Accounts & Loans User's Manual


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Table of Contents


1. Requirement


2. Installation

2.1 New Installation

Just install the file AccsNLoans206U.prc using the Palm Install Tool. If you want to use the loan capability of this software, install MatLib.prc file as well.

2.2 Upgrading from Version 1.x

Install both ANL1To2.prc and AccsNLoans206U.prc (or AccsNLoans206R.prc) file using the Palm Install Tool. Execute the program ANL1To2 to create version 2's database from version 1.x's database. Run the version 2 program to confirm data are created successfully. Then remove ANL1To2.prc and ANL version 1.x from your handheld using your PalmPilot's memory manager or other Palm series' delete app menu option.

Note: If you have been using ANL in combination with Quik Budget, you should do a backup first and move Quik Budget's backup files to a different folder so that they won't get overwritten. Then you install the file AccsNLoans206U_QB.prc (or AccsNLoans206R_QB.prc for registered version) file instead.

2.3 Upgrading from Version 2.x

Just install the file AccsNLoans206U.prc using the Palm Install tool and install it on top of your existing version already in your Palm Computing® Connected Organizer.

2.4 Installing Registered Version

Just install the file AccsNLoans206R.prc using the Palm Install tool and install it on top of your existing version already in your Palm Computing® Connected Organizer.

2.5 Installing Quik Budget Version

Quik Budget is a personal budgeting program. It is written by Scott Maxwell. Accounts and Loans provides limited support for this program. To use the Quik Budget support capability, you follow the above installing instructions using the file AccsNLoans206U_QB.prc (or AccsNLoans206R_QB.prc for registered version).

See the section on Quik Budget Support for further details about the support for this program.

At any time if you decided that you don't want to use Quik Budget and you want to move back to the standalone version, you just install the standalone version over your existing version already in your Palm Computing® Connected Organizer.

Likewise, at any time if you want to switch to Quik Budget version, you just install the Quik Budget version over your existing version already in your Palm Computing® Connected Organizer.

Also, if this is your first time installation of both programs, I recommend that you tap on one program, then go back to the Application launcher, then goto the other program. Doing this will initialize the database setup for both programs. Then you can start entering your transactions.


3. Removing the program

To uninstall the program, just use your PalmPilot's memory manager or other Palm series' delete app menu option to remove it. If you are using an old Palm Desktop program, you may also want to goto your desktop's backup directory (/palm/[username]/Backup/) and manually remove the following files: AccsNLoans.prc, ALListDB.pdb, ALTransDB.pdb, and ALRecurDB.pdb.


4. Setup

Before you start using this program, you may want to do some basic setup such as defining the currencies and accounts you will be dealing with. You may also want to setup the program's options at this time.

4.1 Currencies

The home currency has the default symbol of "$". You may change this to any other 4-character long symbol. To do so, goto the Main Screen, then tap on Menu, then choose Setup, then Currency List.

Main Screen Edit Currency Menu

Doing this will popup a screen showing a list of currently defined foreign currencies.

Currency List Currency Entry

Then you can add new currencies, modify the exchange rates, or delete the defined currencies. Note: If you are deleting a currency, any account entries that uses it will be changed to home currency.

4.2 Accounts

After you have defined the currencies, you may want to define your own accounts. To show the currently defined accounts, choose "Menu", then "Setup", and then "Account List". From here, you can add/modify/delete new/existing accounts.

Account List New Account

The account group selection is only used in the reporting functions of this program. It allows you to get a total calculation for a specific groups of accounts. The credit limit field is useful for you to check if you've reached you credit limit when you are viewing your account statements. The last cheque number field is used by the auto next cheque number feature of this program. If the "private" checkbox is marked and the PalmPilot's "Hide" setting is on, then all records associated with this account will be marked as secret and this account will not be shown in any account list. If overdraft warning is on, then a transaction causing a negative running balance in the account statement will be highlighted (or shown as red if you have a colour device). Note: If you are deleting an account, all records associated with this account will be deleted.

4.3 Account Groups and Categories

You may also want to add/change the account group and category list using a similar procedure as above.

4.4 Memory (Description) List

The memory list can be used to memorized frequently entered transactions. But note that it is also being served as a description list. When you enter an exist or a new item, a transaction entry form will appear. You can use this form to enter a frequently entered transaction or just the description. See section on entering transaction to learn how to get the memorized transaction during data entry and how to get just the description portion of the memorized transaction during data entry.
Tip: When you're entering a transaction, you can also quickly save the description (or I should say the entire transaction) into the list just by going to Setup Menu, then tap on Save To Memory.

