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Text File | 1991-12-02 | 61KB | 1,379 lines

LEARN ABOUT PCBUDGET Welcome to PCBUDGET. PCBUDGET is designed to help assist, simplify, and organize your home financial records. You can use PCBUDGET as a simple Checkbook manager or as a detailed record keeping and tracking home accounting system. You can keep track of your bank accounts, credit cards, expenses, incomes, assets, liabilities, and bills. You can use PCBUDGET to plan your future needs, measure your progress, and alarm you of problems areas. The most important thing to remember about PCBUDGET is to stick with it. The more you put into it, the more you will get out of it. PCBUDGET organizes your finances by assigning each account you create with a two digit account code. Among the types of accounts which you may wish to create are: Incomes - Salary, Dividends . . . Expenses - Groceries, Telephone, Taxes . . . Credit Cards - MasterCard, Visa . . . Liabilities - Car Loan, Mortgage, Personal Loans . . . Bank Accounts - Checking Account, Savings Account, IRA . . . Assets - Personal Property, Value of your Auto . . . You should begin creating accounts immediately after you have created your data file. Or, accounts can be created as you need them while making transactions. Each account can have a budget assigned to it. For example if the Grocery budget is $200 per month, and you write a check for $220, 'paid to' Grocery, you have just exceeded the Grocery budget by $20. When transactions are made, at least two accounts are always affected. For example, when you used your Checking Account to purchase Groceries, two accounts were affected. Your Checking Account balance decreased and your Grocery account increased. As more and more transactions are recorded, the better you will be able to get the "big picture" of where your money came from, where it is going, and how to keep it under control. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PCBUDGET commands are organized in menus on the menu bar. The PCBUDGET environment is designed for fast and simple operations which can get you to and from any activity without having to step through needless screens and prompts. To pull down PCBUDGET Menus, do the following: Press and hold down the ALT key, then press the first letter of the menu name. If you have a mouse, point to the menu name, and then click on the left mouse button. If you pull down the wrong menu, take one of the following actions: Cancel the menu by pressing the ESC key. Move to another menu by pressing the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys. To select from the menu, do the following: Press the key corresponding to the highlighted (or underlined) letter. Use the UP or DOWN arrow keys to move the highlight to the selection that you want, then press the ENTER key. If you have a mouse, point to the selection that you want, then click the left mouse button. Sometimes there may not be a letter in the window which is highlighted. This is because the items in the window have been determined by the types of accounts and account names you have created on your data file. For these cases, you will have to use the arrow keys or mouse (if you have one) to make your selection. When there are arrows in the top right and bottom right hand corner of the window, there is more information or items to select from. You can use the PAGEUP, PAGEDOWN, HOME, and END keys to view the rest of the window, or, if you have a mouse, place the mouse cursor on the arrows in the window and click the left mouse button. PCBUDGET displays a Data Entry Window when you are entering data or when additional information is required. An example data entry window looks like: ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Source: Checking Account 134.67│ │ Amount: ░░░░░░░░░░░ │ │ Memo: ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ │ │Paid to: ░░ │ │Check #: ░░░░ │ │ Date: ░░ │ │ Tax: ░ │ │Cleared: ░ │ ├──────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ <F9=RECORD> <Esc=Cancel> <Help> │ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ To move the cursor within the Data Entry Window you can use the up, down, left, and right arrow keys, or you can use a mouse. All Data Entry Windows have at least two selections which can be made while they are being displayed. In the example above, there are three selections. RECORD, CANCEL, and HELP. To select one of these items, use the TAB key to highlight the brackets surrounding the item, then press the ENTER key. Or, press the function key or the Esc key as it applies. Many of the Data Entry Windows have numerous function keys associated with them. All active function keys for the current Data Entry Window are located on the information bar (the bottom line of the screen). All Data Entry Windows have a TOPIC help file which describes in further detail what the Data Entry Window is asking for and how to go about using it. STARTING YOUR DATA FILE Before you begin using PCBUDGET, you should consider at what point in time the PCBUDGET data will become current. That is, how and when will PCBUDGET get in synch with your current finances and/or your bank or credit card company. Were going to handle your checking account first since its probably the most important and the most used account you will have. The best way to handle this is to enter the "bank balance" of your most recent bank statement for your checking account. You should enter this on the line that says: Opening Balance :▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ Suppose you enter a balance of $115.50. Next, enter the date that this balance was correct. Month : ▓▓ Day : ▓▓ Year : ▓▓▓▓ Suppose you enter June 15, 1991 and lets say the "actual" date is July 11, 1991. PCBUDGET will adjust its DATE to June 15, 1991 and will create an account 'Checking Account' with a June Year-To-Date (Y-T-D) balance of $115.50. Next, PCBUDGET will ask once again for the current Date (this is the opening screen from now on). You should enter June 15, 1991. At this point, you can either begin adding more accounts or you can begin making transactions to bring your checking account up to date. If you're going to create other accounts while still in June, you should try to enter the Y-T-D balance for the new accounts to be whatever the balance was on June 15, 1991. If the balance is unknown, like most expense account balances are, then just enter $0. To bring your checking account up to date enter all the transactions that occurred in June which were not included on the bank statement (don't forget about the transactions which were made prior to June 15 that have not hit your bank statement yet). When you're done entering the June transactions, you may be ready to begin July transactions. If the actual month is still June don't worry. You can begin July when July