# The KMyMoney2 Handbook

Michael
T.
Edwardes

    mte@users.sourceforge.net

Thomas
Baumgart

    ipwizard@users.sourceforge.net

2000
2001
2003
Michael Edwardes
Thomas Baumgart
&FDLNotice;
22/06/2003
0.2.0

&kappname;, the personal finances manager for KDE.

This handbook describes &kappname; version 0.5.x.

WARNING: This handbook is not finished and may not accurately describe the current version of &kappname;

KDE
KMyMoney2
KMyMoney
kmymoney2
kmymoney
finance
accounts
accounting
financial

## Introduction

&kappname; is a program that lets you manage your finances similar to other well known software such as GNU Cash, Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money.

In it's simplest form &kappname; can be used to simulate an account held at a bank, e.g a current account. But as with many of the available software for managing your finances, &kappname; can do much more.

&kappname; is specifically built for the KDE desktop environment and utilises the many advanced features provided by the magnificent KDE.

See the homepage kmymoney2.sourceforge.net for the most current sources and binaries and for more information on how to report bugs and request features.

TODO: more general overview of how &kappname; works.

## Accounting principles. (In the eyes of &kappname;).

Within &kappname; a number of different terms is used. Their role and usage is explained in the following.

### Explaining Institutions.

An institution is used to represent a bank or other descriptive container that would hold accounts. Typical banks here in the UK could be Natwest or Barclays. An institution could also represent a Building Society or even something descriptive such as family accounts which are all cash but would be useful to keep track of.

Some data is stored for each institution to provide useful information for both &kappname; and the user. The information stored is:

- The name of the institution.

- The address of the institution.

- The sort code or number of the branch.

- A list of the accounts.

None of the information stored is currently used by &kappname;, (except for the list of accounts obviously), but future incarnations may include further information and may use the above information in online banking (e.g the name, and sort code fields).

### Explaining Accounts.

Accounts are used to hold all the data needed to process transactions and are analogous to an account held at a typical bank. Accounts can be organized in an arbitrary hierarchy where each account has a parent account. The top most parent accounts are 'Assets' and 'Liabilities'. These are fixed accounts which cannot be removed.

&kappname; can currently process the following types of accounts:

- Asset accounts to manage your house, car or art collection

- Checkings accounts to manage activities on your checkings account e.g. payments, cheques and ec-card purchases.

- Savings accounts to manage activities on your savings accounts

- Credit Card accounts to manage activities on your credit cards

- Cash accounts to manage activities in your wallet

- Liability accounts to manage your mortgages etc.

Future versions will have support for more account types including Investment, Loan, Money-Market etc.

Data stored in an account is as follows:

- The name of the account.

- The account number.

- The account type.

- A brief description of the account.

- The account balance.

- Reconciliation information.

The brief description of the account can be used to differentiate the accounts in a manner more suited to humans and can contain descriptive text such as 'My Personal Current Account' and 'My Business Current Account'. Reconciliation information is stored for when you balance the account and stores the date the last reconciliation was performed. For more information on how to reconcile an account see .

### Explaining Transactions.

The transaction is the most integral part of the accounting process and it contains information for every withdrawal and payment you make from an account. Each time you make a withdrawal or payment certain information must be recorded and other optional information may be recorded to help when analysing your spending patterns. The information stored by &kappname; is:

- The transaction number.

- A brief description of the transaction.

- The transaction amount.

- The date the transaction occured on.

- How the transaction was performed.

- The category for the transaction.

- The payee.

- The state of the transaction.

The transaction number is optional and is used as a reference when creating certain types of transactions e.g Cheque. You can create a brief description of the transaction for personal use. The transaction can be performed many different ways and the action is stored along with the other data. &kappname; currently supports up to five different methods depending on the account type;

- Cheque payment.

- General deposit.

- Transfer.

- General withdrawal.

- A.T.M.

The category is there to provide usefull information on why the transaction was performed and will be used by &kappname; to provide easy ways of seeing how you spend your money over time. Categories - just like accounts - are organized in a hierarchical structure. The top most entries that all categories are derived from are 'Expense' and 'Income'. Typical categories are provided for you when &kappname; creates a new file and more can be created or edited within the categories dialog. (See and for further information). To facilitate in balancing the account, (see ) the transaction state is stored to indicate whether it is reconciled, cleared or neither. A single letter is used to represent the state and can be one of 'R', 'C' or ' '.