4.5 Options

Finally, you should also set the program's option to your desire. From the main screen, tap on menu, then "Setup", then "Options" will bring you to the screen on the left.


  • The scroller setting will control whether the Account statement screen, loan screen, and the recurring transaction screen will scroll one line at a time or one page at a time.
  • Setting the backup check box will make sure that the next time you hotsync, all databases used by this program will be backed up.
  • The "Lock app" setting will prevent this program from running if the Palm Organizer's "Hide" setting is on or if you've chosen the "always" lock selection. To enter the program, you'll need to supply your Palm Organizer's password. Note: This option has no effect if you didn't set a password for your organizer.
  • Confirm deletion check box controls whether a confirmation dialog box will popup or not whenever you try to delete an entry or perform a data purge operation.
  • Checking the "Use -/+ instead of DB/CR" will change all the DB/CR into -/+ symbols in all entry forms.
  • The "Use separator" instructs the program to display all numbers with a separator in either of the following 2 formats: 10,000 or 1,0000.
  • The "Inform auto trans on startup" checkbox is to instruct the program to pop up a message if automatic transactions are added by the program during startup.
  • The default time selection dialog box is similar to the one in your device's preference setting screen. But if you prefer to use Date Book's time selection dialog box, you can activate that here.
By default, all check boxes are not set.

Tapping on the "Next" button will bring you to the next option screen.

  • Checking the "Show cheque#" option will add the cheque# in the description column in account statement screen.
  • The "Always Start in Acct Statement" will skip the main screen and jump directly to the account statement screen on start up.
  • The "Use check mark instead of C / R" checkbox is for the account statement screen. It tells the program whether you prefer to have a check mark symbol to indicate a cleared / reconciled transaction instead of the C and R letters.
  • The "Mark trans. cleared if reconciled" means if you mark an item as reconciled during account reconciliation, that item will be marked as cleared automatically at the same time. See section on account reconciliation for details.
  • Checking the "Remembers prev. trans. date" option will tell the program every time you enter a new transaction, the date will be set to the previously entered (or viewed) transaction date.
By default, all check boxes are not set.


5. The Main Screen

This screen is the starting point of the program. From this screen, you can choose to enter a quick entry, view the account statements, goto your loan list or recurring transaction list, and view various kinds of reports.

Also, at any time when you see the small clock icon (such as the one shown beside the title), you can tap on it to get the current time so that you don't have to exit the program just to get the current time.


6. Account Statements

6.1 Entering Transactions

Main Screen Account Statement You can goto the item entry screen either by tapping on the "Quick Entry" button from the Main screen or tapping on the "New" button from the Account Statement screen.

Then the following transaction entry form will popup.

If you choose a different currency, the default rate and the new exchanged amount will be shown. At anytime if you want to modify the rate, or the original amount, or the exchanged amount, and need to redo the calculation, just tap on the "Amt", "X", or "=" buttons. A new value will be calculated for you.

On the "Desc" row, there are 2 inverted triangles. The one on the right side will pop up a list of memorized transactions for you to overwrite current data with the memorized data. The one on the left side will only extract the description portion of the memorized transaction list.

If you tap on the "Date/Time" label, the display will toggle to "Day/Time" and the date display will change to Day Of Week. To toggle back to "Date/Time" view, just tap on the label again.

Note: If the transfer account is different from the currently chosen account, the corresponding entry in the transfer account will be added (or modified) for you automatically. Also, if you did not choose a different currency then the account's currency, the program will force it to 1:1 exchange rate.

6.2 Viewing/Modifying Transactions

Tap on the "Account Statement" button from the Main screen to view is list of all transactions for the currently selected account.

This screen shows all the transactions for the account indicated in the top right corner of the screen. The letter "E" beside the amount as shown above means that the currency exchanged has been applied. The original transaction is in a different currency. Tapping on the little "E" will popup a dialog box showing the currency exchange information as shown above. To enter a new item, just tap on the "new" button. To go back to the main screen, tap on the left arrow beside the title bar. Also, note that if the date is older than today's date, it is shown in Bold font. To view/modify the details of each item, just tap on it and the full detail screen will be shown and you can start modifying the entry.

