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PAYCHECK.MAN
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1991-01-21
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HHHHoooowwww ttttoooo MMMMaaaakkkkeeee YYYYoooouuuurrrr PPPPaaaayyyycccchhhheeeecccckkkk LLLLaaaasssstttt
Copyright (c) 1989 by Quilt Computing
All Rights Reserved
1. _I_N_T_R_O_D_U_C_T_I_O_N
Paycheck is a program designed to help you with the workbook
portion of the "How to Make Your Paycheck Last" personal
money management system, as described in the book of the
same name. The Paycheck program assumes you are familiar
with the contents of the text book accompanying this
program, but it is not absolutely required that you read the
book before beginning use of this program. These
instructions will help you in using this program, but will
not attempt to explain all the ideas and philosophies
contained in the text book.
Although this program is designed to allow you to enter
data from January through December of each year, you can
begin using the program at any point during the year.
Simply begin entering data for the current month, and let
all previous months remain zero or blank. You will not be
required to enter data associated with all previous months
of the year.
These instructions are divided into sections
corresponding to the MENU screens presented in the program.
The order of invoking the menu choices is somewhat
important, especially when using the program for the first
time. The only absolute requirement, however, is that you
MUST establish configuration parameter settings and
Worksheet Expense Item descriptions before entering data
associated with the Financial Plan and Worksheet sections.
These and other functions will be described in the following
sections.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 1
2. _Q_U_I_C_K__S_T_A_R_T
This section will outline the steps necessary to begin using
the Paycheck program as quickly as possible.
1. Start the Paycheck program by typing "PAYCHECK"
(followed by a return) at the DOS command line prompt.
For example:
A:> PAYCHECK <Return>
2. Select the SETUP menu choice and establish your data
disk drive and printer type. (A list of supported
printers can be displayed by pressing the FFFF2222 key when
on the PPPPrrrriiiinnnntttteeeerrrr TTTTyyyyppppeeee field.) Check your printer
control codes against those listed on the screen. (The
program requires specific control codes to use
compressed print for both the Worksheet and Plan
printer output formats.)
If you choose one of the supplied printer types, all
the corresponding printer control codes will be filled
in by the program when you exit the Printer Type
field.
If you don't see your exact printer type among the
choices listed, pick the printer that most closely
resembles your printer and try it. Many of the
printers conform to the specifications belonging to
those of the EPSON or IBM families.
3. Set up your FINancial GOALS. Goals are divided into
three categories:
+o Long Term Goals - 15 Years
+o Medium Term Goals - 5 Years
+o Short Term Goals - 12 Months
You are limited to a maximum of ten (10) goals per
category. Short Term, Medium Term, and Long Term Goal
totals will later be transfered to the SAVINGS portion
of your financial plan by you.
4. Develop your CRISIS Elimination List. This list is
designed to help eliminate the payment of bills that
surprise and frustrate people's best laid plans. You
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 2
save for these items on a monthly basis, giving you
the money you need when the bill is due. Examples are
insurance, taxes, etc. Your Crisis Elimination total
will later be transfered to the SAVINGS portion of
your financial plan by you.
5. Create your Expense ITEM List. It is CRITICAL that
you create this list before you create any Financial
Plans, or Worksheets. This list consists of all
expense items you normally would write checks against
every month. Examples would include your mortgage,
utilities, tuition, food, etc. Once this list is
created it is used in specifying your expense
categories (ITEMS) as you enter data into your
worksheet, and it is also used to fill in the
Obligations section of any new financial plan you
create.
6. Once you create your Expense ITEM List, you are ready
to create your Financial Plan Projection. This is
accomplished by selecting the CREATE submenu choice,
while in the PLAN menu.
The program allows you to create any number of
Financial Plans for use. You can use this facility to
perform different "what if" comparisons of financial
strategies. Each of these plans could have its own
unique set of projections, and each plan in turn could
have the same actual Worksheet data loaded. For
example, you could create two different financial
plans, each of which reflecting differnt goal amounts
based on a different savings strategy. You could then
compare the plans, and pick the plan that best fits
your financial situation and capabilities.
Once in the Financial Plan form, you may enter SAVINGS
descriptions and amounts, OBLIGATIONS amounts (the
descriptions are gotten from your Expense ITEM list,
and INCOME descriptions and amounts. Every time you
enter a dollar amount on the form, your totals for the
category, and your surplus line for that month are
updated automatically.
You can move between INCOME, OBLIGATIONS, and SAVINGS
sections of the form by using the CNTRL-HOME and
CNTRL-END key combinations, and you can exit the form
and retain the data you entered by pressing F10.
