Introduction Whom This Book Is For. About This. Foolish Assumptions. Conventions Used in This Book. Icons Used in This Book. PART I: Setting Up and Starting Out. Chapter 1: Introducing Money. Finding Out How Money Tracks Your Finances. Starting the Program. A Fast Trip around the Money Windows. The Home Page. Going from window to window: The Navigation bar and Navigation buttons. Personalizing the Home Page. Shutting Down Money. Money Express: The Fast Way to Enter Transactions. Getting Help When You Need It. Asking the Help program for assistance. Seeking help on the Internet. Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Accounts. Accounts and Registers for Recording Financial Transactions. The Basics: Setting Up Checking, Savings, and Credit Card Accounts. Setting up a checking or savings account. Listing contact names, phone numbers, and other account details. Changing an account's name or type. Setting up an account to track credit card and line of credit transactions. Chapter 3: Recording Your Financial Activity. The Basics: Recording Transactions in Savings and Checking Registers. The Accounts window: Opening an account register. Recording checks, deposits, withdrawals, and debit card purchases in registers. How's your view of the register? Splitting deposits and withdrawals that don't fit in one category. Recording a deposit or debit card purchase with cash back. Transferring money between accounts. Recording Transactions in Credit Card and Line of Credit Accounts. Recording credit card and line of credit charges. Recording a credit. Recording a credit card payment. Fixing Mistakes in Account Registers. Finding a transaction so that you can fix it. Changing, or editing, transactions. Voiding and deleting transactions. Moving transactions from one account to another. Printing a Register. Chapter 4: Categorizing Your Spending and Income. Looking at the Ways to Categorize Income and Spending. By category. By subcategory. By classification. By tax-related status. Setting Up Your Own Categories and Subcategories. Creating a new category. Creating a new subcategory. Getting Ready for Tax Time with Tax-Related Categories. Setting Up and Defining a Classification. Setting up a classification. Defining the classes and sub-classes. Correcting Transactions Recorded in the Wrong Category. Moving all transactions from one category to another category. Reassigning transactions to new categories. Renaming and Deleting Categories and Classifications. Renaming a category or subcategory. Renaming a classification. Deleting a category or subcategory. Deleting a classification. Chapter 5: Reconciling, or Balancing, an Account. How Reconciling Works. Balancing an Account. Telling Money which transactions cleared the bank. Fixing mistakes as you reconcile. Help! The Darn Thing Won't Reconcile! A checklist of things to do if you can't reconcile. Money's AutoReconcile gizmo. Reconciling a Credit Card Account. Chapter 6: Writing and Printing Checks. Deciding What Kind of Check to Order. Ordering the Checks. Getting Your Printer Ready to Print Checks. At Last - Time to Print the Checks. Recording checks that you intend to print. Printing a practice check. Making adjustments to the text alignment. Printing a full sheet of checks. Printing partial sheets of checks. Including addresses on checks. Whoops! My Checks Didn't Print Correctly. PART II: Going Online with Money. Chapter 7: Getting Ready to Go Online. Reviewing the Online Services That Money Offers. Laying the Groundwork. The equipment you need. Establishing an Internet connection. Choosing how you want to connect and disconnect. Signing up with your bank. Setting Up a Money Account So That It Works Online. Changing the Status of an Online Bank Account. Changing Your Mind about the Online Banking Services. Chapter 8: Banking and Bill Paying Online. Connecting to Your Bank. Telling Money which transactions to send. Making the connection. Banking Online. Getting accurate, up-to-date account information. Transferring money between accounts. Sending e-mail to the bank. Paying the Bills Online. Recording the online payment. Providing the payee information. Shooting your payment into cyberspace. Stopping a payment after it's sent. Inquiring about a payment. Chapter 9: The High-Tech Investor. Getting Ready to Download Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes. Downloading Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes. Money Central: Researching Investments Online. Money Central: Scrutinizing the Investments You Own. PART III: Getting your Money's Worth. Chapter 10: Budgeting with Money. Drawing Up the Budget. Getting started. Income: Telling Money about your income. Describing contributions to savings accounts. Debt: Describing monthly debt payments. Expenses: Budgeting your monthly expenses. Summary: Seeing how your budget shapes up. Finishing up: Forecasting and saving your budget. Seeing Whether You Met Your Budget Goals. If You Drew Up More Than One Budget. Chapter 11: Paying the Bills on Time. Scheduling a Bill Payment. How Money Tells You to Pay Bills. Scheduling Deposits, Transfers, and Investment Purchases. Recording a Scheduled Transaction in a Register. Skipping a Scheduled Transaction. Canceling a Scheduled Transaction. Keeping Detailed Records on Payees. Entering payee names and data. Pruning the Payees list. Chapter 12: Some Important Housekeeping Chores. Backing Up and Restoring Money Files. Telling Money how to back up your financial data. Backing up your data file. Restoring a file from its backup copy. Deleting and Closing Bank Accounts. Closing an account. Deleting an account. Creating an Archive File for Past Transactions. Renaming and Deleting Files. PART IV: Improving your Financial Picture. Chapter 13: Reports and Charts for Seeing Where You Stand Financially. A Look at the Pick a Report or Chart Window. Looking at the Pick a Report or Chart Window. Spending Habits: Where the money goes and comes from. What I Have: A look at assets and liabilities. What I Owe: A look at debts and upcoming bills. Investments: Examining your portfolio's performance. Taxes: A look at tax-related transactions and capital gains. Monthly Reports: Seeing how you fared this month. My Favorites. Creating a Report or Chart. Generating the report or chart. Turning reports into charts and