Microsoft<sup>®</sup> Money 2004 For Dummies<sup>®</sup>,9780764541957

Microsoft^® Money 2004 For Dummies^®

by Peter Weverka (San Francisco, CA, Author )

ISBN13: 9780764541957

ISBN10: 0764541951

Format: Paperback

Pub. Date: 2003-10-01

Publisher(s): For Dummies

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Summary

Includes a glossary to help you better understand financial terms Keep track of your bills, get reports on your finances, and manage your cash flow Taking charge of your finances does not mean yelling "Charge it!" (Although you can probably charge this book, if you choose.) Inside, you'll find out how easily Microsoft Money 2004 can help you manage your money, keep track of your accounts and investments, plan for retirement, be prepared at tax time, and a whole lot more. Discover how to: * Set up accounts and record transactions * Download bank statements * Schedule payments so your bills get paid on time * Analyze investments and loans * Track assets and liabilities The Dummies Way * Explanations in plain English * "Get in, get out" information * Icons and other navigational aids * Tear-out cheat sheet * Top ten lists * A dash of humor and fun

Author Biography

Peter Weverka (San Francisco, CA) is the author of more than two-dozen computer books. There are more than 500,000 copies of his previous works in print and several have been translated into as many as 12 different languages. Peter has also written articles and stories for Harper's, SPY, and other magazines.

