ARM Club 3/TheARMClub_PDCD3.iso/mag_discs/16/pennies/Guide

Text File | 1995-06-28 | 27KB | 558 lines

                   !PENNIES DEMO GUIDE
                   ===================

This guide will take you through a quick tour of the basic facilities
offered by !Pennies.

GETTING STARTED

For this tour you will need the demonstration data loaded, to do this
first Run !ArcFS by double clicking on it in the filer display then
double click on the !RunDemo icon - !Pennies will load then run, with
the demonstration accounts data being loaded, whilst this is happening
a status window will be shown. Any standing orders that are updated
will result in a 'beep' being emitted each time an entry is made - no
your mouse is not raising a family inside your machine! The status
window will report this. The !Pennies icon will appear on the icon bar
and the status window will show 'Ready'.

HELP

Every facility in !Pennies has its own help text which is immediately
available by clicking over the standard help icon in each facility's
window, these texts are then loaded into !Edit and run. This method is
used thoughout the application and allows the texts to remain on the
screen whilst you use the application. You can use these texts to
amplify the information within this guide. If you have RiscOS2 then
make sure that !Edit has been seen before using the Help function.

Acorn's Interactive Help is also supported and will assist with this
tour.

This tour does not explain all operations in detail but the help texts
do - use these if you wish to go into more detail at any stage.

DATA

All transaction data is saved automatically to disc as soon as it is
entered. All data is stored within a predefined directory structure in
the form of text in data and text type files which can be viewed in
any text editor (such as !Edit).

ICONBAR ICON

Click menu over the iconbar icon, a menu will appear with entries of:

    *Info
    *Help:
    *Quit©
    *Quit

Selecting Info will open the status window with boring information in
it (click over it, or the icon bar icon to remove it). Selecting Quit
will shut down the application, Quit© would quit then copy the
data to a backup store but is disabled in this version.

Move the pointer over the Help entry to open it's submenu, and then
click over Help. At this point !Edit will start and load a text called
Help which describes the help facilities within !Pennies. The other
help texts available from this menu are general ones which give an
overview of the facilities etc. which you can read at your leisure,
however the Technotes helptext in this version explains it's
limitations compared to the full version.

To carry on with the tour click select over the !Pennies icon and a
TOOLBAR will open over the left half of the icon bar. This TOOLBAR
gives access to all the !Pennies facilities by either opening a window
directly or opening another menu from which a window will be opened.
This tour will take you through the facilities in turn going from left
to right along the TOOLBAR.

                           THE TOOLBAR
                           ===========

SEE ACCOUNT - THE ACCOUNTS DISPLAY

Clicking over the first icon will open the 'Accounts' menu which
appears throughout the application in various forms - it lists all the
accounts known to !Pennies. You will see that accounts are divided
into 7 groups, the first 5 are: Cash, Invest, Insure, Pay and Spend -
some of these have further subdivisions which will be seen by moving
the pointer through the menu structure, an account is defined at the
end of each branch of the menu, each end submenu also has a 'New'
entry from which new accounts can be started.

There are 2 other accounts groups on this menu; Fixed and Index; Fixed
contains 5 accounts: Find, Indexlink, Budget, Sum and CalcAcct; and
Index contains 1 account; RPI. These will all be described later -
note that any accounts entry that has a sub-menu finishes with a ":".
Move the pointer over the Cash sub-menu and select 'Bankacct'. At this
point the data from 'Bankacct' will be loaded and displayed in the
accounts display window which will appear. !Pennies accounts files can
also be dragged to this icon for display in which case they are
treated as 'Archives' and no changes can be made to them from within
the display.

The account display consists of 2 parts, the top pane contains general
information and the lower area contains details of every transaction
on the account. Clicking menu over the top 'pane' of the window will
bring up a menu with 'Edit' and 'Fulldata' on it, click on 'Fulldata'.
The top part of the window will change to reveal a display of database
type account information. Click menu over this and another menu will
appear, 'Smalldata' will take you back to the original pane. Note the
account transactions beneath remain the same. Now select 'Edit' from
this menu, the New Account window will appear allowing you to edit the
basic account data, this is also where you will define new accounts,
but for now just exit this window by closing it or clicking on the
Exit button.

