After making the switch to Moneydance at the beginning of 2010 I discovered a useful feature of the software called “Transaction Tags” (or “Tags” for short). What are Tags? Well, the short answer is they provide an alternative way to group transactions beyond the standard categories Moneydance provides.
Why would you use this? Well, let’s examine a few scenarios. Let’s say I have a category called Parties. Let’s go a bit further and say that I threw a backyard BBQ called “Project Velociraptor” in 2011 (which I did) and I placed all the expenses incurred for that party into the Parties category. Now when I run a category report I see these expenses summed up in the Parties category just as I expect.
Suppose a couple years later I want to throw another party of a similar nature. I want to see how much it cost me last time, so that I can budget properly. I could run a category report for Parties for the year 2011 and get my total. Easy enough.
But, what if I end up also throwing a Halloween party in 2011? Now I have to try to figure out which transactions belong to the BBQ, and which transactions belong to the Halloween party. That’s kind of a pain.
I can solve this problem with Tags. First, I’d create a transaction tag by clicking Tools -> Edit Transaction Tags from the main menu.