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C H E C K K I N G Rickenbacker Software CUSTOMER SERVICE Rickenbacker Software is a one-man, part-time enterprise. Although I can not offer telephone support, I make every other reasonable effort to support Check King fully. Should you experience any problem with Check King, write me about it. If you provide both your address and your phone number, I'll normally get back to you within two weeks with either a fix or a circumvention. Second Edition, September 1987 (C) Rickenbacker Software All Rights Reserved Rickenbacker Software Box 11662 Newington, Conn. 06111 Program and Manual Written by Tom Rickenbacker CHECK KING OVERVIEW Welcome to Check King. Check King is an easy-to-use yet full featured checkbook accounting system. The goal of Check King is to give you virtually effort-free control of your checking account. With Check King, you can, - Record your checks electronically with a minimum of effort. - Predefine twenty-one payees for 2-stroke data entry. - Track up to 97 categories of checks. (Twelve of your categories may display on the check entry screen). - Easily review your checks with a flexible variety of requests. - List all of the checks written between any two dates. - List all the checks written between any two amounts. - List the checks written to any one, two, or three payees. - List any combination of the above. - List checks by category. - List only outstanding transactions. - Reconcile your checkbook to the bank's statement without driving yourself to distraction. - Clear transactions in a matter of moments. - Receive help in finding discrepancies from the Reconciliation Problem Finder. Discrepancies caused by a single transaction error will often be explicitly identified. In short, Check King will help you to record, track, and balance your checks. It does the types of things you hoped a computer would do -- before you found out otherwise. Check King should run on any PC or PC compatible machine with at least 256K of memory and a floppy drive. The system was tested on a PC AT, an Epson Equity III, a PC XT, and the various systems owned by my friends. Should you find problems in running it on your compatible, read the section on the Refund Policy. If you bought directly from me, I'll gladly send you a refund. The only conditions are that you bought the disk directly from me and that you send me a short note telling me of the system on which Check King failed. USING THIS MANUAL Alas, an on-the-disk manual can't show the screens which it discusses. I recommend that you: a. print out the manual and b. read it while seated at your computer. As you read about a screen, call it up on your monitor. Following along with the screen in front of you will make things clearer. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MANUAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 GETTING STARTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Making a back-up diskette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Making a Working Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FLOPPY WORKING COPIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 HARD DISK SYSTEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 SETTING UP CHECK KING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Program Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Data Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 YOUR FIRST SESSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 RESOLVING START-UP PROBLEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 CHECK KING MENU SCREEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 THE CHECK ENTRY SCREEN (CE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 THE CHECK UPDATE SCREEN (CU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Voiding a Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Return to the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 THE DEPOSIT ENTRY SCREEN (DE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 THE DEPOSIT UPDATE SCREEN (DU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Voiding a Deposit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Return to the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Specifying Selection Criteria (RS) . . . . . . . . . . 23 Category Breakdown Report (RC) . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Outstanding Transaction Report (RO) . . . . . . . . . . 26 BANK STATEMENT RECONCILIATION (P) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Entering Service Charges and Interest Payments . . . . 27 Clearing Checks and Deposits . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Computing Unrecorded Checks and Deposits . . . . . 28 Hunting Down an Out of Balance Condition . . . . . 29 PAYEE SETUP/UPDATE (P) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 CLASSIFICATION SETUP/UPDATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 MISCELLANEOUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Change Default Check Number (MC) . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Adjust Check Book Balance (MA) . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Future Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Why don't you provide the ability to print checks? . . 34 Why don't your screens just pop up instead of writing themselves? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Why is the price so low? Is the product any good? . . 35 Can I avoid reentering my payee list and check classifications whenever I open a new checking account? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 How is this better than a spreadsheet? . . . . . . . . 37 My screen got garbled? What should I do? . . . . . . . 37 When is the next update and what will it contain? . . . 38 I make a lot of cash withdrawals from an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Does this make Check King useless for me? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 How many checks can Check King handle? . . . . . . . . 40 CHECK KING'S FILES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 THE FUNCTION KEYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 REGISTERING CHECK KING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 LEGALITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Page 1 INTRODUCTION Why another checking system? I became intrigued by a statement of a friend. He said, "I just wrote myself a little checking system. It's coming along fairly well. Now it's almost as easy to use the computer system as it is NOT to use it." Automated checking systems are on the receiving end of several jokes. "I don't need a computer to balance my checks" is true. You also don't need your car to get to work. It just makes it a heckuva lot easier. How often have you searched through your check register to see whether you had indeed paid a check? How often, in frustration, have you adjusted your balance because you couldn't find an error? And, if you've ever tried to track your expenses, do you believe that your check register was easy to use? Check King does require an extra step on your part. You must enter your checks and deposits into the computer. CHECK KING, HOWEVER, WORKS WITH YOU TO MINIMIZE THE TIME IT TAKES TO ENTER DATA. It provides: - a built in macro feature for entering payees. - sensible defaults throughout its screens which require just the press of the RETURN key. - liberal and consistent use of the function keys. - help screens where they are needed. It avoids making you read more than you need to by: - providing uncluttered, layered menus (which may be bypassed by the advanced user). - minimizing the need for error messages by minimizing the opportunities for error. SO, on average, a check entry consists of around nine keystrokes. A deposit averages seven strokes plus any memo entry you elect to enter. In exchange for those keystrokes, Check King transforms your electronic check register into a powerful data base. What did you spend on your utilities in the last year? What percent of Page 2 your total expenditures went to entertainment? Why does your bank statement not balance to your register statement? Look at that last question again. Check King will do a lot to provide its answer. A difference caused by a single recording