Back in the accounts display, click select over the textual part of
any transaction entry and it will be marked and a menu offering 'Edit'
and 'Delete' will open, ignore this and click over the amount part of
an entry - this will toggle the checked (#) character on and off and
will adjust the 'checked balance' figure in the top pane allowing you
to simply check bank statements. Clicking menu anywhere over the
transactions area will open the 'Misc' menu offering a variety of
further facilities: Printall, Print50, Interest, Find, Archive, Index
and Budget - these facilities are explained later.

TRANSACTIONS

The second item on the TOOLBAR is the TRANSACTION icon, click over it to
open the TRANSACTION window. All transactions except Standing Orders are
made by using this window, the layout of the window is similar for all
accounts but it adjusts itself as accounts and transaction types are
entered. Most data entry is accomplished through the use of menus
which ensure that data entry is quick, logical and error resistant.
New accounts and new menu entries are also initiated whilst entering
transaction data. All amounts are entered in Pounds and pence. When
using foreign currencies the appropriate equivalents are used.

With the TRANSACTION window open, note that it is designed so that data
entry is logically from the top down.

*date
The date is simply changed and can be reset at any time during entry.

*from
The 'from' account is entered next - moving the pointer over the entry
box changes it to a menu shape, this convention is used whenever a
data entry is by menu, clicking any mouse button will open the
'Accounts' menu from which the 'from' account is selected, select
'Cash:Bankacct' from the menu and note that 'Bankacct' appears in the
'from' box and a £ sign appears next to it - this indicates that the
account currency is £. Click over the £ sign and note the 'Forex' menu
that appears , click on US$ and the Forex window will open - we will
deal with this later - for now click over the Clear button in the
Transaction window and it will close the Forex window and leave
'Bankacct' in the from box.

*transaction
Now click over the 'transaction' box and a new menu appears, in this
case it is 'Cashtrans' and it details the transaction types available
from Cash accounts. In effect these all take money away from the
'from' account and send it to the 'to' account unless 'Internal' is
used in which case the transaction is purely internal to the 'from'
account. For now just select 'Debit'.

*to
Click over the 'to' box, the 'To' menu appears, select 'Spend:Cowfood'
from this menu then move the pointer over the 'amount' box.

*amount
The pointer changes to a 'caret' over the amount box indicating that
you have to type in the amount, click over the box and type in the
amount - to enter £100.00 type in '100.00' or just '100'. Simple
calculations can be done here also.(eg 112.78/12<Return> gives 9.40)

*comments
Now click over the comments box; the caret will move allowing you to
type in a comment if you wish - they are not essential. However,
clicking menu over the comments box will also open the 'Cashcomments'
menu which allows you to enter common comments quickly (guess where we
go shopping). This comments menu is simply amended in use.

*Enter
To enter the transaction click over 'Enter', the transaction will be
saved to disc and most of the data will be cleared from the
TRANSACTION window. The 'Clear' button will also clear the data from
this window without entering the transaction and the 'Exit' button
will clear and close the window. If you still have the Bankacct
account display open you will see the new transaction entered in its
correct place chronologically, if not you can open it now to see it.


*KeySet
With the Transaction window still open press the F1 function key, you
will see that a complete set of transaction data has been entered into
the window. This facility enables common transactions to be entered
with one keystroke. Tru some function keys - defining them is simply
done by clicking over the KeySet button and selecting a key from the
menu - any data in the TRANSACTION window when this is done will be
remembered and copied into the window when the selected key is pressed
in future with the window active.

NEW ACCOUNTS

All new accounts are created through the NEW ACCOUNT window, which
can be opened from the SEE ACCOUNT menu or the TRANSACTION menus. To
see this, select 'New' from the 'from' account box menu for the
account type that is appropriate - try Cash:.New. This will open the
window which allows you to define new accounts and edit existing ones.
Whilst this window looks complex in fact you only need to give the
account a name to define it, the rest of the data can be added later,
the 'Computing Functions' section at the bottom of the window can be
used to define 'one off' accounts, however Functions are all set to
default values appropriate to the account type whenever a new account
is created so there is no need to consider them normally.

All items except the account name can be entered or reset later. Once
an account has been named  - use up to 10 characters with no spaces
and try and start with a capital letter (because your account will
appear on menus and Acorn say that these should all start with
capitals!) The account is initiated by clicking on 'Enter', this will
set up the new account and its name will appear on the appropriate
menu, 'Exit' or closing the window will cancel the operation. Close
this window.


