Hi Barry,

Withdrawals (cash or checks) and Deposits (cash or checks) are both
transactions. You need to think in terms of withdrawals and deposits rather
than expenses and deposits. So rather than expense category you need a table
of transaction category. The categories in this table would be types of
expenses (debits) as well as sources of deposits (credits). Thus your tables
should look like:
TblTransaction
TransactionID
TransactionDate
TransactionDescription

TblTransactionDetail
TransactionDetailID
TransactionID
DebitCredit (Use option Group where Debit = -1 and Credit = +1)
TransactionCategoryID
TransactionAmount

TblTransactionCategory
TransactionCategoryID
CategoryName
TransactionCategoryTypeID
IsTaxable

Include in TblTransactionCategory both your expense categories as well as
your sources for deposits. If there are a large number of categories or even
for just convenience, add a table for types of transaction categories:
TblTransactionCategoryType
TransactionCategoryTypeID
TransactionCategoryType (Debit and Credit)
TransactionCategoryMultiplier (-1 and +1)

Then you don't need the DebitCredit field in TblTransactionDetail. I haven't
included distinguishing between cash and checks in the above. If you need
that detail you can expand upon the above. Also, if you have more than one
bank account, you can expand upon the above.

Steve





"Barry A&P" wrote in message
news
I have a simple database for keeping my checkbook (or all finances)
straightened out. and i am looking for suggestions on how to make my
deposits
splittable..

i have two simple tables

T_Transactions
TransactionID
TransactionDate
TransactionAmount
TransactionDescription
ExpenseCategoryID

And
T_ExpenseCategory
CategoryID
CategoryName
IsTaxable

when i enter a deposit the bank statement only shows one amount but it may
actually be the sum of 6 checks all needing different categories assigned
to
them..

Does anybody have any neat ideas about how to setup a database that can do
this.
I know the basics pretty good but im not sure if i can figure out a good
user interface for this.. or how to maintain good normalization if one
transaction has no split details while others have many split details..
I
remember years ago using quickbooks and there was a split button that sent
you off somewhere.


Any ideas would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks
Barry