Pressing the <ESC> key will abort the Financial Plan
data entry operation.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 3
Once you exit a Financial Plan form and are back at
the PLAN submenu, you can MODIFY the plan projection
you just created, UPDATE the plan with ACTUAL data
(only after you have entered data with at least one
(1) worksheet month), view and edit the ACTUAL plan,
PRINT the current plan, SAVE your current plan to
disk, or EXIT.
If you are viewing/editing the Actual Plan, you will
only be able to enter and edit amounts in the SAVINGS
and INCOME portion of the plan form. The obligations
data is protected, since it is loaded from the
worksheet months you specified earlier.
If you try to exit the PLAN submenu before saving your
Financial Plan to disk, you will be given a warning
message, and asked if you want to save your plan
before exiting. AAAAnnnnsssswwwweeeerrrriiiinnnngggg NNNNOOOO wwwwiiiillllllll ccccaaaauuuusssseeee aaaallllllll cccchhhhaaaannnnggggeeeessss ttttoooo
tttthhhheeee ppppllllaaaannnn dddduuuurrrriiiinnnngggg tttthhhheeee ccccuuuurrrrrrrreeeennnntttt sssseeeessssssssiiiioooonnnn ttttoooo bbbbeeee lllloooosssstttt....
7. The WORKSHEET menu choice is used to CLEAR, LOAD,
MODIFY, PRINT, and SAVE your worksheet files. It is
intended that one worksheet file correspond to one
month of year (Jan --> Dec), and used to supply the
actual data for your Financial Plan.
You will be required to use the Expense Item
descriptions created in the step mentioned above to
describe each check entered on the worksheet. This
process is simplified in the fact that you are able to
press the F2 key and display a popup window with these
items while on the ITEM field of the worksheet.
Simply select the item you wish (using the arrow
keys), and that item description will be placed in the
field.
If you try to exit the WORKSHEET submenu before saving
your worksheet to disk, you will be given a warning
message, and asked if you want to save your WORKSHEET
before exiting. AAAAnnnnsssswwwweeeerrrriiiinnnngggg NNNNOOOO wwwwiiiillllllll ccccaaaauuuusssseeee aaaallllllll cccchhhhaaaannnnggggeeeessss
mmmmaaaaddddeeee dddduuuurrrriiiinnnngggg tttthhhheeee ccccuuuurrrrrrrreeeennnntttt sssseeeessssssssiiiioooonnnn ttttoooo bbbbeeee lllloooosssstttt....
8. Once you have entered some data into your Financial
Plan, you can see the progress you've made visually
with the GRAPH option. This option allows you to show
both you projected and actual data for SAVINGS,
OBLIGATIONS, INCOME, and SURPLUS totals on your
Financial Plan.
9. The DOS menu choice will allow you to exit the
Paycheck program temporarily, and execute some DOS
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 4
commands. You can even execute another program.
While in this mode, the Paycheck program remains in
memory and keeps track of the status of all your data
entry forms. Because the Paycheck program is in
memory, you will be limited as to the size of other
programs you can execute.
10. The EXIT menu choice will save your GOAL and CRISIS
data to disk, exit the program, and return you to DOS.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 5
3. _M_E_N_U_S
The Paycheck program is a menu driven program, i.e. you
select a particular action by positioning the cursor on a
menu choice and pressing the <RETURN> key. A screen
allowing you to perform operations associated with that menu
choice will then be displayed for your use.
************NNNNOOOOTTTTEEEE************
An alternate form of invoking a menu
choice also exists. Each menu choice
begins with a unique letter, and typing
that letter will also select the desired
menu item.
Alongside each menu item is a brief description of what
action will be performed in association with that menu item.
A detailed description of menu item actions is described
below.
3.1 _M_A_I_N__M_E_N_U
The main menu of the program includes the following choices:
SETUP Configure Program Parameters
FIN GOALS State Financial Goals
CRISIS Specify Crisis Elimination List
ITEM Set-Up Expense Items for Plan and Worksheet
PLAN Financial Plan
WORKSHEET Financial Plan Worksheet
GRAPH Graph Financial Plan Data
DOS Exit Temporarily to DOS
EXIT Exit Permanently to DOS
3.1.1 _S_E_T_U_P
You must configure the program before use. The SETUP option
allows you to:
1. Specify the DDDDaaaattttaaaa DDDDiiiisssskkkk DDDDrrrriiiivvvveeee on which your Worksheet
and Financial Plan files will be stored. By default,
this disk will be your current disk, but you can
specify any disk drive from A --> G inclusive. There
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 6
is limited space on the disk containing your Paycheck
program, and therefore you SHOULD NOT use this disk to
store your data files.
