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PCAccountant a Public Domain Program by PC-Squared (C) Copyright by PC-Squared << Documentation & Operating Manual >> PC-Squared P.O. Box 1610 Morgan Hill, CA 95037 << LICENSE >> This program can be freely copied and distributed so long as no consideration is given other than specified in this document. The user of this program which finds that it is of value to him/her should consider making a donation to PC-Squared. See this document for more information about becoming a registered owner. I. Introduction PCAccountant is a series of programs which allows a user to maintain a personal bookkeeping record. While designed for home use, the system can be used for a small business. As they are developed, additional modules will be added to the PCAccountant Library. These will expand the usefulness of the entire system. The first of these will be PCCheck. This is currently under development and will be released soon. PCCheck is a check writing and management module which will not only interface directly with PCAccountant, but also print your checks. This system was written on a COMPAQ PLUS running PC-DOS 2.1 and has been tested by the authors on a Corona and an IBM PC. The programs are compiled BASIC using Microsoft Basic. All disk files are random files in an effort to increase speed. As transactions are entered they are placed in a temporary file and are only added to the year-to-date files when the month is closed. This speeds the correction time necessary when you have made a error or wish to reverse a transaction. The number of transactions in a given month is only restricted by the disk space available. The system contains the following programs: PCACTSU.EXE - This program provides information to the system such as your name and the disk drive which will contain the data used by the system. THIS PROGRAM MUST BE RUN BEFORE ANY PROCESSING IS DONE. NOTE: Running this program will ZERO all variables and counters maintained by the system. You should only run this ONCE unless you want to start over. PC-ACCT.EXE - This is the system booting program. It checks to insure that you have prepared the system properly before loading PCACCT.EXE. PCACCT.EXE - This is the main program. All other programs (except the above one) are driven from this program. PCACTAC.EXE - This program is called by PCACCT and allows you to define, change, delete, and print/display a Chart of Accounts. <Called by selecting option 2 from the menu in PCACCT> PCTRAN.EXE - This program is also called by PCACCT and allows you to enter, change, delete, and print/display transactions. You also use this program to enter Auto Journal Entries which you want the system to post automatically every month. <Called by selecting option 1 from the menu in PCACCT> BUDGET.EXE - This program is called by selecting option B from the menu in PCACCT. It allows you to enter budget figures for every active account. In several of the listing produced by the system, the actual amounts are compared with budget amounts. All other processing is done within the PCACCT program. Data files which are used by the system are as follows: All data files MUST reside on the disk which you specify in the set-up program EXCEPT the file called PCACTPW.DAT. This MUST reside on the disk containing the programs. If you want, all files and programs can co-exist on the same disk. Programs MUST reside on the default drive. Filename Record Len Contains ---------------------------------------------------------------- PCACTPW.DAT 69 Bytes Counters & General Info PCACCT.DAT 42 Chart of Account Data PCTRAN.DAT 51 Transaction Data PCAJOR.DAT 51 Auto Journal Trans. Data YTDAMT.DAT 120 Year-To-Date Accumlative Data BUDGET.DAT 120 Budgeted Amounts PCACCT.KEY 10 Key file for PCACCT.DAT GENERAL DESCRIPTION The system provides a means to maintain data and to do calculations based on the financial matters of a household or small business. It is designed for the 'non-accountant' type person. You are required to have only basic bookkeeping knowledge. The system allows you to design your own 'Chart of Accounts'. The Chart of Accounts is the basis for maintaining the data (See Section III.). PCAccountant also allows you to enter budget figures for each account and compares actual to budgeted in two different reports. Transactions are entered on an 'as they occur' basis, however, transactions which occur every month, and which are identical every month, may be entered once using the Auto-Journal Transaction function. The AJ function can be used for such transactions as rent, mortgage payments, and the like. The system forces you to enter two account numbers