actually comes. However if the actual month is July, you will need to transfer your June balances into July and make all the July transactions to date. Balances are transferred when the date entered at the beginning of your PCBUDGET session is a month later than the 'Last use' date or by pulling down the FILE menu and selecting TRANSFER. When you transfer your data file to the next month all Y-T-D balances for all accounts are transferred into the new month. ─ FILE MENU OPEN A MONTH : This selection allows you to view a different month. The viewing month is displayed on the bottom right corner of the screen. When the viewing month is different than the current month, the month indicator will flash. The current month is displayed in the bottom middle of the screen. CREATE NEW ACCOUNT : This selection allows you to create new accounts on your PCBUDGET data file. SETUP GROUP: This selection allows you to specify a group of transactions which can be made with one single account code. Up to 5 different groups can be specified. Group Entry codes all begin with the letter 'G' and end with the number 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. For example Group Entry 1 will have the account code 'G1'. Group Entries are useful when one transaction affects more than two accounts. A group entry is especially useful for recording your paycheck. For example, each time you get paid by your employer, numerous accounts are affected (Federal Taxes, State Taxes, Income, etc.). You can use Group Entries to handle these types of transactions. SETUP LOAN: This selection allows you to setup a loan. To setup a loan, you must first create a liability account which represents the money which you owe to your lender and an expense account which represents the finance charges which you will incur during the life of the loan. SELECT DATA FILE : This selection allows you to enter a new data file path name. If a data file is not found, you will be asked if you wish to create a data file. At that time, this selection will act the same as if you had selected CREATE DATA FILE. CREATE DATA FILE : This selection allows you to create a new data file. When a data file is created, the accounts, Checking Account, Misc Income, and Misc Expense, are created automatically. You will also be allowed to enter the opening balance to your Checking Account at this time. When you create a data file, the file you create will become the active data file/path. BACKUP DATA FILE : This selection allows you to backup your data file. A data file backup is very important and should be done often. TRANSFER MONTH/YEAR : This selection transfers all account data to the next month or starts a new year. The same results occur when entering the date at the beginning of each PCBUDGET session. For example, if a date is entered which indicates the next month after PCBUDGET was last used, you will automatically be allowed to transfer your data to the next month. Or, if the date entered is a new year, you will be allowed to transfer your data file to a new year. When starting a new year all bank account, asset, credit card, and liability account balances are transferred to the new file. Income and expense account balances are reset to zero. All budget data for all accounts are transferred to the new file. PRINT : This selection outputs the current report to your printer. You printer should be connected to LPT1. OUTPUT TO FILE : This selection outputs the current report to a file on your program disk. The extension .PRN is automatically added to the file name. EXIT : This selection exits you from PCBUDGET. All account data will be saved automatically. The date is stored to a file called 'LAST.DAT'. This date is used to determine if account balances need to be carried over to a new month when PCBUDGET is next used, or if a new year has begun. TRANSACTIONS MENU Select the Transactions menu to make new entries to your monthly transaction list. When you select Transactions, you will get a menu of all Bank Accounts, Credit Cards, and Income accounts currently on your data file. All transactions must affect at least one of these accounts. A typical Transaction data entry window looks like: Account ───┐ Selected │ ┌──── Current from menu │ │ Balance of ┌───────────┴──────────────────────────┴───┐ Account │ Source: Checking Account 134.67│ Selected │ Amount: ░░░░░░░░░░░ │ │ Memo: ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ │ │Paid to: ░░ │ │Check #: ░░░░ │ │ Date: ░░ │ │ Tax: ░ │ │Cleared: ░ │ ├──────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ <F9=RECORD> <Esc=Cancel> <Help> │ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ All transactions affect at least two accounts. One of the accounts affected will be the account selected in the Transaction menu. The other account which will be affected will be the account entered in the 'Paid to' field. RECONCILE ACCOUNT : This selection allows you to reconcile your bank account or credit card account balance with your bank or credit card statement. REPORTS MENU TRANSACTION LIST : This selection displays all transactions which have been entered for the viewing month. This report is automatically displayed when transactions are being made. To edit a transaction, or to delete a transaction, press the F1 key when viewing this report. PERSONAL NET WORTH : This selection displays your current net worth. You net worth is the difference between your total assets (bank accounts and other assets) and your total liabilities (credit cards and other liabilities). INCOME AND EXPENSES : This selection displays your income and expenses for the viewing month and the year-to-date amount up to and including the viewing month. ACCOUNT BALANCES : This selection displays all accounts currently in your data file. It displays the name of the account, the type of account, the account code, the balance for the viewing month, and the year-to-date balance. To edit an account name or balance, or to delete an account, press the F1 key. TAX ESTIMATOR : This selection allows you to estimate your personal Federal income taxes. Taxes can be estimated for the entire year, or for the year-to-date. Select the OPTIONS menu, 'TAX ID CODES' to tell PCBUDGET your filing status, number of exemptions, and which account codes are being used for taxable categories. PAYMENT REMINDERS : This selections allows you to view and/or add items to your payment reminders list. Payment reminders are those payments which are made on a regular basis or those which you want to alarm you when they become due. When making transactions, press the F6 key to automatically insert the payment into the transaction input window. This payment will then be marked as Paid. When PCBUDGET first runs, it looks at the unpaid bills which are due at that time. PCBUDGET will alarm you that there are bills which need to be paid and it will