If you have a two floppy system, insert your
program disk in Drive A:, and insert a formatted disk
in Drive B: to store your data. Each Financial Plan
file created occupies 8754 bytes, while each Worksheet
file occupies 5700 bytes.
If you have a hard disk, you can keep both the
program and the data files together with less concern.
You can still however, specify a floppy disk as the
place for your data to reside.
2. Specify the PPPPrrrriiiinnnntttteeeerrrr TTTTyyyyppppeeee////MMMMooooddddeeeellll connected to your
system. When the cursor is positioned on the Printer
Type field, pressing F2 will display a list of printer
choices. Use the cursor keys to move to the printer
type closest to your printer type, and press return.
The selected printer will then appear in the printer
data field. Moving out of the printer field (by
pressing TAB or RETURN), will cause the program to
fill in the different control code sequences for that
printer. The program currently supports 25 different
printers.
3. Specify the CCCCoooommmmpppprrrreeeessssssss CCCCooooddddeeee SSSSeeeeqqqquuuueeeennnncccceeee for your printer.
If you specified a printer type support by the
program, these codes will be filled in for you, but if
you specified a printer type unknown to the program,
you will need to fill in these control codes yourself.
Compress codes are needed to place your printer in 132
column mode. Refer to the Programming Section of your
printer manual for further details.
4. Specify the NNNNoooorrrrmmmmaaaallll CCCCooooddddeeee SSSSeeeeqqqquuuueeeennnncccceeee for your printer. If
you specified a printer type support by the program,
these codes will be filled in for you, but if you
specified a printer type unknown to the program, you
will need to fill in these control codes yourself.
Normal print codes are needed to place your printer in
80 column mode. Refer to the Programming Section of
your printer manual for further details.
5. Specify the SSSSiiiixxxx LLLLiiiinnnneeee////IIIInnnncccchhhh SSSSeeeeqqqquuuueeeennnncccceeee for your printer.
If you specified a printer type support by the
program, these codes will be filled in for you, but if
you specified a printer type unknown to the program,
you will need to fill in these control codes yourself.
Refer to the Programming Section of your printer
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 7
manual for further details.
6. Specify the EEEEiiiigggghhhhtttt LLLLiiiinnnneeee////IIIInnnncccchhhh SSSSeeeeqqqquuuueeeennnncccceeee for your printer.
If you specified a printer type support by the
program, these codes will be filled in for you, but if
you specified a printer type unknown to the program,
you will need to fill in these control codes yourself.
Refer to the Programming Section of your printer
manual for further details.
When you are done configuring your system, press the
FFFF11110000 key to exit the SETUP form.
3.1.2 _F_I_N__G_O_A_L_S
According to the text, "Your goals are important. They give
you purpose and direction. Goals enable you to identify
what you want and the direction you would like your life to
go. They are the most important part of any sound Financial
Plan, and in a family situation, goals bring unity and
effort, since everyone knows the objective and can pull
together."
Because of this, your the GOAL section of the program
should be the first planning section you complete. The GOAL
menu choices include the following:
LONG Specify Long Term Goals
MEDIUM Specify Medium Term Goals
SHORT Specify Short Term Goals
PRINT Print Goals
EXIT Exit Goal Specification
A description of each of these menu choices follows.
3.1.2.1 _L_O_N_G
LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG TTTTEEEERRRRMMMM GGGGOOOOAAAALLLLSSSS are goals you set that will be realized in
the neighborhood of 15 to 20 years.
3.1.2.2 _M_E_D_I_U_M
MMMMEEEEDDDDIIIIUUUUMMMM TTTTEEEERRRRMMMM GGGGOOOOAAAALLLLSSSS are goals that you strive for in about
five years.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 8
3.1.2.3 _S_H_O_R_T
SSSSHHHHOOOORRRRTTTT TTTTEEEERRRRMMMM GGGGOOOOAAAALLLLSSSS are realized in the next 12 months.
3.1.2.4 _P_R_I_N_T
Allows you to generate a hard copy of each of your goal
lists. You should print out your goals whenever they
change, so that you have a hardcopy to refer to when
creating your next Financial Plan.
3.1.2.5 _E_X_I_T
Returns you to the MAIN MENU of the program.
Each goal in each of the lists should have a
description and a dollar amount assigned to it. The program
will continually add up all the dollar amounts for each of
the goals in a category, and display the total at the bottom
of the list. Also displayed is the amount you need to save
monthly to achieve your goals.
The program comes with a list of suggestions for goals.
