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MR. BILL programs and manual copyright 1985, 1987 by David M. Alexander
NO WARRANTY -- YOU USE THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR RISK, NOT
MY RISK. NO WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS.
AT THIS PRICE, IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG, THE RISK IS YOURS.
MR. BILL is a Trade Mark of David M. Alexander
MS-DOS is a Trade Mark Of MicroSoft Inc.
This manual is copyrighted by David M. Alexander 1985, 1986
All of the programs beginning with the letters BILL and
referred to in this manual are copyrighted by David M. Alexander
1985. No part of this manual or these programs may be copied
without the written permission of David M. Alexander.
DAVID ALEXANDER
2600 EL CAMINO REAL
SUITE 506
PALO ALTO, CA 94306
415-857-9233
Print the manual through your wordprocessor
(WordStar, WordPerfect, PC-Write, etc) OR by typing:
A>COPY BILLMAN.UAL LPT1: [RETURN]
OR
A>PRINT BILLMANUAL [RETURN -- BE SURE TO HAVE THE DOS
'PRINT.COM FILE ON THE A: DISK]
Have continuous form paper in your printer (about 80 pages)
i
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
SECTION I --- WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT -- OVERVIEW
1A -- What MR. BILL Does ............... 1 - 2
1B -- Hardware Requirements ............ 3
SECTION II --- GETTING STARTED -- INSTALLATION
2A -- General Rules For Using MR. BILL .. 4 - 7
2B -- Turning On Computer & Copying Disks 8 - 10
2C -- The Main Menu Explained .......... 11 -12
--- SHAREWARE FILE 'BILL.DOC' ENDS HERE ---
--- BELOW MATERIALS FURNISHED WHEN PROGRAM REGISTERED ---
SECTION III -- FIRST USE -- SETTING UP YOUR FILES
3A -- Setting Your Subtotal Categories .. 13 - 17
Billing Code File Name ------- 13
Picking Subtotal Categories -- 13
Derived Subtotal Categories -- 14
Plus & Minus Signs In Subtotal 14
Finance Charges -------------- 15
Discount Categories ---------- 15
Changing Subtotal Entries ---- 16
Ledger Card Headings --------- 16
3B -- Setting Billing Codes & Rates ..... 18 - 25
Three Letter Billing Codes --- 18
Fixing Typos ---------------- 19
What To Do When Rates Entered 19
Billing Category Headings ---- 19
Different Entry Styles ------- 20
Non Printing Headings -------- 20
Total Units To Left Of Heading 20
Heading Summary -------------- 21
Billing Rates ---------------- 21
Conversion Factor ------------ 22
Subtotal Category ------------ 22
Changing Codes & Rates ------- 23
Management Reports ----------- 23
Different Rate Schedules ----- 24
Printing List Of Rates & Codes 25
Order Charges Appear On Bill - 25
3C -- Entering Client Addresses ......... 26 - 32
Files Created ---------------- 26
Billing Name ----------------- 27
Copying An Address ----------- 27
Entering The Address --------- 28
Entering Regarding Line ------ 29
ii
Entering A Previous Balance -- 29
Selecting Billing Rate Table - 29
Done With An Address --------- 29
Changing Addresses ----------- 30
Deleting Billing Name -------- 30
No Duplicate Billing Names --- 30
Scanning Addresses ----------- 30
Changing The Previous Balance 31
Printing Addresses ----------- 31
Rolodex tm Function ---------- 32
SECTION IV --- DAY TO DAY USE - DATA ENTRY, PRINTING BILLS
4A -- Entering Charges & Payments ....... 33 - 44
Printed Record Of Input ------ 33
New Or Old Report ------------ 34
File Name Of Billing Data ---- 34
Begin & End Report Dates ----- 35
Drive To Save Files ---------- 35
Entering Billing Name -------- 36
Fixing A Mistake ------------- 36
Entry Numbers ---------------- 37
Exiting When Done ------------ 37
Entering Billing Data -------- 37
Entering Date ---------------- 37
Entering Amount & Code ------- 39
Narrative Description -------- 40
Checking Previous Balance ---- 41
Checking RE Line ------------- 43
Help ------------------------- 43
Finished With Data Entry ----- 43
Summary ---------------------- 43
4B -- Preparing Bills & Reports ......... 45 - 53
Printing Bills To Disk File -- 45
Printing To Printer ---------- 45
Report In Date Order --------- 45
Audit Trail Of Entries ------- 46
Ledger Cards ----------------- 47
Management Reports ----------- 47
Ageing Reports --------------- 47
Other Reports ---------------- 48
Background On Reports -------- 48
All Bills Or Selected Bills? - 49
Headers & Footers ------------ 50
Drive To Save Bills ---------- 50
Sorting Your Entries --------- 50
Subtotals On Separate Page? -- 52
File Where Bills Saved ------- 52
iii
4C -- Joining Small Files Into A Big One 54 - 56
Joining Several Files Together 54
Different People, One Bill --- 56
SECTION V --- BACKGROUND -- PROGRAM DETAILS; BILLING HINTS
5A -- Bugs, Breakdowns & Troubleshooting 57 - 60
Questions I Have Been Asked:
Data Too Old, No Previous Bal? 57
How Do I Print It? ----------- 57
Can't Find Address File ------ 57
Put My Address On My Bill ---- 58
$'s Not Appearing On Bill ---- 58 & 59
How Do I Change "Total Hours"? 58
Error 67??? ------------------ 58
Non Printing Heading Printing 59
Bills Don't Print At Right Page 59
Can't Find My Billing Codes -- 60
Error 25? -- Error 72? ------- 60
String Space Corrupt? -------- 60
Error 63? What's That? ------ 60 & 60A
5B -- How It Works; What Can Go Wrong ... 61 - 67
Billin Module ---------------- 62
Narrative Descriptions ------- 62
Files Created By Mr. Bill ---- 63
Erasing An Entry ------------- 63
Report Dates ----------------- 64
Sorting Billing Names -------- 66
Sorting Billing Entries ------ 66
First Time User Messages ----- 67
About Color ------------------ 67
File Format For Programmers -- 67
5B -- Suggested Billing Techniques ...... 68 - 72
iv
---- BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE ---
READ THIS!!!!