automatically make the transaction for you if you have specified an 'Auto Source' account. MAILING LIST : This selection allows you to view and/or add items to your mailing list. If the first 10 characters of the first line of the mailing list item is the same as an account name on your data file, this mailing list item will be automatically inserted when you print checks. Press the F3 key to view all accounts which are currently on your data file. Press the F1 key to edit or delete a mailing list item. SEARCH FOR ITEM : The selection allows you to search the transaction list for any particular sequence of characters. To search for TAX ITEMS, press the F5 key. PCBUDGET will search for all transactions marked with a 'T' in the tax column. LOAN AMORTIZATION : This selection will generate a loan amortization schedule. You must enter the amount of the loan, the length of the loan, the interest rate percentage, and the first payment you want to display. ACCUMULATION SCHEDULE : This selection will generate a report of compounding interest for any initial value of money and/or time deposits for any length of time. BUDGETS MENU COST BUDGET : This selection allows you to view and/or modify the monthly budgeted amounts for any given account. You may also view the actual cash flows for the given account and compare it to the budgeted amount. Press the F1 key to modify the budgeted amounts for the viewing account. PROFIT BUDGET : This selection will display the actual vs. budgeted income and expenses for the viewing month. CASH BUDGET : This selection allows you to view a schedule of all expected cash inflows and outflows for the following four months. PCBUDGET uses the account code specified in the Checks/Print selection in the OPTIONS menu as your cash account. When you view the CASH BUDGET the beginning cash balance will be Y-T-D amount of the account specified. This account is usually your checking account or the account which is used to pay your monthly bills. BUDGET CASH FLOWS : This selection allows you to view the actual vs. budgeted cash flows for the viewing month. GRAPHS MENU ACCOUNTS : The ACCOUNTS selection allows you to view actual vs. budgeted and year-to-date Incomes, Expenses, Credit Cards, Liabilities, Bank Accounts, or Assets, for the time span selected. NET WORTH : This selection allows you to view your NET WORTH for the time span selected. INCOME AND EXPENSES : This selection allows you to view your INCOME and EXPENSES for the time span selected. SELECT AN ACCOUNT : This selection allows you to select any account within PCBUDGET. The graph will be the budgeted vs. actual activity for that account for the time span selected. DISTRIBUTION OF ACCOUNTS : This selection allows you to view the year-to-date distribution of the selected account type. DEMO : This selection will display a randomly generated bar graph. PARAMETERS : This selection allows you to change the time span, the maximum and minimum value for the Y axis, and the maximum number of bars which you want displayed. To print a graph, press the 'P' key while you are viewing the graph. For best results, select a screen mode, CGA 2 COLOR, MCGA High, or VGA when you are going to print. This will give the best contrast on the paper. OPTION MENU SCREEN COLORS : This selection allows you to change the screen colors. You must enter the color number, and then press the F1 key to view the new colors. Press the F9 key to save the new colors to disk. CHECKS/PRINT : This selection allows you to set the following: 1) Specify if a return address should be printed on an envelope when printing a mailing list item. The return address is specified by selecting NAME AND ADDRESS from this menu. 2) Enable or disable the check printing function. To enable check printing, enter the account code you wish to use for printing checks. To disable check printing, enter a blank for the account code. 3) Specify which account code is being used as your primary checking account. Whenever this account is selected, the check number in the Transaction Data Entry Window will automatically update. This account is also used as the 'Beginning Cash Balance' account when viewing the CASH BUDGET. NAME AND ADDRESS : This selection allows you to enter your name and address. This is used for printing on reports and printing envelopes. TAX ID CODES : This selection allows you to enter your filing status, number of exemptions, and taxable account codes for use by the TAX ESTIMATOR. POP-UP CALCULATOR : This selection allows the use of a calculator. Press CTRL-P to pop-up the calculator at any time. POP-UP CALENDAR : This selection displays the current month and year in a calendar form. Press CTRL-C to pop-up the calendar at any time. ─ YOUR PAYCHECK For most people, your paycheck, whether issued weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or whatever, usually consists of a multitude of transactions, transfers, and/or deductions. There are many ways to handle this. In order to easily handle all things involved, try this approach. Suppose your paycheck is as follows, GROSS PAY : 1000.00 (Income) FEDERAL TAXES : 280.00 (Expense) F.I.C.A : 75.00 (Expense) STATE TAXES : 45.00 (Expense) COMPANY SAVINGS PLAN : 80.00 (Bank Account) PENSION : 10.00 (Bank Account) COMPANY LIFE INSURANCE : 4.00 (Expense) NET PAY : 506.00 The first thing you should do is create an Income account. You can call it 'Salary' or 'Paycheck' or anything like that. Next, you should create an account for each of the items which are deducted from your 'Salary' or 'Paycheck'. Therefore, if the above example is similar to your paycheck, you should create the Expense account FEDERAL TAXES, FICA, STATE TAXES, and COMPANY LIFE INSURANCE. You should also create the Bank Accounts COMPANY SAVINGS PLAN, and PENSION. Company Savings Plan and Pension can be considered Bank Accounts or Asset Accounts. The bottom line here is that these accounts have a value which increase each time you get paid. After all accounts have been created, pull down the FILE menu and select 'Setup Group'. If this is the first group you are creating, enter a 1 (for Group Number 1). You will then be allowed to specify which accounts will be affected by group 1. Enter all the account codes which are affected by your paycheck. You should keep in mind that the account which receives your NET PAY must also be accounted for. For example, if your NET PAY is usually deposited into your Checking Account, then your Checking Account should also be one of the accounts in the Group. If sometimes you deposit some of the NET PAY into your Checking Account and some of it into your Savings Account or other bank account, then you should include both accounts as part of the Group. Don't worry if sometimes you deposit money into your savings account and sometimes you don't. To record your paycheck, select your Income account