### Explaining Categories.

A category as used by &kappname; provides a convenient way for you to group your transactions. There are two top level groups of categories; Income and Expense. These two groups are further divided into useful categories for you to use such as Bills which is a category of the Expense group. Each category can be subdivided into more categories giving a more refined analysis of your spending habits, e.g Bills could be further split by having sub categories such as Rent, Electricity etc.

When you have entered several transaction using these categories you will then be able to analyse your spending habits by viewing different graphs and reports detailing where you spend your money and what on. (Not currently implemented in &kappname;).

When you create a new &kappname; file a default set of categories is created for you to use and this list can be changed by editing the file $KDEDIR/share/apps/kmymoney2/default_accounts.dat. This file is in plain text, the format of which is explained within the file.

As categories are handled as regular accounts, the same information is stored for them. You can edit the category data within KMyMoney2 by using the category editor. Please see for more information.

### Explaining Payees.

A payee is quite simply the person to whom you paid out the money or from whom you got the money. The payee does not necessarily have to be an individual but could be a company as is often the case. When creating the transaction you can specify which payee the amount is to or from.

&kappname; stores information, other than the name, about each payee you enter into the system which can then be altered later. (See ). This data provides useful information about each payee you use and can be analysed to see where you spend your money and to whom. (Currently only implemented in &kappname;'s payee editor).

## KMyMoney2 basics.

### Using &kappname; for the first time.

When you first run &kappname;, either from the start menu or by typing kmymoney2 in a terminal or even in the 'Run Dialog' (Alt-F2), you will be presented with the Start Dialog.

From this dialog you can choose whether to create a new file, open a file or use a predefined template or wizard. However, with this version of &kappname; there is only one template; Blank, which creates a new empty file.

To create a new file, click on the Blank icon. This will create a new empty file for you to work on. You will then be prompted to enter some information about yourself. Please enter all fields you feel relevant, but none are required. Once you have entered the details click on the OK button and you are then ready to start creating institutions and accounts.

### The Institutions/Accounts View.

The window consists of the menu bar at the top and below that the toolbar. (See The Menu Bar). These two items are the main entry point to starting the available functions in &kappname;.

This is the main entry point to all of &kappname;'s functions and contents. It shows the institutions and accounts in a hierarchical list view with the institution being at the root. Differing from other programs you cannot create accounts as 'children' of other accounts, an account can only belong to one institution.

#### Creating a new institution.

To create a new institution choose either Institution Add new.. or click on the New Bank icon located on the toolbar. This will bring up the create new institution dialog and prompt you to enter the needed information.

Enter the institutions name and any other information you wish and click on OK. The institution will then be created and added to the list. To edit the institution details you are able to right click on the institution and choose Edit...

#### Creating a new account.

To create a new account, first select the institution you wish to create the account in and the choose either Account Add new account.. or click on the New Account icon located on the toolbar. This will bring up the create new account dialog and prompt you to enter the needed information.

The only required field is the account name which can distinguish it from other accounts in the same institution. The other fields are optional and are described in detail below.

Number

  This is the account number. This is used by banks to differentiate between account held at their branch. If you're not creating a bank account just leave this field empty.

Account type

  &kappname; only supports one type at the moment - Current, so this choice is disabled until more account types appear. Do not worry if the account you wish to create is not a current account because &kappname; does not distinguish between account types at the moment and treats current like a Cash account under Intuit's Quicken.

Opening details

  When creating the account you can specify an opening balance for creating an electronic version of an account that already exists. Just enter the date the account was created, (usually the current date), and the current balance of your account. This information can be gathered from your last bank statement if needed. If you enter a balance other than 0 a transaction will be created for you with the payee being Opening Balance and added to the account being created.

Notes

  To provide more useful information when viewing the account details you can enter additional information here. Any text typed here is simply stored and is not used in any way.

To create the account simply click on the OK button and the account will be created and added to the list. To edit the account details you can right click on the account and choose Edit...

To view the register for the account choose either Account Open register... or click on the Open Account icon located on the toolbar. You can also right click on the account and choose Open register from the popup menu.

