This program is SHAREWARE. If you keep and use this program, the author requests you send $15. See below for more info on the benefits of registration.
Welcome to CK! If you're not already aware of it, CK is a SHAREWARE program; if you keep and use this program, please send $15 US currency to :
Fernando Salazar
305 Whittier St. NW #202
Washington, DC 20012
U.S.A.
As a registered user of CK, you receive the latest documentation and notice of future upgrades.
CK is an easy-to-use program that accomplishes a common task: keeping a categorized account, for example, a checkbook. More specifically, CK keeps a list of ENTRIES, each of which can belong to a specific CATEGORY. Entries and Categories can be reported on, sorted, edited and deleted.
CK uses standard Macintosh commands, including a (fairly) standard FILE menu and a standard EDIT menu. Desk Accessories that Cut and Paste text are supported.
CK supports MultiFinder, and has a minimum memory requirement of 192K.
Distribution
If you are a user's group or other mass distributor of shareware, I ask that you register CK before distributing it. The fee I ask is the same as for an individual, $15.
WHY do I make this request? SO I HAVE A CLEAR AND SIMPLE WAY OF KEEPING USER'S GROUPS SUPPLIED WITH THE LATEST VERSIONS OF CK.
For example, I still receive letters about CK 1.5. This version was released in June 87, and was current for only 1 month! As I write this, it is March 88 and the current CK version is 2.1. Compared to 2.1, 1.5 is unrefined and (I'm not ashamed to say) a bit buggy! Any group that offers such an old version damages its reputation and that of my program!
So please register. It's to both your advantage, and mine.
International Distribution
If you are a non-US Macintosh user, please feel free to localize CK string resources and to circulate CK on public BBS systems and through user's groups; the only condition is that the files "CK_Help" and CK_Help.txt" be distributed with CK, and that all shareware messages remain intact. All CK versions support international date order, and versions 2.1r3 and later support international currency formats.
The CK "Package"
CK should be distributed with the following files:
CK: This is the CK application itself.
CK Help: This file is required by the (Help) function under the APPLE menu. This file should be in the same folder at the CK application. If you use the (Help) command and CK cannot find this file, you will be asked to search for it, or to cancel (Help).
CK Help.txt: This is a text file of all the CK help items. You may want to print this to keep as a reference.
Sample Checkbook: This is an example CK document that shows some ideas for CK categories.
You should make working copies of these files, and put the originals away before starting up CK.
Documents and Windows
You work with CK by creating, modifying and saving CK DOCUMENTS. Most operations on documents come under the FILE menu: (New) creates new documents, (Open) opens previously saved ones, (Save As) saves new documents, or previously saved ones under a new name, (Save) saves the current document. A document created with (New) must first be saved with (Save As) before it can be saved with (Save).
You work with a CK document in a CK WINDOW. A CK window offers several VIEWs of your document. Each view represents a different class of information to be modified or displayed. You change between views by clicking on the icon palette at the left of the CK window, or by selecting the view from the COMMAND MENU. Each of the different views has a help item that describes it.
The information in a CK document is divided into CATEGORIES and ENTRIES. See the separate sections on these for more info.
CATEGORY FIELDS
These are the different classes into which income and outgo are separated. The maximum number of categories you can have in a document is about 32,000 , but practically that number is limited by available memory. In a 512K Mac, you should be able to use about 100-200 categories, if you like.
Each category contains the following information:
Name: Up to 16 characters.
Type: Either a credit or debit. For example, in a checkbook account, deposits are credits and checks are debits.
Auto-Payee: This is an optional feature. An auto-payee is a text string of up to 90 characters. Say in your checkbook account you had a debit category named RENT. Since rent is always payed to the same person, it's a pain to have to type in the same name every time you make a rent entry. An auto-payee let's you specify some text to appear automatically for entries of that category.
Auto-Amount: This is similar to an auto-payee, but it's a dollar amount.
Auto-ON: This is a flag you can switch on and off. When on, it means the category's auto-amount will be entered for you when you select an auto-payee.
Budget-Amt: This is the amount you budget for that category for 1 month. This amount is used in generating Budgets Reports (see below).
Budget-ON: This is a flag which determines if a category appears on Budgets Reports.
