Amiga Format 17/af017.adf/PFM_Readme

Text File | 1978-01-21 | 14KB | 399 lines

            Personal Finance Manager
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  INTRODUCTION
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------


    Personal Finance Manager is a database program specially created
    to handle personal bank accounts, savings accounts, credit card
    transactions and many other similar applications. Standing
    Orders are automatically posted to your account without you
    having to remember them, and you can create over 100 budgets, for
    evaluation with instant graphical reports. When its time to check
    PFM against an official statement, PFM will even work out which
    transactions have not yet cleared. In short, PFM takes the hard
    work out of managing your accounts; you enter the transactions,
    PFM does the rest.


  DEMO TUTORIAL
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    The demo on this disk has been created to give you a flavour
    of PFM. What follows is a necessarily brief tutorial with
    extracts from the manual. For a full explanation of the
    program's features and procedures, refer to the product
    manual.

    To get into the program as quickly as possible, follow these
    instructions:

    1: Run PFM and click [ Ok ] in the credits box.

    2: Confirm the system date with [ Ok ].

    3: Double-click on "Example.MNY" in the file selector box.

    4: Select "Budget Comparison" from the REPORT menu and
       decrease the size of the resulting window.

    5: Select "Entry Distribution" from the REPORT menu. Decrease
       and move this window.

    6: Select "Balance Plot" from the REPORT menu.


    These then are the three charts produced by PFM. You can remove
    them all with "View Account". An understanding of the charts may
    at this stage elude you so what follows is a brief explanation
    of the purpose of each.


    Balance Plot: This is the simplest chart, it just shows the highs
    and lows of the account balance over the entire account.


    Budget Comparison: Every PFM entry can have a Budget Code letter.
    These group the entries into budgets. For example, all spending on
    the car, such as '10000 Mile Service' and 'Insurance' might be
    entered with budget code 'C'. This code letter can then be defined
    as 'Car' with "Set Budget" from the OPTIONS menu. You would also
    define how much you expect to spend on the car over a specified
    period. Select "Set Budget" to view all of the defined budgets for
    the example account. The Budget Comparison Chart has a pair of bars
    for each of the selected budgets. The left-hand bar shows the
    expected spending for that budget, the right-hand shows the actual
    spending. You can view the actual and expected budget spending in
    tabular form by selecting "Actuals-Budget" from the REPORT menu
    (negative figures represent income, since this is a table of
    expenditure).


    Entry Distribution: The Entry Distribution chart shows your
    spending for each of the selected budgets as a fraction of the
    total spending for the selected budgets over the account period.

    Budgets can be selected for chart display with the red/black
    toggle boxes in the "Set Budget" options box. Also the three
    charts have thus far covered the entire account, but they can
    be restricted to any date range with the "Graph Dates" option
    from the OPTIONS menu.

    Note that graphs are only re-drawn at your specific request,
    (by clicking on the appropriate window). This is so that
    re-draws can be indefinately delayed, and so that if there
    are any errors (such as 'Too Few Entries') you know to which
    chart the error refers.

    Now try creating your own account. Simply select "Open File"
    from the FILE menu and enter 'MyAccount.MNY'. Click on [ Ok ]
    and a new account is created. You should now enter a starting
    balance so select "New Entry" from the UPDATE menu and enter
    the following details in the ensuing transaction form:


        Date        1/10/90

        Amount        5000

        Budget Code    (leave this blank)

        Description    Balance


    Press <Return> to move down to a succeeding field.

    Click on [ Credit ] and then on [ Done ]. You should see the
    entry appear in the Account window. You are now going to edit
    it, so select that entry by clicking on it once (it should
    appear high-lighted). Now select "Edit Entry" from the UPDATE
    menu; the previous form will reappear with the details already
    filled in. You can now enter today's date and your current
    account balance. Entries can also be opened for edit by double-
    clicking on them.

    Now enter a few account transactions by selecting "New Entry"
    as before. This time click [ Next ] to input an entry and
    prepare the form for the next, the date being carried over. For
    example:

    Date       Amount        Budget Code   Description

    5/10/90       94.75        T          Car Repairs
    2/10/90    55.68        C          Weekly Shopping
    4/10/90       410.33        H          Mortgage

    Click [ Done ] after the last entry. Define your own budgets
    for the codes T,C and H using the "Set Budget" option.
    For Example:

        T    Travel Expenses        300.00       [ Monthly ]

    You can now chart your own account by selecting any of the
    graphs.

    You should by now have a feel for PFM and be able to enter
    your own bank account. Note however that for the demo, you can
    only make entries up to March 1991 and that the demo database
    is only large enough for 20 account entries and 2 standing orders.
    Note that this also applies to the automatic posting of standing
    orders; if you already have 20 entries and PFM attempts to post
    an entry generated by a standing order, an error message will
    occur.

    With the full version of PFM the number of account and standing
    order entries is limited only by memory, and can typically be
    several thousand.

    Hard-Disk Users: The full version of PFM contains a hard-disk
    installer which tailors the PFM code to use from dh0:,jh0:,fh0:
    etc.

    That concludes this brief tutorial. Obviously PFM has far more
    features than I've been able to mention here so you're encouraged
    to experiment with the demo.

    Personal Finance Manager is available from all good software
    outlets or directly from:

        Microdeal Ltd
        P.O.Box 68
        St Austell
        Cornwall
        PL25 4YB
        England

        Tel.[phone]


  REFERENCE
  =======================================================================

    What follows are selected extracts from the REFERENCE section of
    the PFM manual.



