Is there a way to record the method of payment from an account, in the ledger?

For example from a single account you could make payments by Cheque, Credit Card, Direct Deduction, Auto Transfer, BPAY, EFTPOS and so on, all from the same account.

At present I have had to sacrifice the Transaction No. field and enter codes indicating the trans-type, it would be better to have a separate searchable field in the ledger for this.

Is it possible to create a user-defined field in the ledger?

The transaction number is typically used for checks. Credit card payments really should be entered in a separate credit card "liability" account. You have transfer transactions for movements between accounts. I have created a "Cash withdrawal" category for ATM withdrawals. I then use the split transactions to assign individual cash expenses (at least those that I want to keep track of). You could use the same trick for EFTPOS, debit and other kinds of payments. You can also use the Memo field to some extent. It cannot be used for reports, but it will show up in search results for the ledger.

As zebulon says, you should have a separate liability account for your Credit card. Similarly, if you want to withdraw cash from an ATM and then keep track of expenditure, you should set up a Cash account to handle this and record the ATM wthdrawal as a transfer.

Ideally all your Check account payments should match the statement relating to your Check account; all your Credit account payments should match your Credit account statement and so on.

You don't say where you come from but I examine charity accounts in England and, for example. having separate Check, Deposit and Cash accounts for the charity makes the job of examining the bank statements and cash receipts so much easier. For the year end report, KMyMoney can compile a single report listing the amounts spent under each category from all three accounts.

Thanks for the suggestions,

While building separate accounts to cater for different payment methods is an acceptable approach for corporations and organisations (they thrive on complex accounting procedures), a simpler approach is needed for personal accounting.

These days, where I am, people's personal bank accounts are usually all-in-one accounts, where your cheque books, credit cards, debit cards and so on are all attached to a single savings account.

This means that you want your ledger to match the bank's online accessible dynamic statement so that at all times you can check that your records and the banks are always in sync (and to immediately highlight any unauthorised transactions), and you can also see at-a-glance what your balance is, without going through a tricky reconciliation process.

Banks these days also like to charge fees for anything that moves (or doesn't move) so you need to keep a track of payment 'modes' because they each attract a different fee, but usually you only need to know a count of each.

I have evaluated most of the freely available personal finance packages available under Linux and found the feature that I was asking about is included in many of them.

Although there are several very good packages available, they all seem to lack some crucial element of some type, e.g. some don't support split transactions (an essential feature in my opinion), some don't support fiscal years other than calendar years, some don't have reconciliation features and so on.

KMyMoney I have found to be the most comprehensive (just lacking this minor feature) so I will continue to use it and make use of the cheque no. field as a payment mode field.

Cheers.

Thanks for that explanation. I am not sure how many people in the UK have integrated accounts of the sort you describe. My impression is that most financial institutions offer separate accounts for each type of payment and/or people use differet institutions for different types of finance - so they inevitably have separate accounts.

However, in the 1950s insurance companies hit on the idea of combining fire, life, motor, house, contents personal accident insurance etc into a single contract covering all types of insurance; so it is possible banks may follow suit - as a way of keeping customers.

So you may have usefully alertrf the developers to a new direction for development.

Like you, I find KMyMoney by far the best of the personal accounting suites.

Even without a fully integrated account, I can see being able to extract money from a checking account by actually writing a check, withdrawing cash from an ATM, using a debit card, or making an online payment. Depending on where the money goes, it might be recorded as a withdrawal or a transfer.

I am tempted to create a wishlist item for this, so it doesn't get forgotten.

I am not a financial expert at all, but to me all transactions you just listed qualify as withdrawals. Of course, it all depends on what your definition of transfer/withdrawal is, but I thought transfers are bank-to-bank operations where the payee is an (external) account number. In a withdrawal, there is at least one intermediate step which is outside the control of the issuing bank. That's just my feeling; I did not research it.

Yes, they are all withdrawals, but as was pointed out near the beginning of the thread, banks might have different fees for each type, so the user might have a reason to keep track of how many of each type occur in a month.