ENTRY FIELDS
Entries contain the actual amounts entered into a CK account. The maximum number for one account is about 32,000 , but again the practical maximum is limited by memory. A CK document containing 50 categories and 300 entries takes up about 56K.
Each entry contains the following information:
Payee: Who (or what) the entry is to or from. This can be filled in with a category's auto-payee.
Check Number: An optional number for your convenience.This could be the check numbers in your checkbook, or anything you wish. The maximum value is 9999.
Date: Every entry must have a date. It's format is MM/DD/YY; or it is in the USA. The actual order CK uses is specified by the INTL resource in your System File.
Amount: Every entry must have an amount. The maximum amount for a single entry is $999,999.99.
Memo: This is an optional text field for your own use. Its maximum length is 45 characters.
Non-Taxable/Deductible: This is a flag value you can toggle back and forth. When on, for credit entries it means that entry is marked "Non-taxable" income; for debit entries, it means "Deductible" expense. This flag is used when generating Tax Reports.
In addition to this information, each entry possesses two attributes, "Posted" and "Locked". An entry marked as posted has been added to the document's reconciled balance. An entry that is locked cannot be edited, posted or unposted until it is unlocked.
MAKE ENTRIES
This is where you add new entries to a document, or edit old ones. The line at the top of the window ("This entry #21 of 20" for example) indicates your position among the entries in your document. A display like "#21 of 20" indicates you're at the end of the list ready to make new entries; a number like "#18 of 20" indicates you are viewing an entry already entered into your document.
This view has 2 scroll bars. The right-most scroll bar scrolls the list of categories; the middle scroll bar moves your position among entries.
This view has three push-buttons, named "Enter New", "Edit Old" and "Clear". Enter New is active only when you are at the end of your entries; Edit Old is active only when viewing a previously made entry. Clear clears all input field to blanks and moves you to the end of the entries list; It DOES NOT DELETE any entries or information.
To make a new entry, make sure you are at the end of your entries: move the middle scroll bar all the way to the bottom, or, press [clear], or, click the "Clear" button.
Type the appropriate information in each box. Pressing [tab] moves the cursor down to the next field, Shift-[tab] moves it up. Text can be cut, copied, and pasted in between fields, or from desk accessories. Each field accepts only certain characters, whether they are typed or pasted; for example, the "Amount" field only accepts numerals, periods, commas, dollar signs, and the calculation operators * + - and /.
Select the category this entry will belong to by clicking on the category's name in list at the right of the window. DOUBLE-CLICKING on the name will insert the category's auto-payee into the Payee field; if the category's auto-ON field is set, the Auto-Amount will appear in the Amount field. Pressing the [\] key will also activate a selected category's auto-payee.
When the information in the different fields is set the way you wish, press [enter] (or use the mouse to click the "Enter New" button) to record the new entry in your document. If the entry information is incomplete (for example, the Amount field is empty) there will be a beep, and the missing information will be highlighted.
CK provides a few conveniences for data entry. By using the Defaults menu (see below), you can select which fields are cleared after you make an entry. When the cursor is in the CkNum field, pressing [space] will enter the next sequential check number; pressing [-] sets the field to dashes, as you might want to do with entries that have no check number (like deposits).
When the cursor is in the date field, pressing [SPACE] will enter today's date; pressing option-[SPACE] will enter the last date you used that DID NOT EQUAL today's date.
The "Amount" field can contain a simple calculation. In this field type "0.75*4". Press ENTER to enter a new entry, then scroll back to see the entry you just made. The amount field will contain "$3.00". An Important Note: In a calculation, the first half of the expression will be read as a dollars value; e.g., 75 becomes $75.00. The second half is read as a cents value; e.g. 3 becomes $0.03. Then, all calculations are done with CENTS amounts. So typing "75*4" gives an answer of $300.00 (7,500¢ * 4¢), while typing "75*0.4" gives an answer of $3000.00 (7,500¢ * 40¢).
Editing/Deleting Entries
To edit an entry made previously, move to the Make Entries view. Use the scroll bar to the left of the category list. This will scroll through all entries. You will also see the "Enter New" Button become inactive, and the "Edit Old" Button become active. When you get to the entry you wish to edit, change the information you want to, then click on "Edit Old". Balance information is updated to reflect the changes made by the edit. An entry must be unlocked to be edited.
