HomeBank User Manual

OVERVIEW

HomeBank is a Personal Finance Programme allowing you to organise and control your personal finances by comparing Income, Expenditure and Budgets (either forecasted or actual figures) over any user-selected period. Statistical analysis is also possible.

It is important to understand that the rationale behind HomeBank was the need to provide a personal finance tool that allows you to analyse your expenditure rather than just to offer another Bank Programme.

You are thus able to Categorise every aspect of your expenditure and set monthly budget forecasts for each chosen Category. Annual Income may also be forecasted.

Transactions are entered and sorted under the various Categories to allow real-time comparison between actual expenditure and budget.

At the same time all the normal features that you would expect in a personal financial programme such as Tranfers between Accounts, Standing Orders and Importing & Exporting of Quicken Type files have been incorporated.

By allowing you the total flexibility in being able to view easily your financial transactions over whatever time period you decide , HomeBank provides an ability to analyse spending patterns not available in any other Psion banking programme and also an easy & effective way to plan financially ahead.

Main Analytical features of HomeBank:

• you can analyse identical transactions to show their number within the defined viewing period together with the total, average, minimum & maximum amounts spent [TAB]
  
  
  

• comparison between budget & expenditure under each category over monthly, quarterly and yearly periods [see under MENU - BUDGET]
  
  
  
  
  
  

• monthly comparison between budget and expenditure under each category as you scroll down your list of transactions [SHIFT-CTRL-C]
  
  
  
  

• monthly comparison between forecasted income and total expenditure as you scroll down your list of transactions [SHIFT-CTRL-I]

• single summary screen showing Incomings versus Outgoings summary, an expenditure analysis and comparison between overall budgets set and forecasted income [SPACE]
  
  
  
  

Graphics screen shows comparison between expenditure and the corresponding budget set for each Category [SHIFT-CTRL-Z]

It can also act simply as a Bank Account Programme allowing you to monitor your various Bank and Credit Card Accounts. All the usual banking transactions like Standing Orders or Transfers between Accounts are accepted.

• Here is the Accounts screen (without Toolbar ) showing the running balance of the Account in question , i.e.Lloyds
  
  
  
  

• You can also review a summary of the Transactions under each of your Accounts for the period of view that you have chosen [SPACE]
  
  
  
  
  

• You can also review a summary of the Transactions under all of your Accounts for the period of view that you have chosen [SHIFT-CTRL-J]
  
  

You are strongly advised to view the rest of this User guide in order to acquaint yourself with the many inbuilt features of this programme and it is recommended that you print it.

DIFFERENT DESIGN FEATURE - THE VIEWING PERIOD

As mentioned above, HomeBank has been designed from a different perspective than other financial programs and will therefore behave somewhat differently to how you might expect. One of the most important features is that you can choose the 'viewing period' over which you wish to analyse your financial data.

The viewing period options that you can select from the menu are :

• All Transactions up to today

• All Transactions entered

• All Transactions in the future from today

Select other dates ( a pop-up menu provides options for a month,quarter,year or a user-selected period)

All subsequent actions in HomeBank assume that chosen viewing period until you decide to change it.

Note that if you choose the first option "All Transactions up to today" [CTRL-V], then HomeBank will automatically increase the last date to reflect the date changes in real life, whether or not you leave the HomeBank application open or not. This option is most representative to the norm provided by other banking programs.

Example. Today's date is the 12th July 1998. You select to view transactions in the month of June 1998. You then enter a transaction relating to a purchase that you have made earlier today. Once you have entered this into HomeBank, you will not see the transaction until you change the viewing date to accommodate today's entry,e.g. All Transactions up to today or All Transactions in the month of July.

GETTING STARTED

Enter the default currency:

First of all you will be asked to enter the 'default' currency, which should be the same as your country of domicile.

Enter your Categories [CTRL-C]:

Before any Transactions can be entered, at least one Category must be input first. It is recommended that some thought is given at this stage to the different types of Category into which your expenditure will be subdivided. [ The approximate maximum number of Categories is forty plus ].