Transfer is perhaps a bit funny in that from the institution's perspective, a transfer is a withdrawal along with a deposit to another account in the same institution or an electronic transfer to another institution. From the KMyMoney user's perspective, it's a transfer if the money goes into another account, as opposed to going to a payee for which you have not set up an account.

I support Currawong wholeheartedly. I do not care what the Bank wants, i care for what I need to fill in my Tax return. And that is a simple bookkeeping of about a 22 cm high pile of bills, invoices and direct cash expenditure, all nicely put into categories of income an expense. I use practically no checks anymore, cash payment (and receivement) is much better and much less traceable.

So, I have an all-inclusive personal joint bank account with my wife, where everything «banky» has to run and a lot of cash transactions.

I do use the first column to indicate the method ho the money changed hands in the same way as Currawong has indicated.

Please read also my other post relating to the sorting of KMyMoney. I have listed a wish-report and hope of some support.

Here is another reason for the need of a 'payment type' field.

As mentioned earlier, our banks charge fees for all transactions and different fees for different payment methods, but as an incentive, if you maintain a specified minimum balance then you can get a specified number of your transactions fee-free each month, a different number for each payment method.

So before doing the weekly shopping I need to query KMyMoney to see how many of each payment type has already been made in the current month so I know how many fee-free transactions I have left.

In addition I need to track 2 types of ATM transactions, because fees charged are different for transactions on the bank's own ATM and transactions made on other bank's ATMs.

It just gets more complex (and silly) by the day, but having a reportable 'Payment Type' field will make all this easier.

currawong wrote:our banks charge fees for all transactions and different fees for different payment methods, but as an incentive, if you maintain a specified minimum balance then you can get a specified number of your transactions fee-free each month, a different number for each payment method.

I'd rush to find another bank! And if they are all doing it, revolt must be stirring? This is horrible.

All UK Banks can send money out of any account be it savings type or 'USA Check' (a UK "current account" or chequing account) in may different ways. These allow for In UK a "TRANSFER" which is a transfer of money between accounst held with same institution e.g. surplus Chequing account to a savings account of reverse. Bank withdrawal from any account to another bank's account is NEVER a transfer, but a withdrawal.
Typical methods for withdrawal or transfer are: (1) BACS (an automated bank to bank transfer to either abank or a customer of a bank, e.g a payment to your auto repair firms bank account;
(2) CHAPS similar to a BACS but transfer within about one hour of request, whereas BACS is within one banking day.
(3) Cheque/Check a handwritten manual bill of exchange sent to another perosn or institution; takes about 7 days to clear after receipt by bank from person paying cheque/check into bank.
(4) Direct Debit [DD] a BACS payment based on your instructons to another person/institution to draw down a fixed or varoible amounts from your designated account at specific intervals. e.g. payment of a monthly utility bill. the utility company just asks for payment bank sends. e.g. Pay taxes by DD is based automatically on your report of income. Government calculates and withdraws amount of tax automatically from your designated account.
(5) Standing Orders [SO] a BACs type payment based on your SPECIFIC Written orders to your bank to pay a fixed sum at regular or irrecgular intervals to a named person/institution e.g. a Yearly fixed sum paid to a charity such as Red Cross / Red Cresent. Your yearly donation.
NOTE: Difference between DD and SO is that you control SO drawdown amounts and intervals; while in a DD you can control intervals but NOT the amount drawn down.
(6) Bank Warrant = USA certified check/cheque. Amount goes to bank suspension acount at your setting up bank warrant, and the warrant is a bill of exchnage with sum guaranteed (used to buy ships/houses/property). as Bank warrant is lodged with your lawyer for settlement of money on transfer of property.

This is reason for request for 'Type of payment' as it can occur in Uk and Europe with any type of account.

Currawong,

Instead of losing use of the check number field, what about actually using it. Use a separate prefix for each type of transaction, followed by a number reflecting the number of that type of transaction in the month. KMM probably will not be able to correctly autoassign the numbers, but the previous one shouldn't be too far up in the ledger. You might not get it set when you enter or import the transaction, and might have to edit it afterwards, but it could be a way to track what you have asked for.

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned - what about using tags? You never said which version of KMM you are using, and which platform/distro.