When the cursor is on the Description field of a goal form,
pressing FFFF2222 will bring up a list of example goals. To
select one of these goals, use the cursor keys to scroll the
list, and press return when the desired goal is reached.
The goal will be placed in the Description field of the
form.
The monthly totals for your goal lists should be
transfered to your Financial Plan, under the SAVINGS
section.
Realisticly, you should limit yourself to the number of
goals you set in each category. For this reason, each list
will only allow you to specify 10 goals.
3.1.3 _C_R_I_S_I_S
The Crisis Elimination List is designed to help eliminate
the payment of bills that surprise and frustrate people's
best laid plans. By saving a little each month, there will
be money to make those payments that appear at the most
inconvenient intervals.
This form give you the opportunity to list the amount
of these expenses, a description of each expense, and the
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 9
month that each expense is due. The program will
automatically sum all the expenses and give you the monthly
amount you need to save to meet these obligations.
If you have an expense that occurs two or more times
during the year (e.g. taxes, insurance, etc.), make one
entry in your Crisis list corresponding to each payment, and
indicate the month that payment is due.
The form displaying the Crisis Elimination List is a
Scrollable Form, i.e. even though only ten lines are
displayed, you can scroll the list with the up and down
arrow keys. A total of twenty-five items can be added to
the list.
You can generate a hardcopy listing of your Crisis
Elimination List by pressing the FFFF9999 key at any time while
viewing the list. You can refer to the hardcopy listing
when creating a new Financial Plan. Your Crisis Elimination
amount total is also entered in the SAVINGS section of the
Financial Plan.
3.1.4 _I_T_E_M
The Expense Item List is the next part of your financial
planning process to complete. It is CCCCRRRRIIIITTTTIIIICCCCAAAALLLL that you
complete this list before using the Financial Plan or
Worksheet portions of this program. The Expense Items
contained in this list are used for entering actual expense
data on a monthly basis, and subsequently will be used to
display your monthly totals in the Financial Plan Actual
reporting.
As in the Crisis Elimination List, the Expense Item
List uses a scrollable form for data entry. Although the
form only displays ten items at a time, the program will
actually allow you to define fifty (50) expense items. All
items contained in the list can be displayed by using the up
and down arrow keys to scroll the list.
The Paycheck program as distributed, contains a
partially completed Expense Item list to help you get
started. You are free to add items to, or delete items from
this list, as you deem necessary.
As you customize this list for your own personal use, you
can display sample expense items by pressing the FFFF2222 key when
the cursor is on the Description field of the Expense Item
list. Use the up and down arrow keys to scroll the list to
the desired list element, and press the RETURN key. The
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 10
selected item will be placed in the list on the Expense Item
List form. If you do not find a reasonable description for
an expense category you wish to create, just type the
description you wish to use.
When you are done creating all of your expense items,
pressing FFFF11110000 will exit the form and save the expense items
to disk in a file of the name "WKSITEM.DAT". If you wish to
abort your data entry operation, press the <ESC> key. If
you abort the form, the disk file containing the expense
items will not be updated.
************NNNNOOOOTTTTEEEE************
It is important for you to think about
making your Expense Item list as
complete as possible before you create
ANY Financial Plans or Worksheets. Your
Expense Item list is incorporated
directly into any NEW plan created. If
you create a plan, and then add or
delete items from your Expense Item
list, those changes will not be
reflected in any existing plans. They
will only be reflected in all SUBSEQUENT
plans created.
3.1.5 _P_L_A_N
Once you have created your Goal List, Crisis Elimination
List, and Expense Item List, you are ready to begin creating
your Financial Plan. Your Financial Plan menu options
consist of:
CREATE Create a New Financial Plan
LOAD Load a Previously Created Financial Plan
MODIFY Modify the Current Financial Plan Projection
UPDATE Load Actual Obligations from Worksheets
PRINT Print the Current Financial Plan
SAVE Save the Current Financial Plan
ACTUAL Enter Actual Savings & Income / View Obligations
EXIT Exit the Financial Plan
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 11
When you first create your Financial Plan, you will in
effect only be creating a Financial Plan PROJECTION. This
plan only contains PROJECTED dollars for SAVINGS,
OBLIGATIONS and INCOME items. Once you create your plan
projection, you can modify, save or print this plan.
After your plan projection is complete, you will need
to enter actual data through the WORKSHEET portion of this
program. Your WORKSHEET contains actual expenses incurred
on a daily basis. Exit the PLAN submenu, and invoke the
WORKSHEET submenu to enter this actual data. Typically you
will enter a months worth of data in a corresponding
worksheet, BEFORE incorporating that data into your
Financial Plan.