Introduction	p. 1
Whom This Book Is For	p. 1
About This Book	p. 2
Foolish Assumptions	p. 2
Conventions Used in This Book	p. 3
Icons Used in This Book	p. 3
Setting Up and Starting Out	p. 5
Introducing Money	p. 7
Finding Out How Money Tracks Your Finances	p. 7
Starting the Program	p. 8
A Fast Trip around the Money Windows	p. 9
The Home page	p. 10
Going from window to window: The Navigation bar and Navigation buttons	p. 11
Personalizing the Home Page	p. 13
Shutting Down Money	p. 14
Money Express: The Fast Way to Enter Transactions	p. 16
Setting Up Your Accounts	p. 19
Accounts and Registers for Recording Financial Transactions	p. 19
The Basics: Setting Up Checking, Savings, and Credit Card Accounts	p. 22
Setting up a checking or savings account	p. 22
Listing contact names, phone numbers, and other account details	p. 24
Changing an account's name or type	p. 26
Setting up an Account to Track Credit Card and Line of Credit Transactions	p. 28
Recording Your Financial Activity	p. 33
The Basics: Recording Transactions in Savings and Checking Registers	p. 33
Opening an account register	p. 34
Recording checks, deposits, withdrawals, and debit card purchases in registers	p. 36
Speed techniques for entering transactions	p. 41
How's your view of the register?	p. 42
Splitting deposits and withdrawals that don't fit in one category	p. 44
Recording a deposit or debit card purchase with cash back	p. 46
Transferring money between accounts	p. 48
Recording Transactions in Credit Card and Line of Credit Accounts	p. 50
Recording credit card and line of credit charges	p. 50
Recording a credit	p. 51
Recording a credit card payment	p. 52
Fixing Mistakes in Account Registers	p. 53
Finding a transaction so that you can fix it	p. 53
Changing, or editing, transactions	p. 58
Voiding and deleting transactions	p. 59
Moving a Transaction from One Account to Another	p. 61
Printing a Register	p. 62
Categorizing Your Spending and Income	p. 65
Looking at the Ways to Categorize Income and Spending	p. 66
By category	p. 66
By subcategory	p. 66
By classification	p. 67
By tax-related status	p. 67
Setting Up Your Own Categories and Subcategories	p. 67
Creating a new category in the New Category dialog box	p. 68
Creating a new subcategory	p. 70
The fast but dicey way to set up categories and subcategories	p. 70
Editing and Refining a Category or Subcategory	p. 71
Getting Ready for Tax Time with Tax-Related Categories	p. 73
Setting Up and Defining a Classification	p. 75
Setting up a classification	p. 77
Defining a class	p. 78
Defining a subclass	p. 79
Correcting Transactions Recorded in the Wrong Category	p. 79
Moving all transactions from one category to another category	p. 80
Reassigning transactions to new categories	p. 81
Renaming and Deleting Categories and Classifications	p. 83
Renaming a category or subcategory	p. 83
Renaming a classification	p. 84
Deleting a category or subcategory	p. 84
Deleting a classification	p. 85
Reconciling, or Balancing, an Account	p. 87
How Reconciling Works	p. 87
Balancing an Account	p. 88
Telling Money which transactions cleared the bank	p. 88
Fixing mistakes as you reconcile	p. 92
Help! The Darm Thing Won't Reconcile!	p. 93
A checklist of things to do if you can't reconcile	p. 93
"AutoReconciling" an account	p. 95
Forcing an account to balance	p. 96
Reconciling a Credit Card Account	p. 96
Writing and Printing Checks	p. 99
Deciding What Kind of Check to Order	p. 100
Ordering the Checks	p. 101
Getting Your Printer Ready to Print Checks	p. 103
Recording Checks that You Intend to Print	p. 105
Testing to See Whether Checks Print Correctly	p. 106
Printing a practice check	p. 106
Making adjustments to the text alignment	p. 108
Printing Your Checks	p. 109
Printing a full sheet of checks	p. 109
Printing partial sheets of checks	p. 111
Whoops! My Checks Didn't Print Correctly	p. 112
Going Online with Money	p. 115
Getting Ready to Go Online	p. 117
Reviewing the Online Services That Money Offers	p. 117
Laying the Groundwork	p. 119
The equipment you need	p. 120
Establishing an Internet connection	p. 120
Signing up with your bank	p. 122
Setting Up a Money Account So That It Works Online	p. 124
Setting up an account for Web services	p. 125
Setting up an account for direct services	p. 126
Setting Up Bill Pay	p. 126
Changing Your Mind about the Online Banking Services	p. 127
Browsing the Web in Money	p. 128
Banking and Bill Paying Online	p. 131
Sending Bank Instructions over the Internet	p. 131
Banking Online	p. 133
Getting accurate, up-to-date account information	p. 133
Viewing and updating a register whose transactions you downloaded	p. 135
Paying the Bills Online	p. 138