for each transaction. One '+ Account', to which the amount of the transaction is added, and one '- Account', which the amount is subtracted from. As stated before, as transactions are entered, they are placed in a temporary file (PCTRAN.DAT), and are not added to the Year-to-Date file until the close of the month. This way corrections are simplified. All calculations are done as the reports are being printed. At the end of every month you must do End-of-Month processing to close the month. Make certain that you have printed all the reports which you want, as when you close the month, all transaction detail is deleted (except for AJ transactions). Closing the year totals all of the accounts and places them in a prior year file. This way the system can compare current year to prior year. Closing the year also zeros all current year data files and counters. Five separate analytical reports are provided by the system. These are description more fully later. Each report provides slightly different information either on a monthly data basis or on an accumulative year basis. Two of the reports compare actual to budgeted figures. For maximum flexibility all reports, except two, can be displayed or printed. All, except the two, are 80 column printouts. The two exceptions require a 132 column printer. II. Installation A. On a Floppy Disk System. Place DOS on a newly formatted disk and copy all PCAccountant programs onto it. Format another disk for use as the data disk. Label both. B. On a Hard Disk System. Copy all PCAccountant programs onto the hard disk. If you wish to keep the data on a floppy disk, go ahead and format one and label it. From this time forward we will take for granted that if you use a floppy disk for your data files you have placed the data disk in the proper drive. The data disk MUST be inserted BEFORE you run ANY program - including the set-up program. Run the set-up program by typing PCACTSU. A screen will be displayed asking you for the following data: NOTE: Every screen which displays the data field limited by ']' & '[" are auto-ending. This means that if you fill the field the system will automatically go to the next data element. The only time you need to hit RETURN is when you fail to fill the field. Also ALL command require that you only press the proper key - NO <RETURN> is required. NAME - This is the name associated with the accounting, i.e., THE SMITH HOUSEHOLD. PSWD - This is a password. If you do not enter anything, you will never be asked for a password. If you enter something, you will be asked for a password every time a program is loaded. DRIVE CONTAINING DATA - Enter the drive specifier which will contain the data disk. YOU MUST include the ':'. CURRENT CYCLE - This tells the system which cycle to start with. Cycles are numeric values from 1 to 12 which correspond to the month of the year (i.e., 1 = JAN, 2 = FEB, 3 = MAR, etc.). This will be reset every time you do End of Month (EOM) processing. After this data has been entered and written to disk, the PCACCT program will be loaded and run. This ends the installation procedure. Now you can start using PCAccountant. Make certain that you enter your Chart of Accounts before processing any transactions or entering your budget. By the way, you do not need to enter Budget figures if you do not want to. They are not required by the system. You should spend plenty of time designing your chart of accounts. By spending the time 'up front' you can save yourself time in the long run and the system can provide alot more interesting numbers and facts. III. CREATING YOUR BASE DATA This system was designed to allow a non-accounting person to do their own accounting. Because of this, we do not call items 'debits' or 'credits'. Instead we use '+ Account' and '- Account'. This simply means the account # which the amount is ADDED to (+) or SUBTRACTED from (-). The 'ACCOUNT' which we talk about is the acccount in the 'CHART of ACCOUNTS'. These are simply labels describing what we spend money on, receive money from, what we own, and what we owe. Each account is assigned a number. This number dictates whether it is an ASSET (something we own, i.e., a checking account); a LIABILITY (somenthing we owe, i.e. a mortgage); INCOME (where we obtained money, i.e., salary, dividends);or an EXPENSE (the cost of living, i.e., tax, etc). Account types are determined by the number range assigned, i.e., 0001-1000 are ASSETS; 1001-2000 are LIABILITIES; 2001-3000 are INCOME; and 3001-4000 are EXPENSES. With a properly designed Chart of Accounts (C/A), the system will calculate your NET WORTH (Assets minus Liabilities) and your PROFIT/LOSS (Income minus Expenses). NOTE: Income always appears as a '-' figure. Therefore, a - PROFIT/LOSS is a profit. This is the way it is done in the accounting world - don't ask us. We didn't make the rules up. To make your C/A readable, we have established a special FLAG which can be assigned to an account. This FLAG is the letter 'T'. It indicates to the system that this account is a TITLE and that transactions can not be posted to it. A typical C/A may look like this: C/A # NAME FLAG --------------------------------------------------------- 1 *** ASSETS *** T 100 * CASH IN BANK * T 105 * CHECKING ACCTS * T 106 ACCT #1 - 1ST NATL 107 ACCT #2 - B of A 199 T 205 * SAVING ACCTS * T 206 ACCT #1 - WS & L 207 ACCT #2 - WFB 299 T 300 * STOCKS/BONDS * T 305 IBM STOCK 310 DEC STOCK 315 MUNI BONDS 399 T 400 * OTHER ASSETS * T 410 HOUSE EQUITY 420 LIFE INSUR EQUITY 430 1980 CHEV 440 BOAT 450 OTHER MISC 460 CLOTHES 470 FURNITURE 999 T 1000 T 1001 **LIABILITIES** T 1010 MORTGAGE 1020 CAR LOAN 1030 BOAT LOAN 1040 OTHER 1999 T 2000 T 2001 ***INCOME*** T 2010 SALARY 2020 DIVIDENDS 2030 INTEREST 2040 OTHER 2999 T 3000 T 3001 ***EXPENSES*** T 3005 HOUSE PYMT 3010 HOUSE INSURANCE 3015 CAR PAYMENT 3020 CAR INSURANCE 3030 FOOD 3040 INTEREST 3050 CLOTHES 3060 FURNITURE 3070 GAS 3080 SCHOOL TUITION 3090 BOOKS Note that we skipped numbers in assigning our C/A. This allows us the flexiblity to insert new accounts anywhere within the C/A. Also note that we assigned some accounts with no name and as titles. this allows us to separate the classes of accounts visually for our reports. To provide the proper previous year balances, enter the balances during the creation of your C/A and then do 'Close the Year' (Function 0 from the main menu). This will insure that the previous balance is carried forward into the new year. No values should be entered in the expense and income accounts, as these start at zero every year. After you have done the End-of-Year, you can enter the expense and income. Remember when entering the previous months income, that they should be entered as a negative value. Once you have done this, you can start posting transactions. Some typical transactions are: 1. You receive a paycheck for $500.00 and you put it in checking account #1. This would result in the sfollowing single transaction: + to C/A # 106 (you checking account) - to C/A # 2010 (Salary income) 2. You make a house payment of $300.00 from checking account #1. Of this $250.00 is principal and $50.00 is interest. This would result in three transactions (NOTE: This type of transaction [one that occurs every month] should be an auto-journal transaction). #1. For $250.00 + to C/A # 3005 (This expenses the principal) - to C/A # 106 (Decrease your checking acct.) #2. For $50.00 + to C/A # 3040 (This expenses the interest) - to C/A # 106 (Decrease your checking acct.) #3. For $250.00 + to C/A # 410 (Increase you home equity) - to C/A # 1010 (Decrease your mortgage) By handling the house payment thru the EXPENSE section, you create a true COST OF LIVING analysis in the EXPENSE section of your C/A. You should now layout your Chart of Accounts to suit your needs. Remember that accounts can be added or deleted as needed. IV. Program Operation of PCACCT.EXE The rest of this document is written the way that you would normally use the system. I.e., first you enter ACCOUNTS, then you enter the BUDGET, then you enter TRANSACTIONS; then you print your reports; then you do EOM processing; then do more TRANSACTIONS; and finally you CLOSE THE YEAR. For your information, all reports, except the Y-T-D Report (option #7 from the main menu) can be displayed or printed. All of them, except the above, are 80 column reports. All (including #7) can be called as many times as you want. If you entered a password during the set-up program, anytime that you load a program, you will be asked for a password. In this manual we will take for granted that you have entered the password correctly. To load the main program, type PC-ACCT. The system will display a menu. The first thing that needs to be done is the entry of your Chart of Accounts. OPTION <2> ACCOUNT PROCESSING By selecting option 2, the account maintenance program is loaded and will display the Account Menu. To Enter a New Account - Select option 1. The system will display a input form which asks for the following information: NUMBER - This is the number which you have assigned to this account. TYPE - This will be displayed by the system according to the number range. FLAG - This is used to tell the system that the account is a title or that the account has been deleted. When an account is deleted it is NOT erased from the file, it is simply flagged as being