Once you have entered your expenses for a particular
month, it is time to include that data in your Financial
Plan. You do this by invoking the PLAN submenu of the
program, and selecting the UPDATE menu choice of the PLAN
submenu. Displayed before you will be twelve fields,
corresonding to the 12 months of the year. Move to the
month you wish to add to your plan, and type a 'X' by the
months you wish to add to the list. Typically, you will
keep adding WORKSHEET files to this list until the whole
year is complete. The months of previously selected
WORKSHEET files are retained by the program from session to
session, so you only have to add new months associated with
newly completed worksheet files to the list.
When you exit the UPDATE form, all months selected will be
loaded into the currently loaded plan as actual data. You
can then select the ACTUAL menu choice of the PLAN submenu
to view the actual data entered into the OBLIGATIONS section
of the plan, and to manually update the SAVINGS and INCOME
sections of the plan.
A detailed description of these menu choices follows.
3.1.5.1 _C_R_E_A_T_E
The CREATE menu choice creates a new Financial Plan.
Savings, Obligations and Income data sections will be zeroed
out for both the Projected and Actual Plan. The Obligation
Section will be filled in with Expense Item descritpions as
defined in the Expense Item List.
After the Financial Plan is created, the Financial Plan
Projection form will be displayed. You will be able to
enter your Savings, Obligations, and Income data at this
point.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 12
To move between the Savings, Obligations, and Income
sections of the plan use the <CNTRL>-END and <CNTRL>-HOME
keys. Once in a particular section, use the up and down
arrow keys to scroll the subform. Pressing the FFFF11110000 key will
exit the form.
3.1.5.2 _L_O_A_D
The LOAD menu choice loads a Financial Plan from the disk.
A dialog box will be displayed to the user, giving you the
ability of specifying a plan file name. (Every Financial
Plan file has a default extension of ".PLN", so you are only
given the opportunity of specifying the first eight (8)
characters of the filename. The program will append the
".PLN" extension to the name you specify, e.g.
"12121988.PLN"). If any Financial Plan files exist on your
data disk, you will be allowed to press the FFFF2222 key to
display a list of choices. Use the up and down arrow keys
to select the Financial Plan of your choosing, and press
RETURN. This will place the filename in the dialog box.
Pressing RETURN a second time will take down the dialog box
and load the plan for editing.
Savings, Obligations and Income data sections will be
filled in with the data read from disk for both the
Projected and Actual Plan.
After the Financial Plan is loaded, the Financial Plan
Projection form will be displayed. You will be able to
modify your Savings, Obligations, and Income data at this
point.
To move between the Savings, Obligations, and Income
sections of the plan use the <CNTRL>-END and <CNTRL>-HOME
keys. Once in a particular section, use the up and down
arrow keys to scroll the subform. Pressing the FFFF11110000 key will
exit the form.
To edit the Financial Plan Actual Data, you must exit
the Financial Plan Projected form, and select the ACTUAL
menu choice.
If you try to load a new Financial Plan before saving
the current Financial Plan, you will be given a message
asking you if you want to save the current plan before
proceeding. Answering NO to this question will cause you to
lose all data in the current plan.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 13
3.1.5.3 _M_O_D_I_F_Y
The MODIFY menu choice gives you the opportunity for
modifying the Financial Plan Projected data once you exit
that form to perform other functions.
3.1.5.4 _U_P_D_A_T_E
This option allows you to UPDATE your currently loaded
Financial Plan with actual data. Actual data is loaded from
Worksheets previously created. When this menu choice is
selected, you will be presented with a form displaying data
entry fields for all twelve months of the year. To select a
month to be included in your plan, you need to place an 'X'
in the field next to the month you wish to be included.
Filling this field with a <SPACE> will cause the program to
ignore that month when data is loaded into the plan.
You do not have to select all twelve months before
updating your plan. You can perform this operation on a
month-by-month basis.
When all desired months have been selected on the form,
press the FFFF11110000 key to exit the form and update the financial
plan with the actual data. Your Financial Plan Actual data
can be then be viewed by selecting the ACTUAL menu choice.
The data read from the specified files is only used to
update the Obligations section of the Financial Plan. The
Savings and Income sections of the plan are updated by
selecting the ACTUAL menu choice.
3.1.5.5 _P_R_I_N_T
Prints the currently loaded financial plan on the line
printer. Both Projected and Actual data will displayed
together with projected lines followed by a [[[[PPPP]]]] and actual
lines followed by a [[[[AAAA]]]].
