Budget Table

[Jazz]

I am creating a database to track what I spend my money on. I am planning to
include the following fields in my table.

Expense ID
Expense Category
Purchase date
Expense Item Description
Projected Cost
Actual Cost
Amount Saved
Comments

Considering my intention to track what I spend my money on,what do you think
of my table design? Would you recommend different field names, additional
field names, or keep the ones I have?

 

[Steve]

Hello Jazz,

Consider adding an expense category table. You probably spend your money
repeatedly on many of the same things such as electric, gas, telephone,
gasoline, etc so consider adding an expense item table. You also might
consider having an expense table and an expense detail table. With this in
mind you would have the following tables design:

TblExpenseCategory
ExpenseCategoryID
ExpenseCategory

TblExpenseItem
ExpenseItemID
ExpenseCategoryID
ExpenseItem

TblExpense
ExpenseID
ExpenseDate
Comments

TblExpenseDetail
ExpenseDetailID
ExpenseID
ExpenseItemID
Projected Cost
Actual Cost
Amount Saved

Steve
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Duane Hookom]

First, I would remove all spaces from field names. The AmountSaved I expect
is the difference between the ProjectedCost and ActualCost so there is no
reason to create this field and/or save the value.

I use a naming convention that would create a table like:
tblExpenses
===============
expExpID
expExCID link to tblExpenseCategories.ecaExCID
expDate
expItem
expProjectedCost
expActualCost
expComments

tblExpenseCategories
==================
excExCID autonumber primary key
excTitle name of category like "Rent","Groceries","Entertainment", "Beer"

 

[Steve]

I meant Projected Cost and Actual Cost not to have spaces! I also agree with
Duane that you don't need Amount Saved!

Steve

 

[Jazz]

Hi Duane,

This is fabulous advice. Thank you for your input. I may have questions
down the road but this will definitely help me to get started. Thanks a
million!

 

[Jazz]

Very good advice as well. Thank you Steve, I value your contribution. I am
thankful for your help.