Recording the online payment	p. 139
Stopping a payment after it's sent	p. 140
Transferring money between accounts	p. 140
The High-Tech Investor	p. 141
Downloading Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes	p. 141
Making sure that you have the ticker symbol	p. 142
Downloading the security price	p. 143
Money Central: Researching Investments Online	p. 144
Money Central: Scrutinizing the Investments You Own	p. 145
Other Ways to Research Investments Online	p. 145
Researching mutual funds on the Internet	p. 146
Researching stocks on the Internet	p. 146
Getting Your Money's Worth	p. 149
Some Important Housekeeping Chores	p. 151
Backing Up and Restoring Money Files	p. 151
Telling Money how to back up your financial data	p. 152
Backing up your data file	p. 154
Restoring a file from its backup copy	p. 155
Transferring Your Money File to a New Computer	p. 156
Pruning the Payee List	p. 156
Organizing Your Favorite Accounts, Reports, and Web Sites	p. 158
Protecting Files with Passwords	p. 158
Locking a file with a password	p. 159
Opening a file that has been given a password	p. 160
Changing and removing passwords	p. 161
Getting More Room in Account Registers	p. 162
Deleting and Closing Bank Accounts	p. 163
Closing an account	p. 163
Deleting an account	p. 164
Creating an Archive File for Past Transactions	p. 165
Creating a Separate File for Financial Activity	p. 166
Creating the separate file	p. 166
Opening the Money file you want to work with	p. 167
Renaming and Deleting Files	p. 168
Pinching Your Pennies	p. 169
Being Alerted to Excessive Spending	p. 169
Purchase Wizard: Getting Advice for Gathering the Down Payment	p. 170
Scheduling Bills So That They Are Paid On Time	p. 172
Scheduling a bill payment or deposit	p. 173
How Money tells you to pay bills	p. 176
Scheduling deposits, transfers, and investment purchases	p. 177
Recording a scheduled transaction in a register	p. 178
Skipping a scheduled transaction	p. 180
Changing a scheduled transaction	p. 180
Canceling a scheduled transaction	p. 180
Budgeting with Money	p. 181
Getting started	p. 182
Enter your income: Telling Money about your income	p. 183
Enter your expenses: Budgeting your monthly expenses	p. 186
Savings goals: Declaring what to do with extra money	p. 187
Budget summary and status	p. 188
Seeing whether you met your budget goals	p. 189
If you drew up more than one budget ...	p. 190
Tracking Your Frequent Flyer Miles	p. 191
Planning for the Years Ahead	p. 193
Being Alerted to Important Events	p. 193
Projecting Your Cash Flow	p. 195
Introducing the Lifetime Planner	p. 197
About you: Telling Money about yourself and your dependents	p. 199
Income: Describing your present and future income	p. 200
Taxes & Inflation: Describing the tax and inflation rate	p. 201
Savings & Investments: Describing your retirement savings	p. 201
Expected Return: Describing how your money will grow	p. 202
Homes & Assets: Describing things of value that you own or will own	p. 203
Loans & Debt: Describing current and future loans	p. 203
Expenses: Describing the cost of living	p. 203
Results: Reading your financial future	p. 204
Action Plan: What you should do next	p. 205
Playing "what if" with your future	p. 205
Planning to Get Out of Debt	p. 206
Preparing for Tax Time	p. 209
Estimating Your Tax Bill	p. 209
Scheduling Important Tax Dates	p. 211
Getting Help for Lowering Your Tax Bill	p. 211
Determining How Much to Withhold	p. 213
Estimating Capital Gains Taxes	p. 213
Looking at Line-Item Income and Expenses	p. 215
Tagging Tax Categories So That You Can Generate Tax Reports	p. 216
Generating Tax Reports	p. 217
Exporting Money Data to a Tax-Preparation Program	p. 217
Getting Tax Help on the Internet	p. 219
Improving Your Financial Picture	p. 221
Reports and Charts for Seeing Where You Stand Financially	p. 223
A Look at the Pick a Report or Chart Window	p. 224
Looking at the Pick a Report or Chart Window	p. 226
Income and Expenses: Where the money goes and comes from	p. 226
What I Have: A look at assets and liabilities	p. 227
What I Owe: A look at debts and upcoming bills	p. 229
Investments: Examining your portfolio's performance	p. 230
Taxes: A look at tax-related transactions and capital gains	p. 232
Comparison Reports: For comparing the past with the present	p. 232
Monthly Reports: Seeing how you fared this month	p. 233
My Favorites	p. 233
Creating a Report or Chart	p. 233
Generating the report or chart	p. 233
Turning reports into charts and charts into reports	p. 234
Investigating the figures from which a chart or report is constructed	p. 235
Customizing Reports and Charts	p. 236
