How should credit card transactions be entered?

[Notesmith]

I’m trying to enter my first credit card transactions but the ‘Managing credit cards in QuickFile’ knowledge base article seems to have skipped this step and gone straight to discribing how you log payments against the card. So I want to make sure I get this right.

Can anyone confirm that when entering a new credit card transaction, the information for the “Reference” field is the detail for each individual item purchased (as opposed to the summary information in the credit card statement)? And that “Money Out” transactions are purchases and interest charges, whereas “Money In” transactions are repayments and refunds?

Also, is there any chance that this knowledge base page could be updated to include this information for newbies please? Managing credit cards in QuickFile

[QFSteve]

Hello @Notesmith

Treat the credit card account exactly as you would a bank account and the same way you record bank transactions.

• “Reference” field = transaction reference
• “Money Out” = purchases and interest charges
• “Money In” = repayments and refunds?

[ian_roberts]

The way you record a purchase is the same whether you pay for it in cash, by bank transfer, or by credit card - the purchase record should be based on the invoice or receipt you received from the supplier, with the details of what you bought and with the purchase date set to the date of the supplier invoice. The bank transaction records the date of payment, which may be different from the date of purchase, and the transaction reference would typically just say “payment to supplier X” - it’s the purchase record that holds the full details.

Treat the credit card just like any other bank account, albeit one that is normally overdrawn. When you make a purchase the purchase payment is money out, when you pay your bill that would be a bank transfer from your current account to your credit card “account” to reduce or clear the overdrawn balance.

Any interest you are charged would be recorded as an extra money out transaction in the card account.

[Notesmith]

Thanks @QFSteve. I’ve just realised that I had conflated manually recording a transaction in the credit card account with logging purchases of individual items from the main dashboard (hence me thinking that the knowledge base article I mentioned had skipped a step - I now understand it hasn’t!). Gradually getting my head around everything here!

[Notesmith]

Thanks for the additional details @ian_roberts, this is really helpful.