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Bruce Foreman Photography 2643 University San Angelo TX 76904 This package may be freely copied and given to others, placed on computer bulletin boards, and transmitted providing no charge is made, the programs are not altered in any way, and the EXPENSE, and SALES programs, the CONFIGuration program, sample configuration files and documentation files all are included in the distribution disk/archive. This software package is distributed in the "Try Before You Buy" concept and persons finding it suitable to use are requested to send payment of $35.00 to the address above. A license to use this software package for 30 days in order to determine suitability for use is granted. If either or both main programs are still in use after the 30 day period it should be assumed that it has been found suitable and the program should be registered by sending one $35.00 payment. Upon receipt of payment, the latest versions without the shareware notice screen and delay will be sent by mail on 5 1/4 floppy disk along with any new utilities that have been developed since this version. Warranty No warranty of any kind is in effect. No liability or responsibility for any damages of any nature arising from the installation or use of this software is acknowledged or assumed. You use this software at your own risk. Introduction I needed a simple easy to use single entry accounting program that would not tie me or any of my employees up for long tedious sessions of data entry. All of the ledger and accounting packages I looked at were either "overkill" being far more intensive than I needed, or were so incredibly complex to setup and use, with tedious and detailed data entry to the point where it seemed far sinpler to do things the old fashioned way. This program offers several advantages in simplicity and ease of use that make it worth looking over and trying if you also would like something far less complex than conventional ledger packages. All commands and functions are accessed from one main menu and are simple to understand and use. Data files may be used for annual, quarterly, or monthly accounting periods and when "closed" simply need to be saved to floppy, or renamed from DOS to be saved for later reference and "audit". Data files are simple ASCII text files and may be directly edited with any ASCII capable word processor if needed (providing line entry format is not altered). All math "summaries" are recalculated from "scratch" each time, insuring that sum errors do not persist after the original ledger line item is corrected. The EXPENSE module tracks business checkbook expenditures by expense account, keeps up with the checkbook balance, and has one account for a daily or weekly consolidated sales figure so that each summary requested also provides a profit/loss picture. This module provides you with one collection point for sales/collections, deposits, and expense items; and then with one summary command tells what the total collections were, total deposits, total expenses by category, and then subtracts the expenses from collections to give you a profit/loss figure along with all expenditures subtracted from deposits to give you current checkbook balance. The SALES module functions in a similar manner to record individual sales transactions (as they occur if desired) and even provides for recording recievable or balance due amounts. Each summary provides a total recievables amount showing how much is due in from clients with unpaid balances. It doesn't get any simpler. Capacity Versions of the main program have been tested with between 900 and 940 transaction items in memory. Some intermittent "choking" was encountered at somewhere around 920-928 items so the capacity has been limited to 900 items. In my own studio business I seemed to be writing about 400 checks annually and might have been able to squeeze in a whole year of entries (counting sales/collections--entered as a single daily figure-- and deposit transactions) if the present capacity had been there. But I had the earlier versions limited to 450 items due to limited memory on the computer I started out with, so I ran the data files on a quarterly basis. At my current activity levels everything fits in one annual data file as it probably will with most small business ventures. Setup EXPENSE.EXE is the studio, photographer or any small business program with an account for Collections/sales provided, and expense account categories useful to any small business. SALES.EXE is an expanded sales/collections oriented program designed for use alongside the EXPENSE.EXE module. EXPENSE.CFG is the configuration file read by the EXPENSE.EXE program as it initializes. The sample .CFG file provided is studio and photographic defined because that was my business. SALES.CFG is the configuration file read by the the SALES.EXE pregram as it starts up. The expense names are easily edited to suit your needs with the CONFIG.EXE module which edits the .CFG files for both programs. To install on a hard drive simply create the directory the programs and data files will be in and extract them into it from the archive or copy them over from the distribution diskette. Put all files in the same directory. For floppy disk operation, copy all the files extracted from the archive over to a bootable floppy with COMMAND.COM on it. Everything including the data files the programs will create should fit comfortable on a single floppy disk. The first thing you must do to initialize the software is to use the