error will usually be explicitly identified at reconcilement time. And, for differences caused by multiple recording errors, Check King's "Reconciliation Problem Finder" will prove indispensable. In short, Check King is a time-saving tool for your check book accounting. And, if I've succeeded in my sub-goal, it's almost fun to use -- easy, efficient, and slick. ------------------------------------------------------- WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MANUAL This manual will show you: a. how to get started with Check King and b. the fine points of the program. (Also "c.", you may find some portions of it entertaining. You may not. But, you may.) Every user of the program should read the section on how to get started with the program. It takes less than 15 minutes and avoids problems at the end of the month when the first reconcilement takes place. -------------------------------------------------------------- Terminology ___________ CLEAR - Checks and deposits are either OPEN or CLEARed. An open check is one which has not yet been returned to you by the bank. A CLEARed check, then, is one which has been returned to you by the bank. When you first write a check or deposit, CHECK KING assumes that it has NOT been cleared. Normally, you will record whether a transaction has been cleared at the time that you reconcile it to your bank statement. (CHECK KING also permits you to CLEAR checks and deposits via the check and deposit update screens. You may find this ability handy at some time or other.) CREDIT - An accounting word not used in this documentation. Page 3 DEBIT - The spouse of CREDIT. Also not used in this documentation. RECONCILEMENT - This is the process of balancing CHECK KING to your monthly bank statement. STATEMENT - This is sometimes used in lieu of "BANK STATEMENT". The bank statement is the listing of all your transactions and of any service charges and/or interest payments which have been made. Page 4 GETTING STARTED Getting started consists of: 1. Making a back-up diskette. 2. Making a working copy of CHECK KING. 3. Deciding where you will keep your data files. 4. Getting off to a clean start (i.e. balancing your check book BEFORE transferring it to Check King). Making a back-up diskette. ------------------------- If you have been using computers for a while, you are already in the habit of backing up the software which you value. If you are not in the habit, this is as good a time to start as any. a.) Format a blank diskette to receive the back up. In your A drive, put your system diskette -- the one which contains FORMAT.COM. If you have two diskette drives, place the blank diskette in your B drive. (If you have only one drive, keep reading. At the appropriate times, the operating system will prompt you to change diskettes.) Enter: < FORMAT B: > NOTE: Throughout the manual, I shall place what you should enter between a "<" and a ">". The "<" and ">" themselves are not to be entered. b.) Enter: < VERIFY ON > (not strictly necessary, but a darn good idea.) Page 5 c.) Enter: < DISKCOPY A: B: > Label the backup diskette and store it away from the original. Making a Working Copy --------------------- Your working copy of CHECK KING will either be on a floppy or on a hard disk. Be sure to follow along within the right section. FLOPPY WORKING COPIES Making a working copy is similar to the procedure for making a backup copy. Again, you will need a blank diskette. With the system diskette in your A drive (i.e. a diskette with a copy of FORMAT.COM), enter: 1) < FORMAT B: /S > NOTE: The '/S' is not needed if you do not want CHECK KING to be a system diskette. I recommend, however, that you do make it a system disk just for convenience. 2) Leave the diskette just created in your B drive. Place the Check King master in the A drive. Enter <INSTALL F>. This will copy over the files which you need to the working copy. That's it! Skip to "SETTING UP CHECK KING". Page 6 HARD DISK SYSTEMS Put the Check King master diskette in your A drive. Change the default drive to the A drive by entering: <A:> Enter: INSTALL H That's all there is to it. This will create a subdirectory called CHECKING and copy all the necessary files to it. If you do not wish a CHECKING subdirectory, then copy the files yourself. The files that you'll need to copy are: CK.COM and all of the .CHN files. (I do not recommend copying over ELITE.COM, the batch files, or the manual itself since they will not be necessary.) Page 7 SETTING UP CHECK KING CHECK KING consists of: a) program files and b) data files. Program Files: The program files are CK.COM and several .CHN files. These must ALL be on your default drive (i.e. the drive represented by the letter before DOS' ">" prompt) and in the current subdirectory. In other words, if you have a hard disk system, you must be pointed not only to your hard drive (normally the "C" drive) but also to the subdirectory containing the CHECK KING program files. Be sure that your prompt points to the proper drive. Enter the CD command with no operand and see what directory you are pointing to. If it is not the directory with CK.COM, use the CD command to change the directory. (Refer to your MS DOS manual if you do not know how to change directories). Data Files: The data files may be either on the same drive as your program or on a separate drive. Paths are not supported. For all systems, I recommend a separate and dedicated floppy for each checking account you use with CHECK KING. CHECK KING has predetermined the file names of your data files. Like most design decisions, this one has a Good News / Bad News aspect. The Good News is that you do not have to keep track of file names. The Bad News is that only one checking account per directory is possible. So, if you wish to use CHECK KING for multiple checking accounts, the most straightforward method is to give each account its own floppy. I recommend a dedicated floppy for a very excellent reason. CHECK KING does NOT have any error handling routines for a full disk. WHY NOT? There's only one honest answer. Laziness. If a dedicated floppy is used, there will be no problem. The program does indeed warn you when you are approaching its limits (1000 checks and 500 deposits). Use a dedicated floppy (top cost for a blank floppy is $1.25 unless you still buying from your local computer store) and you will have no problem. Page 8 YOUR FIRST SESSION - Getting Started Properly O.K. You've made your backup. You've made your working copy. You've made your decision on where you will place your data files. There is one more thing to do. Before you start with Check King, you must balance your check book to your last bank statement. If you can't balance it(!), you may use either of my pre Check King methods. 1. The Close-the-Account-And-Open-A-New-One Method. 2. The Make-the-Blind-Faith-Adjustment Method. The first is what it says. It consists of withdrawing most of the money from your existing account and opening a nice new fresh account. The second consists of the act of making an entry called "FUDGE" or "ADJUSTMENT" to bring your balance to what the bank says it is. The most important part is the clean start. If you to get the most from Check King, start with a balanced check book. - Enter <CK> to start Check King. - Press the RETURN key (the bent arrow) when requested. - Respond to Check King's question about which drive your data files are to go on. - When asked for a starting balance, enter the BANK STATEMENT's balance -- not your check book's balance. Why? Statement Balance a. We start here + Unrecorded Deposits b. Then enter these - Unrecorded Checks ------------------- = Book Balance c. and check on ourselves by making sure we end up here. - Enter, as the starting check number, the next check number which is available to your check book. - Now, you should be on the Main Menu screen. (If not, press the RETURN key.) You may use the arrow keys and space bar to cycle through the options. Or, you may simply enter the option's first letter. Page 9 - Enter your outstanding deposits via the Deposit Entry screen. - Enter your outstanding checks via the Check Entry screen. (You may type over the default check number if it is not the check number desired.) - After you enter your last unrecorded check, YOUR