Adding a Customized Report or Chart to the Favorites Menu	p. 240
Printing Reports and Charts	p. 240
Getting ready to print a report or chart	p. 240
Printing the report or chart	p. 241
Exporting a Report or Chart	p. 241
Money for Homeowners and Homebuyers	p. 243
A Quick Look at What Money Offers Homeowners	p. 243
Finding Out Roughly What You Can Pay for a House	p. 246
Calculating and Comparing the Costs of a Loan	p. 248
Investigating how initial costs alter the costs of a mortgage or loan	p. 251
Entering the variable-rate data	p. 252
Comparing one loan or mortgage to another	p. 253
Finding Out What Houses Cost	p. 253
Cataloging the Items in Your Household	p. 254
Tracking Assets, Liabilities, Loans, and Mortgages	p. 257
Understanding How to Track Assets, Liabilities, Loans, and Mortgages with Money	p. 258
Tracking the Value of a House or Other Asset	p. 259
Setting up an asset or house account	p. 259
Recording changes in the value of an asset or house	p. 260
Tracking Your Liabilities	p. 262
Tracking Loans and Mortgages	p. 263
Setting up a loan or mortgage account	p. 264
Fixing loan or mortgage account errors	p. 268
Recording loan and mortgage payments	p. 269
Paying early and often	p. 270
Adjusting loan account balances	p. 272
Updating the interest rate on a loan	p. 273
Money for Investors	p. 275
Your Own Electronic Portfolio	p. 275
Setting Up Investment, Retirement, and Employee Stock Option Accounts	p. 277
Setting up an investment account for tracking securities	p. 277
Setting up a retirement account for tracking retirement savings and investments	p. 279
Setting up an account to track employee stock options	p. 281
Describing the Securities in Investment and Retirement Accounts	p. 282
Editing an Investment or Retirement Account Transaction	p. 284
Updating the Price of a Security	p. 286
Recording Payments to and Disbursements from Brokers	p. 287
Handling Stocks and Bonds	p. 288
Recording a purchase of more stocks or more bonds	p. 288
Recording the sale of stocks and bonds	p. 289
Recording and reinvesting dividends	p. 291
Recording stock splits, short sells, margin purchases, and other esoterica	p. 292
Handling Mutual Funds	p. 294
Recording the sale or purchase of mutual funds	p. 294
Recording dividends and distributions	p. 294
Other Kinds of Investments	p. 296
Precious metals	p. 296
Certificates of deposit	p. 297
Analyzing and Comparing Investments	p. 297
Charting the Performance of an Investment	p. 298
The Part of Tens	p. 301
Ten Things You Should Do Periodically	p. 303
Back Up Your Data File	p. 303
Update Your Savings and Checking Account Registers	p. 304
Balance Your Accounts	p. 304
Balance Your Credit Card Accounts	p. 304
Personalize the Home Page	p. 305
Generate a "Monthly Income and Expenses" Report	p. 305
Print Your Account Registers	p. 305
Make an Archive File and Put It Away	p. 306
Prune Your Payee List	p. 306
Stop and Smell the Roses	p. 306
Ten Ways to Good Health--Financially Speaking, That Is	p. 307
Record Credit Card Transactions As You Make Them	p. 307
Pay Off All Your Credit Card Debt	p. 308
Leave Your Plastic at Home	p. 308
Create a Spending by Category Chart	p. 308
Create a Monthly Income and Expenses Report	p. 309
Create a Budget	p. 309
Plan Ahead for Your Retirement	p. 309
Set Aside Money for a Rainy Day	p. 309
Make Like a New Dog--Learn New Tricks	p. 310
Take the Day Off	p. 310
Ten Things to Do If You Are Self-Employed	p. 311
Diligently Record Your Financial Activity	p. 311
Make Sure That All Tax-Related Expenses Are Marked As Such	p. 312
Print a Tax-Related Transactions Report for Your Accountant	p. 312
Use the Memo Box Early and Often	p. 313
Set Aside a Tenth of Your Income in a Savings Account	p. 313
Schedule Your Quarterly Tax Payments	p. 313
Use Classifications to Track Business Expenses	p. 313
Open a Checking Account for Business Transactions	p. 314
Write a Check to Yourself Periodically	p. 314
Keep Your Irons on the Fire	p. 315
Ten Things Ex-Quicken Users Should Know about Money	p. 317
You Can Use Your Old Quicken File in Money	p. 318
Some Things Are Lost in the Conversion	p. 319
Some Quicken Features Have No Equivalent in Money	p. 319
You Can Find Out Exactly How Quicken and Money Differ	p. 319
In Money, Transactions Are Entered on Forms	p. 320
You Can Use Quicken Keyboard Shortcuts in Money	p. 320
Your Quicken Checks Are Good in Money	p. 320
Quicken's Online Banking Services Are No Good with Money	p. 321
Your Payee List Is Way, Way Too Long	p. 321
Money Offers Help for Quicken Users	p. 321
Glossary of Financial Terms	p. 323
Index	p. 327
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Microsoft® Money 2004 For Dummies®