Cream of the Crop 1/Cream of the Crop 1.iso/BUSINESS/CMGR11.ARJ/CM.DOC

Text File | 1991-03-23 | 17KB | 410 lines

                          CASH MANAGER

                          User Manual
                          Version 1.1

          Copyright (c) 1990 INX Software Corporation
                      All rights reserved


This is a simplified documentation manual. A complete 90+ page user manual is
provided along with the latest version of the program to all REGISTERED users.
Please see the end of this manual on how to register your name. Registered users
are entitled to FREE technical support.

INX Software Corporation believes that the software furnished
herewith is accurate and reliable and much care has been taken in its
preparation. However, no responsibilities, financial or otherwise,
arising out of the use of this software will be assumed by the
publisher. There are no warranties, express or implied, regarding the
materials, their fitness for any purpose, their quality, merchantability
or otherwise.


Usage restrictions

The CASH MANAGER program is protected under United States
copyright law. It is illegal to modify, translate, decompile,
disassemble, or reverse-engineer this software into human-readable
form.
INTRODUCTION

Welcome to CASH MANAGER, the program that will simplify the
way you do your finances. Now you can automatically track your cash
and checking accounts, write and print checks and update your
monthly and annual budgets.

You can also reconcile your accounts with your bank statements, get
an instant picture of your net worth, track important dates and events
and print several informative reports.

CASH MANAGER is very easy to use and contains extensive On-Line
Help by simply pressing the F1 key at any time during your session.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

WHAT YOU NEED

The following equipment is required in order to use CASH
MANAGER.

    * IBM(R) PC(R), XT(R), AT(R) or 100% compatible computer

    * 640K memory

    * 80 column monochrome or color (CGA, EGA or VGA) monitor

    * DOS 2.1 or higher

    * 3-1/2" or 5-1/4" floppy disk drive or hard disk
      (Hard disk is strongly recommended)

    * Any Dot matrix printer (Optional)


IBM PC/XT/AT are trademarks of IBM Corporation.
                                                           Section 1

                                           WORKING WITH CASH MANAGER

Working with CASH MANAGER is very easy. A "session" starts as
soon as the Main Menu is displayed and can be as short or as long as
you desire. You interact with the computer through a series of screens.
You will use the Up, Down, PgUp or PgDn keys to move the
"highlight bar" to your choice and then use the INS, ENTER or DEL
keys to make your selection.

The available choices are summarized below. The following pages
explain in detail each of these choices.

BANKING

The Banking feature keeps track of your accounts, lets you write and
print checks, define payee names and addresses, reconcile all cleared
checks, print a check register etc.

BUDGETS

The Budget feature lets you set up a personal budget for a given time.
The budget is set up month by month and contains budgeted, actual
and variance totals.

NET WORTH

The Net Worth feature defines your assets(what you have) and your
liabilities(what you owe). A summary screen can be displayed that
highlights your total assets and liabilities and computes your net worth.

REMINDERS

The Reminder feature provides a quick method to keep track of
important dates and events coming up. By selecting this option, the
date, day of the week and number of days from today for a specific
event will be shown. Any number of events can be generated.

REPORTS

The Reports feature provides the capability to print various reports on
your line printer or, optionally to a disk file.

TAX CATEGORIES

The Tax Categories feature shows the various tax forms and schedules
for your federal income tax. When you set up budget accounts, you'll
select one of these forms to attach to that budget account. A report
showing how much money was spent for this tax category may
possibly simplify the filing of your income tax return.

QUIT

This option will quit the current CASH MANAGER session and return
you to DOS.

Don't worry about having to save any of the work you did during this
session as all updates are automatically saved for you as they are
entered.
MAIN MENU


When you start CASH MANAGER, this is the first screen you'll see.
From here you will choose the function that you want to do.

To select a function to do, press the Up or Down arrow keys to move
the selector bar to your choice, then press the ENTER key.

                                                           Section 2

                                                             BANKING

The Banking function is the place to track your various accounts such
as bank checking accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts,
etc. In short, any account you presently have can be defined here.