Before you do anything else, read this:
1) Print this manual. Let me repeat that: Print this Manual!
This manual is just like any other file that you print with your
word processor. If you have typed a letter to your mother with WordStar
or Word Perfect or MS Word or whatever and you have called it MOM.LTR
you know that you call up your word processor print menu, you tell
your word processor to print the file MOM.LTR and out comes your letter.
Okay, do the same thing except tell your word processor to print
the file BILL.DOC (shareware) or BILLMAN.UAL (registered user).
If you can't handle that, put continuous paper in your printer and
at the DOS prompt type:
A>COPY BILL.DOC LPT1: [return] or
A>COPY BILLMAN.UAL LPT1: [return]
If your printer prints a few pages and stops, you have possibly
encountered a DOS timeout error. Go to the subdirectory where you
have your DOS files and type:
C:\DOS>MODE LPT1: 132,,P [return]
This tells your printer to print lines up to 132 characters wide
(substitute 80 if you want a narrower line) and to ignore timeout
errors. Now the file should print all the way through. If it does not,
it is not a problem with MR. BILL! It is a problem with the way
your printer is connected to your computer.
2) Read the manual after you print it and BEFORE you run
Mr. Bill. Let me repeat that: READ THE MANUAL FIRST!!!!
3) If you have a hard disk, use it! Put all your Mr. Bill
programs in a BILL subdirectory and also put your data files in
the same subdirectory.
When you start, make your computer display which subdirectory
you are in with the Prompt command:
C>prompt $p$g [return]
C:\>
Now, make a bill subdirectory:
C:\>md bill [return]
C:\>
-v-
Now, go to the bill subdirectory:
C:\>cd \bill
C:\BILL>
Now, copy all your files from the floppy disks to your hard disk:
C:\BILL>copy A:*.* [return]
When done, put the next Mr. Bill disk into the A: drive
and copy it to the C: drive the same way.
If you want your data files in a separate subdirectory,
make a subdirectory called BILLDATA and use the DOS 3 SUBST
command (if you have DOS 3.0, 3.1 or 3.2) to assign the BILLDATA
subdirectory to the letter D: or E:. If you do that, you can tell
Mr. Bill that your data disk is drive D or E. Example:
C:\DOS>SUBST D: C:\BILL\BILLDATA [return]
Now, DOS will treat the BILLDATA subdirectory like a separate
drive D: and so will Mr. Bill.
4) Set up your subtotal categories; then set up your billing codes;
then enter your addresses. Mr. Bill will take you through these set
ups automatically. For some reason, some users immediately exit the
subtotal setup module without setting up any subtotal categories.
Then they try to immediately enter billing activities or even print
a bill. Of course that won't work.
You MUST first (a) set up your subtotal categories under your
chosen Billing Code Name (e.g. MYBILL), THEN (b) set up your billing
rates under your chosen Billing Code Name (again, the SAME name,
MYBILL) THEN (c) enter your addresses under your chosen Billing
Code Name (still the same name, MYBILL).
Only now can you enter the activities you want to bill for.
5) Make life easy for yourself --- enter your client names
as names, not numbers. Yes, you can enter your client identification
code for John Smith as 100456, but doesn't the code SMITH-J make
much more sense?
6) Again, make life easy for yourself. Don't print an
audit trail as you make your entries unless you really, really
need one right then and there. It's easy to print the audit trail
later from the Print menu (P on the Main Menu).
