Prior to upgrading to 5.2 I could have different payees for a transaction. So like my Checking Account I could have the Name of the Payee (Citibank) and under the Citibank Account the same transaction would have my name (John Smith). But under 5.2 it appears that both sides of the transaction must have the same payee name?
They don’t have to. I think, there was a request at some point to keep the payees in sync for transfer transactions. Workaround: open the transaction in one account, open the split editor and edit the transaction. There you can change the payee of the opposite account.
I’ve tried your trick on its not working, it keep forcing the payees to be the same in both accounts. Why would someone request that? if you wanted the same, you could just keep them the same. Any other ideas?
I might have been a bit fast with my first answer and now when reading your original question again, I don’t understand what account type (in KMyMoney) the ‘Citibank account’ should be in that transaction.
in this particular case “Citibank” would be labeled as a Credit Card. but I also have accounts marked as cash.
For some context, any transaction must be “balanced” which means the sum of all splits must be zero. Each split represents money coming out of or going into an Account, and you need to remember that internally, Categories are just Income or Expense Accounts. A Payee can be assigned separately for each split. (To do this, you need to edit the transaction in the ledger for the account of that split.)
The use of Payees is completely optional, and is a convenience for you to track the amount of money given to or received from a specific individual or organization. When money comes from or goes to an Asset or Liability Account, there is rarely a need for a Payee, as you know who owns the money in that Account. One common exception might be that when you pay a credit card bill, most of the funds are not actually going to the bank, but are repaying things you have previously charged - except that if you pay interest or some fee, that money is truly going to the bank. When money comes from an Income Account or goes to a Expense Account (both Categories) they you are likely to use a Payee as you otherwise do not know who the money went to or came from.
Can you give us a more detailed example transaction? If you are buying something with the credit card then the Payee is likely to be the vendor you are paying, and the Category you assign to the Category is the other account. If you make a cash advance withdrawal, that might be a transfer from the credit card to your cash account. Most users do not use Payees with transfer transactions, but some do - so we need to understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish.
Some additional testing - for a transfer transaction, if you change the payee in the transaction edit area, it does change it for both. If you change it in the split editor, it only changes it for that split, so what @DuelPIC wants apparently can be done.
I did in the first post. Most transaction are one account transaction (i.e. the money just appears or disappears) however some of my transaction are two account transaction. I.e. when I pay my credit card bill. The same transaction shows up in both my Checking Account (where the money is coming from) and my Credit Card Account (where the money is going). Is is the same with my loan payments, my utilities (i have an actual account for them where I follow) etc. So before I upgrade to 5.2 when I paid my Credit card bill in my Checking account the transaction payee would be “Citibank” and in my credit card account the payee would be “John Smith”. Since it checking account its showing where the money is going and in the credit card account it showed where the money came from. The payee for the same transaction that was in two accounts did not have to have to be the same (which me makes sense). After the 5.2 upgrade. Both sides of the transaction have the same payee, if I change the payee on one side, the payee on the other side changes. So when I pay my credit card bill (which is really just a transfer transaction in Kmymoney now I have to decide in my checking account does it look like I gave myself money, or in my credit card account does it look like the payment came from the credit card company. Neither which seem to make sense to me for accounting.
I followed that advice from ipwizard, i;ll try it again, maybe i didn’t get it right.
The interesting (at least to me) part of what I found was that if you just change the payee directly in the ledger, it does change it for both splits, as you originally noted. However, if you change it in the split editor (which you normally don’t need to use for a simply transfer) then you can make the two Payees differ.
Note that what you call a one account transaction really does have two accounts. For a typical purchase, for example, your checking account and the expense account for the Category. For a transfer transaction, even with no Payee assigne at all, in your Checking Account, you can see the money going to the Credit Card Account, and in the Credit Card Account, it shows the money coming from your Checking Account. For me, using a Payee there is unnecessary to know where the money moves. However, that is just how I use KMM, you obviously have a different picture of your finances - but at least it does now appear you can do what you want to.
I finally figured out how to do the split transactions with different payees in the account. its just sorta of confusing how to do it at first, but I figured it out.