Does Anyone Know of a Simple Double Entry Book Keeping System?

[haha]

I started keeping accurate double entry books on my personal spending in the early 80s. When computers became available at ok prices I switched to MS Money, but I never managed to really do records accurately. Now I use a simple single entry Excel sheet, but I never remember to get everything in. Groceries are easy, I come home with a receipt and record it right away. But I always manage to drop enough expenses that I really have little confidence that I know how much I am spending. I have briefly looked at commercial programs intended for small businesses. Small business programs are ok I suppose, but I really have no need for billing modules or any of that. I doubt that there is much market for something like this, but before I just go back to pen and paper, maybe someone knows of something?

Ha

 

[Choices]

We have used Quicken for donkey’s years now and we get a great history to look at.

 

[pb4uski]

I use Quicken and think it is great for personal finance since it is designed for personal finance.... and Quicken is double-entry though it doesn't force you to double enter everything. I can import all my credit card and banking transactions so I know that I am getting a comprehensive view (I just plunk ATM withdrawals in an expense account called Spending Money and it is not particularly significant in the whold scheme of things.

Another option might be GnuCash, I use it for a small non-profit that I am Treasurer of.

 

[Texas Proud]

I do excel also... just copy the checks into one page, the various CC charges into another and then a bit of cut and paste..


Works for me and if I miss anything it probably is not that big anyhow...


Been doing it for 10 years now... but I am behind about 3 or 4 months now

 

[nuisance]

Gnucash is open source, and probably does what you want. It's not very polished, but works great for just tracking money, and has some basic reporting as well. I use it for a consolidated view of our investments across different providers.

 

[W2R]

Now I use a simple single entry Excel sheet, but I never remember to get everything in. Groceries are easy, I come home with a receipt and record it right away. But I always manage to drop enough expenses that I really have little confidence that I know how much I am spending.

It might be easier to figure out a system for remembering everything you spend, than to find a new commercial double entry system.

Here's how I never forget to record anything. May or may not work for you!

Every day, usually between 4-6 PM, I check the following, and record on my Excel sheet:

1) My checking account, to see what cleared since the last time I checked.
2) My credit card account
3) My wallet, and I "balance" my wallet by making sure the money in it is correct according to what I recorded as having spent that day, and what I recorded as having in it the previous day.
4) Anything I bought online that day, even though it will show up later in my checking account or credit card. Just to be doubly sure I got it entered in my Excel file.

All of this takes about 5 minutes or less, and I enjoy doing it because spending is one of the few things in life we really do control.

If my wallet doesn't "balance" for that day, I can tell exactly how many dollars and cents are missing. That usually jogs my memory ("Oh yeah, I got a haircut" or something like that). I haven't had any unexplained money loss since 9/28/2017 when I couldn't account for $5.30. So, I categorized that as miscellaneous spending.

I also balance my bank account and credit card at the end of the month, but neither of those huge companies ever seem to make a mistake so that's probably completely unnecessary.

 

[Independent]

Now I use a simple single entry Excel sheet, but I never remember to get everything in. Groceries are easy, I come home with a receipt and record it right away. But I always manage to drop enough expenses that I really have little confidence that I know how much I am spending.

I do the same. I just make sure I get a receipt with every cash purchase (sometimes I surprise the cashier). They get stuck in my wallet and I clean out the wallet periodically.

When I do, I compare the balance on my spreadsheet to my cash. If there's a gap, I think about spending that may not have a receipt. About half the time I remember. The more frequently I check my balance, the greater probability I remember. The other gaps just get recorded as "missed". At the end of the year, my "missed" is less than 1% of my total spending.

 

[Momcpa]

Another vote for Quicken here. I've used it for 20+ years for our personal. Works like double entry.......you add/subtract to the account in question and then code it to whatever expense (groceries, gas, contribution, tax, etc) New accounts and new expense descriptions can be entered as you go.

