Credit card transactions for personal finances
I use mint.com for tracking my finances.  It works on mobile phones, tablets, and in a browser.  If you don't mind the initial hassle of putting in the credentials you use to access your account online, you'll find that you're able to build a comprehensive picture of the state of your finances relatively quickly. It does a great job of separating the various types of financial transactions you engage in, and also lets you customize those classifications with tags.  It's ad-supported, so there's no out-of-pocket cost to you, and it doesn't preclude you from using the personal finance software you already have on your phone. "Other responses have focused on getting you software to use, but I'd like to attempt your literal question: how are such transactions managed in systems that handle them? I will answer for ""double entry"" bookkeeping software such as Quicken or GnuCash (my choice). (Disclaimer: I Am Not An Accountant and accountants will probably find error in my terminology.) Your credit card is a liability to you, and is tracked using a liability account (as opposed to an asset account, such as your bank accounts or cash in your pocket). A liability account is just like an asset except that it is subtracted from rather than added to your total assets (or, from another perspective, its balance is normally negative; the mathematics works out identically). When you make a purchase using your credit card, the transaction you record transfers money from the liability account (increasing the liability) to the expense account for your classification of the expense. When you make a payment on your credit card, the transaction you record transfers money from your checking account (for example) to the credit card account, reducing the liability. Whatever software you choose for tracking your money, I strongly recommend choosing something that is sufficiently powerful to handle representing this as I have described (transfers between accounts as the normal mode of operation, not simply lone increases/decreases of asset accounts)."
"I will disagree with the other answers. The idea that there is some to establish a ""credit history"" is largely a myth propagated by loaners who see it as positive propaganda to increase the numbers of their prospective customers. You will find some people who claim they were rejected for a card because they had no ""credit history,"" but in every case what these people are not telling you is they also had no income (were students, house wives, or others with no steady income). Anyone who has income can get a credit card or other line of credit regardless of their ""credit history."" Even people who have gone bankrupt can get credit cards if they have proven income. If your answer to this is that ""you have no income, but still want a credit card"", I would advise you to re-read that sentence several times and think carefully about it. I have never had a credit card and never missed having one, except when trying to rent cars which was somewhat complex and annoying to do in the 2005-2010 time period without a credit card. Credit cards have a number of disadvantages: I definitely agree with those who will tell you credit cards are convenient, they are, but for someone who wants to be financially prudent and build wealth they are unnecessary and unwise. If you don't believe me, read ""The Total Money Makeover"" by David Ramsey, one of the most famous and best-selling books ever written on personal finance. He actually will give you much better and detailed reasons to avoid CCs than me. After all, who am I, just some dumb rich schmuck with lots of money and no debt and a happy life. Comment on Culture I think it is pretty funny we have a lot of spendthrift Americans in this thread basically telling the OP to get lots of credit cards as soon as possible. If you asked the same question in Japan you would get completely different answers and votes. In Japan its hard to even use credit cards. The  people there are much more responsible financially than Americans; the average Japanese person has much higher wealth than a person with the same income in the United States. One of the reasons for this, among many, is that the average Japanese person does not use credit cards. A Japanese person, if you translated this question for them, would think the whole thing a typical example of how foolish Americans are." In the case of reward cards, different cards may offer different rewards for different kind of purchases. For example, in the UK, one of the Amex cards offers 1.25% cashback on all purchases, whereas one of the Santander cards offers 3% on fuel, 2% or 1% on certain other transactions, and nothing on others. Of course, you then have to remember to use the right card! Another reason is that a person may use a card for a while, build up a good credit limit, and then move to a different card (perhaps because it has better rewards, or a lower interest rate, etc) without cancelling the first. If it costs nothing to keep the first card, then it can be useful to have it as a spare. "I've been using YNAB4 for the last few years, and I like it so much that I haven't switched to the web version (new YNAB) yet.  However, I have played around with the web version a little, and here is what I have discovered. Despite the different look of the credit card account and the lengthy dissertation on the credit card differences in the Transition Guide, credit cards are handled almost exactly the same in the new YNAB as they were in YNAB4. You enter credit card spending transactions in the same way as YNAB4.  When you enter a transaction, money is pulled out of the budget category you select.  The only difference is that in YNAB4, this money was considered ""gone.""  Now, that money moves from your budget category into the new credit card category. When it comes time to pay the credit card bill, you also enter this transaction in the same way as before.  It is entered as a transfer of money from your checking account to your credit card account.  The only difference here is that with new YNAB, the funds are deducted from your credit card category.  This is handled automatically, so you don't have to think about it if you don't want to.   If you always pay your credit card bill in full, you never have to budget money manually into the credit card category.  The money will already be there from when you entered the credit card spending transactions.  The only time you would manually budget money into the credit card spending category is if you have old credit card debt that you are trying to pay off. A quick example, in pictures: I start out with $10,000 in my checking account, and no credit card debt:  I've got all $10,000 in my ""Fun Money"" category:  Now, I spend $100 at the Store:  You can see that, just like in YNAB4, the credit card account is now in the red $100, and the checking account balance has not changed. In the categories, my Fun Money category is down $100 to $9,900, just like it would be in YNAB4.  The only difference is that there is now $100 in the new Credit Card Payments category.  When it is time to pay the bill, I enter an account transfer, just like in YNAB4:  Note that the Credit Card balance is back to $0, and the Checking Account balance is now down to $9,900. The Credit Card Payment budget category is now magically back to $0:  The above example starts with a zero balance on the credit card.  