7) Be smart, print your bills to a disk file, then print
them to the printer from your word processor or DOS after you have
reviewed them in your word processor. Why print all that paper,
find your mistakes, fix your entries, then print all the paper
all over again? Find your mistakes on screen by looking at your
file of bills in your word processor, then fix the mistakes, then let
WordStar or PC Write or Textra or whatever print your bills to the
printer. For example, in WordStar, all you need to do is
-vi-
Get into WordStar.
Press D to Display your file of bills.
File name to edit is JAN-87.BLS (or whatever).
Scroll through the file and make notes in SideKick or whatever
of any mistakes you will need to change in Mr. Bill.
^K^Q to quit the file.
X to exit to DOS.
Call up E on the Mr. Bill Main Menu.
Use FIX to make your changes.
B on the Mr. Bill Print Menu to print your bills to a disk file.
Get into WordStar.
Press P to print your bills.
File to print is JAN-87.BLS (or whatever).
Press Escape and WordStar will print your bills.
Folks, if you don't have a word processor, get one. Textra is
only $20 from Ann Arbor Software in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
PC-Write is $10 or less from shareware distributors. PFS
First Choice is only $100 and it includes word processing,
database, report generator, spread sheet and communications.
MicroPro Easy, Webster's New World Writer and PFS Professional
Write are all very good and very easy word processors and they
can be purchased at discount software outlets for about $100,
or less!
If your word processor ends the pages at different places than
Mr. Bill, you need to adjust your top and bottom margins. Mr.
Bill wants a top marin of five lines and a bottom margin of
no more than six lines.
Mr. Bill wants the word processor to break the page at line 55
or higher. This will insure that Mr. Bill will end the page
before your word processor does.
In this outline, I have talked about making subdirectories;
about copying files; about changing subdirectories; etc.
THIS IS IMPORTANT!! LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE
YOU GO ANY FURTHER. YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW TO USE THE FOLLOWING
DOS COMMANDS:
COPY
DIR
DEL
MD [make directory]
CD [change directory]
If you don't have some idea about how to use these
commands, stop right here, get out your DOS manual or
get a DOS primer from your local computer store and learn how
to use your machine. It is your responsibility to learn how to
use your computer.
- vii -
You wouldn't drive a car without knowing whether it takes
gasoline or diesel fuel or how to turn on the headlights or how
to read the gas or temperature gauges. Give your computer the same
consideration.
One last point: If you insist upon using numbers instead
of names to designate your clients, at least put a letter as the
first character of the name, e.g. S10233 for John Smith and
A11345 for Bill Adams. Mr. Bill will sort up to 2000 activities
in a data file in one "in memory" pass. If you have more than
2000 activities in your data file, Mr. Bill breaks the file into
A's and B's and C's, etc. and sorts each letter in memory. If
you begin each client code as a number '1' (10233, 11345, 17642,
etc.) you will not be able to sort activity files with more
than 2000 entries because all entries will begin with the same
character, a '1'.
- vii -
Sec. 1 A Overview -- What MR BILL Does
SECTION 1
WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM
WHAT MR. BILL tm DOES
You tell MR. BILL the work you did, the items you sold,
the costs you incurred and the credits you received and MR. BILL
prepares itemized invoices/bills on 8 1/2" by 11" paper.
You tell MR. BILL the addresses of your clients and cus-
tomers, any heading and footing message you want typed on the
bill, the dates of the billing period, any regarding line for
the customer, and MR. BILL will prepare a bill with the cus-
tomer's name and address, the proper dates, headings, re lines,
balance forward, finance charges, subtotals and balance due.
MR. BILL will prepare a report showing what items you
billed and what credits you received in date order for each day
in the billing period.
MR. BILL will prepare an ageing report for each of your
clients showing the total now owed and how much of that total
was due last month, the month before, the month before that and
prior to that. MR. BILL will also create your ledger cards.
MR. BILL will print an audit trail of all your billing
entries. It will also prepare a summary at the end of each set
of bills showing total previous balances, total credits in each
of 5 user selected subtotal categories, total finance charges,
total balances forward, total debits in each of four user
selected debit categories and total balances now owed.
MR. BILL allows you to set up nine "derived" subtotal
categories, i.e. if one of your debit categories is "Taxable
Sales" you can choose to multiply that total by 6% and create a
new subtotal category called "Sales Taxes" or you can multiply
"Settlement Checks Received" by -33% to create a subtotal cate-
gory called "Attorney's Contingent Fee". You can have 5 credit
categories and 5 derived credit categories plus 4 debit categ-
ories and 4 derived debit categories plus a finance charge
calculated on the "New Balance Forward".
MR. BILL will print your reports to the printer or to a
disk file. It will create bills for only some of your customer
or for all your customers. It will automatically forward the
1
Sec. 1 A Overview -- What MR BILL Does
old balance from last month's bills and will automatically re-
bill next month. It will print your summary of debits, credits
and balances due on the itemized bill or on a separate page. It
will show the charge for each item next to that entry or not
show the charge. It will accept narrative entries to display
any kind of type of charges and credits. You can print
messages on each bill of up to thirty lines for each date of the
billing period.
