Information about features that may be missing in Money (919526)

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Account Registers

The Essential Account Register gives you quick and easy access to everything that you want to know about your current account balances and transactions, without tedious data entry. Use the Essential Account Register for accounts that you expect to update online, instead of entering updated transactions one by one.

The Advanced Account Register is designed for people who enjoy updating and analyzing their finances, and who are willing to invest extra work in tracking the precise details of their financial situation. The detailed information that is tracked in the Advanced Account Register is typically used for very thorough budgeting, long-term planning, and tax analysis. The easiest way to keep the Advanced Account Register up to date is to use online updates from your bank or brokerage firm. Money will automatically categorize the transactions if it recognizes the payee. Then, you can add the detailed information that you want. You can also update your accounts by typing in transactions.

Essential	Advanced
Your most important information is easy to find, without extra details or clutter. You can quickly see how much you have in your account, and which transactions have cleared.	Divide categories into smaller units so that you can track spending at very detailed levels and aggregate the details. An example is breaking out car expenses into gasoline, maintenance, and parking.
Rely on Money to do the work for you. Online updates give you the most recent information from your bank or brokerage firm without typing.	Add detailed information about transactions that have not cleared your bank.
You can closely watch your spending. Money automatically categorizes your transactions into broad spending areas and adjusts those categories based on what you have chosen in the past. You can also add or change categories.	Support for offline accounts. Type all transactions instead of receiving online updates. You can use online updates in the Advanced Register, but you do not have to.
Keep track of transactions that have not cleared your bank. If you want to see how a large check will affect your bank balance, you can add it to your account register. Money shows you the current balance that your bank is reporting, and an adjusted balance that takes your check into account.	Add notes to each transaction so that you can track additional information that is not covered in the rest of the transaction.
	Split a single purchase or deposit amount into amounts for different spending categories.
	Compare the transactions that you have entered in Money with those that have cleared your bank.
	Track all your purchases, sales, capital gains distributions, dividend payments, and more.

To switch between the Essential Account Register and the Advanced Account Register, follow these steps:

1. Locate the account list.
2. Click the name of an account.
3. In the left pane, under Other tasks, click Change account settings.
4. Under Register Detail, click switch to the Advanced Account Register.
5. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

Bills

Essential Bills is the streamlined bill scheduling and payment setting that most users prefer. It offers all the tools that you must have to quickly and efficiently manage your bills. You do not have to spend time tracking bill and account details. Therefore, it is easy to pay both your recurring and regular bills.

Advanced Bills offers all the basic features of Essential Bills, plus additional features that give you more detailed control over your bills, bill tracking, and bill payment. Be aware that Advanced Bills does require additional setup and management time.

Essential	Advanced
Edit and pay multiple bills at the same time. When you select multiple bills to pay, you can edit their payment information. Additionally, you can submit the bills at the same time, instead of submitting them individually.	Add recurring deposits, transfers, paychecks, and investments. You are not limited to tracking just the money you pay out.
Money keeps track of every bill that you schedule. Therefore, you can see immediately when bills are due and how they affect your account balance. View all your scheduled bills in a list on the Bills summary page, or for the whole month on the bill calendar.	Edit a single bill occurrence. Sometimes you have to change just one bill in a series. With Advanced Bills, you can change the payment amount for one bill at a time.
Work directly from the bill calendar. The graphical calendar view makes it easy to work with your bills and deposits for a whole month.	Set up automated transfers between any accounts that you track in Money.
Set up recurring automatic payments (Apays). If you are signed up for an online bill payment service together with your bank, and this service includes automatic payments, you can have Money automatically pay bills according to a schedule that you specify.	Specify when a bill series will end. Set up an end date for any recurring payment and then forget about it.
Categorize your bills to help with budgeting. It is easy to make sure that each bill is accounted for in your Money budget. You pick an appropriate category, such as Utilities, and Money does the rest.	Save time when you pay bills. Print multiple checks at the same time, and then use them just as you would personal checks that you purchased from your bank.
View a history of electronic and manual payments. Quickly confirm that any scheduled payment was made on time.	Save draft payments to send later. If you are missing some bill details, you can still save a draft payment, and then finish it later.
Split categories within a single payment. To make your Money budget even more accurate, specify exactly where every dollar is going.

