Having loaded !EnBank you will see !EnBank's icon appear in the application section of the Icon Bar. From here you have three options available to you. The action taken will depend on which mouse button you use to click on !EnBank's icon:
Please note: You can not start a user session while there is an active Administrator session. Similarly, you can not start an Administrator session while a User session is active. The options available from the Icon Bar Menu are also dependant on whether, or not, there are any active sessions.
To open the Account List you must first start a user session. There are two types of user session: Temporary and Permanent.
Temporary sessions are started by select-clicking on the !EnBank icon on the Icon Bar. You are prompted for your username and password before the Account List View is shown. Temporary sessions last only while the Account List View remains open. The session is terminated when the view is closed.
Permanent sessions are started by using the Logon option from the Icon Bar Menu. Again you are prompted for your username and password before the Account List View is shown. However, subsequently closing the Account List View does not terminate the session. The session remains active until you explicitly end it with the Logoff option. Select-clicking on the !EnBank icon on the Icon Bar will reopen the Account List View under the current user session.
If you wish to avoid this process, then simply set up a single username and leave the password blank. Select-clicking will then automatically start a session for that user and take you straight to the Account List View.
Ending a session, Temporary or Permanent, does not close the application. Data from the current session is not written back to disk. !EnBank remains on the Icon Bar ready to start another session. To close the application you need to select either Exit or Quit from the Icon Bar Menu.
Exit writes your account data to disc before closing the application down.
Quit closes the application without saving your work. Your accounts data is returned to the state it was when you loaded !EnBank. You will be warned if any changes have been made and offered the option to save your data.
The Account List provides the main focal point for administering your accounts. From this view, you access all the other operational functions of the application, such as Transactions and Standing Orders. The view itself is used to maintain and display information regarding your actual accounts.
There are three types of accounts: Credit, Debit and Summary.
Credit and Debit accounts are known as Transaction Accounts. The value of a Transaction Account is derived from the transactions posted against them.
Summary Accounts do not have transactions. The value of a Summary Account is simply the sum of the accounts summarized into them. Both Transaction and other Summary accounts can be summarized into a Summary Account. There is a maximum depth of 32 accounts. That is, a Transaction Account could have up to 31 Summary Accounts above it.
Only accounts which belong to the current user, or, have an access level less than the privilege level of the current user, are shown. Double-click on an account to edit it's details.
To open a Statement of Account view, select one, or more, Accounts and select-click on the Statement of Account button on the Account List Button Bar. A Statement of Account, SOA, view will be opened for each selected Account. SOA views are designed to look similar to your bank statements. They show transactions as debit or credit entries against the parent account.
From this view you can verify your transactions against your actual bank statement.
Transactions that have not yet been verified are referred to as Current and their values are reflected in the Balance column of the Account List.
A Verified Transaction, by contrast, has been verified against a statement. Their value is reflected in the Statement column of the Account List.
There is a third type of transaction called a Projection. As it's name implies, this is a projected transaction, that is, a transaction that has not happened yet, but is known about. They result from the inclusion of future dated Standing Orders. See the chapter on configuration for more information.
As with all views, Double-click on a transaction to edit it. Exactly what fields are available for edit will depend on the status of the transaction and your access to the accounts referenced.
An alternative way to access Transactions is the Transaction Audit. Unlike the SOA, an Audit View shows transactions for all accounts. However, you can not perform statement verification from this view.
The current user must have full access to at least one of the Accounts referenced by a transaction in order for it to be included in the audit. Again, the fields available for edit, will depend on the status of the transaction and your access to the accounts referenced.
Transactions are created manually through the Transaction Maintenance Dialogue which can be accessed via the Transaction Audit and SOA views. However, Transactions can also be imported from file by dragging the file's icon to the Account List View.
The Transaction Import View is launched automatically when a supported file type is dropped on the Account List View.
The Standing Order View is not account specific. The view displays all Standing Orders to which the current user has access. There are three types of Standing Order: Fixed, Linked and Prompted. All three types work in basically the same way. When the Next Date arrives, a transaction is posted to the specified accounts. The Next Date is then recalculated from the Posting Frequency and the Standing Order is updated accordingly. This process continues until the, optional, Until Date is reached. The difference between the types is in how the value is derived when a transaction is posted.
Fixed orders simply post the specified value.
Prompted orders open a dialogue and prompt for the value when a transaction is due.
Linked orders are linked to the Statement Value of an Account. When due, the verified value of the 'linked' account is used to generate the transaction.
Both Prompted and Linked orders allow a value to be specified in the Value field. If specified, this is the value used to generate a projection. For Linked orders, you can project the statement value for the 'linked' account by leaving this field blank.
Transactions can be grouped and classified for analysis and reporting purposes. The Groups and Classes available are defined and maintained via the Analysis Code Maintenance View.
Analysis codes are also used by the Budget Analysis extension.
Budget Entries are a means of providing forecasting data for use in Analysis Views. They identify and classify a known income, or expenditure, value. Budget entries do not generate transactions or update account values in any way.
Budget Entries are maintained through the Budget Maintenance View which is available as part of the Budget Analysis extension.
Analysis views allow you to pull together your budgetary, actual and projected values for analysis. These flexible cross-tab views are created by way of the Analysis View Configuration Dialogue.
Analysis Views are part of the Budget Analysis extension.
Views, such as the Account List and the User List, are collectively known as 'List Views'. While differing in content and function, there are a number of common features:
Menus:
To open the view menu, position the mouse pointer over the data section of the view and click the Menu Button on the mouse. Other menus may be available from the Tool Bar section of the view.
Selecting Entries:
Selected entries are shown highlighted, that is their font and background colours are inverted. There are a number of ways to select entries:
Sorting Data:
Views can be sorted, usually by any available column, by Select-clicking on the heading of the required column. Refer to the section on The Column Bar for further information.
Saving Settings:
View settings, such as the current sort order, can be saved by selecting Save Settings from the view menu. The option will be disabled if !EnBank is configured to save settings automatically. Refer to the chapter on configuration for more information.
Saving Placement:
The visual characteristics, such as column widths and screen position, of the current view can be saved by selecting Save Placement from the view menu. Again the option is only available if auto-save is disabled in the master options.