from the TRANSACTIONS menu (that's the one called 'Salary' or 'Paycheck' which you've created). Enter the GROSS amount of your check in the AMOUNT field. Next, enter the code 'G1' (Group Entry 1) in the CODE field and press F9. Enter each amount next to its corresponding account name. Press the F9 key again and all transactions will be recorded. ELIMINATING KEYSTROKES Whenever entering data for transactions, group entries, or payment reminders, enter your PCBUDGET two digit code before entering the description. If entered first, the description will be automatically inserted. This will decrease the number of keystrokes required to enter data. Payment reminders can also be for recurring transactions. Pressing the F5 key when making transactions will automatically insert transaction data. Pressing the F4 key just prior to making a transaction will Memorize that transaction by adding it to the Payment Reminders/Recurring Transactions (PRRT) list. If you are printing checks, use the mailing list to store account names and account numbers. Make sure that the first 10 characters of the first line in the mailing list are identical to the first 10 characters of the account name. Include in the mailing list the account number and/or the address of the account. When the check is printed, the address/account number will be automatically printed on the check. KEYS PgUp Moves the screen one line up. PgDn Moves the screen one line down. Ctrl-PgUp Moves the screen one page up. Ctrl-PgDn Moves the screen one page down. Home Moves the screen to the top. End Moves the screen to the bottom. Ctrl-C Popup Calendar. Ctrl-P Popup Calculator. Tab Moves the highlighted choice in the Data Entry Window. Alt-W Erases a Data Entry Window so that the background can be viewed and/or scrolled. Press the Alt-W key again to recall the Data Entry Window. CREATE NEW ACCOUNT TYPE (1) Income Accounts Income accounts are those accounts which provide for the SOURCE of all cash inflows. Such as: Salary, Dividends, Interest received from Bank Accounts . . . (2) Expense Accounts Expense accounts are those accounts which reduce your net worth when a payment is PAID TO the account. Examples of these accounts are: Groceries, Telephone, Electric, Finance Charges, Cable TV, Rent, Gifts . . . (3) Credit Card Accounts Credit Card Accounts identify the credit cards which you own. Credit cards can be handled one of two ways depending on the type of credit card or by the way you make the payment. If the credit card is one which requires you to pay the full balance each month, you may not need to create a credit card account. For this type of credit card you only need to create the accounts which might be used when making purchases with the credit card. Then when the credit card bill is paid, select your checking account and make the payment PAID TO the type of account which was used when the credit card purchase was made. If the credit card was used to purchase a number of items and each item is from a different type of account, you can use the account code 'G0' when making the transaction. The code 'G0' (Group Entry) allows you to break the transaction down into multiple transactions. For example suppose within a one months time frame you used your credit card to purchase clothes (expense account code 'CL') for $60 and also to purchase dinner at a restaurant (expense account code 'FO') for $40. When your credit card bill is paid, you could simply select your checking account, enter $100 in the AMOUNT field and the account code 'G0' in the PAID TO field. Then, you could break the transaction down into $40 for code 'CL' and $60 for code 'FO'. For credit cards whose balance is not paid in full each month, the credit card account should be created. When a credit card account exists, transaction should be entered into PCBUDGET whenever the credit card is used. For example if you used your credit card to purchase clothes (expense account code 'CL') for $60, select your credit card account from the transaction menu and enter $60 in the AMOUNT field and the account code 'CL' in the PAID TO field and record the transaction. When your credit card bill is to be paid, select your checking account from the transactions menu, enter the amount of the credit card payment in the AMOUNT field, and enter the credit card account code in the PAID TO field. (4) Liability Accounts Liability Accounts are those accounts which identify money which you owe to other people (other than credit cards). Examples of liability accounts are: mortgage, car loan, student loan, or basically any type of loan. (5) Bank Accounts Bank Accounts are those accounts such as your savings account, checking account, IRA, company savings plan, pension plan . . . (6) Asset Accounts Asset Accounts are those accounts which identify personal property or the value of an item which could be converted into cash if sold. Asset accounts are: Value of your home, automobile, other personal property, stocks, bonds, mutual funds. NAME : Enter the name you wish to give to the account. BALANCE : Enter the current balance for this account. If the current balance is unknown, enter zero. When entering the balance, you should enter the balance as of the date shown at the bottom middle of the PCBUDGET screen. CODE : Each account must have a unique two digit code. The code can be made up of letters, numbers, or other characters. Some codes are reserved by PCBUDGET. They are G0,G1,G2,G3,G4,G5,L1,L2,L3,L4, L5,L6,L7, and L8. These codes are used for Group Entries (G0-G5) and Loans (L1-L8). BUDGET : Enter the expected ACTIVITY for the account per month. For an Expense Account, this would be the expected expenditures for one month. For an Income Account, this would be the expected income for that account for one month. For Bank Accounts, Assets, Credit cards, and Liabilities, the budget amount is the expected increase or decrease for that account per month. Therefore, if you expect a Bank Account or Asset Account to increase, you should enter a positive amount, and if you expect a Credit Card or Liability account to decrease, you should enter a negative amount. If the budget amount is unknown, leave it blank or enter a 0. Budget amounts for individual months can be entered by pulling down the BUDGETS menu and selecting COST BUDGETS. MAKING TRANSACTIONS AMOUNT : Enter the Amount of the Transaction. MEMO : Enter a description of the Transaction in the Memo field. If the first character of the MEMO field is left blank, the MEMO field will automatically be filled in when the CODE is entered. CODE : Enter the account code which is being charged (Paid To). To reverses charges, press the F1 key. To view and/or select usable accounts, press the F3 key (or press the right mouse button). DATE : The date of the Transaction defaults to the current day of the month. CHECK : If a check is being