### The Register View.

The register view is quite possibly, and appropriately :-), one of the most complicated areas within &kappname;. This is where you enter all the deposits and credits made to your account. The view is arranged vertically with the most current transactions appearing at the end of the list at the bottom of the screen. The list is sorted by date and at the moment this cannot be changed. Each transaction covers two lines.

To enter a new transaction click on one of the transaction 'lines' and several editable boxes will appear to let you enter the transaction details, and two buttons, (Enter, Cancel), will appear. Each of these input fields and their expected input is detailed below in order reading from left to right, top to bottom (same as a book).

Date

  Click on the Date field to enter the date of the transaction. By default the current date will be inserted but you can alter this by clicking on the 'down' icon to bring up the calendar input box. Navigate to the date you seek and click on the appropriate number, the date will then be inserted into the field.

Method

  This choice lets you enter how the transaction was made. You have 5 choices:

  - Cheque payment.

  - General deposit.

  - Transfer.

  - General withdrawal.

  - A.T.M.

  Select the appropriate method from the choice box.

Payee

  To enter the payee you can either select a previously created one from the drop down choice or type in a new name. When you enter the transaction into the system the new payee's name will be added to the global list. The payee field can be left empty to indicate an unknown payee, (or you forgot) and can be edited later. See for more information on payees.

Amount (Payment or Deposit)

  Depending upon the method you chose for the transaction you now need to enter the transaction's amount. Click on the appropriate field and enter the amount.

Number

  This field lets you enter a number for the transaction where it is appropriate, e.g Cheque. If you chose Cheque from the method choice a number will appear when you click on the field and it is the 'next' cheque number. To change this just enter a new number. The next cheque number will follow this new number.

Category

  You can choose a category for the transaction from this drop down choice. See for more information on categories. Each category is represented by one line and can consist of two parts. The major and sub category. These are separated by the colon ':' character. If only one part is specified then it is just the major category.

All that remains for you to do now is to enter the transaction into the account by pressing the enter button, or, if you change your mind, to press the cancel button returning you to the list.

To edit a transaction you need to click on the transaction you wish to edit and change the details. Press enter to commit the changes you made.

To delete a transaction, click on the transaction you wish to delete and click on the delete button to permanently remove that transaction from the account. You will be prompted for confirmation showing the payee name.

TODO: talk about transfers.

### The Category and Payee editors.

## How do I do... ?

### Balancing the account.

### Importing and Exporting.

Importing and exporting transactions allows you to collect transactions you received through downloads from your bank or send transactions to other applications.

Currently, &kappname; supports the QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) format.

### Finding transactions.

## Command Reference

### The main &kappname; window

#### The File Menu

Ctrln File New

  Creates a new document

Ctrls File Save

  Saves the document

Ctrlq File Quit

  Quits &kappname;

## Questions and Answers

My Mouse doesn't work. How do I quit &kappname;?

You silly goose! Check out the Commands Section for the answer.

Why can't I twiddle my documents?

You can only twiddle your documents if you have the foobar.lib installed.

## Credits and License

&kappname;

Program copyright 1997 John Q. Hacker jqh@kde.org

Contributors:

- Konqui the KDE Dragon konqui@kde.org

- Tux the Linux Penguin tux@linux.org

Documentation copyright 1999 George N. Ugnacious gnu@kde.org

Translations done by:

- Babel D. Fish babelfish@kde.org (Sanskrit)

&underFDL;

&underGPL; &underBSDLicense; &underArtisticLicense; &underX11License;

## Installation

### How to obtain Oui

&kappname; is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org. &kappname; can be found in the kdeutils package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main ftp site of the KDE project.

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &kappname;, you need KDE 1.1. Foobar.lib is required in order to support the advanced &kappname; features. &kappname; uses about 5 megs of memory to run, but this may vary depending on your platform and configuration.

All required libraries as well as &kappname; itself can be found on The &kappname; home page.

You can find a list of changes at http://apps.kde.org/oui.

### Compilation and installation

In order to compile and install KApp on your system, type the following in the base directory of the Icon Editor distribution:

    % ./configure
    % make
    % make install

Since KApp uses autoconf and automake you should have not trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.

### Configuration

Don't forget to tell your system to start the `dtd` dicer-toaster daemon first, or KApp won't work !

&documentation.index;