Example Categories:

Food, Insurance, Car, Petrol, Gas, Electricity, Telephone, Holidays, Income, Household,Your Hobbies, School, Sport, Children

Enter a Budget against each Category [CTRL-L but only in the Categories screen]:

For each Category you need to allocate a monthly Budget. Please don't worry that you may not know what your actual budget is because you can very easily amend later any figures that you input now.

Enter Account information:

It is also recommended that the information for Bank Accounts and/or Credit Cards and their initial Balances is input now, so that individual transactions may be allocated under the appropriate Bank Account and/or Credit Card.

Enter your forecasted income:

Your forecasted monthly Income details should also be added [CTRL-I] - this is used as a forecast only

PLEASE NOTE that any information entered here does not show under the Transaction or Account Screens but is used in the budgeting side of HomeBank.

Enter your actual Income:

In order to enter, for example, your monthly Salary do the following :

1.Add a Category called Income

2.Use the Standing Order feature (see later under the Standing Order's section) and make sure that your salary is entered as a Credit and not a debit!

There are some special features within HomeBank for analysing income:

1. Income / Expenditure Balance [CTRL-SHIFT-I] provides a monthly comparison between actual expenditure and your forecasted income. (This feature is not available in the Accounts screen).

2. Pressing the Help key shows the overall Income / Budget Balance.

Please note that all information entered may be later updated easily at any stage.

SCREENS LAYOUT

There are Four different Screens of information to see. Envisage them laid out in a row from left to right.As explained before you will only see those transactions whose dates fall within the chosen viewing period.

To move from one Screen to another either press the Left or Right Cursor keys or use the pointer and press the horizontal arrows near the top of the screen at the left hand side. You may also JUMP directly to another Screen by using the pointer.

The Four Screens from left to right show the following info, which with the exception of the Categories screen may be viewed in ascending or descending date order :

1.Bank Account / Credit Card Screen

All Transactions in the chosen Account by Number, Date, Description, Reference, Amount and, if the Toolbar is not shown, then a running Balance is shown .

PLEASE NOTE: In the Accounts screen Debits are shown with a minus sign whereas in all other screens a minus sign reflects a Credit.

2. Transactions Screen

All Transactions sorted by Category by Number, Date, Description, Category, Amount and Type .

3. Categories Screen

The different Categories by Number, Category name, No. of Transactions and the Budget set under each Category .

4. Individual Categories Screen

Under the selected Category, all Transactions by Number, Date, Description, Category, Amount and Type .

HOW TO USE HOMEBANK

There are therefore two sides to HomeBank:

• The recording of your financial outgoings and incomings

• The analytical part where you set monthly budgets for each of your Categories [CTRL-L] and enter a forecast of your estimated annual income (on a monthly basis). You can then utilise the various special features of HomeBank to enable you to analyse all aspects of your financial dealings.

There now follows a brief recommendation of how to use HomeBank - but the choice is up to you :-)

Let us assume that you have :

1. A Current account

2. A Savings account

3. A Credit card

You must first of all enter their names into HomeBank by pressing CTRL-O and entering the Account details and selecting whether it is a Bank or Credit Card Account.

NOTE : by default you will also already have another account automatically set up within HomeBank called 'CASH ACCOUNT', which represents the cash in your wallet or purse.

You may use any of these four accounts to 'pay' for your transactions.

Example Transactions :

You buy something using a cheque from your current account. In HomeBank you enter this transaction under your current account.

You buy something with your credit card. In HomeBank enter the transaction under your credit card account.

[ NB. At the end of the month when you pay off the credit card with a payment from your current account, in HomeBank you would Transfer the appropriate money from your current account to your credit card account.]

You go to the cash machine and take out 50 units of money from your current account. In HomeBank you enter a Transfer of 50 from your current account to the Cash account.

You buy something with Cash. In HomeBank you enter the appropriate transaction under the Cash Account.