MR. BILL allows you to set your own charges and will add
together files of bills by different people at different rates
into one file for the creation of one integrated bill. It also
allows the combining of several months of data into one complete
bill.
MR. BILL allows you to charge different rates to different
clients for the same work; for example, you can automatically
charge Mr. Jones $50/hour and Mr. Smith $75/hour for the same
services. You have ten different rate structures simultaneously
available.
MR. BILL works with client names or client numbers and
allows several bills at different addresses for one client. You
can have 1000 different billing addresses in one file and as many
different files as your disks will hold.
MR. BILL is intended for small to medium size businesses
and professional organizations including lawyers, accountants,
engineers and the like. You can use it to create invoices for
products or for time billing.
MR. BILL allows you to assign each type of work to one of
ten headings on a management report. Thus, you can create
reports showing total hours billed, unbilled time, total costs,
etc.
MR. BILL is not copy protected. It can be put on any disk
in your system and will use data files located on any disk in
your system.
Each entry takes up 42 bytes of disk space if no narrative
description is used. Each narrative takes up 64 additional
bytes of disk space. Each charge and each credit item is a
separage entry. Each billing file can have up to 16,000 entries
(depending on available RAM -- 256K should be enough).
MR. BILL can function like a Rolodex tm. You can get a
client's name, address, phone number and current balance
directly from the operating system in about 3-4 seconds on a
hard disk system without going through any menu's.
Turn to Section 5, Chapter B "OTHER USES FOR MR. BILL" for
examples of other things the program can do.
2
Sec. 1 B Overview -- Hardware Required
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
MS-DOS and two disk drives. 256K RAM Memory
If all of the MR. BILL programs are saved on one disk, they take
up about 430K bytes of disk storage. MR. BILL can be run without
all of the programs on the same disk.
MR. BILL consists of 14 separate programs called from the Main
Menu.
You put MR. BILL into your computer, type BILL and press
return --- that's it.
Mr. Bill is compiled with Borland Turbo Basic. The main program,
"BILL", is an EXE file. So is the address module, BILLADD. The
rest of the modules are .TBC files, Turbo Basic Chain files. They
will be run from the Main Menu but cannot be called directly from
DOS. They are small, efficient and fast.
3
Sec. 2 A Getting Started -- General Rules
SECTION 2
GETTING STARTED
*** !!! IMPORTANT !!! ***
When you first get them, Your Mr. Bill disks should NOT,
repeat NOT have a file called DISKDRVE. If that file is on
your disks when you first get Mr. Bill (before you have run
it on your machine), delete DISKDRVE.
Mr. Bill will automatically create a custom DISKDRVE for
your system.
If you do not have a file called ORD on your disk when
you first get the disks, then use your word processor to create
a file called ORD on your #1 disk, the input disk. Put only the
number 1 in line one, column one of ORD, save the file, exit to
DOS and run BILL. ORD should be on your input disk when you first
get Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill will erase ORD automatically when it
is finished with it.
* * *
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS MADE IN THIS MANUAL
GENERAL RULES FOR USING YOUR COMPUTER WITH THIS PROGRAM
It is probably a good idea to make clear some basic
assumptions about how your computer works. I will put all of
them here so that I don't have to repeat them in each chapter
and so you won't have to re-read them in each chapter.
First: MR. BILL doesn't care if you type in UPPER CASE or
lower case. Except for the "Narrative Description" lines and
mailing addresses, MR. BILL automatically translates all lower
case entries to upper case. Therefore, all your file names,
your disk drive designations, Y's and N's for YES and NO, cate-
gory codes, customer names, everything except narrative descrip-
tions and street addresses are always converted to upper case.
If it is easier for you to type everything in lower case, please
feel free to do so.
4
Sec. 2 A Getting Started -- General Rules
Second: Throughout the manual I will tell you to press
certain keys and I will give examples of things to type. I will
give you these instructions by putting quotes around the word.
Don't type the quotes, just the letter or word inside them.
Third: The control key is usually at the lower left of
the keyboard and is often labeled "CTRL". The control key is
similar to a "shift" key. You know that if you press a key on a
typewriter, it will print a lower case letter. If you hold the
shift key down and at the same time press a key, it will type an
upper case letter.
The control key works the same way. If you hold it down
and at the same time press another key, the keyboard will send a
special code to the computer. If I want you to hold down the
control key and at the same time press a P, I will say: Type a
control "P". (Don't type the quotes, just the P).
MS-DOS uses certain conventions with control keys.
The backspace moves the cursor back one space and erases as it
backspaces. If you are typing an entry and you make a mistake,
press the backspace and it will move the cursor backwards and
erase things as it moves.
If you are in the middle of a program and you want to get
back to the operating system right away, you can press a control
"break". This is for emergencies ONLY. It may cause data loss.
Most of the programs offer you an easy way to return to
the program's menu where you can press X to eXit the program.