BALANCE SHOULD BE THE SAME BALANCE AS SHOWS IN YOUR CHECK BOOK. If not, read the next section. It'll work. Remember the advice from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- DON'T PANIC. Page 10 RESOLVING START-UP PROBLEMS Is the balance shown by Check King the same one shown in your check book? If so, you may skip this page. O.K. You've got the following tools to help you: this page, the Outstanding Transaction report, the Check Update Screen, the Deposit Update Screen, and -- should all else fail -- the Adjustment Screen which is available via the Miscellaneous sub menu. First, get a hardcopy of what you've entered via the Outstanding Transaction report. What happened? Here are the possibilities: 1. You made a clerical error in entering the unrecorded checks or deposits. (Use the report to find the error. Use the appropriate update screen to fix it.) 2. If Check King's balance is higher than your check book's balance: a. you failed to record a check. (use Check Entry screen) b. you entered a deposit twice. (void from Deposit Update screen) c. you entered a check with too low an amount. (fix via Check Update Screen) 3. If Check King's balance is lower than your check book's balance: a. you failed to record a deposit. (use Deposit Entry screen) b. you entered a check which was on the bank statement. (void it via the Check Update screen) c. you entered a check with too high an amount. (fix via Check Update Screen) Another possibility is that the arithmetic in your check book was wrong. If so, Check King has begun to earn its keep. Still another possibility is that you incorrectly recorded the Bank Statement Balance when you started. (Here is the only truly legitimate reason I can come up with for using the Adjustment Screen of the Miscellaneous menu.) Finding the discrepancy may take some time. So be it. Again, a clean start will pay dividends. Put in the time now, not later. Page 11 CHECK KING MENU SCREEN The menu screen provides you with eight choices: Checks Deposits Reports Bank Statement Reconcilement Payee Setup/Update Klassification Setup/Update Miscellaneous Quit When you enter the screen, an arrow will be pointing to Checks. Should you press the RETURN (i.e. the ENTER key -- the big key with the bent arrow), you will see a sub-menu offering a choice of: Enter Checks Update Checks Return to Main Menu The sub menu is the active menu when it is on the screen. The active menu is always the bottom most menu -- the one which is highlighted. Using the spacebar, the arrow keys, or the Tab key you may move among the choices. You may activate a choice by pressing the RETURN key. ALTERNATIVE: Did you notice that Klassification is spelled with a "K" instead of a "C"? (Rhetorical question.) The reason is that you may also select a choice by simply entering its first letter. Since CHECKS expropriated the letter "C" for itself, "CLASSIFICATION" became "KLASSIFICATION." When the first-letter method is used, the RETURN key does not need to be pressed. For example, you can get to the Check Entry screen by simply entering: <CE> "C" for "Checks" (Main Menu) and "E" for "Enter Checks" (Sub Menu). THE CHOICES "Checks" - Select if you wish to "Enter Checks" or "Update Checks" Page 12 "Deposits" - Select if you wish to "Enter Deposits" or "Update Deposits" "Reports" - Select for: a. Specifying Selection Criteria (build your own report) b. Category Breakdown Report (Coming soon) c. Outstanding Transaction Report (See just the deposits and checks which remain outstanding) "Bank Statement Reconcilement" Select if you wish to balance Check King to your bank statement. (Normally, run this once a month.) "Payee Setup/Update" Select to enter/update payees. (This is the same screen which is also available from the Check Entry screen.) "Klassification Setup/Update" Select to equate names to your first 20 check categories. (Check King allows 97 categories -- from 1 through 97 -- but only keeps track of the names of 20.) "Miscellaneous" Currently, the active miscellaneous selections enable you to change your default check number and to Adjust the Check Book balance. Page 13 THE CHECK ENTRY SCREEN (CE) This screen provides a method of entering checks into the system with a minimum of keystrokes. From the main menu, CE takes you here. The Check Entry screen is divided into three sections: 1. a list of twenty-one payees which may be entered by just hitting the Alt key plus a letter; 2. the list of the meanings of classifications 1-20; and 3. the check entry section in the form of a replica of a check. The payee section shows the first twenty-one characters (of a possible 40 characters) which you may define by the Payee Entry Update Screen reachable either from the Check King Menu Screen or by pressing F6 on this screen. Check King assumes that you will want to issue the next check in sequence and that you will not care to classify it. So, it fills in the check number (i.e. "CK NO:") for you and provides a default classification of 20 (which, initially, is set up as "Unclassified"). For each new check, then, you are initially positioned on the third field, "PAYEE:". You may either type in the payee or press the ALT key plus the letter of the payee which you wish to enter from the top third of the screen. NOTE: Once you begin typing, the ALT-key combination is no longer available. To use an ALT-key combination after you've already begun to enter a payee, you must leave the payee field and then come back to it. Cycling through fields ------------------- You may leave a field in one of four ways: a. by pressing the RETURN key. (This will bring you to the next field in a clockwise direction.) b. by pressing the Down Arrow key. (This will bring you to the next field in a clockwise direction. This may seem strange when you are positioned on the Amount field because the Down Arrow will bring you "Up" to "DATE:" while the Up arrow will bring you back to "Payee:") Page 14 c. by pressing the Up Arrow key. (This will bring you to the prior field -- in a counter-clockwise direction.) d. by completing the field. An ALT-key combination for the payee field completes the filling in of that field and automatically advances the cursor to the amount field. The cursor will also advance off of the amount field without the RETURN key being pressed if you try entering a third digit after the decimal point or too large a number. (Check King has restricted any given check to a limit of $50,000.) Entering the fields ------------------- PAYEE: Either type it in or press an ALT-letter combination from the top third of the screen. Again, the ALT-letter combination is temporarily disabled once you jump into the routine which accepts typed-in payees by pressing a letter. (This is on my To Do list for a future version.) AMOUNT: Simply type in the amount. Commas are echoed but ignored. One decimal point is accepted. Letters and special characters other than numbers are ignored. DATE: The date field provides a default. It is either the system's date or the last date with which you overrode the system's date. Although there is some basic editing done by this routine when you enter a date, feel free to enter a check for February 31st. Extensive date editing didn't (and doesn't) strike me as much of a priority. CK NO: This always defaults to the next available check number. You may override the default. Check King will accept check numbers from 1 through 9999 provided that they are not already in use. If you attempt to write a check with a check number which is already in use, Check King will show you the check which already has in its claim to the check number. Page 15 In case of a foul-up, use the Check Update screen to straighten things out. CLASS: You may enter classes from 1 through 97. Check King will keep track of the names assigned to classes from 1 through 20. You will have to keep track yourself of the meanings of classes 21 through 97. Classes 0, 98, and 99 are reserved for Check King's present and future internal use. WARNING: Classes, not their equated names, are kept on file. To change the meaning of a class after a check has been written under the old meaning is to invite confusion. For example, let me assume that you are a greengrocer keeping track of how much you spend on bananas. So, you assign Class 14 