At the bottom of the screen, you have a choice to view the current balance, end balance, cleared balance, uncleared balance, credit remain, spending limit (current balance + credit remain), or the balance at a specific date of your choice. (NOTE: If you select a future date, this program will take into consideration of all necessary future recurring transactions or loan payments into the balance calculation even if it is not being displayed.)

Also, tapping on the "Amount" button will change the column to running balance. Tapping on the "Date" button will change the column to Time column and tapping the "Description" button will change the column to Category column. Tap on it again will change it to Note column.

6.3 Account Reconciliation

The right most column in the account statement screen allows you to easily mark which item has been cleared or reconciled. Tapping on the "C" or "R" button will toggle the column between Cleared and Reconciled. I made a distinction between cleared and reconciled to allow you better keep track of what's going on. For instance, you may have checked your account balance from the ATM and realized that you check and credit card payment has been cleared, but you haven't receive your bank statement yet, so I let you check this separately.

In the option screen, you have an option to tie the reconciled flag with the cleared flag. If the option is set, then whenever you set the reconciled flag, the cleared flag will be set for you automatically. (However, the reverse is not true. If you unset the reconciled flag, the cleared flag will not be unset for you.)

Note that you can replace the "R" and "C" characters with a check mark symbol from the option screen.

6.4 Purging Old Transactions

From the menu in the account statement screen, there are a few options to remove old transactions:

Note: Once the transactions are deleted, they are gone. There are no undo for these operations.

6.5 Making A Transaction Reminder

Say you need to make a credit card payment on April 20 and you want to remind yourself on that date. You can do this by going to the item entry screen (as shown on the left), then choose "Menu" - "Remind Me". At this stage, you have an option of putting a reminder in Date Book, To Do List, or Memo Pad.

The following shows an example of how the reminder will appear in Date Book, To Do List, and Memo Pad.

Date Book To Do Memo Pad

6.6 Adjusting The Current Balance

On occasions you may have forgotten to enter the transaction when it happened, or it is a joined account and you don't know transactions your partner have made. As a result, the current balance as indicated on the statement screen isn't quite what you expected. To correct this current balance, you can use the "Adjust Balance" menu option to quickly add a "Balance Adjustment" record (or change the very first "Balance" record) that take cares of the difference.

The following figures shows an example.

Say your Checking account's current balance is $1175.14, but you checked you account balance from an ATM and it shows $1100. To correct for that, you can choose the "Adjust Balance" menu option. this will bring up a dialog box asking you for a new balance. At this point, you can do either of the followings:

To add a new transaction showing the difference, select the "Add balance adjustment rec." checkbox, then enter the new balance, then hit OK. You will see that a "Balance Adjustment" record is added into the statement and the current balance now shows $1100.

The alternative is to change the first "Balance" record that will take into account of this difference. To do this, select the "Modify balance record" checkbox, then enter the new balance, then hit OK. You will see that a "Balance" record's amount is changed and the current balance now shows $1100.

6.7 Remember the current transaction

At any time you are entering a transaction, you can save the entry to memorized list by going to Menu - Setup - Save To Memory.


7. Loans

Tap on the "Loan" button from the Main screen will start the loan portion of this application. Note that in order to run this portion of the program, you have to install MathLib.prc file.

Once you are in the loan screen, you can go back to the main screen at any time by pressing the back arrow button at the top just beside the title bar.

7.1 Entering Loans

To enter a new loan, tap on the "New" button from the loan list screen will bring you to the loan entry form.

After you've entered the frequency, you just need to enter 3 of the 4 loan calculation items (principal, annual interest rate, # of payment, and payment amount), check the one you want to calculate and then hit the "Calc" button to get the value.

If you selected a valid account to withdraw the money from, entries will be added to that account automatically (starting from payment number 1).

If you don't want to add all the old payments in the withdraw account, you can enter the number of payments already made. To do this, hit the "Details" button to get the details dialog:

Then enter the current payment number. In this dialog box, you can also specify how many advance entries to show in the account statement screen, and add auto-reminder in date book, to do list, or memo pad. The purpose of the "reset" button is to update the principal to the balance as of last payment, the date to the last payment date, and reset the current payment number to 1. You probably want to do this first before you start modifying the numbers.