Usually, you need only keep pressing the return key until you
reach the menu which gives you the exit option. This is a
better way to get out, though a control Break will usually work.
If you don't have a word processing program and you want
to print your reports, you may press a control P when the A>
shows on the screen. From that time until you press a control P
a second time, everything which appears on your screen
will also be typed on your printer continuously. To pause the
print and halt the display, in other words to "freeze" things,
press a control S. Everything will halt until you press control
S again. BUT, the best way is to use your word processor, WordStar,
WordPerfect, or whatever, to print your reports.
DOS has something called a "Type" command. If you say
A>Type FILENAME then everything in the file called FILENAME will
appear on your screen. If you have also pressed a control P,
FILENAME will also be printed on your printer as it appears on
your screen. If your file called FILENAME is on the B drive,
then you will have to say: A>Type B:FILENAME. If you say:
A>copy FILENAME LPT1:
everything in your file will be printed on your printer.
5
Sec. 2 A Getting Started -- General Rules
Fourth: To be "in MS-DOS" or "in the operating system"
means that the operating system is ready to take your commands.
You know it is ready because you will see the letter of the
drive the operating system is using and a pointy bracket called
a "prompt" on the screen. Don't try to figure this out except to
know that if you see: A> or B> or C>, etc or the like, then the
operating system is ready for you to give it a program name, like
BILL [Return] or a Type command or whatever.
Fifth: Every place in the program where you have to
answer a question and your answer will always be the same number
of characters, e.g. one character like a Y or an N or three
characters like your choice of billing codes, then those are
entered by just typing them. You don't have to press Return.
As soon as the proper number of characters has been typed, the
program will proceed automatically.
Sometimes, the number of characters you will type cannot
be known in advance by the program. For example, if you are
asked for a file name, that name could be anywhere from one to
eight characters long. In that case, you will have to type your
answer and then press Return to let the program know that you
have completed your entry and that it can now proceed.
Sixth: Filenames: MR. BILL allows you to pick your own
file names for your data files. It is usually helpful to pick a
name that describes your data. If you have a file of billing
data for the month of April 1987, then good file names would be
4-87 or APR87. Don't use slashes "/" or back slashes "\" or spaces
in the file name. DOS does not allow them to be part of file names.
The file name CANNOT be more than eight characters long
(ABCDEFGH) and it CANNOT have a decimal point in it. For
example ABC.DEF is not a legal file name in MR. BILL. You can't
do this because MR. BILL automatically puts the extension .BIL
after the name of every file of billing entries.
Seventh: MR. BILL sees all money charged, that is all
debit items, as positive numbers and all money received, that is
all payments to you, all credits for the benefit of the people
you are billing, as negative numbers. If you ever see a nega-
tive number as a dollar amount, that means that MR. BILL is
treating that entry as a credit to the client/customer.
Eighth: A few paragraphs ago I used the word "extension"
in connection with a file name. An "extension" is the three
characters following the decimal point on a file name. For
example the .DOC of WILL.DOC is an "extension" of the file
WILL.
Last: When in doubt, press RETURN. Suppose you want to
work with a file but can't remember your file name. Type in a
6
Sec. 2 A Getting Started -- General Rules
garbage name in response to the file name question and press
return. MR. BILL will automatically display your list of files.
What if the file you want is not on the list? What do you do?
Press RETURN. In most of the modules, a return to a question
will "return" you to the previous question or to a menu which
will allow you to leave the module.
So, even though the question may not tell you that
pressing a return will return you to the previous question or to
a menu, it usually will. When in doubt, press RETURN.
MR. BILL is meant for small business and professionals. I
am a lawyer and I use MR. BILL to create itemized bills for my
clients. You may be a supply company and use MR. BILL to create
invoices for your customers. Instead of saying "client/custo-
mer" throughout this manual -- that's kind of long winded -- I
will settle on the word "client".
MR. BILL can be on any disk in your system and your data
can be on any disk in your system. If you want MR. BILL on your
D drive and your data on your F drive, well and good. But, for
the sake of ease of description, I will talk about MR. BILL
being on the A drive and the data files being on the B drive
for floppy systems and Mr. Bill program files and data files
being in the BILL subdirectory of the C: drive (C:\BILL>) for
hard disk users.
This is merely a convenient way to describe it. Please
understand that it does not have to be this way for you.
7
Sec. 2 B - Getting Started -- Copying The Program
TURNING ON COMPUTER AND COPYING MR. BILL
Take a blank disk from your box of disks and "initialize"
it. This means you must run the "format" program which came
with your machine. If you don't know how to do this, read your
DOS manual about formatting disks.
Put Mr. Bill Disk #1 into the A drive and your new disk
into the B drive. Now, type:
A>copy A:*.* B:
Disk Number 1 will be used to set up your programs, to
enter billing data, to add and change addresses and billing
codes and rates, and to add files together. Repeat for disk #2.