to "Bananas" and use it whenever you pay for bananas. Let me further assume that you decide that you are receiving too many tarantulas in your banana shipments. So, you drop bananas from your inventory. Look out. If you reassign Class 14 to "Apples," what will you be doing if you run the Category Breakdown Report for Class 14? You guessed it. You'll be mixing Apples and Bananas. (Sorry! I couldn't resist.) "Entering the Check" (F10) Entering the check into the system is achieved by pressing <F10>. At this point: - Your balance is updated. (Note the upper left-hand corner of the screen.) - The Check Number field (i.e. CK NO:) is updated to reflect the next available check number. - The CLASS field is reset to 20 (for Unclassified). - The payee field is blanked. - The amount field is blanked. The above are Check King's verification to you that the check has been added. Page 16 "Keeping your Place" (F7) The last five add transactions, whether from deposit entry or check entry, may be viewed by pressing <F7>. This ability to review your last five transactions is especially useful if you've lost track of where you are due to an interruption. Just press <F7>. "Updating Payees" (F6) After you've finally paid off your bookie and breathe a sigh of relief that all your limbs made it through unbroken, you vow never to do business with him again. You may safely reassign his code to another payee. I say "safely" because the payee entry, not the payee code, is kept on the file. So, if your bookie was ALT-B "Friendly Jim," then "Friendly Jim" is hard coded in all the checks written to him. You may now reassign ALT-B to "Gambler's Betting on a Cure" without fear of retroactively messing up checks already written to "Friendly Jim". "Help" (F1) What is there to say? Help is available via the F1 key. Either you understand it or it's not helpful. "Exiting the Screen" (F3) Since F10-Process leaves you on the Check Entry screen so that you may enter more checks, I figured that you might just like a way to leave the screen. (Brag, brag, brag.) Press <F3> and you will be returned to the Check King Menu Screen. NOTE: F3 does NOT update the files with whatever was on the screen when you pressed it. To record the last check you wish to enter, be sure to first press <F10>. THEN, after the last desired check is recorded, press <F3>. Page 17 THE CHECK UPDATE SCREEN (CU) This screen, arrived at from the menu by <CU>, is used to correct mistakes, to VOID checks, and as an alternative method to the Bank Statement Reconcilement screen for clearing a check. The highlighted line under the "Check Number:" line is to indicate that you may not change the key for the record. Cycling through fields ------------------- You may move the cursor from one field to another by: a. pressing <RETURN>. b. using the Up arrow to go to the prior field. c. using the Down arrow to go the next field. Entering the fields ------------------- Date: The format is MM/DD/YY. If you insist, you may enter some invalid dates such as February 30. Class: Enter the classification code desired for the check. If you enter a value from 1 through 20, you will see the legend which you entered on the Class Entry Screen (i.e. "Klassification Setup/Update from the Check King Main Menu) after you enter this field. Payee: Called "Payee," this field may be used for any memo entry desired -- up to 40 characters. Amount: The amount of the check. If you increase this amount, the increase will be deducted from your balance. If you decrease the amount, the amount of the decrease will be added to your balance. Cleared?: "N" - The check has not cleared. "Y" - The check Has cleared. "Updating the Check" (F10) Updating the check is achieved by pressing <F10>. At this point: - Your balance is updated. - You are returned to the Check Menu screen. (The assumption is that you will usually only be updating one check.) Page 18 "Voiding a Check" (F4) When you VOID a check, the following occurs: - The check's amount is added back to your balance. - The check's amount is changed to 0.00. - The Payee field is changed to "VOIDED from the Check Update screen on mm/dd/yy" (where mm/dd/yy is the system's date). - You are returned to the Check King Main Menu. The check number of a VOIDed check does NOT become available for other checks. If your intent was to change the information for a given check, then do just that from the Check Update screen. "Return to the Main Menu" (F3) F3 is always the "Bail Out" option in Check King. To press F3 is to cancel any changes which you have made and to return to the Check King Main Menu. "Help" (F1) Again, there is nothing to add. Either the help is clear and useful on its own or its useless. Explaining a help screen is like showing an overhead transparency of an overhead projector. QUIZ: Why is an overhead transparency of an overhead projector absurd? Page 19 THE DEPOSIT ENTRY SCREEN (DE) This screen, arrived at from the Check King Menu Screen by <DE>, allows for the entry of deposits. The top part of the screen sections off the Deposit Number and Balance from the rest of the fields since these fields may not be directly changed by you. The deposit number is assigned by Check King as its means of identifying deposits. You may find it useful to use the Memo field for your own means of keeping deposits separate. The DATE field must be entered in MM/DD/YY format if you do not like the default of the system date. The Memo field is for your own use. If you've some use for grouping deposits, you might find it useful to include codes in the memo field to identify those groupings. Then, you will be able to use the "Specify Selection Criteria" option of the "Reports" sub menu to select just the deposits which contain that code. (If this seems like nonsense to you, then you probably have no need to group deposits and may safely ignore this tip.) The Amount field is the amount of the deposit. Unlike your bank, Check King immediately credits the deposit to your Balance. If you're run your check book without much of a buffer amount, learn your bank's policy regarding the crediting of deposits so that you don't overdraw your available balance. (The balance shown by Check King is your Total Balance which may well be higher than what your bank considers your Available Balance. Well, to be more precise, the balance shown by Check King is the net effect of the checks, deposits, and adjustments which you make to whatever you entered as your beginning balance when you first opened a Check King account. That may, therefore, be either your Total Balance or your Fictional Balance.) Page 20 THE DEPOSIT UPDATE SCREEN (DU) This screen, arrived at from the menu by <DU>, is used to correct mistakes, to VOID deposits, and as an alternative method to the Bank Statement Reconcilement screen for clearing a deposit. The highlighted line under the "Deposit Number:" line is to indicate that you may not change the key for the record. Cycling through fields ------------------- You may move the cursor from one field to another by: a. pressing <RETURN>. b. using the Up arrow to go to the prior field. c. using the Down arrow to go the next field. Entering the fields ------------------- Date: The format is MM/DD/YY. Memo: This field may be used for any memo entry desired -- up to 40 characters. Amount: The amount of the deposit. If you increase this amount, the increase will be added to your balance. If you decrease the amount, the amount of the decrease will be deducted from your balance. Cleared?: "N" - The deposit has not cleared. "Y" - The deposit has cleared. "Updating the Deposit" (F10) Updating the deposit is achieved by pressing <F10>. At this point: - Your balance is updated. - You are returned to the Check Menu screen. (The assumption is that you will usually be updating only one deposit.) "Voiding a Deposit" (F4) When you VOID a deposit, the following occurs: - The deposit's amount is deducted from your balance. - The deposit's amount is changed to 0.00. - The Memo field is changed to "VOIDED from the Deposit Page 21 Update screen on mm/dd/yy" (where mm/dd/yy is the system's date). - You are returned to the Check King Main Menu. The deposit number of a VOIDed check does NOT become available for other deposits. "Return to the Main Menu" (F3) F3 is always the "Bail Out" option in Check King. To press F3 is to cancel any changes which you have made and to return to the Check King Main Menu. Page 22 REPORTS Check King provides a number of ways of reviewing your checks: a. You may specify the selection criteria for the checks you wish to see according to: 1. an amount range (i.e. all checks between Amount A and Amount B). 