Another banking feature is check writing and check printing. Now you
can write any number of checks payable to whomever you wish and
print these checks on your printer. One of the many nice features of
CASH MANAGER is that writing a check can be as simple as entering
a check date. That's right, in many cases that's all you'll need to
enter. You see, recurring payments, that is, payments that you make
every month such as your rent or mortgage, car payment, utility
payment etc. can be set up so that CASH MANAGER "remembers"
them.

What's more, CASH MANAGER will check the payee information
every time you write a check. If this is the first time you are writing
a check to this payee, CASH MANAGER will "remember" this
information and save it for you so that the next time you write a check
for this payee, you won't have to re-enter all this information.

SHOW ACCOUNTS

This screen shows all of the accounts that you've defined in CASH
MANAGER along with the current balance in that account. These can
be Checking accounts, Savings accounts, Money markets, Brokerage
accounts, etc. In short, any account that you want to keep track of can
be set up here.

To create a new account

Press the INS key and the Account Update screen will be displayed.
(This screen is described on the next page).

To change an existing account

Use the Up or Down arrow keys to move the highlight bar to the
account you want to change then press the ENTER key.

To delete an existing account

Use the Up or Down arrow keys to move the highlight bar to the
account you want to delete, then press the DEL key.

WRITING CHECKS

When you select the Write-Checks option from the Banking menu, the
check register screen will be displayed showing the last 8 entries that
were made. Of course, all entries are available for viewing by pressing
the PgUp and PgDn keys to move backward or forward in the register.

SELECTING AN ACCOUNT

Before any checks can be displayed in the register, you must select an
account to work with. To select an account, press ENTER when the
highlight bar is on the Account field to display a list of defined
accounts, then use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight the
account to work with and press ENTER. The last 8 transactions for
this account will be displayed on the register. You can move through
the register by using the Up or Down arrow keys or the PgUp or
PgDn keys.  The available options are shown on the last 2 lines at the
bottom of the register.

WRITING NEW CHECKS

Press the INS key. A blank check will be displayed. Press the ENTER
key to move from field to field, filling in all information to complete
the check.

CHECK FORM

The check form looks just like a regular check that you use normally.
This form will be displayed whenever you make a selection on the
check register screen.

Check Date
The check date will default to today's date. To override this date,
simply enter a date of your choosing. If you make a mistake, press
ESC to start over.

Pay to the order of
Enter a payee name or press the F10 key to display a list of payees to
choose from. If you display a list of payees, move the highlight bar to
your choice and press ENTER. This choice will automatically be
transferred to the check form.

Amount
Enter a check amount. Enter dollars, a "." and cents.

Address
Enter the address for this payee. If you selected a payee name from the
pre-defined payees list, the address will be filled in for you (if it was
defined on the payee list). This field is optional.

For
Enter a memo for this check. This field is optional.

Budget Category
Enter the category to post this check amount to. If you do not know
the category to post to, press F9 to view a list of budget categories and
select a category from that list. This field is optional.
PRINTING CHECKS

CASH MANAGER can print on the printer, the checks that you have
written. Which checks to print is determined by you by the selection
of From and To dates. Shown below is the screen for printing checks.
You have the option to print Personal-size (small) or Business-size
(large) checks. See the examples of the check sizes in the appendix.

This screen is selected by choosing PRINT CHECKS on the Banking
menu.

You have to tell CASH MANAGER on which account to print the
checks. Since you may have several different accounts defined, you
don't want to print all outstanding checks on one set of check forms.
You would have several checks clearing one account when they were
written on a different account.
ALLOCATING TO BUDGET CATEGORIES

Whenever you write a check, you can allocate this amount to budget
categories. At the bottom of the check form is a field for posting this
check amount to one or more budget categories. The entry of this
information is optional and, if left blank, no allocation will be made.

The allocation may be made to one account or may be split between
several different accounts.

When the highlight bar is on the budget field, enter the budget
category to post this check amount to. If you do not know the
category, press the F9 key to display a list of budget categories. When
this list is displayed, move the highlight bar to the appropriate category
and press the ENTER key. The account will be automatically
transferred to the check and the check amount posted to that budget
category.
RECONCILIATION

In order to keep your accounts current, you'll need to verify that your
information matches that of the account holder. Since you will be
writing checks at various times throughout the month, your current
account balance will be different than what is shown on the monthly
statement that you receive from your bank. The reconciliation feature
will bring your check register up to date by clearing those checks that
have been paid.
                                                     Section 3

                                                       BUDGETS

This section will explain how to set up a budgeting system to make it
easy and clear to track your income and expenses. Several categories
are already set up for your use. You may, at any time, create any
number of new categories or change or delete existing categories. The
procedures to do the above are described here.