ENTERING A TRANSACTION

You may enter a new Transaction (or update an existing one) in any of the four screens. If you are wishing to repeat the entry of a previously entered transaction, you may type in the first few letters only,as HomeBank will check previous entries and if matching ones are found these will be displayed for you to pick the right one.

Since you can analyse 'repeat' transactions to show number of transactions, total, average, min & max, it is important to ensure that they are entered identically.

There are three ways to enter a Transaction.

1. CTRL-N

2. Press ENTER

3. Use the stylus and press the NEW toolbar button

Both CTRL-N and ENTER 'copy' all of the information under the currently highlighted transaction into the new entry dialog box (apart from the date which is updated to Today's date). Whereas using the NEW toolbar button blanks out the description and amount fields.

All fields can be amended by you prior to actual entering the new Transaction.

For every Transaction you need to enter the following information :

• Brief Description (up to 15 letters - although I am currently working on extending the number of letters which may be entered)

• Date

• Amount (up to 12 letters)

• Type - Credit or Debit

• Currency - Any transaction which utilises a foreign currency is identified on all screens with a ° after the amount.

• Period - This has five choices. The first four indicate the period during which the payment relates e.g. Ad Hoc,Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly and are represented on screen with the following symbols:

Ad Hoc - no symbol

Monthly - [M]

Quarterly - [Q]

Yearly - [Y]

These symbols ensure that you can easily recognise payments which are made at regular intervals.

The fifth choice , Standing Order, allows you to enter Standing Orders and/or Direct Debits. These payments are known payments or receipts (e.g. Salary), which are made on a monthly basis. You are moved into a new dialog screen for further entry details ( please see later for a more comprehensive details about entering and reviewing standing orders ).

• Status - Cleared or Uncleared to reflect reconciled & unreconciled entries

• Category - a choice from your defined Categories

• Bank Account - a choice from your chosen Bank and Credit Cards Accounts

• Cheque Reference - Freeform input

STANDING ORDERS OR DIRECT DEBITS

These are entered by selecting the Standing Order option from the 'Period / Type' box.

Each Standing Order is entered for a period of a maximum of twelve months only. If the Standing Order is to continue for a period longer than this then a new Standing Order should be entered at the expiry of the original one.

Standing orders may be amended at any stage [CTRL-U or moving the cursor over the standing order in question and tapping the screen again]. You can amend all of the standing order ,i.e. every month, or just the highlighted transaction, i.e. only one month of the standing order or direct debit.

Also Standing Orders may be deleted (as a whole) [CTRL-D]

When the HomeBank is first initialised, the program checks to see if there are any expired Standing Orders and will advise you if there are.

You may also press SHIFT-CTRL-G to review/renew your Standing Orders under the following basis:

1. Those that have expired

2. Those expiring in the current month

3. All of them

To renew a Standing Order, you just need to follow the on screen instructions.

Please note that the 'old' Standing Orders, which have been renewed, are not automatically deleted. If you wish to remove old Standing Order then you should use the 'TIDY' function rather than the delete function as this ensures that your Bank Account balances are kept up-to-date.

TRANSFERS BETWEEN ACCOUNTS

Transfers between Accounts Transfers are entered pressing CTRL-H.

At least one other Bank or Credit Card Account apart from the Cash Account must have been entered first.

Transfers may be deleted or updated using the standard keys.

SPECIAL FEATURES AND CORRESPONDING HOTKEYS

There are a number of special analytical features in built into HomeBank.

If you need to refresh a screen then press the ESC key. The list resets so that the highlighted entry is the first item of the list.

• It is possible to select any period for which to compare your expenditure, income and budget but you may find it quicker to choose the predefined month, quarter or year views. CTRL-A chooses all possible transactions depending on the Screen you are in.
  
  If you are in the Accounts screen you may wish to view all transactions up to the today's date (CTRL-V). This would mirror how other banking programs work.

• Expenditure vs Budget analysis is available on a Monthly[CTRL-B], Quarterly [SHIFT-CTRL-Q] or Yearly [SHIFT-CTRL-Y] basis.