2. a date range (i.e. all checks written between Date A and Date B). 3. whether the check is cleared. 4. whether all payees are to be included in the selection (if not, then you may specify up to three payees which you do wish to include). b. You may view checks by category. c. You may view just the outstanding transactions. d. You may get a report on what takes place at reconcilement time. In short, your reporting options are many and flexible. The following sections will review each of them for you. Page 23 Specifying Selection Criteria (RS) ----------------------------- This screen, available via <RS> ("Reports" from the main menu options followed by "Specify Selection Criteria on the sub menu), allows you to combine selection criteria according to your preference. ------------------------------------------- | Amount | | Amount | | Exceeds | AND | Less Than | | | | | | $ -.01 | | $99,999.99 | |-----------------------------------------| | Date | | Date | | Exceeds | AND | Less Than | | | | | | 01/20/50 | | 12/31/99 | |-----------------------------------------| | Include cleared checks? Y | |-----------------------------------------| | Include all payees? Y | |-----------------------------------------| Don't be misled by the deceptive simplicity of the screen. It provides you with considerable flexibility and power in reviewing your transactions. The screen's defaults produce a listing of all the checks on the system. If you wish just to review the open checks, change "Include cleared checks?" from "Y" to "N". Finagle with the defaults to come up with what YOU want. Say that you want to check on whether you ever got around to writing that $15 check to the programmer of that shareware you planned to pay for. You change "Amount Exceeds" to 14.99 and "Amount Less Than" to 15.01. If the check for $15.00 was written, then you will see that check on the report -- along with all the other checks which you may have written for that exact amount. Or, let's say that your dentist, Dr. Smiley, sends you a bill for $47 for a filling. You may become curious about how many times you've been charged over $35 for a few minutes of drilling and a mouthful of cotton. So, you change "Amount Exceeds" to 35 and "Include all payees?" to "N". As you enter the "N" under "Include all payees?", you will see a question box open up. (See the next page for a representation of that box.) Page 24 ------------------------------------------- | Amount | | Amount | | Exceeds | AND | Less Than | | | | | | $ 35.00 | | $99,999.99 | |-----------------------------------------| | Date | | Date | | Exceeds | AND | Less Than | | | | | | 01/20/50 | | 12/31/99 | |-----------------------------------------| | Include cleared checks? Y | |-----------------------------------------| | Include all payees? N | |-----------------------------------------| -----------Select if the payee contains:------------------------- | Smiley More? _ | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Enter "Smiley." (You could enter "Dr. Smiley," but that will not match "Dr Smiley" since the latter does not have a period after the "r" of "Dr".) Then, you will be asked, "More?". In other words, do you want payees other than "Smiley"? Come to think of it, why not find out how many of Dr. Hugo Spade's bills exceeded the same amount? So, enter "Y" to the prompt and "Spade" to the "OR". -----------Select if the payee contains:------------------------- | Smiley | | OR Spade More? N | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Enter the "N" for the "More?" prompt and the cursor will go back to the amount under "Amount Exceeds" in case you want to make some changes. If you are satisfied with your selection criteria, press <F10> to print out the report. (Further prompts will ask whether you wish to see the report on the screen, on the printer, or both.) In our example, you would now see all the checks exceeding $35 which were issued to either Dr. Smiley or Dr. Spade. Page 25 NOTE: Once you leave the payee selection box, the cursor will not return to it unless you reenter the "N" for "Include all payees." At that point, your prior payee selections will reset. But, you will have the opportunity to enter the payee selections you intended. The searches of the payee fields are not case sensitive -- the capitalization of your criteria does not need to match the capitalization of the payee fields. To get the report you desire, enter enough of the payee field to make Check King's matches unique to your desired criteria. For example, you may save keystrokes by entering "Amer" instead of "American Savings Bank". It may work. But, if you have checks written out to "American Express," they will print out along with your "American Savings Bank" transactions. (Just for good measure, your check to "Discount Camera" will also print. Why? Because "amer" is part of the string found in "cAMERa.") Category Breakdown Report (RC) ------------------------- If you're looking for a thin excuse to buy a 386 machine, this is the best that Check King has to offer. The setup for the report may take up to six minutes -- depending upon your computer's clock speed and the number of checks you've recorded. You receive four choices on how to see the report: - for all categories using all checks. - for all categories using just outstanding checks. - for 1 to ten select categories using all checks. - for 1 to ten select categories using just outstanding checks. Each category selected appears on its own page(s) and is followed by totals for the category. The types of questions for which this report provides answers are: - How much did I spend on Medicine? - What is the supporting detail for that amount? Page 26 Outstanding Transaction Report (RO) ------------------------------ Nothing fancy here. This is a report of all checks and deposits which have not yet been cleared via either the reconcilement screen (the usual way) or one of the two update screens. This report answers the following two questions: What checks and deposits have not yet been cleared? What is their total? Page 27 BANK STATEMENT RECONCILIATION (P) Few things are as frustrating as an out of balance checking account. You can't see where you made a mistake. You can't see where the bank made a mistake. So, you should be in balance, but you are not. No system can promise that it will forever relieve you of such frustration. Even so, Check King does all that it can do to minimize your difficulties. The first thing which it does is to walk you through the reconciliation process. The steps are: a. entering service charges and/or interest payments. (These appear in the bank's accounting, but they have not yet been made known to Check King.) Assignment: YOURS. b. clearing checks and deposits. Assignment: YOURS. c. doing the arithmetic to compute the unrecorded checks and deposits (AND to apply them properly). Assignment: CHECK KING's. d. hunting down the possible candidates for the out of balance condition. Assignment: CHECK KING's. STEP A - Entering Service Charges and Interest Payments Check King walks you through this by asking for one service charge or interest payment at a time (there may be more than one). This relieves you of having to do any arithmetic. NOTE: Check King logs just the sum total of the interest charges or interest payments from the last time that they were entered. These are shown to you on the top half of the screen so that you will not have to wonder about what you did or did not record. STEP B - Clearing Checks and Deposits Check King shows you up to 2521 outstanding transactions. 