# Accounts

## The Accounts View

The Accounts view provides a summary of all the accounts. It is similar to the Institutions view, except accounts are grouped under the Asset and Liability asset categories. Typical asset accounts include bank accounts, cash, and investments, while typical liability accounts include credit cards and loans.

There are actually two other account categories: Income and Expense. Categories are a way to organize your transaction; they are grouped under either the Income or Expense account category and are treated internally by &kmymoney; as accounts. They are described in more detail in the chapter on Categories. The Income and Expense account categories are always displayed in the Categories view, but it is possible to configure &kmymoney; to also display them on the Accounts view.

account view account view

Similar to the Institutions view, the Accounts view displays several columns with descriptive and summary information about each account. The rest of this chapter will focus on Asset and Liability account functionality. Income and Expense accounts, &ie;, Categories, are described in the chapter on Categories.

## Creating an Account

You must have a file open before you can create a new account. If you do not have an existing file, you will need to create one.

To create a new account, you can either select the Account New account... menu item or choose the new account icon from the toolbar. You can also create an account from the Accounts view; click on the Accounts icon in the view selector and then right click on the Asset or Liability tree icon and select New account... from the popup menu.

### The Institution (Bank) name

Account Wizard

The first step involves selecting an institution for the account. If this is an account for an institution you have already created, you can select the institution from the dropdown list. If you want to create a new institution, click on the New Institution button. This will bring up the New Institution Dialog, as described in the previous section. If this is not a bank account, or if you do not want to use online banking, you do not need to specify an institution.

The Account Number and the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) are not currently used by &kmymoney;. These fields may be left blank and filled in at a later time; they are only required for online banking.

To proceed to the next step click on Next.

### Account

Account Wizard

First, enter a name for the account. This name will be used to identify it.

Next, select the type of account from one of the types available from the dropdown list. Different account types are handled differently within &kmymoney;, so it is important to choose the correct type when creating the account. Also, different types of accounts require different setup information, and may display different pages in the new account setup wizard to collect that information.

Checking

- A normal checking account, the type you get with any bank or credit union.

Savings

- A normal savings account, the type you get with any bank or credit union.

Credit Card

- An account to represent your credit card.

Cash

- A general purpose account, typically used for accounts not held at a bank, such as the cash in your wallet.

Loan

- An account to manage a loan for money either borrowed or lent. With a Loan account &kmymoney; automatically calculates interest payments to help you track the remaining principal on the loan. Loans with no interest might use the plain Asset or Liability type below, depending on whether the money is lent or borrowed.

Investment

- An account to manage an investment such as stocks, bonds, or mutual funds.

Asset

- An account to manage an asset that does not fit in one of the above types.

Liability

- An account to manage a money you owe or a future expense that does not fit in one of the above types. This is most commonly used for loans with no interest. If interest needs to be calculated, you might be better using the Loan type above.

Select the currency to be used for the account from the dropdown list.

Enter the date the account was opened or select it from the calendar using the icon to the right. You will not be able to enter any transaction with a date earlier than the account opening date, but you can change this date later, if necessary.

Enter the opening balance for the account. If this is an existing bank account, this information can be found on your statement. If it is a new account, the opening balance can be left at zero.

Selecting the Preferred Account check box will allow preferred access in some dialogs and views of &kmymoney;.

To proceed to the next step click on Next.

### Credit Card Accounts

When creating a Credit Card account, after entering the basic information and clicking Next, you can optionally have &kmymoney; create a scheduled transaction for you.

Account Wizard

If you want such a transaction generated, make sure the check box is selected and enter the required information.

Click on Next to continue.

### Investment Accounts

In &kmymoney;, Investment accounts contain only equities (stocks, bonds, &etc;) but do not contain cash. (This is why you cannot specify a Opening balance for an Investment account.) If a transaction in an Investment account requires or generates cash (such as to buy or sell stock,) a Brokerage account is used for the cash. Brokerage accounts are described further in the chapter on Investments. When you create a new Investment account, after entering the basic information, and clicking Next, you have the option to create an associated Brokerage account.

Account Wizard

It is generally best to create the Brokerage account here, which will be given the same name as the Investment account, with "(Brokerage)" appended. Currently it is not possible to specify the opening date or balance for the Brokerage account at this point; you may do by editing the account details after the account has been created.

### Loan Accounts

Loan accounts are special accounts used to help you manage Loans with interest and scheduled repayments. By providing &kmymoney; with information about the loan, &kmymoney; can help you track interest payments and the remaining principal of the loan.

Account Wizard

On the Details page you enter the general information about the loan.

First, select whether you are borrowing or lending money. If you are borrowing money the loan will be listed in Accounts under Liabilities. If you are lending money the loan will be listed under Assets.

Next, select the payee or payer of the loan. As always, if the name doesn't yet exist in the Payees list, enter it here and &kmymoney; will create it for you.

The next three items are for handling Loans on which you've already made payments. If you select Yes in the Did you make/receive any payments yet? dropdown, you can then select whether you want to record all payments or just those from the beginning of the current year. If you want to record from the beginning of the current year, you are than asked to input the balance at the beginning of this year.

Next, select how often payments will be made and how often interest is compounded. Compounding is where the interest is added to the amount owed on the loan so that when the interest is next calculated there will be more interest paid on the interest. It's common for interest to be compounded at the same frequency that payments are made.

Next, enter the date the first payment to be recorded.

Finally, enter information about how the interest rate varies. If the loan is fixed-rate there is nothing to do. If the rate varies, select Variable in Type of interest rate and then enter the interval between interest rate changes and the date the first change of interest rate is due: &kmymoney; will ask you to update the interest rate when that date arrives. Click Next to continue.

