Categorizing Your Transactions

For your convenience, Moneydance begins each user file with a standard set of income and expense categories. To view these, click the Account/Category List menu option under the Tools menu.

Categories are used to tell you how you’re spending or receiving funds in a real-life account. You’re not restricted to what you see in this list, though: you can choose to categorize your transactions in whatever way makes sense to you simply by creating income and expense categories which you can assign to transactions.

For example, you could keep an Expense category for each type of bill you pay (electric, gas, cable, water, sewer), or just keep a single Bills category instead and assign all bill payments to that. You could make a separate Income category for pay from each of three jobs, or just one “Salary:Paycheck” category for paychecks from all three. These categories will be useful in generating reports and graphs so you can see how you’re spending money.

The account/category list option in the Tools menu allows you to view all your current real accounts and income/expense categories, as well as add new categories or accounts.