1 If you have more than 252 transactions outstanding, process the first 252 with the first invocation of the reconcilement screen. The transactions which you clear will free up slots for a second invocation of the screen. Page 28 You may use the cursor keys (i.e. arrows) to cycle among them. "N" indicates that a transaction has not been cleared. Change the "N" to "Y" if the transaction appears on the bank statement. Should you have more than 84 outstanding transactions, the F7 and F8 keys will enable you to flip among them. F3, at any time, will cancel the work which you've done during a given reconcilement session. However, if you've made it past the Service Charge/Interest Payment screens before pressing F3, the service charges and interest payments will have already been recorded. (You may use the <MA> options from the Main Menu to bring you to the Miscellaneous Adjustments screen to reverse the effects of erroneous recording of interest or service charges.) NOTE: A useful feature for clearing checks is the Alt-F4 feature. Alt-F4 reverses each checks cleared status. For example, if all but a handful of checks have cleared, use Alt-F4 to change all the checks' cleared status to "Y". Then, move over to the outstanding checks and reverse their status to "N". The files are not updated until you press <F10> to update them. At any time before that, you may escape what you are doing by pressing <F3>. STEP C - Computing Unrecorded Checks and Deposits Check King does all the arithmetic based upon the data which you've entered and produces the "Reconcilement Balance Sheet". The Reconcilement Balance Sheet is divided into three sections: Outstanding Checks, Outstanding Deposits, and the Balance Sheet itself. The Outstanding Checks and Deposits are listed individually 2 and totalled. 2 All of the checks are listed. If there is more than one screen's worth of them, F7 and F8 will page through the screens. Only the first 16 outstanding deposits, however, are individually listed on the Reconcilement Balance Sheet screen. Page 29 STEP C - Hunting Down an Out of Balance Condition If the "Difference" field of the Reconcilement Balance Sheet shows a zero, all is well and Check King doesn't have an opportunity to strut its stuff. If, however, there is a difference, Check King will: a. Show you most solitary errors which could have caused the difference. (By "solitary errors," I mean any single error which might account for the difference. No system can show all the possible "combinations" which could account for the difference. Moreover, a list of all possible combinations would not reduce the problem -- it would enlarge it.) b. List out other avenues for you to explore in balancing the check book. NOTE: Check King tries to avoid providing unsolicited advice. So, if you wish Check King's assistance, you must ask for it by pressing F1 when you are invited to do so. Finally, whether you are in balance or not, Check King gives you the opportunity to receive a hardcopy report on your reconcilement session -- by pressing F6. If you have a printer, I recommend that you ask for hardcopy. Today, the report already provides a useful audit trail. With subsequent editions, I plan to beef the report up with still more information -- some of which will not be available once you return to the Main Menu. So, if you want the report, ask for it from the Bank Statement Reconciliation session. Page 30 PAYEE SETUP/UPDATE (P) This screen allows for the creation of up to 21 macros for the Payee field of checks. Each macro may be up to 40 characters in length. On the Check Entry screen, they will be truncated to 21 characters in order to fit in the space available. But, all 40 characters will be entered into the payee field of a check. It is save to change the payee list at any time. You will not be changing the payee field of checks which have already been written. WARNING: Be careful how you leave the payee screen. <F3> will NOT update the payee file (PAYEE.FIL). Any changes made prior to pressing <F3> will be lost. <F10> does the updating. <F3> is there to give you the chance to change your mind. NOTE: If you maintain more than one checking account, you need not reenter the payees for each account. Just COPY PAYEE.FIL to the diskette of the second account. (You may do this even after you've opened the account.) Page 31 CLASSIFICATION SETUP/UPDATE The classifications (i.e. categories) of checks provided as defaults roughly correspond to Schedule B of the 1040. You may well wish to open up other categories. Categories 1 through 97 are available for your use. Only categories 1-20, however, currently display on the Check Entry screen. So, if you desire more than 20 categories, I recommend that you write them out on a card or sheet of paper kept close to your computer. (Digression: My computer faces a wall. On that will, I used to tack various notes to myself -- the syntax of commands I can never remember and the like. My wife, easily more organized than I, bought me a simple cork board from Caldors or the like. It hangs behind my monitor. You'll find such a board an ideal place to keep categories 21 - 97 along with a lot of other stuff you may find yourself forever hunting for. This Public Service Announcement is presented at no extra charge.) The category/class CODES, not their equivalent explanations, are kept on the file. This has a very important implication. DO NOT CHANGE A CATEGORY (I.E. CLASS) CODE'S MEANING AFTER YOU HAVE USED THE CODE. Why not? Assume that you are a greengrocer keeping track of how much you spend on bananas. So, you assign Class 14 to "Bananas" and use it whenever you pay for bananas. Further assume that you decide that you are receiving too many tarantulas in your banana shipments. So, you drop bananas from your inventory. Look out. If you reassign Class 14 to "Apples," what will you be doing if you run the Category Breakdown Report for Class 14? You guessed it. You'll be mixing Apples and Bananas -- the Moral Equivalent of mixing Apples and Oranges which we all know is some sort of sin. (Yes, I do realize that I perpetrated this same example earlier. I just wanted to give everyone a chance to see it since some folks merely skim manuals!) Page 32 MISCELLANEOUS The miscellaneous options are for the more rarely used functions of Check King -- changing default check numbers, making flat adjustments, and future enhancements. While you will not often need to select from this menu, you may find yourself glad that it is here. Change Default Check Number (MC) The default check number is set when you first set up a Check King checking account. As you enter checks, it gets incremented by 1. If, for one reason or another, you find yourself having to constantly override the default check number, you probably need to reset it. This screen permits changing the number. If the number you enter is already in use, it will be set to the first available number AFTER the one you provide. For example, if you have written checks 2000-2150 and enter a default check number of "2110," it will show up as 2151. Why? Because that is the first available check number after 2110. Adjust Check Book Balance (MA) There ARE Those Times. If you select this screen, read the advice on it before continuing on to make the adjustment. Normally, you should be able to find a better way to get into balance (i.e. by correcting some data entry error?). I put this screen in for two reasons: a. for myself. b. for the Check King customer who doesn't initially set up Check King correctly -- either out of confusion from unclear instructions on my part or out of impatience to get started. Soon or later, this customer will confront the error. A simple adjustment may be the best way to get into balance. c. for people who make stupid mistakes they don't want to correct properly. For example, up above it says, "I put this screen in for two reasons:". This is a third Page 33 reason. This is also an adjustment to that sentence. So, I put this screen in for three reasons. (Great, one error corrected!) Future Enhancements This screen will tell you my ideas. If you'd like to see Check King made more useful for YOUR needs, tell me your ideas. Who knows? Your idea may be incorporated. (If you're first with the idea, you will the upgrade containing it for free.) Page 34 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS This section is to provide, in a question and answer format, the information which is most commonly requested. Why don't you provide the ability to print checks? -------------------------------------------------- I wrote Check King to address the needs of the