Do I need to update both Entities in a one-to-many relationship using EntityFramework?

Question

I have two Entities which look like this:

public class Account
{
    public int AccountId { get; set; }
    public string AccountName { get; set; }
    public decimal AccountBalance { get; set; }

    public virtual Expense Expense { get; set;} 
}

public class Expense
{
    public int ExpenseId { get; set; }
    public string ExpenseName { get; set; }
    public decimal ExpenseAmount { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection Accounts { get; }
}

If I want to add a new Expense to the DbContext.Expenses with an Account object that is already stored within the Database , do I also need to add this new Expense to that Account Entity ?

In my testing there was no way to access the associated Expenses from the Account Model if I simply create a new Expense entity.

Answer 1

Do the following:

• Add new Expense to the expenses collection
• On the already existing Account entity set the Expense property to be the new entity created.
• Save changes.