Disk Number 2 will be used to write your bills to a disk
file, to the printer, to prepare ageing reports, to prepare
audit trails and to prepare a report of your charges in date
order.
To use either disk just type BILL and press return.
Again, use disk #1 to input your data and disk #2 to
prepare your reports.
Okay, so much for the disk(s) holding your MR. BILL
programs.
Now you must format a new disk to hold your
data. This will be your data disk. Most people will put the
data disk into drive B.
Label the program disk(s) as "MR. BILL PROGRAM DISK (#1)
--DRIVE A" and in our example, the data disk as "MR. BILL DATA
DISK--DRIVE B". Note: your program disk does not have to go
into drive A. You can put your programs on any disk. Also,
your data disk does not have to go in drive B. You can choose
any drive as your data disk drive.
8
Sec. 2 B - Getting Started -- Copying The Program
So, although I use B as an example, you are free to
put your programs on any drive and you can designate any
drive as the drive to hold your data files. If you have a
hard disk, you should put everything on drive C.
In our example, we have the program disk in A and the data
disk in B.
To begin type A>BILL [Return].
If this is the very first time you have used MR. BILL it
will ask you what drive you want to hold your data disk. In our
example we will tell it B. If you use a hard disk, you would
probably tell it C. Mr. Bill will create the file DISKDRVE and
put the letter B or C into the file so that it can remember
which drive you chose.
MR. BILL will now give you a message about subtotal cate-
gories. If you press return, MR. BILL will automatically take
you to the module which allows you to set up your subtotal
categories. If you press X instead of Return, you will exit
to the operating system. The next time you type BILL you will
be shown the same message about subtotal categories.
Once you have set up your subtotal categories, you will
press M to return to the main menu. Now, MR. BILL will display
a second message about setting your billing codes and rates.
After you have done that and returned to the main menu, you will
get a message about entering your client addresses. After you
have done that, you will get a "farewell from MR. BILL" message
and will be shown the main menu.
WARNING: Always keep a backup of your data files. Disks
do have a habit of dying. If yours gets its directory damaged
it may not be salvageable. Every week, it would
be a good idea to copy your data files onto a backup disk.
IMPORTANT: if you are using a floppy disk machine, copy
the file DISKDRVE which Mr. Bill just created on your Disk #1
to your Mr. Bill program disk #2.
ALSO IMPORTANT: Mr. Bill looks at a file called ORD on
disk #1 to generate these startup messages. When it is done,
it erases ORD. If you want to run the start-up proceedure
again, go the Mr. Bill input disk #1 and type:
A>COPY CON: ORD [return]
1 [return]
^Z [control Z then return]
[return]
9
Sec. 2 C Getting Started & The Main Menu
FIRST USE & THE MAIN MENU
The first thing you do to use MR. BILL is have your
program disk in the computer and the A> or C> showing the the
screen. Now you type BILL [return].
As soon as BILL.EXE has been loaded, you will be asked for
the name of the disk drive which you want to hold your data
disk. What is your data disk? MR. BILL saves all kinds of
files which it uses to prepare your bills. It has a file of
your billing codes, your client names and addresses, your aging
information, the dates of your reports, your list of subtotal
categories, etc. These are all kept on your data disk.
MR. BILL needs to know what drive will hold this data
disk. You can choose any drive between A and L. Let's assume
you choose the C drive. You will type the letter C in response
to this first question. MR. BILL will save this disk name in a
file called DISKDRVE.
NOTE: You MUST have DISKDRVE on every program disk. If
you split your programs up onto two floppy disks, be sure to
copy DISKDRVE onto to each and every program disk.
OK, now that you have given MR. BILL your data disk drive
location, MR. BILL will save it and won't ask for it again.
Next, MR. BILL will sign on with an introductory message
and will tell you that it will take you to the module used to
set up your billing subtotals. We will discuss this module in
the next chapter. You MUST set up your subtotals before you can
prepare any bills.
The next time you type BILL after setting up your
subtotals, MR. BILL will give you another message, telling you
that it will take you to the module used to set your billing
codes and rates. You MUST set up your billing codes and rates
before you can create any bills. Use the SAME NAME you used
when you set up your subtotals.
The next time you call MR. BILL after that, it will take
you to the module used to set up your client names and add-
resses. You MUST enter at least one client name and address
before you can create any bills. When you have done that, the
next time and every time thereafter that you type BILL, MR. BILL
will present you with the main menu. If you want MR. BILL to
go through this first time walk through routine again, open a file
on the program disk called ORD and put the number 1 into the file.
10
THE MAIN MENU EXPLAINED
The Main Menu looks like this:
Copyright David M. Alexander, 1986, 1987 For This Program And
For ALL Programs Called From This Program
**** MAIN MENU ****
S To Set SUBTOTAL Categories
B To Set BILLING Codes
C To Add CLIENT/Customer Addresses
E To ENTER Billing Data
P To Go To The PRINT Menu
A To Prepare AGEING Report
M To MERGE Several Billing Files Into One
X To EXIT To The Operating System
When you want to enter, change, delete or look at your
Subtotal categories, type S and MR. BILL will call the module
BILLSUB. This is the first thing you do when you install Mr.
