Account Types

Cash
The cash account type is used to denote the cash that you store in your wallet, shoebox, piggybank, or mattress.
Bank
The Bank account type denotes a savings or checking account held at a bank or other financial institution.
Such accounts sometimes bear interest.
Credit
The Credit card account is used to denote credit card accounts, whether involving floating lines of credit as with VISA, MasterCard, or Discover, as well as others like American Express that do not permit you to maintain continuing balances.
The introduction of Check Cards where payments are withdrawn directly from a checking account makes the selection less clear; it is probably more appropriate to treat a "Check Card" as a Bank account, as it does withdraw amounts directly from such an account, not really involving any granting of credit.
Asset, Liability
Asset and Liability accounts are used for tracking things that are of value, but that are not so directly translated into cash .
For instance, you might collect the costs of purchasing a house into an asset account entitled My House, or the cost of a car into My Car, or collect together the value of your Computer Equipment.
And the home mortgage or car loan would be represented by liability accounts, Home Mortgage and Car Loan, to be drawn down as payments are made on these loans.
If you hold assets for business purposes, their decline in value over time might be treated as a deduction for tax purposes, that deduction being called Depreciation.
On the other hand, if you own assets that appreciate in value over time, such as real estate, collectibles like paintings, and investments like shares in companies, you may see them appreciate in value, and have to recognize, for tax purposes, what are called Capital Gains.
Stock, Mutual Fund
Securities that you invest in are a form of asset that are normally acquired with the express purpose of receiving income either in the form of dividends, interest, or Capital Gains. There are a multitude of securities markets around the world, and securities that are widely enough traded can have pretty concrete values that may be analyzed on a day-to-day basis.
Stock and Mutual Fund accounts are typically tracked in registers having three main columns:
In order to get useful information out of the register, it is necessary to have multiple "views" on the data so that you may assess such things as:
More details may be found in the Stock Ticker section.
Income, Expense
Income and Expense accounts are used to collect incomes and expenses.
Equity
Equity accounts are used to balance the balance sheet, indicating the portion of the "corporate" value represents the net amount that the owners own.
On a year-by-year basis, a computed value called Retained Earnings indicates the net value of the enterprise; it is generally considered a good thing when this value increases.
Currency
Currency Accounts are used for trading currencies.
In most ways, they behave like stocks, except that the only way that "income" may be gotten from them is from fluctuations in the relative values of currencies. Note that transfers cannot be made directly between two accounts denominated in different currencies. Such transfers may only be made into currency trading accounts.

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