To switch between the Essential Bills and the Advanced Bills, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Settings.
2. On the Settings page, click Bill settings.
3. Depending on your current setting, use one of the following methods:
   • Click switch to Advanced Bills, and then click Use Advanced Bills.
   • Click switch to Essential Bills, click Use Essential Bills, and then click Yes.
4. Click OK.

For more information about a missing feature in bills, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Budget

The Essential Budget makes it easy to handle day-to-day budgeting tasks without spending extra time on details. Essential Budgets are quick to set up, easy to change, and are preferred by most Money users.

An Advanced Budget provides extra detail and helps you set more specific long-term planning goals. Although an Advanced Budget requires additional set up and management time, it also provides more in-depth analysis of where your money is going. If you want to track only basic budget information, use the Essential Budget to stay up to date, effortlessly.

Essential	Advanced
Create a simple budget for regular expenses. Set the amount that you want to budget for your regular expenses, such as groceries and healthcare.	Create a detailed budget with categories and subcategories. This helps when you want to budget amounts for subcategories of related expenses, such as Healthcare:Dental and Healthcare:Prescriptions.
Compare your monthly income to monthly expenses. See a quick summary of how much you are making compared to how much you expect to spend each month.	See how scheduled bills will affect your budget. You will know how much to budget based on the bills that you have paid or scheduled.
Use the Spending Tracker to watch several budget areas more closely. The Spending Tracker shows you how much you have spent in each category that you choose, and when you are coming close to your spending limit.	Test budgeting scenarios with multiple budgets. See how different spending and income scenarios will affect your budget without changing your original budget.
Compare actual monthly spending to your budget. To help you follow your budget, Money automatically tracks your spending and compares it to your plan.	Track irregular or custom expenses. Maybe you only make your insurance payment one time a year. The Advanced Budget lets you track these items in addition to your regular expenses.
Include multiple accounts in your budget. Choose as few or as many accounts as you want to show the income and expenses in your budget.	Reallocate funds from one budget category to another. Add one-time expenses, or apply funds from categories that are under budget to help balance your budget.
	Set savings goals. Save for that upcoming expense or purchase. Add your savings goals to the Advanced Budget as an incentive to save the money that you need.
	Exclude certain transactions. Occasionally, you may want to keep certain transactions out of your budget. The Advanced Budget makes it easy to exclude transactions from any category.

To switch between the Essential Budget and the Advanced Budget, follow these steps:

1. Locate the Budget summary page.
2. Under Other tasks, click Change budget settings.
3. Use one of the following methods:
   • Click Switch from the Essential Budget to the Advanced Budget.
   • Click Switch from the Advanced Budget to the Essential Budget.
4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

For more information about problems switching to Advanced Budget, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Reports

Essential Reports provide an overview of your spending and income patterns in basic reports that are easy to interpret and contain the essential financial information most people need. You can see at a glance how much you spent on groceries last month or how much you paid to the plumber. A monthly overview wraps up the important details in one report.

Advanced Reports provide in-depth financial reporting and the ability to customize specific report details. You can send any report in an e-mail, or save it to the computer.

Essential Reports provide the simplified financial overviews that most people need, such as spending by category and net worth. However, if you want to access reports that contain more in-depth financial analysis and allow for detailed customization, you may prefer Advanced Reports. You can change the kind of reports that you use at any time.

Essential	Advanced
See how much you spent in specific categories or to individual payees.	Track your account balance over time from one or more accounts.
Compare your actual spending to your budgeted spending in a monthly budget.	Track the total value of the accounts that you manage in Money over a specific period of time.
See how your assets stack up against your liabilities.	Track the details of all investment accounts. This includes latest share prices, quantity, and total value.
Track how much you owe on your credit cards.	See exactly how your income compares to your expenses over time.

1. Locate the View a report page.
2. In the left pane, under Other tasks, click Change report settings.
3. Use one of the following methods:
   • Click Switch from Essential Reports to Advanced Reports.
   • Click Switch from Advanced Reports to Essential Reports.
4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen.