I want to make a database to track expenses. This wouldn't be my main accounting process/software, but rather a way to store and find specific transactions or groups of transactions.

I would make this in MS Access/Libre Office Base.

I would have 3 Main Tables:

Line Items - Specific things/services I bought
Expenses - Groups of line items (or can be a single line item) constituting the main thing accounted for
Transactions - A monetary exchange between me and another party

The idea of having 3 different tables is that I want to account for a single "Expense" but that expense might have multiple line items and transactions.

For example, suppose I go on a trip to Las Vegas. I would have several Line Items (The flight, lunches, dinners, gas, etc) but I want to have a single record of the entire trip (the "Expense" in this case).

Another example would be a built a new server. I might have several Line Items such as the chassis, the motherboard, etc. But each would be a single line item (unless I just bought a single server outright).

Anybody have any input on this?

Doesn't Quicken already do that?

Personal Finance Software