Entries can also be deleted. To delete an entry, scroll to it as it were to be edited; then select (Delete Entry) from the EDIT menu. A dialog appears to confirm the deletion; to abort, click Cancel. An entry must be unlocked to be deleted.
RECONCILE
This is where you reconcile the balance CK reports for your account and an actual balance reported, for example, by your bank. The Commands that can be used in this view come from the COMMAND menu, and they are (Post), (Un-Post), and (Toggle), and (Lock), (Un-Lock), and (Lock All Posted). These commands apply to entries selected in the reconcile list. The scroll bar scrolls the list; to select an entry, click the cursor on it. Clicking the mouse, holding the button and moving the mouse up or down also scrolls the list. To select a range of entries, select the first entry desired, scroll to the last and click on it while holding down the SHIFT key. The EDIT menu command (Select All) is active for this view. Entries selected show in inverse video.
NOTE: entries which have their non-taxable/deductible flag set display a coin icon. This is for your information only, this flag cannot be changed in the Reconcile view.
The commands (Post) and (Un-Post) add or remove entries from the total of those posted. Posted entries display a checkmark. (Toggle) reverses the state of entries; those that are posted become unposted, and vice versa. Double clicking on a single entry will (Toggle) that entry.
The Lock commands allow you to determine if entries can be modified. Like the Post commands, they operate on selected entries. An entry that has been locked cannot be edited or have its reconcile status changed. Locking is signified by the padlock icon. The command (Lock All Posted) is provided so that once you have successfully reconciled an account, you can easily preserve your work.
REVIEW
This view is provided to give a quick summary of account data. For each category, it shows the number of entries, the number of entries posted, the total amount, and the amount posted.
CATEGORIES view
The Categories view is where CK categories are created and edited. To add a Category to an account, type the appropriate information in each field, select either "Credit" or "Debit" from the buttons to the right of the category name, then press [enter] (or click the "Add New" button). To edit a category, double-click on its name in the categories list. The "Add New" button becomes dim, and the "Change Old" button becomes active. The credit/debit classification of the category cannot be changed, but all other the information can be. When you have made the changes, click "Change Old".
The "Auto ON" check box beside the auto-amount determines if the auto-amount is to be used when an auto-payee is activated. For example, RENT is usually paid to the same person every month and in the same amount; for a RENT category, turn on the "Auto On" button and put the amount for rent in the Auto-Amount field. But for PHONE BILL, although the bill is paid to the same person each month, the amount if usually different; for a category of this sort, leave "Auto On" "Off".
This view is where you set the Budget information for each category. If you want to set a monthly budget amount for a category, turn on the Budget-ON flag, and type the amount you want to budget for into the Budget Amount field. This information is used in creating Budget Reports - see the Budget Report section for more info.
Editing/Deleting Categories
Categories can also be edited and deleted. To edit a category,
1) Go to the Categories view
2) Double-click the category you wish to edit. The entry field and controls are set to the category's values, and the "Add New" button becomes gray while the "Change Old" button becomes black.
3) Change the category information to what you want. For example, if you want to change a category's Auto-Amt, here is where you would enter the new value.
4) When you have made all your changes, click "Change Old" to record them.
To delete a category, follow steps (1) - (2) above, then select (Delete Category) from the EDIT menu. A dialog appears to confirm the deletion; to abort, click Cancel.
Only categories that have NO entries recorded to them can be deleted.
ACCOUNTS view
Future CK versions will feature "Accounts" – sub-files of entries within a single CK document. This feature is not yet implemented in this version of CK.
Undo
CK allows you to Undo certain actions. These are:
Entering a New Entry
Editing an Entry
Deleting an Entry
Adding a New Category
Editing a Category
Deleting a Category
If Undo is active, its menu text is changed to (Undo[command]); if it's not possible for CK to Undo, the menu text reads (Can't Undo) and is dimmed. Selecting (Undo) changes the menu text to (Redo[command]).
If you want to Undo, do it quick! Clicking on controls, activating windows, and many menu commands turn off (Undo).