The printing of the Financial Plan requires a printer
that supports compressed print, so be sure you have gone
through the SETUP option to configure the program to your
system.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 14
3.1.5.6 _S_A_V_E
The SAVE option allows you to save your currently loaded
Financial Plan to disk. A dialog box prompting you for a
Plan Save Filename will be presented, with the default plan
name corresponding to the current date. For example, if the
date is January 3, 1989, the file name provided will be
"01031989". You are free to change this name to anything you
wish. After typing in the name, pressing the RETURN key
will save the Financial Plan and take down the dialog box.
3.1.5.7 _A_C_T_U_A_L
This menu choice allows you to view the Financial Plan
Actual data, and to modify the SAVINGS and INCOME sections
of the actual plan worksheet.
As mentioned above, the Obligations section of the
Financial Plan Actuals is updated by using the form
associated with the UPDATE menu choice.
************NNNNOOOOTTTTEEEE************
The UPDATE menu choice is the OOOONNNNLLLLYYYY way
to update the Obligations Section of the
Financial Plan Actuals.
As a result, the Obligations section of the Financial
Plan Actuals is PROTECTED from editing by the program.
You can enter actual data associated with both the
Savings and Income sections of the Financial Plan.
3.1.5.8 _E_X_I_T
Returns you to the Main Menu of the Paycheck program.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 15
3.1.6 _W_O_R_K_S_H_E_E_T
Worksheet data is generally entered on a monthly basis and
corresponds to checks written for your normal operating
expenses. The Worksheet Menu choices include:
CLEAR Clear All Worksheets
LOAD Load a Previously Created Worksheet
MODIFY Modify the Current Worksheet
PRINT Print the Current Worksheet
SAVE Save the Current Worksheet
EXIT Exit Worksheet
These menu choices are described in the following sections.
3.1.6.1 _C_L_E_A_R
The CLEAR menu choice is used to erase worksheet data for
all 12 months of the year. When you select this menu
choice, you will be prompted and asked if you want to ERASE
all your worksheet files. AAAAnnnnsssswwwweeeerrrriiiinnnngggg YYYYeeeessss ttttoooo tttthhhhiiiissss qqqquuuueeeessssttttiiiioooonnnn
wwwwiiiillllllll ddddeeeessssttttrrrrooooyyyy aaaallllllll yyyyoooouuuurrrr wwwwoooorrrrkkkksssshhhheeeeeeeetttt ddddaaaattttaaaa ffffiiiilllleeeessss.... Typically, the
CLEAR option will be used at the end of the year to zero out
all worksheet data from the previous year. You should have
made a copy of your worksheet files before selecting this
menu choice.
3.1.6.2 _L_O_A_D
The LOAD menu choice loads a Worksheet from the disk. A
dialog box will be presented to you, and you will be asked
to select the month of the worksheet you wish to load.
Pressing the FFFF2222 key will display a list of all the month
names that can be used for worksheet files. Use the up and
down arrow keys to select the month of your choice, and
press RETURN. This will place the month in the field in the
dialog box. Pressing RETURN a second time will take down
the dialog box and load the worksheet for editing. If you
have never entered any data for the month selected, the
worksheet form will be displayed empty. If however, you
entered data for the month at a previous session, the
worksheet form will be displayed with those data values.
The Worksheet form is a data entry screen consisting of
the following fields in a scrollable form format:
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 16
+o Date - The date of the transaction
+o Check No - The check number of the expense
+o Recipient - To whom the check was made out
+o Item - A description of the expense
+o Amount - The amount of the expense
************NNNNOOOOTTTTEEEE************
When entering the name in the ITEM
field, it is critical for you to use the
EEEEXXXXAAAACCCCTTTT name as defined in your Expense
Item List. To aid you in this process,
you will be given the option of
displaying your Expense Item List as a
choice list when on the Item field.
Select an Expense Item by using the up
and down arrow keys, and press the
RETURN key when the desired item is
found.
Each Expense Item will be validated against the list of
Expense Items created earlier. If you enter an expense item
not previously defined, you will be given an error message,
and asked to correct the entry. This item validation is
performed to be sure that all items are categorized
correctly when added to the Financial Plan. If you enter a
Expense Item not previously defined, you will not be allowed
to proceed until it is corrected. If you have not defined
your Expense Items prior to entering your Worksheet
information, you will need to ABORT the Worksheet form, and
create your Expense Item List.
3.1.6.3 _M_O_D_I_F_Y
The MODIFY menu choice gives you the opportunity for
modifying the Worksheet data once you exit that form to
perform other functions.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 17
3.1.6.4 _P_R_I_N_T
Prints the currently loaded worksheet on the printer, with
all entries for each particular expense category being
summed before printing.
The printing of the Financial Plan requires a printer
that supports compressed print, so be sure you have gone
through the SETUP option to configure the program to your
system.