personal checking account. My guide in deciding what to include and what not to include was, "What would I find useful?" As a user of Check King, I don't want to get into buying pre-printed checks. I'll do anything to avoid changing paper in my printer. For the number of checks which I process each month (35), it certainly is not worth changing forms -- especially since I seldom write all 35 checks at one time. Also, preprinted checks raise all sorts of questions about coordinating the check number in the system to that of the preprinted forms. I've worked with preprinted forms professionally. I have little desire to work with them at home. And, I suspect, neither do you! If I provided the feature, I'd have to force you into giving Check King more information than it now requests. Documentation comments which you may now enter into the "Payee" field would have to go into a separate "Memo" field. Your record would be larger. Your disk space more limited. And, to some extent, the execution times would be slower. After the novelty wore off, most of my targeted market would stop using the preprinted checks. Some would throw the baby out with the wash and stop using an automated check system too. As a programmer, I have little desire into getting into the hassle of supporting umpty-ump printer standards. In short, I am convinced that the ability to print checks is more a marketing feature than a useful feature for most of us. If I get over 1,000 paying customers and after I put in a host of USEFUL features I have in mind, then and only then will I be at all interested in turning my attention to the it-prints-checks! gimmick. Business accounts may find it useful. For personal checking, it's truly fluff. Page 35 Why don't your screens just pop up instead of writing themselves? ---------------------------------------------------------------- They did! They did! Then, I found that they didn't work on all computers. The ways in which screen memory is addressed vary. My compiler resolves the addresses at compilation time instead of at execution time! So I'm stuck with either writing the screens out line by line or with maintaining several versions of Check King for various computers. I'm writing the screens out line by line, thank you. On the other hand, is it really a problem? Really?! Why is the price so low? Is the product any good? -------------------------------------------------- Shareware is paid for on the honor system. I have no way of knowing who is using Check King. Those who pay for it do so only because of their integrity. So, it's to my benefit to keep the price low enough to avoid tempting people of good will into disregarding their consciences. Also, Check King's price is low because my costs are low. My investment of time was large, but my investment of money is minimal. My costs consist of the mailing costs of sending out the Thank You diskette. (I've long ago given up on ever recovering the costs of my hardware and software. I find it consoling to think of them as hobbiest expenses.) You'll be the final judge of Check King's quality. I consider it the equal of any checking system I've seen at any price. A final observation on costs and perceptions. I can't help noticing that most people subconsciously value a product according to its price. I used to give away Check King to friends to receive feedback. They were always too busy to get around to even trying it out! Then, I began selling it. The paying customers I've heard from thus far both use and love it. The Moral: If you ever have a pet for which you need to find a good home, don't offer the pet for free. For the pet's sake, sell it! Page 36 Can I avoid reentering my payee list and check classifications whenever I open a new checking account? --------------------------------------- Yes. Create your new account just like you created your first account (See Making a Working Copy). Then, copy over to your new working copy the following files from your existing checking account: PAYEE.FIL CLASS.FIL Now, you are all set. You have a new checking account which recognizes the work you've already done to set up your payee file and your category files. I edited CHECK.FIL with my editor ________________ (insert name of some product or other) and made some changes by mistake. Now, check king comes up with errors. What can I do? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Uh?! Use your backup. If you don't have a backup, I can't help. The files of CHECK KING are in its own format. There is nothing to be gained by looking at them with your own editor -- including trade secrets. (I don't have any trade secrets.) If you change the CHECK KING files via your word processor or DEBUG or whatever, CHECK KING will probably not be able to process them properly. Page 37 How is this better than a spreadsheet? ------------------------------------- Few people have spreadsheets set up which make it easy to enter 40 characters of documentation with each check. Few worksheets provide context sensitive help. (Neither does Check King. It provides screen-sensitive help which, given the functional breakdown of the screens, is pretty close to context sensitive.) Few worksheets provide such easy and flexible inquiry ability as the Reports of Check King. Few worksheets work with you to solve your reconciliation problems. No worksheet has all the above advantages plus the ease of use provided by Check King. Check King, in the view of some, borders on fun due to the elegant simplicity of its interface. Its combination of power and ease of use make it almost enjoyable to "play" with your checkbook. My screen got garbled? What should I do? ----------------------------------------- First, please accept my apology. I thought I had all the screen garblers corralled, branded, and exterminated. Chances are that the screen, not your data, is all that is garbled. If the garbled screen has Help available from it, press <F1> to call up the Help. This causes the screen to be rewritten. Then, escape from the Help back to your original screen. If the garbled screen does not offer Help or if the above did not work, then you must return to the menu by pressing <F3>. Then, go back to the screen which was garbled. You should be back in business with no loss of data. If none of the above works, it may be that your computer configuration is not compatible with Check King or that your copy has gone bad. Try recreating your Check King disk from the original. If that doesn't work, send for your refund. Page 38 When is the next update and what will it contain? ------------------------------------------------ Check King contains over 8700 lines of code. The figure which pops up in the programming courses is that the average programmer can produce 10 debugged lines of code per day. Granted, that sounds extremely low at first blush. But, the point is that there is more to getting a working program than coding. The figure is so low because it throws out the lines of code which don't make it to the final product. It throws out the lines which didn't work or which were reworked. The figure is low because a good deal of time is spent in debugging, in documenting, in rewriting. And, when dealing with a new language such as ZBASIC was, a good deal of time is spent in working around bugs until one is finally able to get an upgrade. (When I was finally able to get one sent to me, the upgrade fixed the bugs which Zedcor never admitted were there --at least not to me! Companies should stop to consider that they might just be dealing with someone who is promoting their product for them. Before the stonewalling, I was singing the praises of ZBasic. Now, I am considering a switch to Quick Basic or Turbo Basic. I want a built-in full screen editor. Zedcor is promising one, but if Version 4 has bugs, will Zedcor again stonewall? Perhaps not. But, Zedcor's charge of $19.95 for a quarterly 19 page house organ is not a promising omen.) Well, to return to the question, the effort to produce Check King has already well exceeded one man year of spare time -- which translates into over eighteen month's of work. The fun left the project some time ago. Then, it became a compulsion rather than a challenge. Now, Check King is at a stage of completion where I can sell it with pride. It