How do I get started with iBank? (Quick basics)

To use iBank to track your finances, you will want to set up accounts for each "real-life" account you have. That is, you will want an account for each of your credit cards as well as checking, savings, and investment accounts. Then, for each account you will want to have a transaction for each "real-life" transaction that occurs in the account. For example, if you receive a bank statement that shows two trips to the ATM and one point-of-sale (aka debit) purchase, then you will want to enter three transactions in iBank to match those.

We have mentioned transactions a lot, and for good reason - they are the core "unit" in iBank for effectively tracking your money in each of your accounts. In iBank, each transaction that results in money being taken out of your account (e.g. a withdrawal) should have a negative value and each transaction that results in money going into your account (e.g. a deposit) should be positive. So far, if you do as suggested and record a transaction in iBank for each transaction that occurs in real-life, iBank will track, to the penny, exactly how much money you have in each of your accounts.

This should be reason enough to use iBank: to know exactly, at any minute, the balances of all of your accounts. However, the real power of iBank comes into play when you start tracking where you are spending your money. We're not talking about entering a transaction for the amount of -$40.00 and making the where the payee "J.D. McCliments," a local pub. Although this information is helpful, it would be better to categorize this transaction by associating it with a category like "Meals," or "Dining." iBank allows you to assign a category to each of your transactions. By assigning categories to transactions, you'll be set up to run robust reports analyzing spending based on those categories. Categorizing your transactions will also allow you to set up budgets to help you plan ahead.

In a lot of ways, you can think of categories as accounts, and you can think of a transaction as always moving money from one account to another (fancy accountants will call this "double-entry bookkeeping"). So if you buy dinner on your checking account debit card, you are essentially moving money from the checking account and adding money to the "Dining" category-type account.

In summary:

Don't forget - this is just an overview of iBank's major features; much more awaits inside! Hopefully these principles and guidelines will help you get started tracking your money and spending with iBank. Read on for more detailed information about using iBank's various features.