I’m still in Iceland and very much enjoying my stay in Reykjavik, although I have not once managed to spell it correctly without the help of spell-check. Thus far my travel buddy Jon, another Moneydance support person, and I have walked along the harbor, seen what seems like thousands of beautiful wool sweaters, visited Iceland’s only flea market, and visited two different baths.
I’ve really been appreciating Moneydance during my trip, especially when it comes to using different currencies. Having the cash account in Krona has been invaluable, in large part because the setup of my cash accounts with a parent account in US dollars and child accounts in the various foreign currencies. This means I can see at a glance both how many Krona I have and what it’s value is in a currency I am more familiar with.
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This is also the first long-haul trip I’ve done with only a netbook and my iPod touch, and no full-sized computer (hence the smaller screenshots on these blog entries). While I’ve been using the iPod touch app some, I’m equally likely to whip out my netbook to track the afternoon’s transactions directly through the desktop program. I imagine this will change later in the trip when I’m doing more shopping or taking a day trip with a smaller pack.
I’ve also been experimenting with the use of a liability account for the first time on this trip, as I don’t have a mortgage or car loan. When we arrived in Iceland Jon paid for the hotel room on his debit card and we agreed I would pay him back by paying his portion of our shared expenses (such as meals out, groceries, bus fare, etc). To this end I created a liability account. I entered the initial balance as zero and entered the “debt” transaction with the category of “Lodging” so I could accurately track my expenses. When I spend cash on our shared expenses I use the split transaction function and enter my portion as the appropriate category- lodging, food, entertainment, etc, and Jon’s portion as a transfer to the liability account.
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It’s been a breeze tracking the expenses in this way, and also helps us to avoid the “No, it’s your turn to pay for coffee, I’m sure I’ve paid you back by now” quarrels that can happen to friends who travel together but do not share expenses. For those of you who don’t already know, you can view the splits of a transaction by holding down the Alt key and hovering over the transaction with the mouse.
Next week I’ll be posting from England with a new currency and a new cash account.
The information in this blog posts is only meant to detail my experience and should not be considered financial advice.