3.1.6.5 _S_A_V_E
The SAVE option allows you to save your currently loaded
Worksheet to disk. The worksheet will be saved in a
filename of the same name as the month used to load this
particular worksheet. The specific naming convention used
for worksheet files is:
XXXXXXXX.WRK
where 'XXXXXXXX' is the name of a month, e.g. JANUARY.WRK,
MARCH.WRK.
3.1.6.6 _E_X_I_T
Returns you to the Main Menu of the Paycheck program.
3.1.7 _G_R_A_P_H
The GRAPH option allows you to generate a graph comparing
both the Projected vs. Actual data for the currently loaded
Financial Plan. You can graph data associated with the
Savings, Obligations, Income or Surplus portions of the
plan.
Selecting the EXIT menu choice from the GRAPH option
will return you to the main menu.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 18
3.1.8 _D_O_S
Selecting the DOS menu choice will invoke a copy of
COMMAND.COM while within the Paycheck program. You can use
this option to `escape' temporarily to DOS to perform file
operations, or to invoke other applications. The state of
all data associated with your paycheck session will be
preserved while you use DOS.
While you are using DOS from within the Paycheck
program, the memory occupied by the Paycheck program will be
unavailable for use by other applications. As a result, you
may get a `Not Enough Memory' error message if you try to
invoke another program while in this state.
3.1.9 _E_X_I_T
The EXIT menu choice will exit the paycheck program and
write your GOAL, CRISIS, and CONFIGURATION data to disk. If
you wish to exit the program without saving this
information, press the <ESC> key.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 19
4. _E_R_R_O_R__M_E_S_S_A_G_E_S
The following error messages can be displayed by the
Paycheck program. Each message is accompanied by a short
explanation.
+o IIIInnnnssssuuuuffffffffiiiicccciiiieeeennnntttt MMMMeeeemmmmoooorrrryyyy
You ran out of memory while attemping to perform some
operation. It is possible to fragment memory as you
move between menu items during the program operations,
and even though enough total memory exists to perform
some function, enough contiguous memory may not be
available. Exiting the program and restarting will
generally resolve the problem.
+o MMMMeeeemmmmoooorrrryyyy CCCCoooorrrrrrrruuuupppptttteeeedddd
Memory references became damaged during program
execution. Exit the program and restart.
+o FFFFiiiinnnnaaaannnncccciiiiaaaallll PPPPllllaaaannnnnnnniiiinnnngggg DDDDaaaattttaaaa FFFFiiiilllleeee iiiissss CCCCoooorrrrrrrruuuupppptttt
The file "PAYCHECK.DAT" has become corrupt. This file
is used to store your GOAL, CRISIS, and CONFIGURATION
information. Correcting the data through the GOAL,
CRISIS and CONFIGURATION forms and exiting the program
should correct the problem. If the problem persists,
delete the file "PAYCHECK.DAT" and re-enter the
appropriate information.
+o WWWWoooorrrrkkkksssshhhheeeeeeeetttt DDDDaaaattttaaaa FFFFiiiilllleeee iiiissss CCCCoooorrrrrrrruuuupppptttt
The monthly worksheet file you tried to load (i.e.
JANUARY.WRK, FEBRUARY.WRK, etc.) has been corrupted.
You should delete the specific file and rerun the
Paycheck program. The length of all worksheet files
should be 5700 bytes.
+o CCCCoooouuuulllldddd NNNNooootttt CCCCrrrreeeeaaaatttteeee PPPPaaaayyyycccchhhheeeecccckkkk DDDDaaaattttaaaa FFFFiiiilllleeee
The program could not create one of the following
files: PAYCHECK.DAT, ????????.PLN or ????????.WRK.
Check to be sure you have enough room on the disk used
to store your data files.
+o CCCCaaaannnnnnnnooootttt WWWWrrrriiiitttteeee DDDDaaaattttaaaa ttttoooo PPPPaaaayyyycccchhhheeeecccckkkk DDDDaaaattttaaaa FFFFiiiilllleeee
The program could not write the data to the file
PAYCHECK.DAT. Check to be sure you have enough room on
your data disk, or that a disk is loaded in the drive
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 20
specified to store data.
+o CCCCoooouuuulllldddd NNNNooootttt CCCCrrrreeeeaaaatttteeee MMMMeeeemmmmoooorrrryyyy FFFFiiiilllleeee ffffoooorrrr WWWWoooorrrrkkkksssshhhheeeeeeeetttt
The program could not find enough memory needed to
dynamically create a list of either WORKSHEET or PLAN
files for a choice list. These lists generally have
very small memory requirements, but in the case this
message appears, your only alternatives are to unload
some of your memory resident programs before running
the Paycheck program, or removing some WORKSHEET or
PLAN files, or add more memory to your systems.