DEFAULTS menu
This menu let's you change some of the ways CK works. The first group of menu selections read "Clear" followed by the name of an entry field (payee, cknum, etc). If one of these is active (indicated by a checkmark) whenever you enter a new entry, that field will be cleared to blanks (or turned off). For example, since most entries will have different payees, you'll probably want to clear the payee field after each entry, to save you the effort of deleting the old one before starting a new entry. However, since the dates of entries are often the same, or only changing by a day or so, you'll want to keep the date field so you don't have to re-enter the same date over and over. Selecting the different "Clear" items toggles them between on and off.
(Auto-Save): This command allows you to set CK so that it saves the active window after a set number of new entries.
(Confirm Deletes): This let's you turn off the confirming dialog that appears when you delete a category or an entry. This is useful if you plan to do a lot of "cleaning up" on a file by deleting many entries or categories at once.
(Save Defaults): This command saves the defaults currently in force, so that they will appear next time you use CK. NOTE: The saved defaults belong to the CK application, not to individual CK documents.
Sort…
This command is under the FILE menu. It allows you to rearrange entries, or, categories lists. For example, entries are rarely made in their correct date order; (Sort) can arrange them in correct date order. Also, if you have many categories, you can sometimes forget exactly where in the list a certain category is. (Sort) can arrange category lists categories so they are in alphabetical order, for example, or by several other keys.
To sort entries, put your CK window in either Make Entries or Reconcile view. The text of the sort menu item reads "Sort Entries". Selecting this command causes a "sort setup" dialog to appear. You can sort using up to three keys. For entries, these are:
Payee
Ck Num
Date
Amount
Category
Memo
Credit/Debit
Record Num
Say you select Date for Key1 and Category for Key2. When you do the sort, entries will be arranged by date; entries with the same Date will be arranged by category.
Record Num refers to the absolute order entries were entered into the document. Sorting by Record Num puts entries back into the original order they were made.
Ascending and Descending let you change the direction of sort.
To sort categories, move to either the Review or Categories view. The sort menu text changes to (Sort Categories). This command works much the same as sorting entries, but uses different keys. These are:
Name
Credit/Debit
# of Entries
amt of Entries
Auto ON
Budget ON
Sorting by # of Entries, for example, puts the categories with the most entries recorded to them at the head of the category lists.
Under MultiFinder, sorting can run as a background task.
Clone…
This command is under the FILE menu. (Clone) creates a new CK document that has the same categories as the currently open document, but has no entries. This allows you to "start over" with the same account structure. For example, to start a new year (or quarter, or month, for that matter) for your checkbook, use (Clone) on your current checkbook.
Search…
This command is under the COMMAND menu. It displays up a dialog that let's you search for entries. It works only for the Make Entries and Reconcile views. Entries can be searched for by text string, amount, date, or check number. In addition, you can restrict the search to entries that have been posted, those not posted, or to all entries. The "string" search option has some special features. First, it looks for a string of text in the payee, the memo, and finally, the category of each entry. By typing the name of a category (type it EXACTLY, including capitols!), you can search for the next entry in that category. Second, searching for a "null" string (nothing typed) always finds the next entry. Using this, and clicking either "Posted" or "Not Posted", you can search for the next posted or the next unposted entry.
Report…
CK can create reports, which are summaries or listings of account data. Reports are saved as TEXT-type files. In addition to allowing you to find out much-needed answers (like, "How much did I spend on shareware in February 1988?"), you can also export CK data to other programs, like spreadsheets, databases, or tax-programs.
The (Reports…) command is under the COMMAND menu. Selecting this item displays the Report Setup dialog. This is where you specify the kind of report you wish to create.
In the box labelled "Title" you can set a name for the report.
The section labeled "Report Type" is where you select the kind of report you wish to make. The different kinds are:
Entries Reports
Categories Reports
Budget Reports
Tax Reports
The different kinds are explained in their own help sections.
The section labeled "On Categories" allows you to specify which categories the report will cover. The default is all categories. If you wish to report on one or a few categories, click "Those Selected", then highlight in the list the categories you want. Shift-click to extend a selection, command-click to select separate categories.
The section labeled "On Entries" is where you choose which entries you will report on. The default is all, but you can choose only posted entries, only unposted, etc.