Tip: If you don't remember the number of payments already made, you can chose "None" in the "Account" popup, hit OK. Then come back to this page. Now you choose the account to withdraw from. By doing this, the program get a chance to determine how many payments have already been paid. Then, when you come back to this page and choose an account, the old payments won't be added.

7.2 View Amortization

First select the Loan you want to view. Then tapping on the "Amort" button will bring you to another screen showing the amortization of the loan at each payment and how much of your payment is toward interest and how much is toward the principal and the total interest you'll be paying.
If you wish to jump to a specific payment number, tap on the "Go To Payment Num" menu option. A dialog box will appear and you can enter the payment number you want to see.

7.3 Delete Existing Loans

To delete a loan, first select the loan from the loan listing screen. Then just tap on the "Delete" button will delete the loan from the list. Note: If you removed a loan from the list, the corresponding loan payment entries from the withdraw account will not be removed. You have to remove them manually.


8. Recurring Transactions

Tap on the "Recurring Transaction" button from the Main screen will bring you to the recurring transaction listing screen. All recurring transactions must start from this screen.

Once you are in the recurring transaction listing screen, you can go back to the main screen at any time by pressing the back arrow button at the top just beside the title bar.

8.1 Entering Recurring Transactions

To enter a new recurring transaction, tap on the "New" button from the above screen. Then the following entry form will appear.

Say today's date is April 15, 2000 and you want the first recurring transaction to start on this date, then you enter April 15, 2000 as your starting date. Also enter the frequency of this transaction, amount, category, and account.

You can leave the current transaction number to be 0. This field is here just to show you how many transaction has been added and executed since the start date. If you leave it to 0, a "Cable Bill" transaction will be added for you in the credit card account and this transaction number will be incremented to 1. If you now goto the account statement screen and examine the details of the "Cable Bill" transaction, you'll notice the current transaction number is also associated with this record.

After a while this transaction number is going to become very big. So, the purpose of the "Reset" button in the entry form is to allow you to reset the number to 1. It will also adjust the date to the last transaction's date and the transaction numbers for all the old records will be removed.

Also, in the entry screen you can modify the number of advance entries to show and to add an auto reminder by going to the details dialog box.


9. Reports

Tap on the "Report" button from the Main screen will bring you to a Report page. In this page, you can select to view the Account summary, Loan summary, Account/Loan summary, and Category summary. You also have the option of selecting different type of balances. If you choose the "Select Date" option, you can set a start date and an end date for the calculations of your report. (NOTE: If you select a future date, this program will take into consideration of all necessary future recurring transactions or loan payments into the balance calculation.)

If you choose category summary report, a "Details" button will appear. If you then highlight a category and then hit the "Details" button, another form will pop up showing all the records with the matching category and matching accounts.

If you don't want to see the "Unfiled" account in your account report, you can hide it by going to the menu. Then tap on "Hide Unfiled Account". This will prevent the "Unfiled" account from showing up in the report.

Note: The "Scroll Page" and "Scroll Line" checkbox will only affect the device's physical button.

9.1 Export Data

At any of the above summary reports, you can export the information to MemoPad by tapping the "Export" button.

To export account statements, account information, recurring transaction list, or loan list in CSV format, goto the main screen and tap on "Menu", then "Report", then select the appropriate choice.

The CSV format of the exported data are shown in the table below:

Export Option CSV Format
Account Statement "Date","Time","Account Name","Description","Debit/Credit","Amount", "Amount's Currency","Exchange Rate","Exchanged Amount", "Account/Exchanged currency","Cheque Number","Category", "Transfer Account","Tax deductable?","Cleared?","Reconciled?","Notes"
Account Information "Account Name","Account Group","Currency","Credit Limit","Info"
Recurring Trans List "Date","Description","Debit/Credit","Amount","Amount's Currency", "Frequency","Account","Transfer Account","Category"
Loan List "Date","Description","Principal","Currency","Annual Interest Rate", "Payment/period","Frequency","Account","Category"


10. Security

There are two level of security in this application. You can either lock the application by setting the "Lock app" option in the
Options screen, or simply setting each individual accounts as private and setting each individual loan/recurring transaction record as private.

No matter what level of security you choose, the PalmPilot's Hide setting must be turned on in order to activate these security measures.

If you choose the "Lock app" option and hide setting is on, then you won't be able to run the application.