• When 'stepping' up or down the list of Transactions the Budget/Expenditure (CTRL-S) or Income/Expenditure (SHIFT-CTRL-I) comparison for that month is flashed onto the Screen.

• Press the 'Help' key to see a comparison between Annual Income vs Budget.

• The Tab key produces a Summary of Expenditure, Budget and Income for the period defined as well as an analysis showing maximum, minimum and average calculations ( this view is not available under the Bank Account / Credit Card Screen ).

Transactions may be viewed in ascending or descending date order. Use the screen stylus to tap the top toolbar just under 'Date' in order to activate.

• Accounts Screen :
  
  a) To check your running balance you must remove the Toolbar (CTRL-T)
  b) Items may be shown to have been Cleared.
  b) Totals may be toggled between
  
  Overall Balance - the overall total is shown, which includes the Opening Account Balance and amounts of any transactions which have taken place BEFORE the period of view i.e. it will show the Balance as at the LAST DATE of View.
  
  Cleared Balance - as above but relates to cleared items only. Number of items equals the number of cleared transactions in the viewing period.
  
  Period Balance - just shows the total relating to those transactions occurring between the period of view.

• SPACE BAR - Brings up a summary screen of useful analysis with all statistics based on the period of view chosen.

• Use the Left and Right Cursor keys (or the left & right arrows at the top of each screen) to move from one viewing Screen to another. When in the Accounts screen the left cursor key will toggle through each of your Accounts or if you are in the Single Category screen then the right cursor key will toggle through each Category in turn.
  
  PgUp and PgDn move you up or down a 'screenfull' of Transactions or Categories.

SCREEN STYLUS

You may use the screen stylus extensively as an alternative to keyboard input by tapping it on the following areas on the Screen

• Date : a pop-up screen offers a choice of viewing transactions in either ascending or descending order.

• The 'Period of view' or HomeBank V1.x shown at the bottom left of the screen : allows you to choose from a pop-up menu of dates.

• Balance (when in the Bank / Credit Account screen) : will toggle between 'Overall Balance', 'Cleared Balance' and 'Period Balance' Totals.

• Balance (for all other screens) : will toggle between 'Total', 'Income' and 'Outlay'.

• Left and Right Arrows : move from one Screen to another.

• Up and Down Arrows : equivalent of 'page-up' or 'page-down'.

• Non-highlighted line : move cursor to this Transaction or Category.

• Highlighted line : update whatever was highlighted.

• Name of Bank / Credit card Account : Choice of other Accounts to view

• Highlighted Transaction on the left hand side before the Date and a '•' will appear showing that it has been reconciled.

• JUMP ( Top left of the screen above the arrows) : Jump to another Screen
  
  

• CTRL-Fn- h jumps you back into HomeBank if you are in another programme

BUDGETS

Budget Information Each Category may have a Budget entered for it. A monthly Budget is entered - either as the same amount for each month or different amounts.

Special Budget Features

1. Expenditure / Budget Balance on a monthly basis - (CTRL-S)

2. Expenditure / Budget comparisons for Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly basis.

GRAPHICS

A comparison of Expenditure versus Budget may be shown graphically for all Categories and this is shown for whatever time period has already been selected.

Press [CTRL-SHIFT-Z] or MENU - Graphics to implement.

RECONCILING (OR CLEARING) OF TRANSACTIONS

There are three ways to reconcile or clear a Transaction :

• Point the Stylus at a highlighted Transaction on the left hand side before the Date and a '•' will appear showing that it has been cleared (you must be in the Accounts screen). Repeat the action to reverse.

• Update a Transaction and at Status change Uncleared to Cleared.

• Reconcile all Transactions made during your chosen time period.First move to the Accounts screen and select the respective 'Account', as entries will only be reconciled within the chosen 'Account'.Use [CTRL-R] to access this function. You may then choose the period and also whether to Reconcile or Unreconcile the entries.
  
  Tapping the screen on the Overall Balance will toggle to Cleared Balance and then Period Balance.