deleted. NOTE: When an account is deleted, the system does NOT check to see if you have money in it or against it. Therefore, transfer anything in it to another account before deleting it. This can be done has a normal transaction. NAME - The name associated with this account. BEG. BAL - Enter the year-to-date amount if you start in the middle of a year. When you have entered the information, the system will write the data to disk and return another blank form. You can continue to enter accounts or enter a <RETURN> when in the NUMBER field. At that time the system will return the Account Menu. To Display an Account - Select option 2. The system will ask for the account number and display the account data. It will then display the following prompt: <E>xit, <N>ext, <Shift-PrtSc> to Print Screen If you select E, the system will return the menu. If you select N, it will prompt you for the account number. To Change an Account - Select option 3. The system will ask for the account number and display the account data. It will then prompt to see that it is the correct one. Answer by entering Y or N. If you enter N, you will again be prompted for the account number. If you enter Y, the system will allow you to change ONLY the following fields: FLAG, NAME, BEG. BAL. If you do not want to change the data in the field containing the cursor, simply hit RETURN. If you want to change the data, re-enter the entire field. After a correction the system will return the account number prompt. Enter the next number or 0<RETURN> to return to the menu. To Print/Display Chart of Accounts - Select option 4. The system will sort the chart of accounts, and display a prompt asking whether the output is to go to the (S)creen or (P)rinter. Enter either an S or a P and the C/A will be printed or displayed. This program also prints/displays the balance of each account as of the end of the last closed month. To Return to The System Main Menu - Select Option X. The system will reload PCACCT. OPTION <B> ENTER BUDGET By selecting option B, the budget maintenance program is loaded and will display the Budget Menu. To Enter a Budget - Select option 1. NOTE: In order to enter a budget for an account, the account MUST have already have been entered. The system will display a input form which asks for the following information: NUMBER - This is the number which you have assigned to this account. TYPE - This will be displayed by the system according to the number range. NAME - This will be displayed by the system. AMOUNT - Enter the monthly budgeted amount by cycle (month). The Cycle # corresponds to the month of the year, i.e., 1 = Jan, 2 = Feb, etc When you have entered the information, the system will write the data to disk and return another blank form. You can continue to enter accounts or enter a <RETURN> when in the NUMBER field. At that time the system will return the Account Menu. Remember that Income account budget information should be entered as negative values. To Display a Budget - Select option 2. The system will ask for the account number and display the Budget data. It will then display the following prompt: <E>xit, <N>ext, <Shift-PrtSc> to Print Screen If you select E, the system will return the menu. If you select N, it will prompt you for the account number. To Change a Budget - Select option 3. The system will ask for the account number and display the budget data. It will then prompt to see that it is the correct one. Answer by entering Y or N. If you enter N, you will again be prompted for the account number. If you enter Y, the system will allow you to change ONLY the Amount fields. If you do not want to change the data in the field containing the cursor, simply hit RETURN. If you want to change the data, re-enter the entire field. After a correction the system will return the account number prompt. Enter the next number or 0<RETURN> to return to the menu. To Print/Display Budget - Select option 4. The system will sort the chart of accounts, and display a prompt asking whether the output is to go to the (S)creen or (P)rinter. Enter either an S or a P and the Budget data will be printed or displayed. This report contains the budget amount information for every active (non-title & not deleted) account. To Return to The System Main Menu - Select Option X. The system will reload PCACCT. OPTION <1> TRANSACTION PROCESSING By selecting option 1, the transaction maintenance program is loaded and will display the Transaction Menu. To Enter Transactions - Select option 1. The system will prompt you for the cycle number which the transactions are to be posted to. The system will display a input form which asks for the below information. It