[moneydance] Fwd: Help !! Please tell me I'm crazy !! or dumb or..

[Katahdin]

On 3/5/08, Fuzzy Fox <fox at foxtaur.com> wrote:
 > Katahdin <MoneyDance at intermod.net> wrote:
 >  >
 >
 > > Unfortunately, for old guys like me who learned it one way, basic
 >  > accounting standards, it was/is still confusing when you're looking at
 >  > historical JE (journal entries), which in my case are mostly splits to
 >  > one type or another acct.  It's like having to drive on the left (or
 >  > right) depending on where you are !!
 >
 >
 > I was just telling you how Moneydance works; it doesn't mean I think it
 >  makes sense, or that I think it should work that way.  :)
 >


I know that - thank you - just in emails hard to sound right !! ;=}
 You sounded like "I" wrote the 'simple".... ....


 >
 >  > So how about the Income / Expense accts?
 >
 >
 > You know, I have never looked closely at these.  My assumption would
 >  have been that Income accounts, because you draw money from them and
 >  store them into your accounts, should have Negative balances.


I don't understand that - that logic would mean that your checking
 acct (asset) should be a neg - you draw money..

 It's all about debit  & credits
 To me its like algebra : assets & expense are '+' accts, others are '-' accts.
 So if '-' acct its the reverse action.


  And
 >  Expense accounts should have positive balances, from all the money you
 >  are transferring into them.
 >
 >  However, to my surprise, they both have positive balances.  And this is
 >  done by swapping the Increase / Decrease columns in the Income account
 >  type.
 >
 >
 >  > BUT - One of the reasons, I (and many others) liked the original Dos
 >  > Quicken, is that the accounting transactions were clean and simple.
 >
 >
 > I came from the old Quicken days, too (I still use Ctrl-Alt-Q hotkey, to
 >  launch Moneydance!), and I always thought the fact that Credit Cards and
 >  Loans had Positive balances when you owed money to them, just made
 >  sense.  The bills that the banks sent you display the amounts in this
 >  manner, so it was consistent with that.
 >
 >  I always thought Moneydance was simply being slavishly consistent to its
 >  own internal accounting model, and that was the reason these accounts
 >  showed negative balances all the time.  But now that I've seen how
 >  Income accounts look, I realize that Moneydance is not even following
 >  its own rules consistently, and I find that that annoys me.
 >
 >  Of course, Intuit no longer makes any version of Quicken that I am
 >  interested in using.  Moneydance is the best around.  :)


After all this time, I can see why u do, but looks like I need basic
 accounting reports and flexibility that not available. Seems quite a
 few posts on the forum about the similar issues. People who complain,
 recommend or post only represent a small percentage.  That's why I
 keep saying or going back to the functions that are available in the
 old Dos quicken, which I would have thought would be the starting
 point in developing this package.  Too bad the developer hadn't used
 that program before he started.

 Since you know how MD is organized - can you tell how I pull out the
 appropriate income & expense transaction associated with x asset or
 liab accts?   Its sorta like filtering in - based on the 'other side'
 of the trans being in a selected acct.

 Also I keep using Ctrl-X to pop up 'other side' trans !!  Think ctrl-X
 and Ctrl-A,Ctrl-C, make sense for show Accts, show Categories too. !!!

 >
 >  --

>   Fuzzy Fox <fox at foxtaur.com>
 >   "Why a man would want a wife is a big mystery to some people.
 >    Why a man would want two wives is a bigamystery."
 >  _______________________________________________
 >
 > moneydance-info mailing list
 >  moneydance-info at moneydance.com
 >  http://moneydance.com/mailman/listinfo/moneydance-info
 >



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