configuration module. EXPENSE.EXE and SALES.EXE will not function without the respective .CFG data file to read in on execution. So type CONFIG at the DOS prompt and at the menu load in the sample configuration provided. If for some reason the .CFG file is missing or corrupted all you need to do is make a new one. Use the change options on the menu and save the results or type in the following example using any ASCII word processor. The best way is to use the CONFIG.EXE module as it provides warnings with each reserved account for each of the 2 program versions. If you must create the configuration with an ASCII word processor DO FOLLOW THE WARNINGS ON USE AND NAMING OF RESERVED ACCOUNTS in the documentation. Sample EXPENSE.CFG file: Your business name 7 0 15 Advertising......... Production supplies. Collections & sales. Deposits............ Equipment repairs... Freight & Postage... Lease/mort & util... Personal withdrawal. Insurance........... Payroll............. Shop/accessories.... Lab & finishing..... Miscellaneous....... Taxes............... Everything is left justified. The 7, 0, & 15 are display colors setting white text, black background, and high intensity white hilite characters. These may changed to any color setup that will work with your display. Account names have to be a 20 character field and should be filled out with trailing periods as shown above. The business name can be any length that will fit in its place on the EXPENSE.EXE main menu screen. A WORD OF CAUTION IS IN ORDER HERE! DO NOT CHANGE THE NAME OF ACCOUNT D IN THE EXPENSE PROGRAM'S CONFIGURATION FILE!!!! Account D is reserved for DEPOSITS to the checking account and all amounts in account D are added to the checking account balance instead of being deducted. Also ***DO NOT*** CHANGE THE NAMES OF ACCOUNT C (for collections/receipts/sales), OR ACCOUNT H (for personal expenditures not business related or deductible) to anything that might confuse their purpose. Account C will simply accumulate a total of recieved monies and all business deductible accounts will be subtracted from the account C total to provide a profit/loss figure. Account H will accumulate a personal expenditure total, amounts will deduct from the checking account balance but will not figure into the profit/loss calculation. The first time you run the program for each accounting period you have to start a new data file. Usually you will want to transfer in your current and beginning checkbook balance. For the ACCOUNT code use "$" rather than "D". "$" will accumulate or add into the checkbook balance but will not count as a deposit so that in summaries your deposits for the period will be accurate. Then you are ready to begin entering ledger items. Be sure to save the file frequently so that in case of power failure or other problem with the computer you don't lose data. I save about every 10 entries during a long "catch up" session. Data Format Each time you use this checkbook program you are asked to input the date in month-day-year (mm-dd-yyyy) format. Pressing <ENTER> or the return key will cause the system date from the clock to be automatically entered. The "item" entry routine uses the first 5 characters of the system date (mm-dd) for the date of the transaction. If you are making the entry on the same day as the system date pressing the "d" key will automatically use the "mm-dd" part of the system date for input. The "@" key from the main menu allows you to change this date if you are inputting several items with the same date but diffrent from the system date. DATE: (mm-dd) format - **CAUTION** Be sure to use a - between the two digits of month and two digits of day. Any other character may affect date sort and search functions. ITEM #: This must be unique for each item. For the first check in a new data file enter the actual check number. From that point on until you begin using a new data file the computer will assign the next number when you enter the "n" character at this prompt. If you need to skip one (voided check or lost check) manually enter the correct check number for that item and the program will pick up the sequence from there. For other transactions (sales, collections, and deposits, enter the "#" and the program will use a separate "one up" number series for those. Your current position in each of these "number stacks" is saved each time the data file is saved. When you use the Change command from the main menu, it depends on each item number in the file being unique. NAME: 25 character spaces are allowed for this. For each check written to the same party use identical spelling so the LIST by name function finds all of them. ACCOUNT: Use single alphabetic characters. The ACCOUNTS command at the main menu will show you the programmed account names and single letter codes. ACCOUNT "C" is reserved for Sales or Collections and does NOT sum or affect any of the other amounts. ACCOUNT "D" is reserved for deposits to your checking account balance and "adds in", increasing the balance. ACCOUNT "H" is reserved for personal (non business expense) withdrawals/purchases and is subtracted from the balance but does not sum into the business debits total. Do NOT use these ACCOUNTS for anything else or you will not get accurate summaries. SUBACCOUNT: Use single letter codes here too. The same subaccount code letter cannot be used with more than one account. I use "G" for Rent/Utilities ACCOUNT. "R" as a SUBACCOUNT code for the rent/lease/or mortgage payment, and "U" as SUBACCOUNT code for all utilities. I cannot use "R" in another ACCOUNT for "repairs" because it is already in use in ACCOUNT "G". The SUBACCOUNT is as much an alternate account as it is a subaccount. Pressing the <ENTER> key places an "*" in this field if you don't need a code there. AMOUNT: This is entered in the familiar ####.## format to two decimal places. Do not use the dollar sign or commas. GENERAL STUFF (EXPENSE.EXE) SUMMARIES: Selecting this from the main menu prompts for a month (1-12) or 0 for a summary of the whole file. The whole file is scanned from the first item, if a month was specified items not matching that month are ignored otherwise each item amount is added to the appropriate account balance and the totals are printed to the screen at the end of the scan. Business expenses are all totaled (excluding personal expenditure), deposits are totaled, business expenses subtracted from total collections, and if the summary is for the whole file all expenditures are subtracted from the checkbook balance. If the summary is for a month, the checkbook balance is zeroed out and a file summary should then be done to recalculate it. Also be aware that the business debits total on a monthly SUMMARY may not agree with the debits total for a LISTing by period function for the same month. In the SUMMARY personal expenditures (account "H") do NOT figure as a "business" debit, the idea being to present summarized figures showing business expenditures deducted from business receipts to show a profit/loss figure. In the LISTing of transactions by month the total debits is just that, ALL debits without regard for type or purpose. The SUMMARY gives you an overall "business" picture at a glance, while the LISTing is just that...A total general listing. FILENAMES: I've tried for a middleground between simplicity and flexibility here. Each of the programs uses two "canned" filenames (the first two on the SAVE and LOAD screens), SPECIAL allowing you to define a unique filename, and EMERG for just what it implies-an emergency save to get data to disk without overwriting the last loaded version. Do not use an extension when typing the filename for load or save functions because the program assigns its own and if you add one it will cause a program error. The expense version assigns a .BUS extension to data file filenames and looks for the same when loading them in from disk. The directory function from the main menu screens out all other filename extensions and only displays those data files available for the program to work with. The extension used by the sales program is .INC and both function in the same manner. PAYROLL / SALARIES ACCOUNT: Depending on how you want to handle it, there can be one complication with this one. If you have a payroll you are responsible for withholding FITW and FICA. When you write a check to deposit your payroll taxes in an approved depository or to remit payroll taxes to the IRS remember that part of that check is really payroll money withheld from your employee's salary (ACCOUNT J) and the rest is your tax "contribution" (ACCOUNT N). The way I used to keep my data straight was to enter the data as if I were writing two separate checks for payroll tax, one for the amount withheld from all my employees and allocated to ACCOUNT J (Payroll) and one for my portion and the amount identified as ACCOUNT N (Taxes). I used the correct check number for one entry and the next "1 up number" for deposits, etc for the second entry (being sure to reference the "true" check number in the NAME field). This is necessary because each ledger item number MUST be unique for the CHANGE routine to be able to access it if you need to use that CHANGE command. This method will work for any situation where you have to "split" a check between two accounts. Still another way is to go ahead and use the correct same check number on both entries and realize you will have to use an ASCII word processor to edit changes in those if necessary. The SALES Module Introduction What the sales ledger program does is to provide you with a way to log individual sales transactions, identifying them by client name and product or department. One summary command tells you total sales in each department and then grand total, summary is either total file period or month. In addition selective listings of transactions by month, date, client name, or sales department may be made at any time, dollar amounts are summed with each summary or listing. A way is also provided for amounts recievable (balance due) to be entered as a transaction and each total file summary recalculates your total recievables. Sales Ledger Setup SALES.EXE is the small business transaction ledger program, CONFIG.EXE is the program used to assign the sales account or sales department names and color display parameters. SALES.CFG is the configuration file read by the SALES.EXE program as it initializes. The sample .CFG file provided is studio and photographic defined because that was my business. The account names are easily edited to suit your needs. The first thing you must do to initialize the software is to use the configuration module. SALES.EXE will not function without a SALES.CFG data file to read on execution. So type CONFIG at the DOS prompt, select the sales transaction ledger option and at the menu load in the sample configuration provided. If for some reason the SALES.CFG file is missing or corrupted all you need to do is make a new one. Either use the change options on the menu and save the results or type in the following example using any ASCII word processor. Sample SALES.CFG file: Your business name 7 0 14 Portrait............ Wedding photography. Senior & graduation. School days pkgs.... Copy & restoration.. Social functions.... Commercial.......... Passport & ID....... .................... .................... .................... .................... Miscellaneous....... Recievables......... Everything is left justified. The 7, 0, & 15 are display colors setting white text, black background, and high intensity white hilite characters. Account names have to be a 20 character field and should be filled out with trailing periods as shown above. The business name can be any length that will fit in its place on the SALES.EXE main menu screen. A WORD OF CAUTION IS IN ORDER HERE! DO NOT CHANGE THE NAME OF ACCOUNT N IN THE PROGRAM'S CONFIGURATION FILE to anything that might confuse its purpose!!!! Account N is reserved for RECIEVABLES or BALANCE DUE entries and amounts in this account do not add into summary subtotals and grand totals. The first time you run the program for each accounting period you have to start a new data file. If this is the first time you are using the program all you need to do is begin entering transaction line items and then save the file using one of the first two choices on the save menu. If you have an existing file for the period just ending and it has unpaid recievable/balance due entries all you need to do is select the TRANSFER recievables to new file option at the main menu. The current file in memory will be scanned for recievables and any such will be renumbered and then written to a filename TRANSFER.INC. Heed the warning about NOT SAVING the old file after doing this scan, and load in the TRANSFER file to begin entering new transactions. NOTE: If you have just ended December and the new file will begin with January 1st, use an ASCII editor or the CHANGE command to edit the new TRANSFER.INC file. Change all the month part of the date on the recievables to 00 and enter the month the recievable was incurred in the last part of the date. A receivable generated on October 13 in the old year carrying the date 10-13 should be changed to 00-10. The reason for this is to keep the old date from being thought to be 10-13 in the current year by the sort by date routine. All recievables carried over from the previous year with 00-mm date format will sort at the beginning of the file and be less confusing. BEFORE doing this be sure you have copied the old file to another disk or directory because the first time you save the TRANSFER file using the standard save filenames the old file will be overwritten. Then you are ready to begin entering ledger items. Be sure to save the file frequently so that in case of power failure or other problem with the computer you don't lose data. I save about every 10 entries during a long "catch up" session. Data Format Each time you use this transaction program you are asked to input the date in month-day-year (mm-dd-yyyy) format. Pressing <ENTER> or the return key will cause the system date from the clock to be automatically entered. The "item" entry routine uses the first 5 characters of the system date (mm-dd) for the date of the transaction. If you are making the entry on the same day as the system date pressing the "d" key will automatically use the "mm-dd" part of the system date for input. The "@" key from the main menu allows you to change this date if you are inputting several items with the same date but diffrent from the system date. DATE: (mm-dd) format - be sure to use a dash (-) between the 2 digits of month and day of month. Any other delimiting character may interfere with date sort and search functions. ITEM #: This must be unique for each item. Normally the program takes care of this for you as you use the "n" key. If you manually enter a number out of sequence the next use of the "n" key will pick up with 1 number over the manual entry you just made. To return to the old sequence manually enter the item number the system needs to restore the count in the old sequence. If you use the Change command from the main menu, it depends on each item number in the file being unique. NAME: 25 character spaces are allowed for this. For each transaction that applies to the same party use identical spelling so the LIST by name function finds all of them. ACCOUNT: Use single alphabetic characters. The ACCOUNTS command at the main menu will show you the programmed account names and single letter codes. ACCOUNT "N" is reserved for Recievables or Bal due and does NOT sum or affect any of the other amounts. Do NOT use this ACCOUNT for anything else or you will not get accurate summaries. SUBACCOUNT: Use single letter codes here too. The subaccount should be used ONLY if the primary account is "N" for a recievable or balance due entry. Its ONLY purpose in the sales transaction ledger is to have a place to store the main sales account or department code for later use. Pressing the <ENTER> key places an "*" in this field if you don't need a code there. AMOUNT: This is entered in the familiar ####.