Hello and welcome to Your Bills Due, Version 4.4, the program that keeps you and your bills in touch.

This Filemaker Pro™ Template lets you enter all of your bills -- as you receive them -- with their dates due. Then, it tells you when you must pay them to stay "on time." It also projects how your cash flow looks -- is your financial position improving or worsening? It even distinguishes between Current Debt (next 30 days or whatever you set it as) and Long Term Debt (everything else). 

In order for the program to look right, you need to make sure that all of the needed fonts are installed in your system or "Suitcased." You can do this by using the Bills Font file which is enclosed. It contains all of the needed fonts.  The needed fonts are Geneva 12, Helvetica 9, 12 and 14 and Times 9, 10 and 12.

SCREEN SIZE: GOOD NEWS FOR 9" B&W MONITOR USERS

This program was designed for a 13" screen, color monitor. If you are using it on a black and white monitor, you should use the Control Panel to set your monitor to Gray Shades and select 16 shades. The sizing, however, will still be set for a 13" screen. You can now easily change the program to fit your 9" screen. Here's how:

1. Go under SCRIPTS
2. Select DEFINE SCRIPTS and select, the first layout listed below (GO MAIN MENU)
3. Under SWITCH TO LAYOUT, change the choices as follows
4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until all four layouts listed below have been changed.

Layout                            Large Screen Setting                   Small Screen Setting
------                    -------------------         -------------------
GO MAIN MENU                   Main Menu                                   Main Menu.sm
GO HELP                              Help                                             Help.sm
ENTRY SCREEN                   Entry                                           Entry.sm
GO HELP PROBLEMS          Help Problems                             Help Problems.sm

(You must be registered to make the following change):

Finally, make the first screen you see (Welcome) fit your screen. 

1. In the upper left corner of your screen, use the layout selector to bring up the WELCOME.SM menu. (See note below)
2. Go under SELECT
3. Select LAYOUT
4. Go under LAYOUT
5. Select LAYOUT OPTIONS
6. Click in the box which says "Switch to this layout when opening files"

Note: If you don't want WELCOME.SM to be the your screen, then bring up the MAIN MENU.SM layout and then follow the steps outlined above.

IMPORTING FROM OLD VERSIONS:

IMPORTANT: If you have been using versions of this program before 3.0 and want to import the data you have already entered in a previous version, you MUST USE THE CONVERSION UTILITY. Follow its instructions.

YOU DEFINE:

If you have registered the program, you can customize certain of the settings:

1. The program currently considers all bills and deposits due in the next 30 days to be current, everything beyond 30-days to be Long Term. If you want to change that, you need to go under SELECT and choose DEFINE FIELDS. Then, select the field  WHAT'S LONGTERM? and change it from 30 to whatever number of days you want.

2. You can also determine what the program considers a "Big Bill" and points out to you. It is currently set at $500. Repeat the same procedure described just above, selecting the field BIG BILL and change it from $500 to whatever number you like.

3. Change the day of the week: The week is currently set to start on "Monday". By changing Weekday Start Day, you can choose "Sunday" if you prefer. Just go under SELECT and choose DEFINE FIELDS. Then, select the field  WEEKDAY START DAY and change it from "Monday to whatever day you want.

4. CHANGE THE STARTUP SCREEN: You can bypass the "Welcome" screen in the future. Go under SELECT and choose LAYOUT. Then, use the layout selector at the upper left of the screen to choose the layout you'd rather start with -- either MAIN MENU (for 13" color screens) or MAIN MENU.sm (for smaller screens). Now, go under LAYOUT and choose LAYOUT OPTIONS. You should see the layout name you just selected. If so, then check the box which is to the left of "Switch to this layout when opening file." From now on, you will start up with this screen instead of "Welcome".

PAYING YOUR BILLS:

You pay bills by looking at the "Status Screen". You reach this screen by hitting "Analyze" or "Status" from the main menu. To actually pay bills, you must be in the Browse mode (not Preview).

You have two choices:

1. If your bills is a one-time-only item, check it off by clicking in the checkbox on left side of the item.

2. If your bill is a recurring bill (monthly, same amount each month), you can simply roll it forward to the next month, using the pop-up menu, next to the check box.

Either way, the bill will no longer be counted as a current liability -- you'll actually see the expense (or deposit) disappear from view. However, long term debt associated with it will remain. For example, if you pay your Visa bill for this month, but still have a balance due on the account ... this month's amount will disappear, but the balance due on the account will remain.

SHAREWARE:

This is a demo version of a Shareware Program. In order to receive Updates, and the Password which unlocks the template, you need to register and pay the very minor shareware fee. Hit the button "Shareware" in the template to see how to register.

If you have questions about this template, contact on Compuserve (75140,1463) or by mail: 3820 Gundry Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90807.

Jim Russell