written, enter the check number. PCBUDGET will ask to print the check if you have check printing enabled. To enable check printing, select the OPTIONS menu and choose PRINT CHECKS. TAX : If the transaction is TAX related, place a 'T' in the TAX column. If you have identified the Tax ID codes, this field will automatically have a 'T' placed in it. To identify the Tax ID codes, select the OPTIONS menu and choose TAX ID CODES. CLR : If the transaction has already been cleared by your bank or other institution, place a 'C' in this field. Use the RECONCILE ACCOUNTS selection in the TRANSACTIONS menu to clear transactions after you have received your bank statement. Other keys ---------- F4 - MEMORIZE transaction. This will add the transaction to Payment Reminders/Recurring Transaction list. (See the REPORTS menu 'Payment Reminders') F5 - INSERT transaction. This will insert any transaction from the Payment Reminders list into the transaction Data Entry Window. F6 - UNPAID transaction. This will insert only UNPAID transactions from the Payment Reminders list. After the transaction has been made the Payment will be marked as paid 'P'. GROUPED TRANSACTIONS If the transaction affects more than two accounts, the code 'G0' (Group Entry) can be entered. This code will allow you to break down a single transaction into multiple transactions. You should begin entering the account(s) which are affected and the amount which is applied to each account. When the sum of the amounts add up to the amount specified in the Transaction Data Entry Window, all transaction will be recorded. If the Group transaction occurs regularly you should set up a pre- defined group account. To setup a group, pull down the FILE menu and select SETUP GROUP. CREATING A NEW DATA FILE DATA FILE PATH NAME : Enter the data file path name. Press the F9 key to create data file. Entering A:, will create a data file on your A: drive. Entering 1991, will create a data file in a directory 1991 of the current drive/path. For example, if your PCBUDGET program disk is on your hard disk in directory C:\PCBUDGET, the data file will be created at C:\PCBUDGET\1991. The directory 1991 will be created for you automatically. The data file name is recorded in a file named DFILE.DAT on your program disk. A normal data file will use about 200 to 300 kbytes of space in one year. If you are using a 360K byte disk (most 5 1/4 disk are 360K) it is not advisable to put your data files on your program disk (the disk which contains the PCBUDGET.EXE file). If, however, you are using a 720K floppy or greater, or your data file is on your hard disk, then the data file can be stored on the program disk. CREATING YOUR MAILING LIST NAME : Enter a name. Items in your mailing list are alphabetized by the first letter of the NAME. Therefore, you may wish to type the last name first and the first name last. ADDRESS : Enter the address. Accounts created on your data file can have a mailing list item attached to it. This is very useful when printing checks because the mailing list information can contain account numbers as well as names and addresses. To view the current accounts on your data file, press the F3 key. If the first 10 characters of the NAME match the first ten characters of an account on your data file, then when a check is written to that account, the mailing list information will be automatically inserted and printed on the check. PAYMENT/RECURRING REMINDERS AMOUNT : Enter the amount of the transaction. DESCRIPTION : Enter the description of the transaction. If you enter the code first, the description will be automatically entered. CODE : Enter the two digit code for the account. To view and/or select usable accounts, press the F3 key. DATE DUE : Enter the day of the month that the payment is due. DAYS NOTICE : Enter the numbers of days notice you require before PCBUDGET reminds you of the Payment. JFMAMJJASOND : Enter an 'X' under the month that the payment is due. PCBUDGET will automatically place a 'P' in this field when the payment for the given month is made. Auto Source: If you wish to have the payment made automatically when it becomes due, enter the two digit code which will provide the source of funds to make this payment. When PCBUDGET first runs, it checks the Payment Reminders for payments which have not yet been paid. If unpaid bills are found, PCBUDGET reminds you of the unpaid bills. The bottom right corner of the screen displays the total amount of bills which need to be paid for that month. The purpose of this screen is two fold. First, it can be used to remind you of transactions which must occur at certain times of the month or year. Second, it can record recurring transactions therefore eliminating keystrokes. When making transactions, F4 - will MEMORIZE the transaction by automatically adding it to the Payment Reminders list. F5 - will INSERT a Payment Reminder into the transaction input window. F6 - will insert only the UNPAID Payments into the transaction input window. ENTERING NAME AND ADDRESS Type your name and address. This information is used for printing on reports or when printing envelopes. ACCUMULATION SCHEDULE INITIAL VALUE : Enter the initial value of an amount of money in a bank account or savings plan. ANNUAL INTEREST RATE : Enter the expected annual interest rate which you expect to earn. NUMBER OF YEARS : Enter the number of years which you will be holding the money. ANNUAL INVESTMENT : Enter the annual investment (how much you are going to deposit each year). Press the F9 key to view your savings plan. SELECTING FROM A WINDOW If this is a selection window, use the up/down arrow keys to move the menu bar. Press the ENTER key or the high-lighted letter to make your selection, or press the ESC key to cancel the Menu. If this is a HELP screen, press the ESC key to erase the window. If there are arrows at the top right and bottom right side of this window, it means there is more information available in the window. You can use the PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End keys to view the rest of the window. ENTERING COST BUDGETS Enter the expected monthly budget for the selected account for each month, January through December. For Income Accounts, the budget is that amount which you expect to earn per month. For Expense Accounts, the budget is that amount which you expected to spend per month. For Bank Accounts, Assets, Credit Cards, and Liabilities, the monthly budget is that amount which you expect the account to change. Therefore, if you expect a Bank Account or Asset Account to increase, you should enter a positive amount, and if you expect a Credit Card or Liability account to decrease, then you should enter a negative amount. LOAN AMORTIZATION SCHEDULE LOAN AMOUNT : Enter the amount of money which you expect to borrow. ANNUAL RATE : Enter the annual interest rate which you