I use my credit card for all my purchases (it is a cash back credit card).
Then when I get my statement I pay the credit card bill with my checking
account. Basically the only transactions in my checking account are
deposits, checks I have written and bills that come out of my checking
account. Should I just put all my transactions into one account in money or
should I have a separate checking account and a credit card account? Thanks.
Normally you would want to have a separate checking account.
Tracking your checking account is good. I suspect you make your tax
payments from there, and keeping track of those is usually important
at tax time. Paying income tax and property tax with a credit card
is expensive. Also, payments to individuals, and gifts would not be
compatible with paying by credit card.
Check your bank. Maybe you can download transactions with minimal
stress. If you choose to not track checking, I suggest you consider
method 2 below:
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There is more than one good way to download your credit card
data and have also the payment downloaded from a checking account.
Here are two ways I like:
1. When you process the first transaction of the credit card
payment, set the category as a transfer to the other ( credit card
or bank account), or use the equivalent "SPECIAL Credit Card
Payment" category. When you process the second transaction,Money
should match it. Be careful to not just Accept if Money did not
find the match on its own for some reason. Click Change and match
it to the transfer you already made if Money did not match it for
you. I would consider this the classic of the ways I like. Note
that for this you would *not* use the Money "EXPENSE Credit Card
Payment". I would Delete that category.
2. In method 2, don't handle credit card payments as transfers or
the pre-defined "Credit Card Payment Instead create one category of
"CC payment" or some such. If you define the category as an
expense category, expect a warning when you use it to represent the
payment within the credit card account -- if you have the warning
enabled. Just click Yes in response to the warning. The category
should net at zero in reports across accounts, and you can still
customize to ignore the category if you like. For this method you
could use the Money "EXPENSE Credit Card Payment".