enters a crowded market and I am not about to invest a lot in its advertizing. So, I may sell close to none of these despite my efforts to ensure that it is a useful product of professional quality. Perhaps after all this preface, you'll understand why I have no intention of beginning work on an upgrade until I see my fiftieth paying customer. I simply need to get something back for my efforts in order to recharge my batteries. "When," then, is about three months after the fiftieth payment arrives. I can't make definitive promises on what will be in the upgrade. My current (preliminary) thoughts are: Page 39 - to add support for multiple checkbooks. - to provide the ability to see more than 20 classifications on the screen by adding a scrolling capability to the "Class" section of the Check Entry Screen and to the Classification Entry/Update Screen. - to expand Check King from a check accounting program into a financial planning package by adding at least one major new feature. (You'll like the one I have in mind as much as you like the reconcilement aides and the current flexibility of the reporting.) - to include, as a bonus, some small utilities and "for fun" programs with which I'll be amusing myself during my vacation from Check King. NOTE: IF I SELL ONLY 1 COPY OF CHECK KING, THAT ONE CUSTOMER WILL FIND ME MORE THAN WILLING TO FIX ANY BUGS WHICH MAY HAVE ESCAPED MY NETS. IT'S MY WILLINGNESS TO ADD NEW FEATURES -- NOT MY WILLINGNESS TO SUPPORT THE CURRENT CHECK KING -- WHICH HINGES UPON ACHIEVING A MINIMAL QUOTA OF SALES. I make a lot of cash withdrawals from an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Does this make Check King useless for me? ------------------------------------------------- Not at all. I am a heavy user of ATMs myself. About 1/3 of my transactions are ATM transactions. A cash withdrawal is essentially the same as a check -- both lower the balance of your checking account. So, what I do is simply to assign each cash withdrawal a number which my checks are not likely to use. For example, my checks are being written in the 2000 series now. So, I started a separate series for my ATM withdrawals in the 20 series. As long as I keep track of the next available check number for the ATM withdrawals, I'm all set. The point to keep in mind is that the available numbers for both checks and ATM withdrawals extends from 0001 to 9999. (Check King automatically assigns deposit numbers starting with 10000.) Page 40 How many checks can Check King handle? -------------------------------------- Check King can currently handle up to 1000 transactions. This limit will be expanded with the very next version. Check King handles amounts of less than $1,000,000 only. Those of you who deal in millions will have to buy a more expensive checking program. (Sorry!) Because the average user of Check King is unlikely to intentionally write a check exceeding $99,999.99, Check King artificially limits checks to that amount. It is advisable to open a fresh checking account every year. This will keep Check King's performance up and ensure that you will not overrun Check King's limits. Page 41 CHECK KING'S FILES All the following program files must be located in the current directory of the current drive for Check King to operate properly: CK.COM - The entry point to Check King. This module verifies whether the necessary files are present, shows the copyright screen, and transfers control to the main menu. CKMENU.CHN - The module responsible for showing the Check King Main Menu. CHECKENT.CHN - The Check Entry screens CHKUPDT.CHN - The Check Update screens DEPENT.CHN - The Deposit Entry screens DEPUPDT.CHN - The Deposit Update screens CHKREPTS.CHN - The Report Selection Criteria screens CKCLASS.CHN - The Classification Report screens CHKSOUT.CHN - The Outstanding Transaction report screens PAYEE.CHN - The Payee Entry/Update screens CLASS.CHN - The Classification Entry/Update screens CKRECON.CHN - The Bank Statement Reconciliation screens CKADJUST.CHN - The Balance Adjustment screens CKNEWNUM.CHN - The Check Number Adjustment Screen In addition to the program files, Check King maintains several data files. All the data files must share the same directory of the same drive. They may or may not also share the directory and drive of the program files. WARNING: All Check King's files are in the vanilla ZBasic condensed structure. They are tricky to decipher. Unless you're debugging a ZBasic program which has defied all other efforts to track down a bug, there is no need to bother. Any modification of the files from outside of Check King may make it impossible for Check King to recover your data correctly. So, if you want to look Page 42 directly at the files out of curiosity, go right ahead. BUT, be certain not to modify them from your word processor or editor. CHECKS.FIL - Contains all the checks and deposits. Also contains, as its first record, the checkbook balance and several control fields. All of Check King's files are in a vanilla ZBasic condensed structure. They are tricky to decipher. Unless you're debugging a ZBasic program which has defied all other efforts to track down a bug, there is no need to bother. PAYEE.FIL - Contains the payee list set up from the Payee Entry/Update screen. CLASS.FIL - Contains the classifications (or classes) set up via the Classification Entry/Update screen. ADJUST.FIL - Contains the interest payment and service charge amounts last entered from the Bank Statement Reconciliation screen. The data files do not exist on the distribution disk of Check King. They come into being when you first invoke Check King. Page 43 THE FUNCTION KEYS Check King is consistent in its use of the function keys. The pattern to notice is: F1 - HELP. Usually brings up a Help screen. On the last leg of the reconcilement screens, however, F1 shows an analysis of an out of balance condition -- another flavor of help. F3 - Used to return to the main menu. Any work done since the last press of F10 on the screen will be lost. ALT-F4 - This is used just on the Check Reconcilement screen to reverse the cleared indicators of every check shown on the screen. I purposely made this a bit awkward to minimize the risk of an unintentional clearing of all the checks. F7 - Page Back. Where there is more than one screen's worth of information, F7 pages back to the prior screen. If you are positioned on the first page of a series, F7 "wraps" around to the last page. F8 - Page Forward. Where there is more than one screen's worth of information, F8 pages forward to the next page. If you are positioned on the last page of a series, F8 "wraps" around to the first page. F10 - Process. Pressing F10 records the work which you've done on a screen. Page 44 REGISTERING CHECK KING Check King is a shareware product. Public Domain software is a gift to the public. Such software is, therefore, free. Shareware is NOT Public Domain software. It is, rather, software which is distributed on the honor system. Try it. Share it. If you don't find it useful, you have lost nothing. If, on the other hand, you do find it useful, then you are expected either to pay for it or to stop using it. The price of Check King is $15. It compares favorably with its $40 competetion but I pass on to you my savings on advertising and packaging. As a thank you to those with the integrity to register, I have prepared a Thank You Diskette consisting of my favorite Public Domain/Shareware programs and utilities. The good news about the Thank You Diskette is that it is packed with software and with tips. The bad news is that, as a person of integrity, you'll find on it still more software which you'll want to register. Registered owners will be informed of any upgrades to Check King and will be offered those upgrades at cost -- $3.00 as of this writing. (The $3.00 includes the diskette, the mailer, the postage, and a pittance for my time.) LEGALITIES Should you exercise reasonable care and judgment by regularly backing up Check King and by regularly reconciling to your bank statement, any program errors which may have made it past the extensive testing will have very little opportunity to do any serious damage. Regardless, Rickenbacker Software's liability for Check King will in no circumstances exceed its purchase price.