$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ John MacEvoy's $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ C A S H T R A C $$$ $$$ (R) $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ Personal Finance Manager $$$ $$$ Version 7 $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ Column One, Inc. $$$ $$$ P.O. Box 2607 $$$ $$$ Gaithersburg, MD 20886 $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ Electronic Mail: 703-941-2386 or $$$ $$$ 703-941-5934 $$$ $$$ (24-Hour User Support) $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ Program Order Line: 301-948-9599 $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ ----====||====---- $$$ $$$ Sept. 1989 $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ Manual written by $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ John MacEvoy $$$ $$$ Lynn Gilley $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ Copyright (c) 1987, 1988, 1989 Column One, Inc. All rights reserved.$$$ $$$ $$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Page ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ________________________________________________________________________ 1.0 INTRODUCTION ................................................... 1 1.1 PLEASE READ THIS! ......................................... 1 1.2 VERSION 7 ENHANCEMENTS .................................... 1 1.3 GENERAL PROGRAM FEATURES .................................. 2 1.4 LICENSE ................................................... 2 1.4.1 Trademark [CashTrac(R)]................................... 3 1.5 WARRANTY AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: ..................... 3 1.5.1 Program Warranty ......................................... 3 1.5.2 Disk Warranty ........................................... 3 1.5.3 Limitation of Remedies ................................... 4 1.6 CUSTOMER SUPPORT .......................................... 4 1.6.1 Electronic Mail System ................................... 5 1.7 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS ..................................... 5 2.0 INITIAL OPERATION AND SETUP .................................... 7 2.1 CONVENTIONS ............................................... 7 2.2 GETTING STARTED ........................................... 7 2.2.1 Overview ................................................. 7 2.2.2 Hard Disk Installation ................................... 8 2.2.3 Floppy Disk Installation ................................. 9 2.2.4 Loading Sample Purchase Groups .......................... 10 2.3 RUNNING THE PROGRAM ...................................... 11 2.3.1 Starting CashTrac ....................................... 11 2.3.2 Key Assignments ......................................... 13 2.4 SETTING THE DEFAULT CONFIGURATION ........................ 14 2.4.1 Setting Default Values .................................. 14 2.4.2 Using Multiple Data Disks ............................... 18 2.5 CONVERTING OLD DATA TO NEW FORMAT ........................ 18 2.6 USING THE CASHTRAC MENU SCREEN ........................... 20 2.6.1 The Program Menu Structure .............................. 21 2.6.2 Menu Screen ............................................. 22 2.7 DATA ENTRY CONSIDERATIONS ................................ 23 2.7.1 Initial Housekeeping .................................... 23 2.8 THE HELP SCREENS ......................................... 25 2.9 THE CALCULATOR ........................................... 26 ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Page iii ________________________________________________________________________ 2.10 IDENTIFYING THE DATA DISK ................................ 27 3.0 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ......................................... 29 3.1 CHECKING ACCOUNT DESCRIPTION ............................. 29 3.1.1 Checking Account Description ............................ 29 3.1.2 Sub-, Super-, and Main Accounts ......................... 30 3.2 PURCHASE AND DEPOSIT GROUP NAMES ......................... 32 3.2.1 Adding New Purchase Group Names ......................... 33 3.2.2 Editing Purchase Group Names ............................ 34 3.2.3 Deleting Purchase Group Names ........................... 34 3.2.4 Inserting Purchase Group Names .......................... 34 3.2.5 Renumbering Purchase Groups ............................. 35 3.3 ENTERING NEW CHECKS, DEPOSITS, ETC. ...................... 36 3.3.1 Checking Transaction Types .............................. 36 3.3.2 Mandatory and Optional Data ............................. 37 3.3.3 Valid Data Values ....................................... 38 3.3.4 Entering Checking Data, General ......................... 39 3.3.5 Duplicating Entries ..................................... 40 3.3.6 Entering Memos .......................................... 40 3.3.7 Split Entries ........................................... 41 3.3.8 Selecting Checks For Printing ........................... 44 3.3.9 Sending Entries to Other SubAccounts .................... 