+o FFFFiiiilllleeee NNNNooootttt FFFFoooouuuunnnndddd
A file specified in a dialog box for reading could not
be found. Check for spelling errors.
+o CCCCaaaannnnnnnnooootttt CCCCrrrreeeeaaaatttteeee IIIItttteeeemmmm FFFFiiiilllleeee
The file associated with the Expense Item List could
not be created. Check to be sure the data disk
specified is correct, and that there is enough room
available on the target disk.
+o IIIItttteeeemmmm FFFFiiiilllleeee iiiissss CCCCoooorrrrrrrruuuupppptttt
The format of the Expense Item data file has become
corrupt. The format of this file is fixed, and if you
edit this file with a text editor, or accidentally copy
other information into this file, you will experience
this error message. The only sure way to correct the
problem is to delete the file WKSITEM.DAT and use the
program to recreate your Expense Item List.
+o NNNNoooo FFFFiiiinnnnaaaannnncccciiiiaaaallll PPPPllllaaaannnn LLLLooooaaaaddddeeeedddd
You tried to invoke one of MODIFY, UPDATE, PRINT, SAVE,
or ACTUAL menu choices before you chose the CREATE or
LOAD Financial Plan menu choice.
+o NNNNoooo WWWWoooorrrrkkkksssshhhheeeeeeeetttt LLLLooooaaaaddddeeeedddd
You tried to invoke one of MODIFY, PRINT, or SAVE menu
choices before you chose the CREATE or LOAD Worksheet
menu choice.
+o PPPPrrrriiiinnnntttteeeerrrr NNNNooootttt RRRReeeeaaaaddddyyyy
Your printer was "off-line" while the paycheck program
tried to print your Goals, Crisis Elimination List,
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 21
Worksheet, or Plan data. Check to be sure your printer
is "on-line" before trying to print.
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 22
5. _F_U_N_C_T_I_O_N__K_E_Y_S
<F1> Help
<F2> Choice list (if enabled for current field)
<F3> Undo
<F4> Not Assigned
<F5> Clear field
<F6> Clear end
<F7> Beginning of field
<F8> End of field
<F9> Print
<F10> Exit
<Alt F1> while in Help: Zoom Help Window
<Home> First field
<Up> Prev. field
<PgUp> Prev. field
<Left> Cursor left
<Right> Cursor right
<End> Last field
<Dn> Next field
<PgDn> Next field
<Tab> Next field
<Shift-tab> Prev. field
<Enter> Next field
<Esc> Abort
<Del> Delete char.
<Backspace> Destructive backspace
<Ins> Insert mode
<Downarrow> Next field
<Uparrow> Previous field
<Left arrow> Cursor left
<Right arrow>Cursor right
<CTRL-Home> Exit scroll region up
<CTRL-End> Exit scroll region down
<CTRL-PgUp> Page scroll region up
<CTRL-PgDn> Page scroll region down
How to Make Your Paycheck Last 23
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION........................................ 2
2. QUICK START......................................... 3
3. MENUS............................................... 7
3.1 MAIN MENU...................................... 7
3.1.1 SETUP................................... 7
3.1.2 FIN GOALS............................... 9
3.1.2.1 LONG........................... 9
3.1.2.2 MEDIUM......................... 9
3.1.2.3 SHORT.......................... 10
3.1.2.4 PRINT.......................... 10
3.1.2.5 EXIT........................... 10
3.1.3 CRISIS.................................. 10
3.1.4 ITEM.................................... 11
3.1.5 PLAN.................................... 12
3.1.5.1 CREATE......................... 13
3.1.5.2 LOAD........................... 14
3.1.5.3 MODIFY......................... 15
3.1.5.4 UPDATE......................... 15
3.1.5.5 PRINT.......................... 15
3.1.5.6 SAVE........................... 16
3.1.5.7 ACTUAL......................... 16
3.1.5.8 EXIT........................... 16
3.1.6 WORKSHEET............................... 17
3.1.6.1 CLEAR.......................... 17
3.1.6.2 LOAD........................... 17
3.1.6.3 MODIFY......................... 18
3.1.6.4 PRINT.......................... 19
3.1.6.5 SAVE........................... 19
3.1.6.6 EXIT........................... 19
3.1.7 GRAPH................................... 19
3.1.8 DOS..................................... 20
3.1.9 EXIT.................................... 20
4. ERROR MESSAGES...................................... 21
5. FUNCTION KEYS....................................... 24
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