How to track cash transactions with your MSN Money Investing Portfolio

This article describes how to add a cash account -- for example, a money market account -- to your MSN Money portfolio and track the cash balance.

Note All current versions of Microsoft Money allow for you to track cash transactions in separate accounts. The steps that are listed in the "More information" section only apply to the Deluxe version of the MSN Money Portfolio, the MSN Money Investment Toolbox.

MSN Money Portfolio is not designed to specifically track cash transactions. You can keep track of the overall cash balance for a specific account and modify it as needed, or you can track your cash transactions as if they were Money Market Fund specific investment transactions.

To enable or to modify the cash balance for an account, follow these steps:

1. In MSN Money Portfolio, double-click the account name to view Account Settings.
2. Make sure that the Track Cash Transactions check box is selected.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and update the Current Balance of the Cash portion.

Note If you want the cash balance to update when you enter new transactions, select the Cash account in the Transfer To/From field in each new transaction.

To track your cash transactions as Money Market investment transactions, follow these steps:

1. Go to MSN Money Portfolio.
2. If you want to track the cash transactions in a separate account, create a new account. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Click Work With Accounts, and then click Add an Account.
   2. In the New Account wizard, select Investment as the account type, and then click Next.
   3. Type a name for your account, and then continue through the wizard.
3. Click Work With Investments and Add An Investment, select the account that you want, and then click Next.
4. In the Symbol box, type the symbol for your money market fund (if you have one), or type a symbol that looks similar to a money market fund symbol (for example: ABCXX).
   
   Note You can find existing money market symbols. To do this, click Find Symbol to look up fund names that contain the word "Money." All known money market fund symbols end in XX--for example, "ABCXX."
5. Fill in the details. Quantity is the Cash amount. Price is always 1.
6. Click Next, and then click Finish.

If you want to give a name to a made up Money Market Fund symbol, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the symbol, and then click Investment Details.
2. Type a company name, such as My Cash Transactions.

To update the amount of cash, follow these steps:

1. Click the Money Market Fund symbol to open the transaction list.
2. Click New.
3. Type New Buy to add cash or type Sell to remove cash.

Note The Essentials Portfolio on MSN Money does not cash transactions. You must use the Deluxe Portfolio.

For more information about how to switch between the Deluxe Portfolio and the Essentials Portfolio in MSN Money , click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: