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* * * My Little Realm, v2.0 * * * - The Charging Routine - ____________________________________________________________________ General Information ____________________________________________________________________ Important This is the evaluation version of My Little Realm's Charging/sa routine. It is a full-featured, fully functional program. The registered version of Charging comes with a Review program and a menu driver. The Review program allows you to view your credit card file in a scrollable window, query the file, and generate a year-to-date summary for all of your credit cards. Review is a powerful complement to your Charging program. Thank you for trying the Charging routine! ____________________________________________________________________ Introduction Keeping records may not be fun, but it is important to the maintenance of a well run realm. To that end, Charging has removed as much of the tedium of data entry as is feasible while maintaining the accuracy and completeness today's realm requires. When you run the Charging Routine, it builds the charge card screen and generates the Viewing Window which contains the Quickeys and their corresponding credit card names, the amounts outstanding for each account, and the total amount outstanding for all accounts. It then deposits you in the Options Window. From that vantage point, you can choose which task you wish to perform, be it entering new charges, paying off old charges, changing the contents of a record, printing out your records or deleting old records. Throughout your processing tasks, the Viewing Window is constantly monitored and updated as you add to, update and change your credit card file. So, if you ever need to know what your plastic debt is at any given moment, you have but to up bring the Charging Routine. ____________________________________________________________________ The Interface Windows. Charging's screen consists of three types of windows: a Working Window, a Viewing Window, and an Options Window. If you are using a color monitor the Viewing Window is always green, the Working Window red and the Options Window blue. You select processes (like adding a record) in the Options Window. You create records in the Working Window, and you find your Quickeys in the Viewing Window. ---------------------------- Extended processing options. Several processing tasks, called extended processing options or EPO's, are not listed in the Options Windows, because they are functions that only occasionally need to be performed. EPO's are used to "extend" a program's power and functionality. To find out what EPO commands are employed by Charging/sa, enter <?> (the question mark) in the Options Window. The EPO's of Charging are defined at the end of this document. ---------------------------- Quickeys. The Quickeys in Charging give you single key access to the names of your credit cards. Enter the names of your credit cards once and forget about typing them in ever again. ____________________________________________________________________ Getting Started Note: If you have a color monitor, press <#>, the pound sign in the Options Window to install the color mode. The very first thing you'll want to do with Charging is make the program uniquely yours. To do that, you will probably have to change some of the credit card names and Tax codes that come with the Charging program. Note: If you are already using MLR's Checking program, you can put Charging in the same directory to let both programs share the Tax code file. They do this automatically. If you'd rather they used different Tax codes, you must put each program in separate directories. After you start Charging, enter the backslash, <\>, in the Options Window. It's one of the EPO's for this routine. It allows you to modify the Quickey list. Charging will ask which Quickey you want to change. Enter the Quickey and your cursor will appear in the Viewing Window. If you merely want to delete the name, press <enter>, otherwise key in the name of your credit card and then press <enter>. If you mistakenly press the wrong Quickey, press <esc> while your cursor is in the Viewing Window and Charging will resurrect the old credit card name. After you've entered all of your credit card names, press <esc> to advance to the next phase of this function, sorting your Quickey names. If you've made letter assignments for your credit card names (that is, if you've associated Quickey <A> with American Express, <D> with Discover, and so on), tell Charging that you do not want your Quickeys sorted. Otherwise, if you have more than three or four credit cards, sort them. You'll find it easier to spot the credit card name you're after if the list is in alphabetical order. The last phase of the Change Quickeys function is the Tax codes. These categories are generally used for tax deductions, but can be used to tally anything (like part-time income, home expenses, gas expenses, etc.). If you're just starting out with Charging, you might want to put this section off until you've had a chance to think about how best to utilize these four categories. After you have set up the Tax codes the way you want, press <esc> one last time to return to the Options Window. And you're all set! Charging/sa is a powerful program that can do a lot for you, but you have to know how to make it work properly to get the most out of it. Please read the rest of this documentation carefully. ____________________________________________________________________ Program Information ____________________________________________________________________ You have four processing activities at your disposal in the Options Window of the Charging Routine: ________________________________________________________________ | | | Please choose one of the following: __ | | | | 1 Enter New Charges 2 Pay Old Bills 3 Change 4 Print/Delete | |________________________________________________________________| There are also several EPO's available. See the section entitled Extended Processing Options described after Option # 4 at the end of this document. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + There is a shortcut entry to option <1> in the New + + Charges function. When in the Options Window, if you + + want to enter New Charges, simply press the Quickey for + + the first charge you wish to enter. By doing so, you + + automatically enter the New Charges function and enter + + your first Quickey at the same time. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 1, entering new charges. To process a new entry (either charge or refund), choose <1>, the New Charges option. There are five fields to every record if you have made use of the Tax codes; four if you've deleted them. You can abort a New Charge entry at any time by pressing <esc> in any field, and no record will be created. To return to the Options Window after entering one or more charge records, press <esc> when the cursor is in the Credit Card Key field. ~ Field Definitions ~ - Credit Card Key field (single character entry, required). Charging will position the cursor at the top of the Working Window after the Credit Card Key field label at which point you enter the Quickey of the appropriate credit card. Each charge record requires its own Quickey entry. After you've input a Quickey, Charging will verify your selection by printing the credit card name in the Verification Box directly below the Credit Card Key field label. If you enter a wrong albeit acceptable Quickey, press <esc> to return to the Options Window. Then choose option <1> again and enter the correct Quickey. You do not have to enter your new charge receipts in any particular order, so there is no need to sort them by charge card or even by charge (debit) and refund (credit). If you have not made use of all thirteen Quickeys you will notice that Charging does not illuminate those that are unused. On color monitors the active Quickeys are those displayed in bright yellow, on monochrome monitors the active Quickeys are listed in bright white. The inactive Quickeys are displayed in standard white print. Should you select an inactive Quickey when at the Credit Card Key prompt, Charging will tell you that you have chosen an illegal Quickey and ask for another. If you attempt a shortcut entry from the Options Window by pressing an inactive Quickey, Charging will simply ignore the keypress. ___________________ - Date field (required). After Charging gets a valid Quickey it asks for the date of the transaction, which is entered in the standard American format mm/dd/yy. You do not enter the slashes, only the numbers representing the month, day and year. As a matter of fact, you do not even have to enter the year if the year Charging displays (the current system year) is acceptable. You simply press <enter> after you've input the month and the day. Note: The numbers representing the month, day and year must be in double digits (e.g., 09/15/92). Charging will accept dates for the current month and the two previous months, so you have at least two months and as long as three months to enter your charging records. Charging will not let you enter future dates. ___________________ - Amount field (must be less than $10,000, required). Charge amount entries must be positive amounts less than ten thousand dollars. Do not enter dollar signs or commas, just the numbers and the decimal point if it is necessary. What if the amount is a refund (credit)? The <enter> key is a toggle (i.e., a switch if you will) between the two amount fields you see in the Working Window as long as neither field has an amount in it. To get a feel for this capability try switching between the two fields before you enter an amount ... just press <enter> a few times while Charging is expecting an amount from you. You'll see the cursor jump from the Charge field to the Refund field and back again. If you inadvertently enter non-numeric data in one of the fields, Charging assumes you missed the <enter> key and pressed an alpha key by mistake (as when you reach for the <enter> key only to press the apostrophe and the <enter> keys simultaneously). So it erases your entry and positions you in the other amount field, figuring you simply meant to toggle to the other field anyway. Be aware of this because there may be times when you didn't simply miss the <enter> key, but rather entered indecipherable data. There will also be times when Charging decides you've keyed in an amount on a line incorrectly (e.g., when you type in too many decimal points). In these situations, Charging will notify you of your error, erase the amount you entered and request a valid amount, leaving your cursor on the same amount line. ___________________ - Tax Code field (single character, optional) Enter the number of the Tax code, if relevant, or press <enter> if you want to skip this field. If you have deleted all of the default Tax Codes and haven't defined any of your own, this field will not appear in your Working Window. When Charging comes to this field, it displays a field prompt of your Tax codes at the bottom of the Working Window . If you created three categories consisting of gasoline, charity and business expenses, they would appear as: 1 Gasoline 2 Charity 3 Bus. Exp. 4 To tag a charge card record as an expense, for example, press <3> when you're in the Tax code field. If you have undefined Tax codes (as selection <4> is), Charging will not let you enter them. You can use your Tax codes to track any kind of credit card expense, be it groceries, professional expenses, part-time income, whatever. If you wish to change Tax codes in mid-year, be sure you use the <+> EPO to reset the Tax codes you want to change. For example, if you had set up Tax code <1> to be business expense and later that same year you decided to change it to charity, you would have to reset Tax code <1> to blank before making the change. Otherwise, all of those records with a Tax code of <1> which were business expenses would be included with your new Tax code records that are charitable deductions. Refer to the section entitled Extended Processing Options for more information. ________ _________ Special projects and Tax codes If you find yourself facing a large project for which you want to track the costs, make one of the Tax codes "Projects". Let's say you're planning to build a deck in the backyard, and you want to keep track of the expenses, so you make Tax code <4> "Projects" (or "Deck", if you wish). Then whenever you charge something related to the deck project, you simply tag that record with Tax code <4>. In this way you can monitor your deck expenses. To move on to the next project you have to clear all of the records that have a <4> in the Tax Code field. You can either go in and manually change all of those records, or, when in the Options Window of Charging, press the <+> EPO. It resets the Tax Code field of all of the records with the Tax code you specify to blank. It affects only those records that have a current year date. ___________________ - Memo field (20, optional). General Use. The Memo field, while optional, is nonetheless quite useful. For example, if several members of the realm have the same charge card, identifying the person who made a charge can be beneficial should questions about the purchase arise later. In other ways, the Memo field can be used to identify the store where a purchase was made in the event a general card (like Discover, VISA, or MasterCard) was used. The Memo field is also handy if you purchase a product that is covered by an extended warranty offered by the credit card issuer. Numerous charge card companies now offer to double a manufacturer's warranty if you charge an item on their cards. Use Charging's Memo field to make a note of the warranty's expiration date, in addition to the item purchased. <+> Command. If you plan to use Tax codes, described above, you can use the Memo field to deduct a portion of the charged amount that is not relevant for that category using the <+> command. If one of your Tax codes is for business expenses, and you charged a purchase of business items and a personal item, you must deduct the cost of the personal item from the total amount of the charge. This is what the <+> command does. It tells Charging to deduct a certain amount, called an overage, from the amount of the charge. <+> Command Example. Let's say you bought some business items that cost $135.48 and a personal item for $45.40. On that record's Amount (charge) line you would enter 180.48 (the total amount of the charge), and on the Memo line you would enter: Memo: +45.4 birthday gift which tells Charging that it should subtract that amount, $45.40, when it calculates the Tax totals. When you run the Tax Summary function, you'll find out exactly how much you spent on business expenses because at the end of the Tax Summary Report the final tabulations are listed in this fashion: Groceries Bus. Exp. Bus. Inc. Charity Tax totals: $2500.36 $650.55 $3021.33 $1002.00 Less deductions: $430.00 $45.40 $0.00 $0.00 Final results: $2070.36 $605.15 $3021.00 $1002.00 From the final tabulations you can see that the business expenses totaled $650.55, but that $45.40 (the price of the personal item) was deducted from that total. Note: If a record does not have a Tax code (i.e., the Tax code field is blank), Charging ignores any <+> command that appears on that record's Memo line. __________ To be sure you are getting the deductions you want, run the Tax Printout function (option <4>, selection <3>). In addition to the credit card name and the record number, Charging will print the Memo line in toto and, in parentheses, any valid Memo line amount it finds. If you aren't getting an amount in parentheses when you expected one, you have probably entered the Memo line amount incorrectly. If so, you can use the Change function in the Options Window to correct the record. Remember, the record numbers appear on the Tax Summary Printout so you can go directly to the records in question if you need to make any changes. (Refer to Option # 4, Selection # 3, Print Tax Summary Report, below, for more information.) Memo line amount rules summary: 1. Amount must immediately follow a plus sign (+) 2. Amount must be followed immediately by a space 3. Amount can appear anywhere on the line, along with other notes you wish to append 4. Amount must be less than $1,000.00 5. Amount must be a positive number 6. Only one amount on a Memo line 7. Amount on Memo line must be <= the charge (debit) amount 8. Do not include dollar signs or commas in the amount [Note: Memo line deductions are not allowed on credits. If your entry is a credit (refund on a returned purchase), Charging does not look for a deduction on the Memo line. In other words, Charging will not subtract a Memo line amount, even a valid one, from a credit when it comes time to calculate the Tax Summary Report.] ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 2, paying old bills. Charging will want to know which credit card account you're paying, so you have to enter the appropriate Quickey. Then Charging will display your current outstanding records for that particular account and ask if each charge or refund has been paid, that is, is it listed on the statement account (which you should have in hand). You respond yes or no by pressing <Y> or <N>. This is a single character entry so don't press <enter> after your response. As a matter of fact, <enter> is equivalent to <Y> with this query. When you come to the last record in a given account, Charging will tell you that you have reached the end of the file. If you wish to peruse the outstanding records before you leave the Pay Old Bills function, you can use the direction arrows, <home> and <end> to do so. If you inadvertently mark a bill paid, use the arrow keys to return to that record and when Charging asks if it has been paid, respond <N>, and Charging will rectify the situation. Once you leave the Pay Old Bills function, your master file is updated. If you discover after leaving Pay Old Bills that you have incorrectly declared a record paid, you must use the Change function to correct it. You cannot access a paid record by invoking the Pay Old Bills function. You will note at the bottom of the Working Window that Charging displays the record number of the displayed charge or refund. This is the displayed record's placement in your master file. So even though you know you have only three outstanding records for a specific credit card, the first record number could be 182, the second 201, and the third 206. Reviewing your outstanding records. You can use option 2 to view your outstanding records for a particular Quickey. Use the arrow keys, <home>, and <end> to browse through your file. When you're finished, press <esc> to return to the Options Window. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 3, changing the information in a record. Charging will want to know which record you wish to change. If you know, fine, enter the record number (or a close approximation) and Charging will take you to it. If you're off by a few records or if you didn't know the record number and pressed <enter>, you can use the arrow keys, <home>, and <end> to browse through your file. When Charging displays the record you want to change, press <Y> or <enter> to select it. After you select the record you wish to change, the fields you can change are listed in the Viewing Window next to their corresponding hotkeys. Make the necessary changes, and press <esc> when you are finished with that record. Charging will ask you for the record number of the next record you want to change. If you haven't any more records to change, press <esc> once more to return to the Options Window. Reviewing all of your records. If you need to see all of your records (outstanding and paid) for all cards, you can select the Change function. Use the arrow keys, <home>, and <end> to peruse your file. Press <esc> to return to the Options Window. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 4, printing and deleting the file records. This is the final option in the Options Window, and it displays a sub-menu offering several selections: 1. Print entire file 2. Print outstanding only 3. Print tax summary report 4. Delete records/compress file 5. Return to the Options Window If you want to abort any of the above print functions (selections <1>, <2> or <3>), press <esc>. ___________________ Selection # 1, print a comprehensive listing of your charge file. This printout lists all of the data stored in each record in your file in addition to the record number. At the end of the report, Charging prints the total outstanding charges and refunds. ___________________ Selection # 2, print a report of the outstanding charges. This function prints a one line banner for each credit card listed in your charging Quickey file. Under each banner are listed the records that are outstanding for that particular charge card. Printed are: the date, memo, record number and the amount of the