should be; delete this if you are not making a check payment or edit it if the first check you enter is not check number 1. Alternatively, it is possible to switch off auto-increment of check numbers.

Every so often you may get statements of your account from the institutions you use. You can reconcile your KMyMoney accounts against these statements so that you know you have an accurate representation of the current state of your finances.

If you go to the Reports View, you will find several default reports. To customize these, open the one most similar to the sort you prefer and then select 'New' (not 'Copy'.) You can then customize this to your needs and mark it as a preferred report if you wish.

Though KMyMoney is not intended for use in a business context, if you are running a business on your own and so do not need payroll functions, you may find that KMyMoney is sufficiently customizable to meet your needs, particularly as it comes with budgeting and forecasting features, and you can export your customized reports via CSV into other applications.