STANDING ORDERS

The third item on the TOOLBAR is the 's/o' icon, clicking over this will
open the 'Standing orders' window listing all current standing orders.
These are created, printed, edited and deleted from here. Selecting
'Create' will open a form which functions in a similar fashion to the
TRANSACTION form, standing orders are automatically actioned when
!Pennies starts up, a 'beep' is emitted each time one is actioned and
the status window will indicate that standing orders are being
processed. Close both s/o windows.

GRAPHS

The next item on the TOOLBAR is GRAPH, graphs can be plotted of any
account, including Archives, and up to 8 accounts can be plotted on
the same graph. Line graphs plot the balance or value of each
transaction against it's date and bar graphs sum the amounts of all
transactions over a sub-period (typically one month) and then plot
these as bars for the whole period. Bar graphs are most suitable for
'one-way' accounts such as most Spend accounts where the majority of
transactions are only into, or out of the account. All graphs are
drawn with amounts plotted vertically and with time increasing from
left to right. Axes are re-scaled automatically as accounts are added.

Click over the 'GRAPH' icon and the 'Graphdata' window will open.

The end and start dates are set by default to today and one year ago,
selection of accounts is by clicking over the 'Account' box and then
through the normal accounts menu or by dragging an account onto this
box.

Clicking on the 'line' or 'bar' button will select this option if
not already selected and clicking on 'Plot' will plot the graph.

The 'shareprice' and 'sharevalue' options allow the share price or
value of the holding to be plotted.

The 'plot relative' option allows accounts to be plotted relative to
their value at the start date - very useful for comparisons.

Select 'Cash:Bankacct', 'line' and then 'Plot'. A line graph will
appear. Click menu over this graph and you will see that you can add
further accounts and in the full version you can print the graph or
save it as a sprite or drawfile. Click select over the graph and you
will be able to draw a line as in !Draw, this is a measuring tool
which allows you to measure growth rates etc. When you first draw a
line a set of icons appears at the bottom right of the display showing
the 'line data' results. Clicking over the 'percent' box will toggle
through the data available. Close the Graph window.

BALANCES

The fifth TOOLBAR item is BALANCES, clicking over this opens another
menu with a list of accounts groups, selecting a group from this
menu opens a window summarising the current state of all accounts in
that group. Selecting ALL summarises all accounts. UPDATE ensures all
accounts are re-calculated to be up to date. Select ALL to see this
facility at work, when the window opens you will see that you can
PRINT the display, if you click over an amount in the CHECKED or
BALANCE columns then it will be discounted from the relevant total and
shown in light grey (the disc will also be accessed as the text for
printing-which is held on disc-is also altered). Click over any amount
to see this effect. Close this window.


SUM

The black PLUS sign on the TOOLBAR indicates SUM, this function allows
you to add the balances of selected files together at set intervals
over a selected period. For example all Cash accounts could be summed
to produce a running total over the year. Up to 100 intervals are
allowed, so over 3 months the balances would be computed daily, over a
year the interval would be weekly (intervals are set automatically)

Select 'SUM' from the TOOLBAR and the SUM window opens. Start and end
dates are set in the normal fashion and clicking over any of the
'Accounts' boxes brings up the normal Accounts menu. However, in this
facility groups of accounts can be selected together, thus clicking on
'Cash:' selects all the Cash accounts. Archived files can also be
dragged to the window.

To see this select 'Cash:' from the menu using the 'Adjust' button
(the right mouse button) and note that Cash: appears in the top
'Accounts' box and the menu remains open.

Now select 'Invest:' using the Select button, Invest: appears in the
next Accounts box and the menu closes.

Select the start and end dates to 20Jun94 and 20Jun95 then select
'Sum' to start the computation, the disc is accessed and a new window
showing the results appears.

This window can be examined to see the results and can be printed out
by clicking on the 'Print' button. 'New' closes this window and opens
the 'Sum' entry window again for a new sum. Whichever 'Sum' was
performed last becomes the 'Existing' sum file and can be accessed
from the Accounts menus as Fixed.Sum for display. This file can also
be plotted as a LINE graph directly through the GRAPH function, but it
cannot be plotted as a BAR graph since it is merely a list of balances
and has no amounts going into it or from it.