44 3.3.10 Using the Credit Transaction ........................... 44 3.3.11 On-Screen Balance ...................................... 44 3.3.12 Setting Up Budgets ..................................... 45 3.3.13 Voiding Checks ......................................... 46 3.4 UNPAID BILLS ............................................. 46 3.4.1 Entering Unpaid Bills ................................... 46 3.4.2 Paying Unpaid Bills ..................................... 48 3.5 EDITING ENTRIES .......................................... 49 3.5.1 Searching for Checking Records .......................... 49 3.5.2 Browsing the Checking File .............................. 50 3.5.3 Deleting Entries ........................................ 50 3.5.4 Changing Checking Records ............................... 51 3.6 PRINTING REPORTS ......................................... 51 3.6.1 The Check Register Report ............................... 52 3.6.2 Account Activity Summary Report ......................... 55 3.6.3 Unpaid Bills Report ..................................... 55 3.6.4 Monthly Budget Summary Report ........................... 56 ________________________________________________________________________ Page iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ________________________________________________________________________ 3.6.5 Monthly Budget Details Report ........................... 57 3.6.6 Yearly Budget Summary Report ............................ 57 3.6.7 Yearly Budget Details Report ............................ 59 3.7 BALANCING THE CHECKING ACCOUNT ........................... 59 3.8 CHANGE ACTIVE CHECK ACCOUNT OR NAME ...................... 61 3.8.1 Change and Name Active Main Account ..................... 61 3.8.2 Add, Change, and Name SubAccounts ....................... 62 3.9 ORGANIZING (SORTING) CHECKING DATA ....................... 64 3.9.1 Organizing (Sorting) Checking Files ..................... 65 3.9.2 Organizing (Sorting) Unpaid Bills ....................... 66 3.10 THE CHECK WRITER ......................................... 66 3.10.1 Running the Check Writer ............................... 66 3.10.2 Setting the Default Configuration ...................... 67 3.10.3 Printing a Test Pattern ................................ 69 3.10.4 Printing Batches of Checks ............................. 70 3.10.5 Printing Selected Checks ............................... 70 3.11 MINIMUM BALANCE WARNING .................................. 70 4.0 THE INVESTMENT AND SAVINGS ACCOUNTS ........................... 72 4.1 ENTERING INVESTMENT DATA ................................. 72 4.1.1 Investment Account Names ................................ 72 4.1.2 Adding New Account Names ................................ 73 4.1.3 Changing Investment Account Names ....................... 73 4.1.4 Deleting Investment Account Names ....................... 73 4.1.5 Inserting Investment Account Names ...................... 74 4.1.6 Renumbering Investment Accounts ......................... 75 4.1.7 Investment Transaction Types ............................ 76 4.1.8 Mandatory and Optional Data ............................. 77 4.1.9 Valid Data Values ....................................... 77 4.1.10 Entering Investment Data, General ...................... 77 4.1.11 Savings Accounts ....................................... 79 4.1.12 Duplicating Entries .................................... 80 4.2 EDITING INVESTMENT ENTRIES ............................... 80 4.2.1 Browsing the Investment File ............................ 80 4.2.2 Deleting Entries ........................................ 80 4.2.3 Changing Investment Records ............................. 81 4.3 PRINTING INVESTMENT REPORTS .............................. 81 4.3.1 The Account Statement ................................... 81 4.3.2 The Account Activity Summary Report ..................... 82 4.3.3 Summary of All Accounts ................................. 83 4.4 ORGANIZE (SORT) INVESTMENT FILES ......................... 85 ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Page v ________________________________________________________________________ 5.0 PROGRAM UTILITIES ............................................. 86 5.1 IMPORT, EXPORT, TRANSFER & GRAPH DATA .................... 86 5.2 IMPORTING DATA ........................................... 86 5.2.1 Source File Format ...................................... 86 5.2.2 Import Data, Delimited Format ........................... 87 5.2.3 Import Data, Undelimited Format ......................... 87 5.2.4 Imported Data Value Table ............................... 88 5.2.5 Import Data Selection Screen ............................ 88 5.2.6 Importing Split Entries ................................. 89 5.2.7 Importing Memos ......................................... 89 5.3 EXPORTING DATA ........................................... 90 5.3.1 CashTrac Source Files ................................... 90 5.3.2 Export Data, Delimited Format ........................... 90 5.3.3 Export Data, Undelimited Format ......................... 90 5.3.4 Export Data Selection Screen ............................ 