Bill.
When you want to set, change, delete or look at your
billing codes and rates, type B to set the Billing codes. MR.
BILL will call up the module BILLSET. This is the second thing you
will do when you first install Mr. Bill
When you want to enter, change, delete or look at your
Customer names and addresses, type C and MR. BILL will call up
the module BILLADD. This is the third thing you will do when you
install Mr. Bill.
When you want to Enter, change or delete your charges and
credits, press E. MR. BILL will call up the BILLIN module
and ask for billing charges and credits.
When you want to create an Ageing report showing how long
each client has owed you money, type A and MR. BILL will call up
BILLAGE.
When you want to Merge several small files into one big
file, i.e. use the billing data from several people or several
months to create a consolidated bill, type M and MR. BILL will
call up the BILLMERG module.
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Sec. 2 C Getting Started & The Main Menu
When you want to Print your bills or if you are unsure how
to print a hardcopy of your reports, press P and MR. BILL will
give you a menu offering these choices.
When you want to eXit to the operating system, press X
which will call up the A> or C> and put you back into MS-DOS.
12
QUICK USE OUTLINE FOR MR. BILL tm
You start MR. BILL by typing:
A>BILL [return]
Your disk has a file called ORD with contains the number 1.
This starts the getting started "tutorial". You will be taken
to the following modules:
1) BILLSUB, to set up your (up to) nine subtotal categories
2) BILLSET, to set up your billing codes and rates
3) BILLADD, to enter your client/customer addresses
When these have been set up, Mr. Bill will erase ORD and
take you to the Main Menu. You can now press 'E' to enter your
charges and credits. After entering your billing data
(activities) you can press 'P' at the Main Menu to get
information about how to print your bills and reports.
The menus will explain most things, certainly enough to let
you experiment with and use the program. There are a few things
which are not contained on the menu's or which I feel I should
stress. Let me mention them:
You designate your charges and receipts with three letter
codes you choose. If you are a consultant and charge by the
hour, you may choose HRS as the code to enter hours. Credits
always end with a slash to keep them separate from charges. Thus
a payment to you might be PY/. Or, a refund you make TO someone
else could be RFD and a refund you receive FROM someone else
could be RF/.
You can have ten different rates for the same work. So,
you can charge Smith $50/hour; Jones $80/hour; Adams $100/hour,
etc. for ten different rate schedules. When you first set up
your rates, you are asked for the name of the file that will hold
your rates. You give your file of subtotal categories, your file
of rates and billing codes and your file of client names and
addresses the SAME file name. I use my initials DMA. My
rates are automatically put into a file which MR. BILL calls
DMA0.CDE. That is rate table 0. Don't you add the 0!!!!
You just say DMA. Mr. Bill will add the 0 all on its own.
To set up a different rate table I use COPY to make
a copy of DMA0.CDE under the name DMA1.CDE, DMA2.CDE, DMA3.CDE
etc up to DMA9.CDE. EXAMPLE: C\BILL>COPY DMA0.CDE DMA1.CDE
Now I type 'Bill' then press 'B' on the Main Menu to set
the new Billing rates I want in this new DMA1 file. Don't you
add the 1 or 2 or whatever to the DMA name. Just give the name
as DMA. Mr. Bill will ask which rate table you want 0-9. You
say '1' (you don't need to press return). Now, I change the
rates shown on the screen to any rates I want in rate table 1.
Rate table 0 might have been at $100/hour. Now, I change the
rates to $200/hour in rate table 1.
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I can assign any client to any rate table 0-9. So, if
DMA1.CDE has rates at $200/hour and I want to charge SMITH
$200/hour, I tell the address module that Smith is in rate table
1 when I enter Smith's address.
SUBTOTAL CATEGORIES
MR. BILL is set up to put plus, minus, and equals signs in
front of the subtotal headings if you want. You should consider making
your subtotal heading "Payments Received" as "- Payments Received:" and
making "New Fees" as "+ New Fees:". If done this way, your subtotals
will look like this:
Previous Balance: $100.00
- Payments Received: $50.00
= New Balance Forward: $50.00
+ New Fees: $150.00
+ New Costs: $75.00
= BALANCE NOW DUE: $275.00
If you don't want the +'s and -'s, then start your subtotal
heading with two spaces, that is " New Fees" NOT "New Fees". This
is to shift the heading two places to the right to keep the
subtotals even with the beginning of the "Previous Balance:" line
above.