will also display a line showing the current date, the cycle, and the month that these transactions will be posted to. DESCRIPTION - This is a description or remark associated with this transaction. TRANS # - This will be displayed by the system. This number becomes the key to the transaction. AMT - This is the amount associated with the transactions. DATE - This date will override the date contained in the heading of the screen. If no date is entered here, the heading date will be used as the date of the transaction. + ACCT - The account number which the amount is to be ADDED to. The system will display the Account Name. The system will not allow you to post to an account which you have declared as a TITLE or which you have DELETED. If the account number which you entered is not on file, the system will display **ERROR. If any of the above three things happen, the cursor will return to the + ACCT field for re-entry. - ACCT - The account number which the amount is to be SUBTRACTED from. The system will display the Account Name. The system will not allow you to post to an account which you have declared as a TITLE or which you have DELETED. If the account number which you entered is not on file, the system will display **ERROR. If any of the above three things happen, the cursor will return to the - ACCT field for re-entry. When you have entered the information, the system will write the data to disk and return another blank form. You can continue to enter transactions or enter a <RETURN> when in the NUMBER field. At that time the system will return the Transaction Menu. To Display a Transaction - Select option 2. The system will ask for the transaction number and display the data. It will then display the following prompt: <E>xit, <N>ext, <Shift-PrtSc> to Print Screen If you select E, the system will return the menu. If you select N, it will display the next transaction. To Change an Transaction - Select option 3. The system will ask for the transaction number and display the data. It will then prompt to see that it is the correct one. Answer by entering Y or N. If you enter N, you will again be prompted for the transaction number. If you enter Y, the system will allow you to change all information except the top line and the transaction number. The only way to delete a transaction is by entering a reversing transaction. If you do not want to change the data in the field containing the cursor, simply hit RETURN. If you want to change the data, re-enter the entire field. After saving the corrected data, the system will ask if the transaction is an AJ or auto-journal transaction. Answer Y or N. If it is an AJ transaction the correction will also be written to the AJ File. After a correction the system will return the transaction number prompt. Enter the next number or 0<RETURN> to return to the menu. To Print/Display Activity Report - Select option 4. The system will display a prompt asking whether the output is to go to the (S)creen or (P)rinter. Enter either an S or a P and the Activity Report will be printed or displayed. To Enter an Auto-Journal Transaction This is the same as the normal transaction entry, except the data is written to a special file. To Return to The System Main Menu - Select Option X. The system will reload PCACCT. The rest of the selections on the menu for PCACCT are for printing/displaying reports, to end the month, and to close the year out. All reports, except selection #7, are 80 column reports, and can be displayed or printed. When you select one of these reports, the system will ask if you want the output to go to the screen or the printer. The Y-T-D Report (#7) is a 132 column report and requires that you have a 132 column printer. It is not available for displaying. The system does ALL of its calculations at the time of printing. The reports available and the purpose of them are as follows: CHART OF ACCOUNTS - Selection #4 This is the same report as that produced in the Account Processing Maintenance program. The system allows you to print it from both programs. The only difference is that this report contains the current balance, including all current transactions. TRANSACTIONS - Selection #5 This is the Activity report that is produced in the Transaction Processing Maintenance program. The system allows you to print it from both programs. Y-T-D SHORT REPORT - Selection #6 This is a Y-T-D report in short form which contains Y-T-D data, current cycle transactions and compares it to last year. The detail for the current cycle is not printed. Instead, these are totalled and summarized. The last year data is only available if you have done the previous year on this system. Because