Initial Balance. The sum account will initially show the actual
balances but this can be changed such that the initial sum balance is
zero, this is achieved by selecting 'Null' (this button was not called
zero because the 'z' key on my keyboard was worn out -  probably by my
kids playing games!). This option will initially be set to 'Actual'
for new Sum accounts, in this state the actual balances are shown. If
'Null' is selected then the balances are reset to the difference from
the initial balance, the first balance figure is thus set to zero. The
option selected is automatically used to save the Sum account and it
will be used in the Graph facility in this state. This option can be
toggled between the 2 states at any time. When an existing Sum account
is loaded the buttons reflect the stored state of the Sum account.


Close the Sum window.


PROJECT

Click over PROJECT on the TOOLBAR (the icon with the arrow pointing to
a question mark) to open the PROJECT window. This function allows you
to analyse accounts over a selected period and project the results
over a future period. Every entry in each selected account that occurs
within the period is checked and an analysis is made in accordance
with the Project Computing Function selected for the account when it
was set up (set to default values for the account type initially). The
resulting analysis is projected using appropriate rates of growth
which are entered in the PROJECT window. A summary of the results
appears in this window and the full text is saved as a Report which
can be viewed or printed out from within this window by selecting See
or Print.

With the PROJECT window open, the start date is simply set, the
analysis and projection periods can be set to a number of either
months or years. The analysis is done for the period up to the start
date and then projected from the start date. The values for the
various rates are entered in the boxes provided, if left blank then a
zero rate is used. The account categories are all selected 'on' to
start with but are simply turned off by clicking over them. Once the
parameters have been set up clicking on 'GO' starts the analysis.

To demonstrate, select the date to 20Jun95, leave the periods set to 1
year, enter some figures in the 'Set Rates' boxes and then click on
'GO'. The disc will be accessed and as the accounts are analysed a
list of results will appear in the 'file' column together with a
number in the 'rate' column, as this list fills up or as a new account
category is started the entries are overwritten from the top. To see
the full results of this, or any projection click over the 'See'
button in the 'Report' area, another Edit window will open with the
Report text displayed, this report can be printed by selecting 'Print'
instead of 'See' in this window at any time.

Close this window.

OPTIONS

OPTIONS is selected next on the TOOLBAR. (The icon that looks like a
selector switch - it helps if you are imaginative!). A window opens in
which you can reset certain basic options that govern the running of
!Pennies. These all default to sensible values and there is no
requirement to reset any of them. Any change you make here will only
take effect if Set is clicked. In this version Options parameters
can be changed within the window but changes will not be actioned
when Set is clicked.

Close this window.

DELETING ACCOUNTS

DELETE ACCOUNT is the next item on the TOOLBAR and is the only way to
delete accounts from within !Pennies. Clicking over this option opens
a window from which the normal accounts menu is accessed by clicking
over the entry box. Clicking over 'Delete' will then delete the
account from the active menu structure and the account file will be
transferred internally within Pennies and then Squashed (in the
'oldpennies'  directory). This allows the deleted account's file to be
viewed at any time or deleted using normal desktop filing methods.

Close this window.

EXPORT

This function allows you to export !Pennies files in a variety of
formats for use in other applications such as Text editors, DTP and
spreadsheet programs. Clicking over the icon will open the Export
window. Accounts are selected as for the Sum facility. The export file
type can be chosen from a menu and the amount of data exported can be
selected between the data normally displayed by !Pennies or the whole
data stored within !Pennies. By default, export files are created in a
directory called PennyXport within the !Pennydata directory in use
(inside !DemodataS in this case). You can create an alternative export
directory anywhere by dragging the directory icon to a filer window. A
full description of filetypes is available from the help text within
the Export window.

CALCULATOR

The Calculator function allows you to compute interest, repayments and
totals for savings and loans. A full account - Fixed.CalcAcct -  can
be created for analysis purposes.

Click over the Calculator icon and the window will open, it is fairly
simple but the help text provides a comprehensive description.
select 'Loan', enter 10000 into the Sum box, leave Lump sum selected,
enter 10 in the Rate box and click on Calculate. The rsult shows the
monthly repayment over a year and the total to pay (876.95 and
10523.41). Now click over the Interest only button and Calculate
again, the interest only repayment will be shown. For the full
repayment calculations a delay of 1 month is assumed between loan and
first repayment.

This calculator can also generate an account (Fixed.CalcAcct) to
represent the savings or loan. With the same data as before select
Make account and then click over the Create button (it changes to
Create from calculate in this case). The same result will be shown but
if you now select Fixed.CalcAcct from the See Account menu the account
that was generated will be displayed. Transactions can be edited and
deleted on this account and new transactions can be made in the full
version of !Pennies. This allows you to evaluate financial products by
creating accounts and then running !Pennies facilities such as
Interest on the whole account for a variety of periods and interest
rate structures.