The section labeled "Report Covers" is where you choose the part of your account you wish to report on. The default is all, but you can choose to report on the account between 2 dates, 2 check nums, or 2 entry nums (entry nums refers to the order of entries in their lists, as shown in the Make Entries "This entry #.. of .." display).
When you have everything the way you want, click "Do It". When the report is complete, it appears in its own window. CK allows up to 6 report windows on the desktop, assuming sufficient memory. The report can be printed or saved. Once saved, reports CANNOT be opened again by CK - but since reports are standard TEXT files, they can be opened, edited and printed by any word processor.
Please NOTE!! Certain reports end with lines showing "Total Credits", "Total Debits", and "Total". These refer to the totals for that REPORT only, not the totals for the entire account!!
Under MultiFinder, report generation can run in the background.
Entries Reports
This kind of report is a listing of entries. Entries reports come in three sub-types:
Unsorted: A straight list of entries.
Sorted: Entries grouped by category.
Running: Shows a calculated balance after each entry (like a check register).
Clicking the TAB DELIMITED button affects sorted and unsorted entries reports. When this option is ON, each entry appears on a single line ended by a [return]. The different fields of each entry are separated by tabs. The first line of the report is a header with field names. The header reads:
CheckNum [tab] Date [tab] Categ Name [tab] Tax Info [tab] Categ# [tab] Amount [tab] Payee [tab] Memo [return].
Since the [return] character is usually taken to be a record separator, [return] characters are filtered from the Payee and Memo data and replaced with the string " … " ([space] [ellipsis] [space]). This feature is provided for exporting entries data to spreadsheet or data base programs.
Categories Reports
This report shows category totals. In addition, for each category the per cent of total credits or debits that category represents is shown; for debits categories, the per cent of total INCOME that category represents is shown as well.
For example, for a debit category RENT, you see the total spent on RENT, what percent that amount is of all you spent, and also what percent that total is of WHAT YOU TOOK IN (total credits).
Budgets Reports
Compares monthly totals for categories to the budget amt entered for that category. When generating a budgets report, you must specify a "from date" and a "to date". The report will begin with the month of the "from date" and end with the month of the "to date". Even if you specify a day other than the first/last of the month, all the entries for the start/end months are used in calculating the report.
For example, say you have a debit category "Food", with the Budget ON flag set and a Budget Amount of $100.00. In the report setup you select Budget Report, with from/to dates of 1/1/88 and 3/1/88. The report created will begin with "January 88" and show the amount total in the category "Food", the amount Budgeted ($100) and the per cent the total was over or under budget. It will show the same calculation for February and March, and end with a summary showing totals for the entire report.
NOTE: Only categories that have the Budget ON flag set appear in Budgets Reports.
Even if you have no need of comparing the amount you spend or earn in a category with a set budget amount, you can use this kind of report for looking at category totals by month; the other way to do this would require creating a separate categories report for each month.
Tax Reports
For each category, shows the total non-taxable/taxable, or, deductible/non-deductible.
CK Versions/Compatibility
"OK" versions of CK include: 1.53, 2.0r1, 2.0r2, 2.1r1, 2.1r2, and 2.1r3 (the current version). Do not use any other versions of CK! 1.0 and 1.5 are especially deadly!! Please note the version number of your copy of CK with your shareware registration. Registered users receive the latest version.
NOTE:
versions 2.0 and 2.1r1 require System 4.1 or higher!
versions 2.1r2 and higher are compatible with ALL Systems.
All 2.xx versions of CK can read files created by CK 1.53, but 2.xx files cannot be read by 1.53.
CK versions 2.1r3 and later support International currency formats. This is done by using the "IUGetIntl" routine to examine the "itl0" resource, (or the "INTL" resource id0 in Systems earlier than 4.0). If you are a non-US Mac user and can't get CK to display currency amounts in your country's format, try examining your System file to make sure it has the proper "itl0" or "INTL" resources.
Acknowledgements…
CK has really grown since its first release in May 87. The program you are using is a product of my original idea of an easy-to-use program that accomplished a common task, my slowly-growing understanding of the Macintosh, and perhaps most important, the comments of my first 22 registered users (who, for the LONGEST time, were ALL the registered users):