HOW HEADINGS ARE PRINTED ON BILLS
If you want to have numbers printed in front of the headings
on the bill, for example, if your heading is Hours In
Conference, and you want the number of hours to print to the
left of the heading, then just enter the normal heading desript-
ion, namely Hours In Conference. The same applies to categories
for the number of pages or the number of widgets. 2 CNF might
thus print as:
2.00 Hours In Conference $200
If you don't want any numbers to print to the left of the
heading, for example, payments or certain costs, then begin your
heading description with a '-'(hyphen). If you received $500 and
you don't want the 500 to print to the left of the heading, you
would enter your heading as -Payment Received. Thus, when you
entered 500 PY/ as a payment entry, it would print on the bill as
-Payment Received $500
NOT AS
500.00 Payment Received $500.
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Thus, payments and these sorts of no leading number entries
would be entered with a hyphen (-) as the first character of the
heading description.
NON-PRINTING HEADINGS
Sometimes you have types of charges which you don't
want to print on the invoice at all. For example, MISCELLANEOUS
CHARGES may not be the preferred heading. Any heading that has a
slash (/) as the first character will not print on the bill at all.
I use slash headings for /MISCELLANEOUS FEES, /MISCELLANEOUS
COSTS, /MISCELLANEOUS CREDITS and /MINUTES CHARGED. You could
have /UNBILLED TIME with a rate of 0 dollars. If you don't enter
a date or a narrative at the time of billing, then nothing will
appear on the bill for these codes although the amount entered
will be used in calculating the total billed and can be included
in management reports.
So, to create a category in which the heading line will not
print on the bill, make the first character in the heading a
slash (/).
For example, if MSC is the misc. costs code and the
heading is /Misc. Costs, and you give a narrative line to
explain that it is for car rental expenses, then 100 msc will
print as:
$100.00
Car Rental Fees On Trip To Los Angeles
TOTAL UNITS AT BOTTOM OF THE BILL
If you want to total units, like hours, at the bottom of
the bill, begin the heading with a space: " Hours in Conference"
not "Hours in Conference". Mr. Bill will add together all units
associated with headings beginning with a space.
Your billing rate can be different for each billing code.
E.g. photocopies can be $.10/page; consulting $100/hour; letters
$15/page, whatever. Often you want the bill to reflect an out of
pocket cost, e.g. $50.65 payment received. In that case your
rate is 1. 100 pages times $.10/page = $10.00; 1.5 hours times
$100/hour = $150 charge; 50.65 payment received times 1 = $50.65
payment received.
When you enter your data, don't worry about anthing. Just
enter it continuously in any order you like. Mr. Bill will
automatically, take care of everything. Just keep typing it in.
You can have up to thirty narrative lines for each type of
15
activity on each date. Thus, you can easily add a long descrition
or write Mr. Smith a four line note to describe a conference you
had. If your code for hours in conference was CNF, here is what
you would do:
You would enter your 1.5 cnf and then press 'N' to enter
the first narrative line. Say: John, I had a long meeting here
with Al Jones. Here you have reached the end of
the narrative line. Press return then press 'C' to Continue the
narrative. Then the next line of text. Then return and a C.
If we had done that here, we would see:
10-4-85 1.50 Hours In Conference
John, I had a long meeting here with Al Jones.
Al refused to be reasonable about handling the
situation. I will try to talk with him again
next week. --- DMA
Let Mr. Bill take you through the set-up modules, then
enter some data and print some bills. Play with it. Nothing you
do with Mr. Bill with erase your files or format your disks or
cause your machine to go up in smoke. Experiment with it, use it
and if you like it, send for the manual.
NOTE: When you set up your subtotal categories, you will
be asked for your billing code name. Use your initials or 'MYBILLS'
or 'RATES' or whatever you like.
When you set up your table of billing codes and rates
you will again be asked for your billing code name. Us the SAME
NAME, 'RATES' 'MYBILLS' 'DMA' whatever, but the same name as
you used when you set up your subtotals.
When you enter your addresses, you will be asked for your
billing code name. USE THE SAME NAME. Mr. Bill will tack an
extension onto the end of this name for different files: .CDE for
billing codes, .ADD for address files, .KEY for billing name key
files, etc. So, please, first set up your subtotals, second,
setup your billing codes and third set up your addresses and
use the same file name when you start each of these modules.
END OF SHAREWARE MANUAL
FULL MANUAL UPON REGISTRATION OF PROGRAM
The above Table of Contents gives you an outline of what is
in the full MR. BILL manual. Users who register with me will get
a disk containing the full manual plus notification of updates
and some help if you call with a question.
16
To register, send me your name and address and $30. If you
use MR. BILL, I ask you to send me the $30 as part recompense for
the many hundreds of hours I have invested in the program.
Commercial users are strongly urged to pay the $30
if they use the program. If you haven't registered the program,
don't call with questions. I return all calls collect to
registered users.
If you like MR. BILL, you should consider trying CK tm, a
program I wrote to keep track of all the income and expenses in
my law practice including monthly and year to date reports for my
CPA. CK is also available from the people who sent you MR BILL.
Take care,
David M. Alexander
David M. Alexander
2600 El Camino Real #506
Palo Alto, CA 94306
415-857-9233
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