FOREIGN CURRENCIES

When HomeBank is first initialised you will be asked to input the default currency. For example if you live in the United Kingdom you would use '£', in the USA you would use '$'.

You may enter any number of foreign currencies and their appropriate exchange rate in comparison to your default currency [SHIFT-CTRL-N].

You may also amend the exchange rate of an existing foreign currency or even rename the exchange rate [SHIFT-CTRL-F].

• When you update an exchange rate then only transactions newly entered or updated after this will utilise the new exchange rate.

• You may 'delete' a Currency by renaming it but any existing transactions utilising the old Currency will not be identified by a ° , although the amount will not change unless subsequently altered by you.

If you need to delete/change the default Currency then you must delete the Currency.hme file in this Directory :

C:\SYSTEM\APPS\HomeBank

You will then be asked to enter a new default Currency (as above), when you next run HomeBank.

TIDY & ARCHIVE FUNCTION

Tidy allows you to discard old entries, and all of the various Accounts will have their 'Initial Balances' updated accordingly.

You have the option to either delete these items in their entirety or to archive (save) them to a file.

This function will not be available to Unregistered users after 90 days.

EXPORTING FUNCTIONS

Exporting Data [SHIFT-CTRL-E] allows you to EXPORT data from HomeBank in either tab-delimited or comma delimited format. You may decide the respective period over which you wish to EXPORT.

If you wish to EXPORT the data into a Spreadsheet, do as follows:

1. EXPORT in tab-delimited format

2. Open the WORD application and utilise the Import Text File option

3. Select all text (CTRL-A) and copy (CTRL-C)

4. Open the SHEET application and paste (CTRL-V)

MERGE ARCHIVED FILES

It also possible to merge in the data from previously archived file [SHIFT-CTRL-D].

Please note that Bank Balances will not be updated automatically and you will need to do this manually yourself.

EXPORT TO QUICKEN

First move to the Bank Account/Credit Card from which you wish to save the data.

Use [SHIFT-CTRL-M] to access this function.

Defined options are :

• Choose filename in which to save QIF data

• Time period

• Date Format : DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY
  

IMPORT FROM QUICKEN

You must ensure that the bank account or credit card to which you wish to import data is the currently selected account. The easiest way to ensure this is to move to the Accounts screen to select your chosen account.

Use [SHIFT-CTRL-L] to access this function.

HomeBank allows full Transactions to be imported and these can also be updated later on.

Standing Orders can also be imported but these cannot be updated (as a '12 month' standing ordrer within HomeBank.

REVIEWS AND RATINGS FOR HOMEBANK

Ericsson have rated HomeBank higher than any other Financial Programme available.

HomeBank was inluded in the Palmtop Magazine's review of Financial Programmes and received the highest rating of any 'single module' shareware or freeware programme with 3.5 Stars out of 5. Only the commercial Palmtop B.V's .( no relation to the Magazine) Money program, costing five times as much, fared better.

Palmtop Magazine commented :

' Existing users [of other financial programmes] would face a steep but worthwhile learning curve while newcomers will welcome HomeBank with enthousiasm.'

The Psion King website has awarded HomeBank its highest rating of 5 TUCOWS (out of 5).

http://www.psionking.com

REGISTRATION

This Programme is Shareware and the result of many hours of work. It is not Freeware and if you continue to use it then you must Register at a cost of £10.00 or US $15.00.

Unregistered users should please respect the principle of Shareware as this programme is essentially uncrippledware and there is no specific restriction regarding the number of Accounts, Categories or Transactions that they may enter.

Unregistered users are not able to input entries which have an effective date that is more than 45 days earlier than the date that program was first run.

Also after 45 days , Archiving,Importing or Exporting will no longer be available to Unregistered users and a more frequent nag screen will appear.

Further details may be found on my WEB SITE :

http:\\www.highfell.demon.co.uk\psion.htm

OR E-MAIL

nigelb@highfell.demon.co.uk

HomeBank User Guide Version 1.1

Dated 14th January 2000