will be charged by the lending institution. LENGTH : Enter the length of the loan. A maximum of 360 months (30 years) can be entered. STARTING MONTH : Enter '1' if you wish to view all payments. If you just wish to view the monthly payment for the loan amount, enter the last month (the length). This will be much faster than waiting for the complete schedule to be generated. CONTINUE Press the Esc key to continue. REPLACE DISK Replace the disk in your A drive. Your PROGRAM disk is the disk containing the PCBUDGET.EXE file. BACKUP DATA DISK TARGET DISK : Enter the target data file path. Your data file will be copied to the Target path. If your system is a two floppy disk system, and you have your PROGRAM disk in drive A: and your normal data file is in drive B:, your Target path should be entered as A:. Before the backup is made, PCBUDGET will tell you to remove your PROGRAM disk from drive A: and insert your BACKUP disk. When the BACKUP is complete, you will be told to remove your BACKUP from drive A: and insert your PROGRAM disk. ENTERING THE DATE Enter the current date as, MM-DD-YYYY MM is the month 1-12 DD is the Day 1-31 YYYY is the year. If the date entered is the month AFTER PCBUDGET was last used, then all account balances will be carried over to the next month. Press the F9 key to enter the date. If you press the ESC key, the date will default to the active date being displayed. SETTING THE SCREEN COLORS Enter the desired screen colors by selecting numbers between 0 and 15 for all cases. For most color monitors, the following numbers will display the specified color. 0 - Black 8 - Gray 1 - Blue 9 - Light Blue 2 - Green 10 - Light Green 3 - Cyan 11 - Light Cyan 4 - Red 12 - Light Red 5 - Magenta 13 - Light Magenta 6 - Brown 14 - Yellow 7 - White 15 - High Intensity White For most monochrome monitors, different combinations of these numbers will turn underline and high intensity on and off. Press the F1 key to view the new colors on your screen, or press the F5 key to use the default colors for PCBUDGET. Then press the F9 key to save the new colors to disk. You can also enter the Graphics screen mode you wish to use for viewing bar graphs. You can enter values for CGA, MONOCHROME, EGA, and VGA screens. If you enter an invalid screen mode, you will receive an Illegal Function error when trying to view bar graphs. SEARCH FOR ITEM Enter a sequence of characters or numbers to search for. For example, if you type 'CH', PCBUDGET will search all transactions which have the letters 'CH' in it. Press the F9 key to begin the search. If you wish to search for TAX items, press the F5 key. PRINTING CHECKS Enter the name and address if it is different from the memo entered when making the transaction. If the first 10 characters of the memo match the first 10 characters of a name in your mailing list, then the mailing list item will be automatically retrieved and inserted into your check. Press the F9 key to print this check to your printer. Your printer must be connected to LPT1. CANNOT FIND DATA FILE To use PCBUDGET, a data file must be created. Select the FILE menu and choose CREATE DATA FILE. After your data file has been created, you should begin creating the accounts you would like to keep track of. When your data file is created, three accounts are created for you automatically. These accounts are: Checking Account (BANK ACCOUNT) Misc Income (INCOME) Misc Expense (EXPENSE) To create more accounts, select the FILE menu and choose NEW ACCOUNT. Other accounts which you may wish to create are: Savings Account (BANK ACCOUNT) Grocery (EXPENSE) Telephone (EXPENSE) Gas (EXPENSE) Mastercard (CREDIT CARD) etc. . . After your accounts have been created, you can begin making transactions and tracking your budgets. Don't worry if you don't know all the accounts when you first start. You can add new accounts at any time. ENABLE CHECK PRINTING 1) If you print envelopes using the MAILING LIST, you can specify if a return address should be printed. The return address is the one entered when you select NAME AND ADDRESS in the OPTIONS menu. 2) To enable check printing, enter the two digit code that you wish to use for printing checks. To disable check printing, enter a blank. When check printing is enabled, PCBUDGET will ask you if you wish to print the check just prior to the transaction being recorded. 3) You can specify which account is to be used for your primary checking account. When you select this account when making transactions the next check number will be automatically inserted and incremented as checks are being written. OUTPUT TO FILE FILE NAME : Enter a file name for your report. The report will be written to your program disk and can be viewed by a word processor or text editor. The extension .PRN is automatically added to the file name. USING THE CALENDAR The calendar month defaults to the current month. You can view other months and years by entering the new month or year. Press the ESC key to cancel the calendar. USING THE CALCULATOR Enter the numbers you wish to calculate. All numbers are computed from left to right. For example, 10+16-2 will display 24. 24/2*4 will display 48. Always press the F9 key to execute the calculation and press the ESC key to cancel the calculator. FILING STATUS For the tax estimator, enter your filing status and your number of personal exemptions. If you do not itemize your deductions, you may take the standard deduction. The standard deduction varies for each different filing status. When PCBUDGET computes your taxes it will compute your itemized deductions and it will check your standard deduction. PCBUDGET will use whichever deduction is greater. ESTIMATING FEDERAL INCOME TAX To estimate your personal Federal income tax, enter the amount(s) of income, adjustments to income, and itemized deductions on each line as they apply. If you have identified an account code for a taxable item (see TAX ID CODES in the OPTIONS menu), the amount of each item will be the total amount PCBUDGET has recorded to date. If you are estimating your taxes to the year end, PCBUDGET will take the year-to-date figure, and based on that, it will estimate the year end amount. For example, suppose it is the end of August (243 days into the year), and you have identified an income account code in the TAX ID CODES, and its year to date amount is $23,000. PCBUDGET will compute the estimated year end income to be $34,547 (23000 / 243 * 365). If you do not have your TAX ID CODES identified, the Tax Estimator can still be used. All data, however, will have to be entered manually. ENTERING TAX ID CODES Enter the two digit account code for each item that applies to your personal income tax. For example, if your salary has an account code of 'SA', you should enter 'SA' on the Income or Other Income line. If you do not have an account code specified for a particular line