However, most people will have a non-zero balance on their credit card when they first start a budget.  In YNAB4, when you added a credit card with a (negative) balance, the debt was shown in a budget category called ""Pre-YNAB Debt.""  You then added money to this budget category until it went to zero, and then you didn't need this budget category anymore. With new YNAB, credit card balances are not shown in budget categories.  If you add a credit card account with a balance, the debt is not shown in the budget categories.  To pay off this debt, you can fund the Credit Card Payments category.  After this existing balance amount is paid off, you won't need to fund the Credit Card Payments category anymore as long as you properly assign each new credit card purchase to a funded budget category." It is probably safe to throw away the receipt.  Without a system to process and store receipts, they are of little use. With regards to personal finances I'm guilty of preaching without practicing 100% of the time, but here are some arguments for keeping receipts. To reconcile your statement to receipts before paying the credit card bill  - people make mistakes all the time.  I bet if you have an average volume of transactions, you will find at least one mistake in 12 months. To establish baseline spending and calculate a realistic budget.  So many people will draft  a budget by 'estimating' where their money goes.  When it comes to this chore, I think people are about as honest with themselves as exercise and counting calories.  Receipts are facts. To abide by record keeping requirements for warranty, business, IRS, etc... Personally, the only thing I've caught so far is Bank of America charging me interest when I pay my bill in full every month! "In double-entry bookkeeping, no transaction is ever negative. You only deal in positive numbers. We ""simulate"" negative numbers by calling numbers debits and credits, where one is the negative of the other. Only a balance can be negative. In this case, Income is a credit account. That means that things that increase your balance are credits and things that reduce your balance are debits. So a gift from grandma is a credit. It's a positive number, and you write it in the credit column. You pretty much never subtract from Income except to correct a mistake. Assets, like a checking account, are debit accounts. Increases are debits and decreases are credits. You routinely have both debits and credits on a checking account, i.e. you put money in and you take money out. Every transaction affects (at least) two accounts: one with a debit and one with a credit. So in this case, the gift from grandma credits income and debits checking. Buying food credits checking and debits expenses." "Exactly what accounts are affected by any given transaction is not a fixed thing. Just for example, in a simple accounting system you might have one account for ""stock on hand"". In a more complex system you might have this broken out into many accounts for different types of stock, stock in different locations, etc. So I can only suggest example specific accounts. But account type -- asset, liability, capital (or ""equity""), income, expense -- should be universal. Debit and credit rules should be universal. 1: Sold product on account: You say it cost you $500 to produce. You don't say the selling price, but let's say it's, oh, $700. Credit (decrease) Asset ""Stock on hand"" by $500. Debit (increase) Asset ""Accounts receivable"" by $700. Credit (increase) Income ""Sales"" by $700. Debit (increase) Expense ""Cost of goods sold"" by $500. 2: $1000 spent on wedding party by friend I'm not sure how your friend's expenses affect your accounts. Are you asking how he would record this expense? Did you pay it for him? Are you expecting him to pay you back? Did he pay with cash, check, a credit card, bought on credit? I just don't know what's happening here. But just for example, if you're asking how your friend would record this in his own records, and if he paid by check: Credit (decrease) Asset ""checking account"" by $1000. Debit (increase) Expense ""wedding expenses"" by $1000. If he paid with a credit card: Credit (increase) Liability ""credit card"" by $1000. Debit (increase) Expense ""wedding expenses"" by $1000. When he pays off the credit card: Debit (decrease) Liability ""credit card"" by $1000. Credit (decrease) Asset ""cash"" by $1000. (Or more realistically, there are other expenses on the credit card and the amount would be higher.) 3: Issue $3000 in stock to partner company I'm a little shakier on this, I haven't worked with the stock side of accounting. But here's my best stab: Well, did you get anything in return? Like did they pay you for the stock? I wouldn't think you would just give someone stock as a present. If they paid you cash for the stock: Debit (increase) Asset ""cash"". Credit (decrease) Capital ""shareholder equity"". Anyone else want to chime in on that one, I'm a little shaky there. Here, let me give you the general rules. My boss years ago described it to me this way: You only need to know three things to understand double-entry accounting: 1: There are five types of accounts: Assets: anything you have that has value, like cash, buildings, equipment, and merchandise. Includes things you may not actually have in your hands but that are rightly yours, like money people owe you but haven't yet paid. Liabilities: Anything you owe to someone else. Debts, merchandise paid for but not yet delivered, and taxes due. Capital (some call it ""capital"", others call it ""equity""): The difference between Assets and Liabilities. The owners investment in the company, retained earnings, etc. Income: Money coming in, the biggest being sales. Expenses: Money going out, like salaries to employees, cost of purchasing merchandise for resale, rent, electric bill, taxes, etc. Okay, that's a big ""one thing"". 2: Every transaction must update two or more accounts. Each update is either a ""debit"" or a ""credit"". The total of the debits must equal the total of the credits. 3: A dollar bill in your pocket is a debit. With a little thought (okay, sometimes a lot of thought) you can figure out everything else from there." I am sure everyone is different, but it has helped me a great deal. I have had several card balances go up and the interest on those per month was more than $200 in just interest combined.  I transferred the balances over to 0% for 15 months – with a fee, so the upfront cost was about $300. However, over the next 15 months at 0% I'm saving over $200 each month.  Now I have the money to pay everything off at 14 months. I will not be paying any interest after that, and I cut up all of my cards so I won't rack up the bills with interest on them anymore. Now, if I can't buy it with a debit card or cash, I don't get it.  My cards went up so high after remodeling a home so they were justified. It wasn't because I didn't pay attention to what I could afford.  My brother, on the other hand, has trouble using credit cards properly and this doesn't work for him. Is your credit card spending on things outside the categories listed in your question? I generally don't put credit card expenditures in their own category of spending because I'm buying things like gas and groceries, etc. I track all spending whether from my checking account (bill autopay) or credit card account as spending in budget categories, and I just transfer money from my checking account to my credit card account to cover anything that was spent there during the previous month.