  FILE
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Open File
    ---------

    The file selector is displayed. Note that only sub-directories
    and files with the suffix ".MNY" (PFM files) are listed. Existing
    files can be opened by simply double-clicking on the file name. If
    the specified file does not exist PFM assumes that the account is
    new and will create an empty account.

    ......

    Save File
    ---------

    This will save the account in memory to the last named file,
    normally the file that was last opened.

    ......


  UPDATE
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    New Entry
    ---------

    The function of this menu choice depends on whether the account
    or standing order window is currently active (solid title).

    If the account window is active then the Account Transaction
    Form is displayed. All fields apart from the date are cleared
    to accept new entry details. Initially the date field is also
    blank but on subsequent use this field will contain the last
    date entered.

    The date format must conform to that set by the 'Date Format'
    option and must include the two '/'s. An error will be detected
    if an invalid date is entered.

    The budget code is a single character signifying the budget
    category for that entry. You have the entire keyboard range
    from which to make your choice of character, giving over
    100 potential budget categories.

    The buttons labelled [ Debit ] and [ Credit ] cause the
    amount to be negative and positive respectively. The [ Defer ]
    button causes the calculation of account balances to ignore
    any entry where this option is set. Such entries are shown
    ghosted. The [ Checked ] button will cause that entry to
    display a red check mark in the left hand column of the account
    display, for checking entries against a formal account. Note
    that entries can also be checked by holding down the space-bar
    and clicking on the desired entries.

    The [ Done ] button will leave the form and add the details to
    the account. The [ Next ] button will add the details to the
    account and prepare the form for the next entry. [ Cancel ]
    will abandon the current entry.

    If instead the standing order window is the active window, then
    the Standing Order Form is displayed.

    The start date is mandatory and an error will be detected if a
    valid date is not present. Unlike the transaction form this
    field is always cleared when the form is displayed. The end
    date is optional. Standing orders will be executed on the
    start date or the first valid payment date following the start
    of the account, whichever is the later. Subsequent payments will
    occur at the interval determined by the buttons on the right
    hand side of the form, the options being monthly, quarterly,
    6 monthly or annually. Alternatively a single payment option
    may be selected. Standing orders continue indefinately, provided
    any end date is not exceeded.


    Clear Defers
    ------------

    This will reinstate all previously deferred account entries
    and recalculate the balances.


    Auto-balance
    ------------

    This feature attempts to reconcile the PFM account with a
    statement or known balance. Suppose you receive a bank
    statement where the final balance does not match that
    anticipated by PFM. This is probably caused by some cheques
    not having cleared by the statement date. This feature will
    attempt to identify (and then defer) those entries which
    have not yet cleared.

    The final statement balance (the target balance) is entered into
    the dialogue box together with the corresponding date.

    PFM will then try to create a match by ignoring combinations
    of entries when calculating the balance for the desired date. If
    such a match is found these entries are automatically set deferred
    and all entries after the target date are deferred.

    'Auto-balance' confines its search to a limited number of
    entries preceding the target date. A default value of 14 is
    already supplied but this may be altered by entering a new
    value in the dialogue box. Note however that each unit increase
    will potentially double the time taken to achieve a match.

    An 'Auto-balance' may be aborted by pressing a key.

    Auto-check
    ----------

    A warning box will first be displayed. If [ OK ] is selected
    all entries that are not deferred will be marked as checked.



  REPORT
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    View Account
    ------------

    This menu option is enabled when any other window, besides the
    account window is opened. Its function is to return PFM to
    its starting configuration.



    View Standing Orders
    --------------------

    This option opens the standing order window, which will be
    displayed in front of the account window.


    Chart - Buffer
    --------------

    The contents of the currently active window are copied to a
    special store in the computer for future display (see next
    section).


    Show Buffer
    -----------

    A window will be displayed showing the contents of the
    previously captured window (see section 'Chart - Buffer').
    The window contains an identifying red box.

    Typically this feature would be used to allow two different
    views of the same window to be displayed side by side for
    comparison. These views might for example be of the same
    chart but set to different dates.

    Actuals - Budget
    ----------------

    PFM will display a table containing the actual expenditure and
    budget amounts for all budget categories. Any negative totals
    are displayed as positive numbers and vice versa (since this
    is expenditure).



  OPTIONS
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Maximum Entries
    ---------------

    This option enables you to adjust the database size to the
    required number of account and standing order entries. This
    option is not available on the demo and the size is fixed
    to 20 account entries and 2 standing orders.



    Filter
    ------

    PFM will display a dialogue containing the budget codes and
    descriptions. By clicking on the appropriate buttons in the
    right hand column the display of account entries may be limited
    to selected budget categories. More then one category may be
    selected at a time.

    Vertical scrolling of a filtered account is achieved using the
    vertical scroll devices. However in this case their behaviour
    is still determined by the size of the complete account and
    not by the number of entries displayed.

    Selecting the [ Screen ] button will cause the account screen
    display to be filtered whilst selecting the [ Print ] will
    filter the information sent to the printer. Both buttons are
    automatically deselected whenever another account file is opened.



    Graph Dates
    -----------

    The Graph Date Ranges dialogue will be displayed. This allows
    start and end dates to be set for each of the three charts. If
    set their action is to restrict the entries on which the chart
    is based to a specific date range. If no date is entered then
    the first or last date in the account is used as appropriate.

    Any dates applied to the budget comparison chart will also apply
    to the budget comparison table.


        -------------------------------------------