It is interesting to look back to other years and see what our monetary net worth was at any given date/time frame. I am still using a very old version of it that has always worked great for what I need. I don't download from banks or other investment accounts...just look at the month-end stmts for investments and +/- the change into Quicken.

 

[target2019]

Here is a one year old introduction to double-entry bookeeping applications:
https://blog.capterra.com/top-free-accounting-software/

What we do is credit and debit two checking accounts for all transactions. The data is simple to download and organize in spreadsheet, where I assign categories.

Any cash we use comes from an ATM. I don't categorize much more than that. If there is a large cash withdrawal, then I do note how it was used.

 

[haha]

I appreciate all these suggestions. Right now I am sitting in my nice smokey Seattle living room, trying to get my mind to focus on a good solution for me.

I'll report back as I get going better.

Ha

 

[W2R]

I appreciate all these suggestions. Right now I am sitting in my nice smokey Seattle living room, trying to get my mind to focus on a good solution for me.

I'll report back as I get going better.

Ha

The smoke there sounds awful. Hope you get some moderate winds to blow it away.

If you have a smartphone, you can jot down cash purchases on your phone as you make them, and then transfer them to Excel when you get home. I did that for my first few months of keeping track (years ago), but no longer need to do that.

 

[Texas Proud]

I appreciate all these suggestions. Right now I am sitting in my nice smokey Seattle living room, trying to get my mind to focus on a good solution for me.

I'll report back as I get going better.

Ha

Just as another comment from me, I do not think there is a 'simple' double entry system that is really simple... Quicken probably is the easiest from what I read (I have not used it for15 to 20 years but have used Quickbooks) but double entry by it's nature is not simple...


I remember a long time ago when I had to fix the books of a charity where someone was making entries but did not understand the other part of the entry... really messed a lot of stuff up... showed a huge liability that did not exist...


With single entry you just put down what you want and if you miss something you hope it is not that important... and if it is really big you will more than likely notice it... but it does not keep track of your balance sheet... a trade off that I live with as I really do not care to know in detail my BS.... I just look at my investments and can guess the rest...

 

[imoldernu]

It's why I'm not rich:

Our double entry accounting is keeping an amount in our checking account equal to four months "budget". Every two months... (thus the double entry) I take a look at the balance in the account. If the balance falls below a two month budget, I'll take a look to see why, but that doesn't happen very often.

DW pays bills that aren't automatic, with no late penalties for the past 20 years, when we began taking SS.

Haven't had to pay income taxes since we cashed out our IRA's a long, long time ago, and even then, minimal taxes.
(BTW... we DO file state and local every year even though it's not necessary.)

Guess you could call that boring...

 

[Danie424]

Freshbooks and Xero have free versions. Otherwise I would say Quicken is the best software if you don’t own a business. I love Quickbooks online if you do.

 

[cranberryjoe]

I use Moneydance to track all my expenses. I pay for 99% of everything with credit cards, which are downloaded into Moneydance so I rarely ever have to manually enter a transaction. I examine each transaction as it is downloaded to categorize it into broad categories and to ensure it is not fraudulent.

I can run a report and find out exactly how much I've spent this year or last year or 25 years ago on groceries, gas, internet service, whatever.

Previously I used MS Money. In some ways Moneydance is better than Money and in other ways it's worse, just like I found Money to be better and worse than Quicken, depending on where you looked.

 

[Texas Proud]

I use Moneydance to track all my expenses. I pay for 99% of everything with credit cards, which are downloaded into Moneydance so I rarely ever have to manually enter a transaction. I examine each transaction as it is downloaded to categorize it into broad categories and to ensure it is not fraudulent.

I can run a report and find out exactly how much I've spent this year or last year or 25 years ago on groceries, gas, internet service, whatever.

Previously I used MS Money. In some ways Moneydance is better than Money and in other ways it's worse, just like I found Money to be better and worse than Quicken, depending on where you looked.

Now, that reporting is a benefit of a program that my excel single entry does not have... I cannot look at what was spent here and there over a longer time period without some work... and I only have like 8 expense categories...