Free Accounting for Kids - Achieve your Goals and Learn how to Manage your Money

Good money management is the starting point for a lasting investment for your financial well-being. That is why it is important to acquire this skill at a young age. In order to save money and have more resources in the future, you will learn to plan how you will spend your money, trying to correct the wrong habits and avoiding unnecessary expenses. 

Banana will guide you in this new learning through simple steps.

The addressees of this model and its benefits

• Parents and teachers: Money management is a skill that is often not taught at school but can be very useful in children's lives. Banana becomes an excellent tool for parents and teachers who want to guide the new generations in managing their pocket money or their first earnings. The aim is to raise young people's awareness of money and make them conscious and responsible for their expenses. In this way, young people will be able to self-discipline and become independent in managing small income, money received as a gift or the salaries of the first summer jobs.

• Kids are the main recipients of this model. They can easily keep track of their income and expenses without having to constantly ask their parents for more money. Learning the art of saving has never been so easy with Banana Accounting: thanks to the Budget function you can plan your expenses, such as a holiday with friends, and make sure in advance that your savings are enough to achieve your goals.

Increase your digital skills

Digital skills help to master new technologies in a conscious way.

Besides learning the basics of accounting and thus managing one's money, Banana Accounting will enable you to increase your digital skills. You will learn how to use a new software, to work with documents and digital links, saving paper and time. You will be able to transfer these skills into various areas of your life, for example work and private life.

How to use Banana Accounting

1. Download Banana for free (via web or application)
2. Open the program and click on "Use Free Version"
3. Download the model here that will be opened in the program
4. Change the name of the document and go to "File” → File and accounting properties… → Enter your name in the right or left header, the opening and closing date and the basic currency.

Basic functions: How to use Banana Accounting in a few simple steps

Cash

The cash register shows your current balance, which indicates how much money you have at the moment. This will allow you to check your financial availability at any time. 

To start managing your money, the first thing to do is to open your Cash Account. Then click on the "Accounts" table and the "Cash" item will appear. In the "Description" column you can add your personal notes. Then click on "Opening" and enter your balance.  

Categories

To the right of the table "Accounts" you will find the table "Categories". In this section there are both income and expenses, i.e. the money you receive or earn and the money you spend. Categories are included for both income and expenses and are useful to immediately recognize the nature of your movements. On the template that you can download on this page by clicking on download template, we have inserted some entries that will guide you. For example, in the income we have: Pocket Money, Family/Gifts and the income from the summer job, while for the expenses some examples are: Food, Clothing, Going Out, etc. ...

You can also change the categories and their descriptions as you like or add others simply by inserting some lines.

Budget

Once you have opened your Cash Account, you can make your own budget, i.e a forecast through your revenues and expenses. This function is very important for your money management, but above all to change your bad spending habits. You will be able to save money and continue to have resources for your future plans.

Now you will have to enter your fixed income (e.g. monthly pocket money), fixed expenses (phone bill), and extra expenses (going out). For each entry you can insert the date (start and end), the repetition, i.e. how often you will have a certain income or expense. If it will be once a year, write "Y", if it will be once a month, "M", once a week, "W", once a day, "D". Now the program will automatically calculate the total of fixed revenue, fixed expenses and extra expenses.

At this point you can plan and manage your expenses. For example, if you are planning a summer holiday, you will need to make sure that you have enough money during that time. To get an immediate view of how your money is evolving, go to the "Accounts" table and click on the Cash cell. Now click at the bottom of the "Charts" section: you will see the trend of your balance over time, indicated by the "Current" line in pink and the budget line in blue. This will enable you to compare the trend of your balance with that of your budget to make sure you don't overspend.

In this case we know that if we are going on holiday we should wait until at least the end of June, as in July and August we will have an economic stability that will allow us to leave. So now we can book our holidays and rest assured.

Transactions

The transactions are simply registrations of your earnings and outgoings. To make the transactions, click on the "Transactions" table. Now enter the date, description, e.g. "Pizza with friends", and enter how much money you spent in the "Expenses" column. Do the same with the income but put the amount in the "Income" column. Then enter the category and, typing only the first few letters, the program will display a list of suggestions (autocompletion) with the words you had previously entered.

At this point the program will do everything for you. You can go back to the Accounts table to check your updated balance, or go to the Categories table and check your income and outgoings in the various categories.

Budget and real expenses

If you move in the Categories table, you can compare your actual income and expenses (Balance column) with those you have budgeted (Budget column) and the difference between the two (Budget Difference).

This will allow you to check if you are spending more or less money than expected and if you need to change the management or forecast of your money.

Final Check

If you want to be sure you haven't made any mistakes, Banana Accounting helps you with a very useful check function. It reports errors and shows you the lines where exactly they are located (for example if you forgot to record a category or an amount). 

To check your accounting, go to the menu Actions→ Check accounting.

In a nutshell: Why Banana? 

• Free downloadable application on your mobile phone or computer
• Quick and easy
• Planning to set goals
• Learn the art of saving and become an entrepreneur

References

Credit Suisse PocketMoney Study: Learning How to Manage Money Properly. (Credit Suisse, 2017)

Peachery, Kevin. How much pocket money should we give our kids? (bbcnews.com, 2019)

Raisiningchildren. Pocket money. (Raisingchildren.net.au, 2018)

Shears, Gareth. Pocket money: Passing on financial skills to children and grandchildren. (Sanctuary financial planning, 2020) 

Ubs. Why pocket money is important for your child. (ubs.com)