HELP

Clicking over the Help icon will open a help file summarising the
purpose and actions of the TOOLBAR selections.

                THE ACCOUNT DISPLAY FUNCTIONS
                =============================

Open the Cash.Bankacct display and click Menu to open the Misc menu.

-Printall and Print50 - would normally print a report of all or the
 last 50 transactions.

-Interest - opens the Interest calculation window with interest rates
 already entered. Select Interest then click on Calculate to see the
 results. Click on the Help button for further information.

-Find - opens the Find window allowing you to search for transactions
 and save these to file if required. Click on the Help button for more
 information.

-Archive - opens the Archive window allowing you to reduce the size of
 accounts by transferring old entries to an archive file. This
 file can be viewed by !Pennies by dragging it to the See
 Account icon on the Toolbar. Click on Help for more information.

-Indexlink - opens the IndexLink window which allows you to
 see the effect of indexation on a file by combining it with an Index
 file such as RPI (which is included). Click over the File box and
 select RPI from the menu and the RPI Index file will be shown. Click
 over the Help buttons in these windows for further information. An
 example Indexlink file is included and can be viewed by selecting
 Indexlink from the See Accounts menu.

-Budget - opens a window allowing you to Build, Update or Use an
 Analysis file to run a budget procedure. To run a new Budget file
 click on the Budget button - a new account will be generated using
 actual account data, Analysis data and Standing order data. This will
 then be displayed. To see the existing Budget file at any time select
 Budget from the See Account menu. The Help texts explain further.

EDITING & DELETING TRANSACTIONS

Witn the Bankacct display open click select over a line of text to the
left of the 'amount' column, the transaction will be marked and a menu
with 'Edit' and 'Delete' will appear, clicking adjust over the
transaction would remove the marking and the menu.

*Delete
Selecting 'Delete' from the menu will bring up a warning message with
the option to cancel or confirm your deletion, if you select OK you
will irretrevably delete the entry from this account and any
associated account, at the same time all balances will be
recalculated.

*Edit
Selecting 'Edit' will transfer the entry to the TRANSACTION window for
editing. Try this for any entry - the entry will not be altered unless
you re-enter it and then you will be warned that it will overwrite the
existing entry (if it has been altered), just alter the comments and
then re-enter it (by clicking on the 'Replace' button) you will then
see this in action. Selecting Reset clears the TRANSACTION window
without altering the entry, Leave closes the TRANSACTION window
without altering the account.

                      FURTHER FACILITIES
                      ==================

This text is not intended to cover all the facilities in depth. To
investigate all the facilities select the Help:Facilities text from
the iconbar menu. This lists all facilities and how to get to them.
All facilities have their own help texts associated with them which
explain further. The full version has complete Tutorials which do
cover all aspects of the application.

                          EXAMPLES
                          ========

The directory Examples contains 2 graphs saved as Drawfiles and 2 real
accounts.

To see the graphs just double click over them to load into !Draw -
they will appear at half scale.

To see the accounts or to use them in graphs just drag them to the See
Account icon on the TOOLBAR, or into the Graphdata window or onto any
active graph. Note that they are treated as Archive files and so
cannot be altered in the account display.

                      YOUR OWN ACCOUNTS
                      =================

!Pennies will run from a single 800k floppy. In this version with all
the texts and demonstration data as well as it's own data !Pennies
will not fit onto one floppy - hence it is compressed to start with.
To make use of !Pennies for your own data you will need to uncompress
it by moving it to another location on floppy or hard disc. To do this
open the DemoRun directory to reveal !Demodata and Pennydemo, now open
Pennydemo and drag !Farthing (the small version of !Pennies) to
another location either on another floppy or your hard disc. To use
!Farthing for your own data merely double click over the !Farthing
icon and it will load and run with no accounts loaded. Note that whilst
it is empty of accounts data it is fully structured with menus and
other data essential to !Pennies so you cannot just use any directory
for data. In the full version you can create any number of these data
directories and locate them wherever you like.


DISC SPACE

In starting your own data you may run short of space if running
!Pennies and !Demodata from a single 800k disc. To cure this then move
the !Demodata directory to another location. !Pennies will also handle
Squashed data files automatically which will save space if required
(Open the !Demodata directory and Squash the 'data' directory).