I have a set of accounts at a Credit Union. They are Savings, Checking, Visa Credit Card and a HELOC.

I have Direct Deposit. It goes into checking.
I also have a bi-monthly transfer out of checking and in to savings
I pay my credit card bill by transferring money out of checking and in to the Visa
I take money out of the HELOC by pulling it from the HELOC and putting it in to savings
I pay the HELOC by transferring money out of checking and in to the HELOC account

I tried setting these up as transfers in KMyMoney (but I did not set up all of the accounts at that point)
When the transactions are unassigned, my balances are correct. They match what the credit union says.
When I set them up as stand-alone accounts and treated the transfers as:
withdrawal from checking
deposit to savings
(two completely separate and independent transactions) - my accounts matched what the credit union shows online

When I set them up as transfers, my balances where way off. Although this could be my fault as I only did one end of the transfer and not both.

Do people handle the above scenario as transfers from one account to another? Or do they set them up as completely separate and independent actions?

First take a look at the chapter about Basic Accounting in the KMyMoney handbook. Let's say you have a current account in KMyMoney (C) and a savings one (S) in a fresh file. When you transfer money from C to S then you select the ledger view of C and enter a transfer transaction. As category (once you hit the transfer tab the label changes to 'Transfer from/to') you select S. Make sure to select Pay to in the combobox left to the payee field which changes the label to Transfer to for sure. Then enter the amount you want to transfer and save the transaction. That's all you need to do.

If both accounts had a balance of zero before you do this and you transferred 100, then C now has a balance of -100 and S one of +100. In sum it's still zero which is what we expect after the principles of basic accounting. You did not earn money nor did you loose any. Your so called networth is still zero.

A third account (a so called transfer account) may come into play if your bank(s) decide to keep the money for some time. So if the money goes out of C on a Friday and gets posted to S on the following Monday, you cannot use the simple approach outlined above since you can have only one date for each transaction. Since you need two now, you setup a third account, the transfer account (T). With that in place, you enter one transaction on Friday from C to T and on with Monday as post date from T to S. If you have all accounts at the same bank, chances are high that the simple approach works for you. Looking at that scenario you have the following balances:

Code: Select all

            C     T      S
----------------------------
Thursday     0      0      0  - no money in either account
Friday    -100   +100      0  - transfer money from C to T
Monday    -100      0   +100  - transfer money from T to S


The transfer account T usually carries a balance of zero. If it is not, then something is missing. You would only need a single account T for any such transaction pair. No need to have one for each pair of accounts. In no case, you want to use a withdrawal and a separate deposit. This does not work and your account balances or only correct if your withdrawal and deposit transactions don't have an assignment to a counter account (which is a fault in double entry accounting). BTW: categories are nothing else than accounts in that matter. We just use a different name here to identify them as income and expense accounts.

Hope that helps a bit.

Darn. I should have read the documentation first. I don't see a way to change a transaction from a deposit or withdrawal to a transfer. Playing around with deleting transactions and downloading again versus setting it up clean.

callmebruce wrote:Darn. I should have read the documentation first.

callmebruce wrote:I don't see a way to change a transaction from a deposit or withdrawal to a transfer.

Simply edit the transaction and select the account to which you want to transfer as category. That's it. If you have two transactions which are in fact duplicates, try the Transaction Matching feature. That should take care of a scenario.where you download from two different banks and you import the same thing twice.

I downloaded again in OFX Format. Pulled my checking, savings, visa and HELOC. Applied transfers. And my balances on the HELOC are off, even though I have transactions from day one of the account. I think I may be getting into trouble with either the transfers, or possibly need to mark transactions as duplicates.

On 9/30/13 I opened the HELOC, ccount xxxxL34
I took $5,000 from that HELOC and moved it in to Checking account xxxxS50
When I am online at my bank, I see these as two distinct actions. These also appeared as two distinct actions in KMyMoney before I marked them as transfers.
Now when I view my HELOC in KMyMoney, I see the $5,000 coming out twice from my HELOC.

I see an entry one:
five thousand dollars HB as one entry (that is what my wife entered online at the bank as a memo).
It is on 9/30/13 and is for 5,000. I have the HELOC set up as a liability account, so this shows up as an Increase. (an increase in liability?)

I also see entry two - which was originally under my Checking account. Now since I marked it as a transfer, it also shows in my HELOC account.
Same date. Same amount. Another 5,000 increase (in liability)
Description is 5,000 HB Advance from HELOC

Would I click on both of these entries, then mark them as duplicates? I can't click on match, I think because they were downloaded in an OFX file rather than manually entered. Is marking these as duplicates the action one would take, when the entries show up twice under one account? - well, they show up twice under the HELOC account as two increases in liability, changing my liability increase by 10,000 rather than 5,000. Then when I go into my Checking account they show up twice as two transfers moving that account in the positive direction by 10,000 rather than 5,000.

Duplicate is certainly not what you want as it creates a duplicate of the transaction. We want to get rid of one here, though. Did you mention the version of KMyMoney you are using already? I did not spot it right away, so I might ask for some information already mentioned.

I'm running 4.6.6 from the Ubuntu archives.

Is it possible for you to upgrade to 4.8.0 so that we gain access to the latest features? Recent Ubuntu packages can be found e.g. on Claydoh's PPA. It could be, that the merging function you need is available in the new version. Even though the data file is compatible between the two versions, it is always a good idea to keep a copy of its state before the update.

That lets me click on two entries and select match. I'll go through my accounts in the morning. Thanks!