Optionally, you can choose to specify a specific account to be private and thereby locking a specific account instead of the application. (Remember to uncheck the "Lock app" option.) If you choose this option with some of the accounts marked private and the Hide setting is turned on, the all records belongs to that account will be marked private. Also, this account will be show up in any accounts popup trigger/list, nor would it show up in any account balance reports.

Similarly, you can also mark each individual loan records or recurring transactions records as private. Then they will not be shown in the loan listing screen or the recurring transaction listing screen. However, the entries in the account statement screen will continue to be visible.

NOTE: Even with these security measures, it is still possible for people to look into your information simply by copying the backup database files from your PC and downloading the files onto their own PalmPilot. So, you should be aware of where you do your backup and you may want to turn off the backup option completely if your computer is in an insecure area.


11. Details on Quik Budget Support

Quik Budget is a personal budgeting program written by Scott Maxwell. If you have installed both the Quik Budget application and Accounts and Loans with Quik Budget support version, then whenever you entered a transaction in Accounts and Loans, a corresponding record will be created in Quik Budget.

However, the current support has the following limitation that you should be aware of:

Also, for correct operation in creating a corresponding QB record and updating the remaining amount in your QB wallet, make sure that the home currency's "use decimal" flag is the same between ANL and QB. A disagreement will result in a number that is off by a factor of 100.

For details on how Quik Budget provide support to Accounts and Loans, you should consult its web site.


12. Legal Stuff

  1. This software is provided as is. There are no warranty expressed or implied for this software.
  2. The author shall not be responsible for loss or damage of any kind due to the usage of this software.
  3. MathLib is a free shared library. It is distributed under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License, and is freely available with full source code and documentation at the MathLib Information web page http://www.probe.net/~rhuebner/mathlib.html. It is not part of the Accounts & Loans program, and you are not paying anything for its use. A copy is included only for your convenience.
  4. This licence grant you the right to install this software on only one Palm Computing® Connected Organizer at a time.


13. Questions And Answers

13.1 I've crashed my Palm Computing® Connected Organizer, how do I restore ANL's data?

First, you make a copy of the following backup files from your backup directory (\palm\[username]\backup) to another directory so that they won't get overwritten by subsequent hot-sync:

AccsNLoans.prc
ANLListDB.pdb
ANLTransDB.pdb
ANLRecurDB.pdb

Once you've done that, just re-install these files into your device using the Palm Install Tool that come with your device (don't use third party install tool).

If you can't find the backup files, you probably have never set the backup option. See Option section to see how to do it.

13.2 I bought a new Palm Computing® Connected Organizer, how do I transfer ANL's data?

First, make sure you have checked the "Backup all databases" option. Then do a hot-sync with your old Palm Computing® Connected Organizer. After the hot-sync, you'll find the following 4 files in your \palm\[username]\backup directory in your desktop computer:

AccsNLoans.prc
ANLListDB.pdb
ANLTransDB.pdb
ANLRecurDB.pdb

Copy these files into a different directory so that they won't get overwritten by subsequent hot-sync. Then, just install these files into your new Pam device using the Palm Install Tool that comes with your device (don't use third party install tool).

13.3 Can I use InstallBuddy to re-install ANL's PDB files?

The quick answer is NO. The long answer: When a record is created in the device, a "unique id" is assigned to it by the Palm OS. ANL uses these unique ID to link between multiple databases. According to Palm Computing, these unique ID will not be modified when you re-install the PDB files back to the device if you have Palm OS 2.0 or higher with Hot Sync Manger version 2.1 or later (both Mac or Windows). However, InstallBuddy don't follow this rule and modify the unique IDs when you re-install the PDB files using their software. Therefore causing incompatibility. Not until InstallBuddy has corrected this problem, you cannot use it to install ANL's PDB files.

13.4 How come I got a "???" symbol instead of my account name or currency symbol, etc?

You got this symbol most likely because of two reasons. You've either used third party install tool such as InstallBuddy to re-install ANL's PDB files back to the device or you've just beamed ANL's PDB files from another device. These programs modify a record's unique id (see above FAQ) causing ANL to loose it's link to other database. Therefore, the program cannot find the account name or currency symbol etc. The only option you have when you see the "???" symbol is to manually re-assign them to the appropriate label. If you're not using InstallBuddy or third party beamming utilities and you get this error, let me know.


John Leung
jleung@direct.ca
jchleung@home.com
Goto my home page (mirror site)