charts into reports. Investigating the figures from which a chart or report is constructed. Customizing Reports and Charts. Adding a customized report or chart to the My Favorites category. Printing Reports and Charts. Getting ready to print a report or chart. Printing the report or chart. Exporting a Report or Chart. Chapter 14: Planning for the Years Ahead. Being Alerted to Important Events. Introducing the Lifetime Planner. About You: Telling Money about yourself and your dependents. Income: Describing your present and future income. Taxes & Inflation: Describing the tax and inflation rate. Savings & Investments: Describing your retirement savings. Expected Return: Describing how your money will grow. Homes & Assets: Describing things of value that you own or will own. Loans & Debt: Describing current and future loans. Expenses: Describing the cost of living. Results: Reading your financial future. Action Plan: What you should do next. Playing what-if with your future. Planning to Get Out of Debt. Estimating Your Tax Bill. Chapter 15: Making Loan and Mortgage Decisions with Money. Calculating the Costs of a Loan. Investigating how initial costs alter the costs of a mortgage or loan. Entering the variable-rate data. Comparing One Loan or Mortgage to Another. Home Worksheet: Finding Out How Much You Can Pay for a House. Purchase Wizard: Getting Advice for Gathering the Down Payment. Special Help for House and Car Buyers. Chapter 16: Tracking Assets, Liabilities, Loans, and Mortgages. Understanding How to Track Assets, Liabilities, Loans, and Mortgages with Money. Tracking the Value of a House or Other Asset. Setting up an asset or house account. Recording changes in the value of an asset or house. Cataloging the Items in Your Household. Tracking Your Liabilities. Tracking Loans and Mortgages. Setting up a loan or mortgage account. Fixing loan or mortgage account errors. Recording loan and mortgage payments. Paying early and often. Adjusting loan account balances. Updating the interest rate on a loan. Chapter 17: Money for Investors. Your Own Electronic Portfolio. Setting up an investment account for tracking securities. Setting up a retirement account for tracking retirement savings and investments. Setting up an account to track employee stock options. Describing the securities in investment and retirement accounts. Editing an Investment or Retirement Account Transaction. Updating the Price of a Security. Analyzing and Comparing Investments. Recording Payments to and Disbursements from Brokers. Handling Stocks and Bonds. Recording a purchase of more stocks or more bonds. Recording the sale of stocks and bonds. Recording and reinvesting dividends. Recording stock splits, short sells, margin purchases, and other esoterica. Handling Mutual Funds. Recording the sale or purchase of mutual funds. Recording dividends and distributions. Other Kinds of Investments. Precious metals. Certificates of deposit. PART V: Money and the Small Business Manager. Chapter 18: Getting Ready to Record Business Transactions. Is Money Right for Your Business? Creating a Separate File for Tracking Business Activity. Creating the separate file. Opening the Money file you want to work with. Setting Up Accounts for Your Business. Creating the Right Categories for Your Business. Setting Up and Using a Cash Account. Protecting Business Files with Passwords. Locking a file with a password. Opening a file that has been given a password. Changing and removing passwords. Chapter 19: Paying and Sending Out Bills. Tracking What Is Owed Your Business. Recording invoices as they are sent. Recording payments as they arrive. Staying on top of unpaid invoices. Tracking Payments to Vendors. Reports for Gauging Your Business's Health. Chapter 20: Handling the Payroll. An Overview: Using Money to Track the Payroll. Setting Up the Liability Accounts and Subcategories. Writing a Paycheck. Paying Taxes to Federal and State Governments. Getting the Numbers for W-2 and W-3 Forms. PART VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 21: Ten Things You Should Do Periodically. Back Up Your Data File. Update Your Savings and Checking Account Registers. Balance Your Accounts. Balance Your Credit Card Accounts. Personalize the Home Page. Generate an Income vs. Spending Report. Print Your Account Registers. Make an Archive File and Put It Away. Prune Your Payee List. Stop and Smell the Roses. Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Good Health - Financially Speaking, That Is. Record Credit Card Transactionsas You Make Them. Pay Off All Your Credit Card Debt. Leave Your Plastic at Home. Create a Where the Money Goes Chart. Create a Monthly Cash Flow Report. Create a Budget. Plan Ahead for Your Retirement. Set Aside Money for a Rainy Day. Make Like a New Dog - Learn New Tricks. Take the Day Off. Chapter 23: Ten Things You Should Do If You Are Self-Employed. Diligently Record Your Financial Activity. Make Sure That All Tax-Related Expenses Are Marked as Such. Print a Tax-Related Transactions Report for Your Accountant. Use the Memo Box Early and Often. Set Aside a Tenth of Your Income in a Savings Account. Schedule Your Quarterly Tax Payments. Use Classifications to Track Business Expenses. Open a Checking Account for Business Transactions. Write a Check to Yourself Periodically. Keep Your Irons on the Fire. Chapter 24: Ten Things Ex-Quicken Users Should Know about Money. You Can Use Your Old Quicken File in Money. Some Things Are Lost in the Conversion. Some Quicken Features Have No Equivalent in Money. You Can Find Out Exactly How Quicken and Money Differ. In Money, Transactions Are Entered on Forms. You Get from Place to Place Differently in Money. Your Quicken Checks Are Good in Money. Quicken's Online Banking Services Are No Good with Money. Your Payee List is Way, Way Too Long. Money Offers Help Advice for Quicken Users. Appendix A: Installing Microsoft Money 2000. Before You Install the Program. Installing (Or Reinstalling) the Program. Appendix B: An Extremely Short Windows Primer. Giving Commands. Choosing commands from menus. Pressing a shortcut key combination. Clicking buttons. All About Dialog Boxes. Minimizing and Maximizing Windows. Switching Applications with the Taskbar. Appendix C: A Glossary of Financial and Computer Terms. Index. Book Registration Information.
