EXPENSES.MDB - Microsoft Access expense records database

EXPENSES.MDB is a database for storing expense records and grouping them into categories to get category totals. It has queries to summarize the data in different ways over various time periods, and it has several ledger-style reports, a couple of which were formatted for a 14" wide carriage 10 cpi "generic / text only" (non-graphics) printer.

Although simple, this database and its predecessor in Condor rDBMS have served me well for the past 20+ years.

Its tables are:

• Journal - account from which the expense was paid
• table1 - the expenses table

The fields of table1 are:

• jr - the journal, as above
• ckno - check number or other transaction identifier
• date
• payee - the payee and any other notes about the transaction
• category - categories are free-form text chosen by you, not numbered
• amount

If you're new to Access, the queries might be reasonably good examples to learn from. One is a crosstab query; its output is in spreadsheet format with the years across the top and the categories down the left side so you can see how the category totals changed from year to year.

Download:

The latest version of the zip file was uploaded 3/11/2007. The only significant change from the prior version is that the ckno field in table1 has been changed from numeric to text (length=50, Required=No, Allow Zero Length=Yes, Indexed=No). "Check Numbers" are somewhat obsolete these days, and not all transaction reference numbers are purely numeric. This allows for flexibility and less chance of errors when pasting data from CHECKS.XLS (see below).

EXPENSES.MDB for Access 2.0 and 2003

About 87 KB. Both versions are in the zip file. Rename the version you want to use to EXPENSES.MDB.

Related Project - Excel checkbook register

There is a companion project to this one:

The Excel worksheet CHECKS.XLS is a checkbook (check register) that maintains your running balance when you enter the data from your checks or debit card transactions.

The worksheet is structured so you can copy its data and PasteAppend it into the EXPENSES.MDB database (table1) to calculate category totals for year-end bookkeeping and income tax return preparation.

Expenses that were not paid by check, and other transactions, would normally be entered directly into EXPENSES.MDB. Whenever needed, copy and paste the check data from CHECKS.XLS into the database, where it all gets mixed together and you can get the category totals regardless of how the expenses were paid.