## format to two decimal places. Do not use the dollar sign. GENERAL STUFF (SALES.EXE) SUMMARIES: Selecting this from the main menu prompts for a month (1-12) or 0 for a summary of the whole file. The whole file is scanned from the first item, if a month was specified items not matching that month are ignored otherwise each item amount is added to the appropriate account balance and the totals are printed to the screen at the end of the scan. All accounts or departments EXCEPT recievables are then added for a grand total. If the summary is for a month, the recievables amount becomes that of the month concerned and a total file summary should be done when you are finished with the monthly data so the total recievables displayed on the main menu screen for the whole file is recalculated. RECIEVABLES: My purpose in programming this account was to provide a way to tell me at a glance how much money was due in if I could get folks to pay their balances due. Here is how I used this account: Client placed an order but did not have funds to prepay in full. I accepted 50% down with balance considered due when the order was ready for pickup. I entered one sales transaction reflecting the payment made with the correct sales dept/account code in the ACCOUNT field, then a second entry with account code "N" in that field, the sales dept/account code in the SUBACCOUNT field, and the amount of the remaining balance to be paid later. When the client came in to pick up the order and pay the balance, we first did a name search on the client to list the entries on the screen, noted the item number of the recievable (Account code "N") entry and used the CHANGE command on the main menu to access and edit the entry. Changing the date to the current date, the account code from "N" to the appropriate sales dept code (seeing it stored in the subaccount field helps!) and reentering all other items as is makes it a current sales transaction entry. Then a file summary will recalculate the recievables figure and a SORT by date when you have time to let the computer do this for a few minutes is all that remains to be done. EDITING THE DATA FILE WITH AN ASCII WORD PROCESSOR If you're using multitasking with limited memory, or your word processor uses lots of memory this may not work. First SAVE the file. Then switch to another window or memory partition. Invoke your ASCII word processor and make the necessary changes, exit the word processor, and switch back to the original window or partition and the main menu of the EXPENSE.EXE program. Use the LOAD file command to load back the edited file and you're ready to continue. Emergency Procedures I've been using these programs in some form or other since sometime in 1983 without disastrous data loss by observing a few "safety" precautions. Frequent backup is a good idea with any data you don't want to lose and periodically I simply copy the data files generated by these programs off to a floppy disk. But in the course of normal data entry, something may cause you to suspect that something has gone wrong and the integrity of data in memory comes under question. Since the entire working data file is in memory this can be a matter of real concern. One thing you can do is to use the LIST All items function from the main menu and in most cases simply examining the listed entries should reassure you that the data is sound. If there is any lingering doubt and you have entered quite a few items without periodic saves then save the file using the EMERGency filename. This will allow you to save the file for examination with a word processor or utility such as Vernon Buerg's LIST.COM without overwriting the definitely uncorrupted file loaded in at the beginning of your data entry session. Just remember, make periodic saves and if you suspect something has gone wrong save using the EMERGency filename so as not to corrupt the original file on disk. Programming Concepts There are better methods and better code to accomplish a ledger program than what has been used here. But the main thrust was to keep things simple. Random access disk files allow more flexibility with the data, but can be more prone to data corruption and loss as the size of the file grows. The sequential file format I've used is far simpler, much less prone to "disaster", and is easily edited with ASCII editors once the format is fully understood. The search code in the LIST by name routine could have used an INSTR function and been capable of finding the the search string in the middle of the name text. More efficient but then the tabulation of dollars involved could be affected by "irrelevant finds". Staying with a left justified search string allows a better shot at having the name search find only valid target transactions and helps keep the sum more accurate. I've implemented diffrent software packages to do what these 3 versions do, considered one of the high dollar "vertical application" do everything studio packages till I saw one in use at a friends studio, and I kept coming back to this approach. My staff easily caught on to the use of the SALES ledger as a computer "cash register" and the use of PC-FILE to create and maintain detailed client records. I maintained the business checkbook using a much cruder version of the EZLEDGER module and put the household checking account on an older version of CHEKBOOK. Of course now I use the latest versions you are looking at. At the end of each quarter the file summary of the SALES program gave me in seconds the info I needed to do my quarterly sales tax return, now the C account on the EXPENSE file summary can do the same thing. A hardcopy printout of the LIST by month function of the SALES ledger can provide a monthly sales transaction report for files that should fill any requirement for a "register" tape. The same LIST by date printout gives you a "fileable" daily sales report if you need to use that in your business structure. Playing with the sample data files enclosed should give you a feel for how the various features work and suggest specific applications in your situation.