Account Wizard

The Payments page is where you enter the payment and interest values for the loan.

First, select whether the interest rate is calculated when the payment is received or when it becomes due. If you don't know, leave it on the default value.

Next, enter the following values:

Loan amount

- The amount of the loan.

Interest rate

- The annual percentage interest rate of the loan.

Term

- The length of the loan. Enter a number and select either Months or Years.

Payment (principal and interest)

- The amount of each loan payment. This is the total of the principal and interest paid with each payment.

Balloon payment

- Additional final payment made at the end of the term to pay off the remaining principal of the loan. For a repayment loan this is often zero. For an interest-only loan this will be the same as the loan amount.

Finally, use the Calculate button to check the values you have entered. You must have entered either all or all but one of the values listed above. If you omit two or more values the button is disabled because it is not possible to check that the entered values are consistent: in that case you will not be able to use the Loan account facility in &kmymoney; and will instead have to use a Liability or Asset account to track the loan manually.

If you omit one value, &kmymoney; will try to calculate it for you. If you have entered all values &kmymoney; will check the values are consistent. &kmymoney; will not adjust entered values other than the "Balloon payment", which it may adjust slightly to deal with rounding. If the values are inconsistent or &kmymoney; cannot calculate the omitted value, &kmymoney; will let you know so that you can correct any errors and repeat the calculation.

Once the values are consistent, the Next button is enabled and you can advance to the next page.

Account Wizard

The Fees page is where you can enter any fees added to the loan payments.

If there are any fees press the Additional Fees button. The Transaction Split editor will be displayed for entry of the fees. Any lines added here will be included in the payment schedule for the loan. When you save the splits the Fees page will display the principal and interest payment, the total additional fees, and the total periodic payment.

Account Wizard

&kmymoney; will create a scheduled transaction for your loan. The Schedule page is where you enter the remaining details needed to create the schedule.

First enter the Category to which loan interest will be assigned. Then enter the account from which the loan payment will be made.

The page also displays the first payment date for which the Schedule will be created.

Account Wizard

Optionally, &kmymoney; can create a transaction representing what was received or paid when the loan was created.

If you borrowed or lent cash select the account from which or to which the loan amount was paid.

If you borrowed money to purchase a car you can select or create an Asset account to help you track the value of the new car.

If you re-financed an existing Loan, check the Refinance existing loan check box, select the Loan account and &kmymoney; will create a transfer transaction paying off the existing loan.

If you don't want to create the payout transaction, check the Do not create payout transaction check box.

### Parent Account

Parent Account Account Wizard

This is the penultimate step in creating any new account except a loan. Depending on the type of account that is being created, a tree of your Asset or Liability accounts will be displayed.

The Parent Account page is not currently shown for Loans because they cannot be created as subaccounts. Also, Investment accounts cannot contain other accounts so they are not shown in the tree.

Select the account you wish contain the new account. If you do not select a parent account, the new account will be created at the top level.

### Review and save the account details

Review Account Wizard

This is the final step in creating a new account. A summary of the information entered is displayed. Review it, and if everything is OK press Finish. Otherwise, either press Back to make corrections or Cancel to abandon creating the new account.

The Type and Currency cannot at present be changed after the account is created.

## Opening / viewing accounts

To open an account in the Ledger view you can either click on the link to the account from the Home view, or click on the ledgers icon in the view selector and select the account in the drop down box at the top of the view. Alternatively, in the Account view, either double-click the account entry or right click and select Open ledger.

## Editing Account Information

To edit a particular account, right-click that account and choose Edit account... or with that account open in the ledger, select Account Edit Account.... A window will pop-up with several tabs, each allowing you to view and change certain information about the account. For more information on any of these details, see the section on creating a new account.

Edit an account Edit account information

## General

View the general information about the account, and change the name, start or opening date, as well as some of the other basic settings of the account.

## Institution

View and change the associated banking institution and account numbers. You can also create a new institution here.

## Hierarchy

You can change the parent account by clicking on another parent account in this view of the account hierarchy.

## Limits

This tab is only present for asset and liability accounts. If you enter amounts in the available fields, &kmymoney; will warn you when the account balance reaches those values.

## Tax

Here you can check whether this is a VAT account, and whether to include this account on tax reports.

## Online Settings

This tab is only be present if the account has been mapped to an online account. It has three subtabs.

- Account Details: This shows the status of the online connection, the bank/broker and account number, and allows you to store or change the password for the online account.

- OFX Details: Here you can adjust certain details &kmymoney; uses when it establishes an OFX connection with the institution. This should only be necessary if you get certain errors when you first set up the online account, or perhaps if your institution changes its OFX server software.

- Import Details: Here you can tell &kmymoney; what to use as the start date for the import. In addition, starting with version 4.6, you can choose whether the payee's name is based on the PAYEEID, NAME, or MEMO field of the imported transaction.

## Deleting accounts

To delete an account, first remove all the transactions from that account in the ledger. Next, find the account in the accounts view and after right clicking on the entry to show the popup menu select Delete account... from the popup menu.

If you are unable to delete an account which looks like it has no transactions in it, check your filter. See Settings Configure &kmymoney; General Filter . Clear all filters. Set the start date to 1.1.1900 or so.

There may be transactions in your ledger that are not shown, for example, if you have inadvertently typed in the wrong year when making an entry so that an entry remains outside the opening date of &kmymoney;. This appears beneath the ledger page as remaining funds.