Using Microsoft Money classifications

Classifications in Microsoft Money are an underused feature. They provide an additional dimension on viewing categories and transactions in your Money file.

The best way to describe them, is to give an example of their use.

If you have rental income from a couple of properties. You could record this using categories and subcategories as "other income: rental income A" and "other income: rental income B" - this is perfectly acceptable. However, if you start recording bills or deposits on those properties such as taxes, running costs or appreciation of the assets, then you would theoretically need to duplicate categories to track these. So, you would find you have lots and lots of essentially duplicated categories - the only difference being the property name. Imagine what this would be like if you had 10 properties!

This is where classifications can be used. If you created a classification for the properties, then this appears on transaction forms like another category. So, in the above example, you need only use the category/subcategory of "other income: rental income" for any income, and then use a classification of "property A" or "property B".

Extrapolating this, if you track your taxes, costs, appreciation etc in the same way, you can create reports using classifications based on all of your properties or just A or B. This gives you greater granulation of information about your properties.

Classifications need not only be used for property. You could track transactions by a family member, a state or country you incur expenses or a particular event.

For help in setting up classifications, see Article 392.