[Kmymoney] Needing some guidance about accounts x categories x tags

[Allan]

On 08/10/14 17:25, Joao Roscoe wrote:
> Dear Srs,
>
> I'm a kmymoney beginner, trying to figure out the
> accounts/categories/tags setup that would best fit my needs, and I'm in
> need of some guidance.
> In gnucash everything is an account, while in kmymoney we have three
> different ways to classify transactions. While tags are distinct in the
> way that it will be possible to attach more than one tag to a single
> transaction, the difference between accounts and categories is not clear
> for me, so far. I could, for instance, have two accounts under
> liabilities - bills and loans - and several accounts under bills, for
> instance cellphone, utility and gym membership. I could also have all
> those as categories, and have all transactions in single checkings
> account. What would be the sensible approach?
>
> Best regards,
> Joao
>
My approach is pretty simplistic as I have no knowledge of accounting 
principles or practice, so feel froo to ignore this.

I think of accounts in KMM as its counterpart of real-life bank or 
brokerage accounts, and from which you may obtain statements. 
Categories are ways of identifying the type of income or expense.  If 
you didn't have KMM, you might not need to categorise, and in KMM you 
don't strictly *need* them, but KMM expects them, so things might get a 
bit messy if you don't use them.  They are very useful for analysing 
your expenditure, to help determine where your money went.  Use as many 
as you feel you need, and use subcategories too (category:subcategory), 
depending on how anal you are in your analysis.

Allan