Adding a purchase with cashback

In the UK, and probably many other countries, you can go to certain retailers (mainly supermarkets) and obtain 'cashback' with your transaction. This basically lets you use the retailer as a ATM - they give you money out of the till, and debit it from your debit card, and add the total cost to the groceries you have bought.

Microsoft Money 2005 UK has the capability of dealing with these types of transactions, by using a special option.

First, go to the account register for the account you have used for the cashback transaction - the account type must be a 'Bank' type (you won't see the option for Asset, Liability, Cash, Loan etc types).

Create a new transaction and click on the 'Common Withdrawals' button. Note the screen shot below, the bottom item allows a cash back purchase.



Click on the 'Debit Card Purchase with Cash Back' option. You will get a pop up window which allows you to enter details about your purchase, as seen below. Put in the details of the transaction and the cash back. Note that the cash back part of the transaction is added to the total, as that is the amount which will be debited from your account.



Press 'OK' to create the transaction.

What this wizard does is create a split transaction with the first part of it being the actual purchase, and then with a transfer to your cash account (if applicable) for the second part of the split. If you usually further split your cashback transactions (not the cash part, but the grocery, for example, part), then you can edit the transaction subsequently and change it.