Hello,

I'm testing KMyMoney to get a better overview of personal financies. Currently I use it with one Giro account on a German Sparkasse and import using the QIF format (other choices are QFX and CSV).

1) Some payees are labeled differently (e.g. when buying tickets for public transportation, it's "MVG thisplace", "MVG thatplace", ...) which are essentially the same. Can I join them?
EDIT: Delete them and reassign to another payee.

2) When using "Match on a name listed below" for payees. Can I use wildcards or regular expressions?

3) When looking at Payees -> Transactions, is there a way to change the size of the columns? There is one columens of whichs heading I just see "C" and got no idea what is is? Can I order the transactions for some column? (just the standard table operations you would expect). Some for the ledger column.

4) Use case example: I manage a server, several friends of mine have user account on it and pay 4 Eur per month, the server costs 20 Eur per months and is withdrawn quartely. How would I model this situation? (categories, accounts?) I want to check if everybody paid and see if I get more or less money that I pay to the server and see what the plus/minus is.

Thanks!

Florian

Florian, thanks for the interest in KMyMoney. While you are testing it, you should be aware of the documentation that comes with it. Most of your questions should be answered already. I'll give it a try to find the bits of information:

1) Simply delete the one's you don't need and you will be asked to assign the transactions referencing the payee to be deleted to another one. http://kmymoney.org/kde4/online-manual/details.payees.html#idp38238736

2) Yes, regular expressions are supported. http://kmymoney.org/kde4/online-manual/details.payees.personalinformation.html#idp38248416

3) Check the description for reconciliation http://kmymoney.org/kde4/online-manual/details.reconcile.wizard.html#details.reconcile.wizard.clearing for details of that C column and http://kmymoney.org/kde4/online-manual/details.ledgers.html#idp38573168 for sorting options.

4) Create a separate asset account for each member of the group (maybe except yourself). Setup a scheduled split transaction for one of those accounts with an amount of 4 EUR. Add the other accounts as splits. Use their asset account as category and 4 EUR as amount. As last split, add a suitable income category (e.g. "Einnahmen Server") and assign it -16 EUR (that minus is important to balance the transaction). Once you receive the money (e.g. on your checking account (Girokonto)) add a transfer transaction from the personalized asset account to your checking account. Thus the balance of the personalized accounts tell you what each of your friends owe you. In case you need more help let us know.

You can setup another scheduled transaction to manage the payment towards the ISP. This one would receive a quarterly recurrence period.

p.s. KMyMoney also supports HBCI for statement download in case your institution offers such an online service.

ipwizard wrote:4) Create a separate asset account for each member of the group (maybe except yourself). Setup a scheduled split transaction for one of those accounts with an amount of 4 EUR. Add the other accounts as splits. Use their asset account as category and 4 EUR as amount. As last split, add a suitable income category (e.g. "Einnahmen Server") and assign it -16 EUR (that minus is important to balance the transaction). Once you receive the money (e.g. on your checking account (Girokonto)) add a transfer transaction from the personalized asset account to your checking account. Thus the balance of the personalized accounts tell you what each of your friends owe you. In case you need more help let us know.

Thanks for your explanation, since I'm an engineering, not a financial guy I still have some problems understanding.

1) How should the hierarchy of accounts be? Since everything runs on my "physical" account Giro, should the Server accounts be placed below it?

2) I've created a bunch of asset accounts for each member and assigned the existing payments from them. Now every one of these accounts show a negative balance (yes, they paid me, so they lost money), therefore positive balance of these accounts means that they owe me. Is that correct?

3) To "neutralize" that I pay them 4 Eur each month (which is not actual money, but the value of the server usage share). Correct?

Thanks!

Horus wrote:Thanks for your explanation, since I'm an engineering, not a financial guy I still have some problems understanding.

I am an engineer myself but learned a lot about accounting while working on the KMyMoney project.

Horus wrote:1) How should the hierarchy of accounts be? Since everything runs on my "physical" account Giro, should the Server accounts be placed below it?
2) I've created a bunch of asset accounts for each member and assigned the existing payments from them. Now every one of these accounts show a negative balance (yes, they paid me, so they lost money), therefore positive balance of these accounts means that they owe me. Is that correct?
3) To "neutralize" that I pay them 4 Eur each month (which is not actual money, but the value of the server usage share). Correct?
Thanks!

1) It doesn't matter. They don't need to be sub-accounts of your Girokonto (checking or current account for the non-German speakers here). I would probably create an asset-account 'Serverbeteiligung' and have a sub-account underneath for each user.
2) Yes. If the balance is positive it will show you that they owe money. Once they pay, you transfer that money within KMyMoney from the asset-account to your Giro which identifies that you now have the money in your account.
3) You don't actually pay them the money. You enter a transaction in the asset account each month and categorize it against an income category. The asset accounts for your server users usually run under the term "Offene Forderungen" (bills receivable).

This is an interesting use-case. Maybe someone can produce a short video for it We are more than happy to post it on our project web-site.