item, and the item will apply to your taxes for the current year, you should created that account. Transactions which use accounts which are associated with tax related items will automatically be marked with a 'T' in the transaction list. SETTING BAR GRAPH TIME SPAN This window allows you to specify the parameters for bar graphs. You can specify the following parameters: - Time span (January - December) - Maximum and Minimum dollar amounts - Auto or manual scaling. In auto scaling, the Max and Min dollar values are ignored. - Maximum number of bars. For most bar graphs, up to 3 different bars can be displayed for each time period. STARTING A NEW YEAR TARGET DISK : Enter the target data file path. If your data file is the A: drive, the default TARGET path is the B: drive. If your data file path is on the C: drive, the default TARGET path is the A: drive. NEW YEAR : Enter the new year. When starting a new year, you will need to transfer your prior years data file to a new data file. All Income and Expense values will be reset to zero. Bank Accounts, Assets, Credit Cards, and Liability accounts will maintain their current value. All budgets will be carried over and will be the same as the prior years budgets. TRANSFER DATA Your data file account balances will be transferred to the new period. If the new period is the next month, all Y-T-D balances will be transferred into the new month for all accounts. If the new period is the next year, all Y-T-D balances for Assets, Bank Accounts, Liabilities, and Credit cards will be transferred into January of the new year. For a new year all Income and Expense data for Y-T-D will be reset to 0. REGISTERING PCBUDGET To Register PCBUDGET, fill out the form REG.FRM on your PCBUDGET program disk and mail it to us. Please mail your form to: ProLogic Software P.O. Box 71 Loveland OH, 45140 You can print the form to your printer by typing: COPY REG.FRM PRN If you don't have a printer, the following information can be supplied on a plain sheet of paper and sent to us. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Registration fee $35.00 each: $________ │ │ │ │ Ohio residents add 5.5% sales tax: $________ │ │ │ │ Shipping and handling each: $________ │ │ ($2.00 in USA $5.00 Outside) │ │ │ │ Total Due: $________ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Name:________________________________________ │ │ │ │ Company:_____________________________________ │ │ │ │ Street Address:______________________________ │ │ │ │ City:________________________________________ │ │ │ │ State:_____________ Zip Code:________________ │ │ │ │ Telephone number:____________________________ │ │ │ │ Where did you receive your copy of PCBUDGET: │ │ │ │ _________________________________________________________ │ │ │ │ Version number:________ │ │ │ │ Disk preference: 3.5" 5.25" (circle one) │ │ │ │ Comments:________________________________________________ │ │ │ │ _________________________________________________________ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ PCBUDGET is an Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) approved "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find PCBUDGET useful and find that you are using PCBUDGET and continue to use PCBUDGET after a reasonable trial period, you are required to register. The registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. As a registered user, you will be entitled to: - One free copy of the next version of PCBUDGET. - Free technical support. - Notification of program updates. - A printed manual. ENTER GROUP NUMBER Enter the Group number which you wish to modify or add. You are allowed to have up to 5 different Group Entries. If you select a Group number which has already been assigned, you will be allowed to edit that Group. Group Entry codes all begin with the letter 'G' and end with the number 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. For example Group Entry 1 will have the account code 'G1'. Group Entries are useful when one transaction affects more than two accounts. Group entry 'G0' has already been defined for you. You can use group entry 'G0' when the different accounts in the group change frequently. Group entry 'G0' allows you to enter each item in the group one at a time while the transaction is being made, whereas group entry 1-5 will only affect the accounts which you specify. ENTER GROUP CODES Enter a name for the Group Entry selected and the account codes for the Group. These accounts will automatically be selected when making a transaction using the code 'Gx', where x is the Group number (1-5). If you are creating a Group to handle your paycheck: Name the Group 'Salary' or 'Paycheck'. Do not confuse this with the income account created for your paycheck. The Group name is only for you to identify it from other Group Entries. Enter all the account codes which will be affected by your paycheck. The account codes you enter should NOT include the income account code which identifies your GROSS income received from your paycheck. Your income is accounted for automatically when you make the transaction because you will be selecting it from the transactions menu. If you are unsure about how a group entry can be used to handle your paycheck, select the HELP file YOUR PAYCHECK. GROUP PROGRAMMED TRANSACTIONS Enter the amounts to be applied to each account. The total of the amounts must be equal to the original amount entered when making the transaction. If you wish to total the amount of the Group, press the F5 key. DISK DRIVE ERROR An error was detected while trying to access your disk. Possible causes for this are: - The disk is not properly inserted into the drive. - The drive door is open. - The disk is write protected. If all three items have been checked and the error still exists, you may have a bad disk. If you have a backup data disk, use it. If you don't have a backup disk, try going to DOS and use the DOS COPY command to copy all your files to another disk. PRINTER ERROR An error was detected while trying to print. Make sure that: - The printer is turned on. - The printer is ON LINE. - Paper is loaded - You are connected to port 1 (LPT1). ILLEGAL TRANSACTIONS You are trying to make a transaction which transfers money from an Income account to another Income account. This is not a valid transaction. Income accounts are a SOURCE of money. All transactions involving income accounts must have the 'Source' designation placed next to the Income account code. The 'Paid to' designation can be any account type except an Income account. NEW MONTH The date which you entered indicates that a new month is starting. If you are finished entering transactions in the previous month, press the F9 key and all account balances will be carried over to the next month. If however, you still wish to make transactions in the previous month, press the Esc