the system only maintains a total last year amount by account, the LAST YEAR column is a calculation based on the average amount per month times the number of cycles passed. This amount is the LAST YEAR amount at the same time last year. The calculation is: Last Year Total / 12 X Cyc# = Amount printed This was done to conserve disk space. This report also provides you with your NET WORTH and PROFIT/LOSS. YTD REPORTS - Selection #7 This selection will print two separate reports. These are the only reports which is forced to the printer, and that you MUST have a 132 column printer to print. The first report (MONTHLY Y-T-D) lists each month (cycle) in a column for each account. It also lists the ACTUAL amount of money associated with that account, the budgeted amount, and calculates the variance between the two. This report DOES NOT contain any current cycle transactions, therefore if you are currently in the middle of June, the June totals will be zero. It only includes COMPLETED cycles. The second report (ACCUM Y-T-D) carries each account thru the year by using the ending balance of the previous month as the beginning balance for the next month. It then adds the transactions for the current month. BUDGET REPORT - Selection #8 This report compares Y-T-D data and current cycle transactions to the amount budgeted. It also provides the variance between the two. It is similar to the Y-T-D Report above, but does not list them by month, only as totals. M-T-D REPORT - Selection #9 This report is the Trial Balance report of the system. It lists the current month's transaction detail, by account and provides totals by account. OTHER PROCESSING The system has two additional processes which end a cycle (month) and close the year. NOTE: Neither of these two processes print any reports. You must print your reports BEFORE doing these two functions - as the detail will be consolidated and deleted. E-O-M Processing - Selection #3 This function totals the months transactions, adds them to the year-to-date data file. It also increments the cycle number, and zeroes all monthly counters. It then adds all auto-journal entries to the next cycle (which has now become the current cycle). CLOSE THE YEAR - Selection #0 This function takes all Year-to-Date totals and places them in the Last Year file. It then zeroes all counters and begins the year over. The last function is EXIT TO DOS - Selection X. This we hope is self-explanatory. OTHER COMMON FUNCTIONS & HOW TO HANDLE THEM To Delete an Account from The C/A Selection option 2 from the main menu and option 3 from the Account Maintenance menu. Enter the account # which you want to delete. The account data will be displayed and you will be prompted if it is the correct one. To delete an account, enter a 'D' in the FLAG field. NOTE: ALL TRANSACTIONS FOR THIS ACCOUNT WILL NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE FOR CALCULATION. MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE REVERSED OR TRANSFERRED THE ENTRIES TO ANOTHER ACCOUNT. OR DELETE IT AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. To Reverse a Transaction Select option 1 from the main menu and option 1 form the Transaction Maintenance menu and enter a transaction which reverses the incorrect or unwanted transaction. You can change the original transaction by entering '0' in the AMT field using the Change a Transaction option, however, this will eliminate any audit trail. We suggest that you enter the reversing transaction with a description of 'REVERSING TRANS #n' HOW TO BECOME A REGISTERED OWNER OF PCAccountant PC-Squared writes commercially available and public domain software for the IBM PC and compatibles. The commercial systems are designed for specific vertical markets and are of no interest to most computer hobbists. If you would like to become a registered owner of PCAccountant, send a contribution (amount is your choice) to PC- Squared at the below address. A contribution of $25.00 or more will allow you to receive source code and all future updates for the cost of a diskette. If you have suggestions, comments, information regarding bugs, ideas about possible other public domain programs which you would like to see, or wish to become a registered owner, you can write us at: PC-SQUARED P.O. Box 1610 Morgan Hill, CA 95037 We also would be interested in writing public domain programs with people whose expertise is in some other field and who can see the need for a system... ....Is there a stock broker out there...who is willing to work on a tracking and forecasting program?????? << POWER TO THE PUBLIC WITH PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE >> illing to work on a