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Tracking Credit Card Balance

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 10:08 am
by Colorado_Baby
I am a long time of MS-Money (since early 1990s) and switched to Quicken about 3 years ago. Downloaded AM a couple days ago and am working to get up and running with it. I think there is potentially a bug related to how the software is tracking my credit cards.

My credit card is set up in AM as as credit account. The software is increasing the positive balance in the account whether the transaction entered is a withdrawal or a deposit. For example:

Code: Select all

Payee Withdrawal Deposit Total
ABC   10.00              10.00
EDJ   15.00              25.00
Payment          10.00   35.00
The software should be reducing the balance by 10.00 to 25.00 but it is adding all figure, regardless of the W/D column.

My checking account seems to be handled correctly.

Because of this I tried changing the account type of my credit card to a bank account, but the problem still exists.

Have I set something up wrong? Is there a quirk in the software that you have to work around? I am confused.

Thank you for any insight!

Re: Tracking Credit Card Balance

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:37 pm
by RLebeau
The only way I can see that happening is if the withdrawals are being entered as negative values, in which case they would be recorded as positive deposits instead. Whether a transaction is a withdrawal or a deposit, the amount should be specified as a positive, then AceMoney will add/subtract that amount from the balance according to the transaction type (add a deposit, subtract a withdrawl). Negative amounts should only be used in Account starting balances or in Split transaction items, not in the final transaction amount. Typical usage would look like this:

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Payee Withdrawal Deposit Balance
ABC   +10.00             -10.00
EDJ   +15.00             -25.00
Payment          +10.00  -15.00

Re: Tracking Credit Card Balance

Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:28 am
by Colorado_Baby
Thank you for the response. After changing the account type several times among credit, cash, and bank, it started correctly adjusting the balance. Really strange.

Re: Tracking Credit Card Balance

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:57 pm
by RLebeau
The Account type has no effect whatsoever on how transactions are processed. The Account type is only for organizing accounts on the home screen, nothing else.