Remember that the budgeting function is for the most part fully
automatic. That is, every time you make a deposit into one of your
accounts, or write a check on an account, or make a manual
withdrawal, the Budget can be automatically updated if you supply the
appropriate category on the screen you are working on.

You can select to work with Income or Expense categories. Use the
Up or Down keys to move the highlight bar to your choice then press
the ENTER key.
                                                           Section 4

                                                           NET WORTH

CASH MANAGER can track your Net Worth by allowing you to
define all of your Assets and Liabilities. Use this feature to define all
of your Assets such as all bank accounts, cars, house, stocks etc. Also
define all your liabilities such as your mortgage, car loan, etc.

In addition, bank accounts and loan accounts(if defined correctly) will
be automatically updated whenever a deposit is made or a check is
written or other withdrawals are made from your accounts.

TIP: If you want to use the CASH MANAGER loan tracking feature,
be sure to define the loan description exactly the same in both the
Liabilities section here and in the Budgets section. This way, when you
are posting to a budget category, a liability category will be found and
automatically updated.

                                                           Section 5

                                                        REMINDER PAD

The reminder pad is similar to a notepad in that you can enter and
track important events and dates. Whenever you start CASH
MANAGER, it is a good idea to check the reminder pad for any
important events coming up.

Have you ever forgotten an important date because it was too far in the
future when you initially made the appointment? Now you can enter
those events here and never forget them again.

A report of reminders can also be printed on the printer. This is done
by selecting the REMINDERS function on the Reports menu.

Today's date is shown on the top left of the screen.

The event date, day of the week and days from today are shown in
addition to a 2 line description of the event.
                                                           Section 5

                                                      TAX CATEGORIES

This function defines all federal income tax forms and schedules to
which disbursements may be posted to. This may simplify your record
gathering when income tax filing time comes around.  All Income and
Expenses can be categorized into any one of these forms or schedules.

Of course, the accuracy of this information will depend on how you
define your categories.

Several of the most common forms and schedules are already defined
for you. However, you may make any number of changes or additions
to these forms.
                                                     Section 6

                                              PRINTING REPORTS

CASH MANAGER can produce a variety of reports. All of the reports
are described on the following pages including a sample of each.

The reports are selected from the Reports menu and can be printed on
the printer using regular 8-1/2" X 11" paper, or may be sent to a disk
file to be printed at a later time. Either way, you should generate the
reports on a regular basis to provide you with a hard copy of your
account status.

These reports use standard printers from regular dot matrix to the
various laser printers. No special setup steps are necessary.

Be sure that your printer is turned on and the On-Line light is lit
otherwise an error message will be displayed. If this happens, simply
ready the printer (make sure the On-Line light is on) and press (R)etry
when the error screen is displayed.
            CUSTOMER REGISTRATION CARD

Please fill out and return this registration card so that we can notify
you of future upgrades about this product. The cost to register is $29.00.

Date        :
Last Name   :                                 First Name:                 Init:
Company     :
Address     :
City        :                                 State:       Zip Code:
Daytime Phone Number: (     )

■  Make of computer:
■  Memory:     ■ 640K   ■ More than 640K       ■  Disk format ■ 5 1/4
■  Hard disk   ■ Yes    ■ No                                  ■ 3 1/2
■  I plan to use CASH MANAGER for  ■ Personal  ■ Business use

■  How did you learn about this product?
   ■ Advertising  ■ Review in publications ■ Recommended by friend
   ■ Recommended by dealer  ■ Recommended by accountant
   ■ Other

■  Where did you buy this product?
   ■ Computer/Software store  ■ Direct from INX Software
   ■ Mail order               ■ Department store
   ■ Other

Comments:

Please mail this completed form to:

                      INX Software Corporation
                      808 Cutter Lane
                      Elk Grove Village, IL. 60007-6913