I noticed that the kMyMoney templates set up the home mortgages as expenses. It sets up a PMI account, interest and principal account(category) in the hierarchy.
Expense:Home:PMI
Expense:Home:Interest
Expense:Home:Principal
In fact the principal portion of a loan payment is really a transfer from an asset account to the liability account. Therefore it would not be assigned to an expense account/category.
What is the reason for the principal account to be set under the expense parent account? Or is this intentional (in case in other countries do it differently)?
Version:
I am not on my computer right now but I noticed this using the stable app image.
I think these templates were just cloned from our friends over at the GnuCash project only with minor adjustments to fit the KMyMoney syntax. The templates are also meant as recommendation and the account/category hierarchy can be modified after the template is loaded. The user has it in his/her hands to assign a liability account during loan setup. In fact, KMyMoney actually asks for it.
I noticed they have a section in their handbook: Contributed Account Trees — GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide 3.10 documentation but they point to old or obsolete links.
Are there any plans to update the templates within kMyMoney? I don’t mind contributing to that if possible.
Also, I am not sure that an Expense Account can be moved to an Asset account without having to create new Accounts.
Yes, I walked through the new loan wizard. I also noticed that the loans are placed under Liability parent account. I thought it would create a Liability:Loan(parent account as a placeholder) and then place the loan account under that.
Liability:Loan:Mortgage
I currently am using a naming system to help with this.
I name my loan accounts as LN - House Mortgage, where LN stands for loan.
I just figured I would mention that one of the templates seemed place the principal account as an expense as that will lead to incorrect reports. At least according to the way I understand accounting(very little).
Are there any plans to update the templates within kMyMoney? I don’t mind contributing to that if possible.
Anyone know how we can update the templates. Today I ran into another instance where I noticed that Mortgage Principal was set as an Expense Category. In reality, this should be a liability account, not an expense category.
I don’t know if there is a group meeting where we can discuss this or how we would go about updating this.
I suspect there may be a misunderstanding about how things work. A template is simply a list of pre-defined categories. There is nothing in a template about how those categories get used. There is nothing magic in the names or types of categories that controls whether or how they get used when created transactions or scheduled transactions. If setting up a mortgage as a scheduled transaction/loan uses an expense category instead of another account for the principal, that is not embedded anywhere in the template, it is part of the process of setting up the loan/schedule. As far as the hierarchy of accounts, you are free to create grouping accounts (such as Loans) but KMyMoney does not use them automatically.
One think you might try as an experiment is to create a new data file, and either choose no templates, or at least something other than what you did previously. Then create a mortgage and see how the created and used accounts and categories differ.
Also, feel free to create a new template (you can base it on any of the existing ones, although I’d have to dig to figure out where they are stored.) You can post them here, and the developers can review them, and if OK, they can be added to the next release. After all, they are just files.
That’s exactly what can be done. Use File/Export/Account Template… and select a file (usually in ~/.local/share/kmymoney/templates/<language>/) and store your current account tree as a .kmt file. It should be picked up when you create a new book next time.
In your case, <language> is probably en_US and may need to be created manually.
The templates that come with KMyMoney are located in the binary itself in a compressed form.
Thanks! I did not know this.
I will try this route. I am not sure the thought behind the current set up or if there was something magical of how KMY would use the template. Perhaps someone has a reason why the principal being paid to a mortgage/loan would go into an expense account.
I figured maybe for budgeting reasons (since liability/asset accounts did not show up in the budget) but this will be fixed soon. 
I am also not sure if any users find value in having the liability principal be an expense account. I don’t think anyone would track it as an expense if following standard accounting practices, which I believe KMY is following. I think for single entry accounting it may work. For double entry accounting, I believe, it should be a transfer to a liability account. I also am not sure if in other countries, it may be tracked as an expense.
Thanks again!
But, yes, I will look into this. Thanks!
Thanks!
I will try this. I did not know this is how it worked. This will be very helpful as I have a need where I will be setting up many new books and having a standard template of my own would be very helpful!
Thank you!