key. The date will then be set to the 'Last use' date. If you start a new month, but then you realize that you forgot to enter a transaction for any of the previous months, select the File menu and open the viewing month which you wish to make the transaction in. Then, make the transaction just as you would in the current month. All account data will be transferred forward to the current month. START A NEW YEAR Starting a new year will transfer the data on your data file to a new disk/directory specified by the TARGET path. TOO MANY SEARCH ITEMS The search sequence you selected found too many items to display at once. A maximum of 360 items can be displayed at a single time. To view the remaining items, narrow the time span for the search. DATA FILE NOT FOUND The directory name for your data file does not exist. If you wish to create a directory for this data file press the F9 key. ESTIMATE YEAR END TAXES If you would like your income taxes to be estimated to the year end, press the F9 key. PCBUDGET will take the year-to-date figure, and based on that, it will estimate the year end amount. For example, suppose it is the end of August (243 days into the year), and you have identified an income account code in the TAX ID CODES, and its year to date amount is $23,000. PCBUDGET will compute the estimated year end income to be $34,547 (23000 / 243 * 365). If you wish to get an estimate to date, press the F5 key. INVALID DATE/TOO EARLY Sorry, you cannot enter a date which has already occurred. You are trying to enter a date which is earlier then the 'Last used' date. If you wish to make transactions in a month that has already occurred, select the File menu and open the viewing month which you wish to make the transaction in. Then, make the transaction just as you would in the current month. All account data will be transferred forward to the current month. DELETE ITEM Press the F9 key if you wish to delete the current item. Press the Esc key to cancel the delete. DATA FILE CREATED Your data file has been successfully created. Three accounts have already been created for you. They are: Checking Account Misc Expense Misc Income You can start adding more accounts by pulling down the FILE menu and selecting NEW ACCOUNT. To view the accounts you already have, pull down the REPORTS menu and select ACCOUNT BALANCES. Press the Esc key to continue . . . MEMORIZE TRANSACTION If this is a recurring transaction, or one which you wish to be reminded of each month, press the F9 key. To get a list of all payment reminders or recurring transactions (PRRT) pull down the REPORTS menu and select Payment Reminders. DELETE NOT ALLOWED You are trying to delete an account which was used in a transaction in a prior or current month. If you still wish to delete this account, you must delete the transactions which have used the account. PRINT CHECK Press the F9 key to print this check to your printer. Your printer should be connected to LPT1. PRINT REPORT Press the F9 key to print the current report to your printer. Your printer should be connected to LPT1. SELECT A DIFFERENT DATA FILE Enter the name of the data file which you wish to view. The data for your current data file will be saved and the new data file will become the active file. CREATE ACCOUNT The account code which you selected was not found. If you would like to create an account with this account code, press the F9 key. SETUP LOAN Enter the following information to setup a loan: Name: Enter the name of the loan. Principle Loan Account: The Principle Loan Account is the liability account which identifies the debt which you owe to your lender. You must create the liability account before creating the loan. To create a liability account, pull down the FILE menu and select NEW ACCOUNT. Interest Expense Account: The Interest Expense Account is the Expense account which will track the finance charges which you pay to your lender. You must create the expense account before creating the loan. Other Account #1, #2, #3: If other accounts are affected by your loan payment such as; property taxes, insurance, or any other escrow type account, enter them here. These accounts must be created before creating the loan. Payments made to date: Enter the number of payments you have made so far. Payment Amount: Enter the amount of your payment not including any amounts applied to the other account #1, #2, or #3. For example, if your total loan payment is $650 but $40 is paid to property taxes (other account #1) and $10 is paid to homeowners insurance (other account #2) then the amount applied to the loan only is $600. This is the amount which you should enter. Number of annual payments: Enter the number of payments which are made each year towards this loan. For a normal loan, this is 12. Some loans (some mortgages) are paid twice a month, or every two weeks. For a loan like this, enter 26. Length of loan (years): Enter the number of years you have to pay the loan. Annual interest rate: Enter the annual interest rate for this loan in percent (9.5, 10.5 . . .) ENTER LOAN NUMBER Enter the Loan number which you wish to modify or add. You are allowed to have up to 8 different loans. If you select a loan which has already been assigned, you will be allowed to edit that loan. Loan codes all begin with the letter 'L' and end with the number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. For example Loan 1 will have the account code 'L1'. COMPUTE LOAN PAYMENT The principle and interest for this payment has been computed based on the information setup for this loan. If the payment number is incorrect, you can enter a new payment number. Press the F5 key to compute the new principle and interest for the new payment number. Press the F9 key to record the loan transaction. DATA FILE ALREADY EXISTS You are trying to create a data file where one already exists. If you wish to remove the data file, go to DOS and use the DOS ERASE command to delete all the files. DATA FILE NOT FOUND The data file you selected was not found. MODIFY TRANSACTION You are modifying a transaction which is an uncleared transaction for the account selected. You can change the check number, memo, and the amount of the transaction. Press the F9 key to record the changes or press the 'Esc' key to cancel. If you wish to CLEAR the transaction, press the ENTER key while viewing the list of transactions. TOO MANY UNCLEARED TRANSACTIONS Too many uncleared transactions were found for the account selected. You should try to clear as many transaction as possible if your wish to view the remaining uncleared transactions. NO UNCLEARED TRANSACTIONS FOUND There were no uncleared transactions found for the account selected. This either means that there are no transactions for the account selected, or all the transactions for the account selected have been marked with a 'C' in the cleared field.