charge or refund. If a card does not have an outstanding amount, its banner is still printed, with a message indicating as much, so you'll know that its records have been checked. The outstanding report also prints the total outstanding charges and refunds at the end of the listing. ___________________ Selection # 3, print tax summary report. The Tax Summary Report prints each charge or refund under one of the appropriate Tax codes that you created using Charging's Change Quickeys function. If a record has no Tax code entry, it is omitted from the listing. Those records with a Tax code and a valid amount on the Memo line will have their Memo line amounts totaled and deducted from the total amounts in each Tax code category. If you did not define a Tax code, the message "No code ID" will be printed in its stead in the Tax Summary heading, and Charging will print a notice that it found a Tax code that is undefined. This is merely informational; you need not define every Tax code. If you define a Tax code, enter some records with that code, and then delete said Tax code, Charging will warn you that you have records with an undefined Tax code when you run this function. This poses no threat to the integrity of your system or your data, but you should be aware of this situation should you enter a new category in that Tax code. Should you decide to use that Tax code at a later date for a different tax category, you must first reset all of the Tax code fields on the older records that have that Tax code. For example, if you start the year with Tax code <2> as Medical, you cannot later change it to Charity without first resetting all of those records that are listed as Medical records. To reset your Tax codes, use the <+> EPO defined in the Extended Processing Options section at the end of this document. If you do not have any defined Tax codes, you will not be able to run the Tax Summary Report function. ___________________ Selection # 4, delete old records and compress file. To make the system easy to use, Charging does not require you to delete each record separately because even with a simple <Y> and <N> response, deleting hundreds of old records individually can be tedious. Thus, Charging deletes all of the records in the file whose year date is less than the current year date except those which are still outstanding. If you wish to keep your old credit card records, you can direct Charging to dump the records to be deleted to floppy drive A: at the time of the delete process. You don't have to save the deleted records, but you might want to find some piece of information stored on one. If you decide to save them, Charging will create a dump file called SAVECARD.MLR on the floppy in your A: drive. Note: If you purchase MLR's Charging/sa, the bonus program is a Review routine that, among other things, lets you view your credit card dump files. If a record's year date is less than the system's year date and the record is still outstanding, Charging will write out a copy of the record to your floppy, while retaining the original copy in your master file for you to update later on. The file sent to the floppy is saved under the filename SAVECARD.MLR. To keep your credit card file manageable this procedure should be run once a year, ideally at the beginning of the year after most of the previous year's charges have been paid. You do not have to save the current year's deleted records on the same disk that you saved the previous year's. If you do, Charging notifies you that there is a previous dump file on the disk and asks you to select an appropriate action from the following sub-menu. 1 Abort this function 2 Delete the old dump file 3 Replaced the floppy, try again 4 Rename the old dump file If you decide you want to keep the old dump file, you must either remove the floppy and put in another (selection 3) or tell Charging to rename the old file (selection 4). Charging keeps the base name SAVECARD and appends a unique extension. You can also direct Charging to erase the older version of the dump file (selection 2) and proceed with the Delete/Compress function or, finally, you can elect to abort the D/C function altogether (selection 1). [Note: Do not confuse the Delete/Compress function with the <-> (Delete) EPO. The Delete EPO removes a specific record from your file regardless of its paid status or creation date. The Delete/Compress function removes your old paid records (those with a year date that is less than the current system year date) and compresses your file.] One final reminder, if you need a copy of your Tax Summary Report (option 4, selection 3 -- see above), be sure you print it out before you run the Compress/Delete function. Warning! Potential problems await you if you do not keep your system's date accurate, especially with this function. You risk losing your entire file, for example, if you've allowed your system date to lag a year or two behind and then correct it before running this procedure. If, for instance, you've been creating records while the system year date was 1991, when in fact the real date was 1992, and then you correct the date prior to running this function, Charging will delete all of the records that have a year date that is less than the current year date that are not outstanding ... which in this case could be most of your file. Please, keep the date accurate. If you find yourself with a date error, determine the extent of the damage by viewing your records using the Change function. If there aren't too many records with incorrect dates, note their record numbers and use the Change function to correct them (after you've corrected the system's date), then run the Delete/Compress function. If there are a lot of bad records, put off running the D/C function until next year. ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Extended Processing Options EPO Definition <\> Change or delete credit card names in the Viewing Window. Press the backslash key in the Options Window to invoke this function. Charging will ask you which credit card name you want to change or delete. Press the appropriate Quickey, and Charging will erase the name in the Viewing Window and wait for you to enter a new one. To leave the Quickey blank, just press <enter>, otherwise key in the name of the new credit card account and then press <enter>. If you press the wrong Quickey, press <esc> before you leave the Viewing Window to restore the original Quickey name. When you've finished updating your credit card name list, press <esc>. Charging will then ask if you want your Quickey list sorted. This is largely a matter of taste. If you don't have many cards or if you've made letter associations for your credit cards (i.e., <A> for American Express, <B> for BanCard/One, <D> for Discover, <E> for Exxon, and so on), tell Charging not to sort your list. The sort is ascending alphabetic. Credit card names must be unique. If you have AT&T's Visa card and Ford's Visa card, for example, you could make the former's Quickey name "Visa -- ATT" and the latter's "Visa -- Ford". You cannot simply enter "Visa" twice, however, because Charging needs to be able to distinguish between the two credit card names. You can delete credit card names from your active list (those accounts that appear in your Viewing Window), but Charging will not let you delete a credit card name that has an outstanding balance. You can change the Quickey name, but you cannot leave the name blank. When you change the credit card name of an active account that has outstanding records, Charging will also change the credit card names on those outstanding records with the old name to reflect the name change. The records that have the old charge card name that have been paid are made inactive, meaning you will no longer be able to change them using the Change function. Charging will still include them in the Tax Summary function of the Charging Routine. In general, you won't be changing the names of your active accounts. If you've used all of the thirteen Quickeys and you need to add another, select one that is little used, wait until it has no account balance and then change that Quickey's credit card name. After you've replied to Charging's query about sorting your Quickey list, it will ask if you want to change your Tax codes. The list supplied with Charging is of a general nature and includes: Medical, Charity, Child care and Expenses. You can change any of them. Charging will tally your expenses (or incomes, if you wish) for these four categories when you run the Tax Summary Report. See Option # 4, Selection # 3, Print Tax Summary Report, in this document for complete details. Note: If you have previously used My Little Realm's Records of the Realm program to set up your credit card Quickeys, they will be used automatically by Charging. Once you have installed Charging, you will no longer be able to use the Records program to change your credit card Quickey file. You will have to use Charging's <\> EPO function to do so. This is to insure the integrity of your credit card data file. Please do not attempt to thwart this protective measure. It is for your benefit. Do not attempt to change your credit card Quickey file by using a text editor. Always use Charging to make the necessary changes. Charging not only oversees the changes to your credit card Quickey file, but also makes the requisite changes to your credit card data file at the same time. - - - - - - - - - <-> Delete a specific record from your charging accounts file. You must first select the record to be deleted, finding it and selecting it the same way you do in the Change function. Charging will then highlight that record's contents and ask if you are sure. Review the contents carefully. If you are sure you want that record deleted from your master file, press <Y>. You cannot press <enter> for <Y> for this final query. - - - - - - - - - <+> Reset Tax code status in all records that have a specific Tax code to blank. For example: If you've set up one of your Tax codes as a special projects code, you can reset the Tax code status on all of the records with that Tax code to blank. Only the records with a current year date are affected. - - - - - - - - - <$> Print an order form for My Little Realm's Charging/sa. - - - - - - - - - <?> Display the EPO symbols and definitions available for Charging. ____________________________________________________________________ + The End + ____________________________________________________________________ (c) Copyright 1991 - 1992 John L. Salisbury