[moneydance] Your Moneydance Process?

[Michelle]

I just wanted to know how people keep track of their money and their thought
process. I'm a student and new to "accounting" I guess.

I just have one checking account, and a credit card. I pay my credit online
thru my bank.

I've been keeping track of my money using my banks paper ledger they give
you and now Moneydance.

In Moneydance I setup online banking with the Bank and Credit companies.

So what I do is download all my transaction from my bank, which are
basically only 2 things: electronic deposits from my job and payments to my
credit card, i.e. "CITIBANK CREDIT CARD Bill Payment". This goes under
'Checking' account. Then I download all my transactions from Citi Credit and
delete the transactions that say something like "electronic payment
received" (because those are already in the 'Checking'), this is under
"Credit Card" account.

When I do online bill payment, I look at my credit transactions and make
online payment for each transaction: like $20, $45, $32.

I don't know if this is how you are suppose to use "Reconcile" feature, but
what I do in the Reconcile window is look at the "payments" and "deposits"
boxes and match up the $20, $45, $32. I totally ignore the "beginning
balance" "current balance" "target balance" stuff, because I have no idea
how that works and the numbers are always negative?

Though, so far so good. the ending balance for my Checking and Credit match
in Moneydance with my banks. But their are other features in Moneydance
(probably I don't know about). For example, the thing called "splits". So if
I understand correctly instead of doing a bill payment to credit card of
$20, $45, $32, I could just do a lump sum of $97? How would "reconcile" work
then? Also, I've always left the Payee/Description whatever the bank put,
and jotted my own notes about the transaction in the Memo field. So like in
my "Checking" account I would click on a "CITIBANK CREDIT CARD" transaction
and do the "show other side" to find what it corresponded to and type in a
note in the Memo field.

What kind of system do you guys use? Am I using Moneydance correctly? Also,
it'd be nice if anyone posted a link to a screenshot of their Moneydance
(i'm a visual person).

Thanks so much for reading! I know I still have a lot to learn! (I can't
imagine the point where I have to deal with savings, investments, interest,
etc.)

-Michelle