I have been a MS Money user since 1999 and am just in course of forcing myself off it, as it is clearly closer to death than I am (fingers crossed.)
One of the things I did in Money - not something that Money does naturally though - was to create a number of what I call
memorandum accounts (a term I am sure was used by accountants in the bank). In essence these are a detailed anaylysis of single transactions that have taken place in proper or real bank accounts. NB, I use the term "account" where BG refers often to "Banks", whereas I use the term "bank" to refer to an institution.
For example, a relative who lives overseas gave me a sum to manage on her behalf so she can have me make purchases in the UK and mail the goods to her. That sum and expenditure items sit in a bank account, but its analysis is in a memorandum account which shows, of course, the remainder balance. There are several other instances where I am tracking transactions in this way so as to know the exact outstanding balance of something which is hidden within other accounts.
Thus the features of a memorandum account are different from a proper account in that the balances do not form part of "net worth" or attributable funds. In BG terms, possibly a new account type is called for, if George decided this were a worthy feature. I have already set up a few such accounts (currently typed as "other"). Clearly in reporting they are excluded otherwise there is double-counting which must never happen!
Does anyone else use or need this sort of feature? MS Money does not cater for it
per se, but its reporting allows me to segregate or include/exclude accounts in a report. The Home screen of BG currently includes the balance of such a desigated account in its totals, thus double counting. However the Net Worth report can be constructed minus these accounts, which is quite satisfactory. I have yet to explore other reporting functions.
I'd be interested to hear what other users think about this and whether there are other ways of achieving a suitable sub-analysis in BG that I haven't yet found that gives me at a glance what a separate memorandum account shows.