90 5.4 TRANSFERRING DATA ........................................ 91 5.5 GRAPHING ................................................. 93 5.5.1 The Graphing Setup Screen ............................... 94 5.5.2 Printing The Legend ..................................... 98 5.5.3 Graph Precision ......................................... 99 5.5.4 Miscellaneous Graph Notes ............................... 99 5.6 START NEW DATA DISK ...................................... 99 6.0 DOS PORTAL ................................................... 101 6.1 CHANGE DATA DRIVE (TEMPORARY) ........................... 101 6.2 DATA DISK DIRECTORY ..................................... 102 6.3 CHANGE SYSTEM DRIVE (TEMPORARY) ......................... 102 6.4 SYSTEM DISK DIRECTORY ................................... 102 6.5 EXECUTE DOS COMMANDS .................................... 102 7.0 TROUBLESHOOTING .............................................. 103 7.1 REPORTING PROBLEMS ...................................... 103 7.2 LEVELS OF ERROR MESSAGES ................................ 104 7.3 THIRD LEVEL ERRORS ...................................... 104 7.4 FOURTH LEVEL ERRORS ..................................... 106 7.5 MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS .................................. 107 7.5.1 Data Disappears ........................................ 107 7.5.2 Cursor Misbehaves ...................................... 107 7.5.3 Help Screens Won't Print ............................... 108 7.5.4 Checking Account Names Disappear ....................... 108 7.5.5 Erratic Operation ...................................... 108 7.5.6 Sort Message Will Not Clear ............................ 108 7.5.7 Parasitic Splits or Memos .............................. 109 7.5.8 Data Add Screen Balance Error .......................... 109 ________________________________________________________________________ Page vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ________________________________________________________________________ 8.0 MISCELLANEOUS ................................................ 110 8.1 CASHTRAC FILE DESCRIPTIONS .............................. 110 8.2 PROGRAM SPEED ........................................... 112 8.3 EXITING THE PROGRAM (QUITTING) .......................... 113 8.4 KEEPING BACKUPS ......................................... 113 8.5 MAKING ADDITIONAL DATA DISKS ............................ 114 8.6 A NOTE FROM THE PROGRAM AUTHOR .......................... 114 9.0 PROGRAM SPECIFICATIONS ....................................... 115 9.1 MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS ........................... 115 9.2 CHECKING ACCOUNT CAPABILITIES ........................... 115 9.3 INVESTMENT ACCOUNT CAPABILITIES ......................... 115 Index .............................................................. 116 CashTrac Order Form ................................................ 124 ________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Page 1 ________________________________________________________________________ 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 PLEASE READ THIS! CashTrac(R), version 7, is a major upgrade of CashTrac version 6 and the TELEWARE Personal Finance Manager, and accepts data entered using all prior CashTrac and Personal Finance Manager programs. Chapter 2 contains the necessary information to configure the program properly and begin operation and should be followed closely. Section 2.5 of this manual discusses how to automatically convert pre-version 7 data to the new version 7 format. This must be done before version 7 will recognize data from prior versions. Under some circumstances (using CashTrac with memory-resident utili- ties) the command SET CT7=123 must be added to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file otherwise Error 7 will result when running some CashTrac functions. See Section 2.2.1. Version 7 contains several new features including SubAccounts and Deposit Groups. These are explained in Section 3.0 which covers the Checking Accounts. If your program fails to run properly, we have found that most prob- lems are, in order of frequency, the result of failure to follow the setup instructions, program/disk damage in transit, or conflicts with memory-resident utility programs. Please refer to Troubleshooting, Sec- tion 7.0, for assistance. See Customer Support, Section 1.6 for information on how to get new copies of CashTrac from us. Because of page formatting differences, this manual has fewer pages than the CashTrac bound manual. The contents are identical, except for the graphics characters which can not be printed by many printers. Therefore, graphics lines have been replaced with dashes and plus (+) characters. 1.2 VERSION 7 ENHANCEMENTS * Single integrated menu screen. * User-selected currency sign. * User-selected date formats. * On-screen clock. * Optional form feeds after each printed report. * Put calculator total into data screens. * Additional budget reports. * Quick review of latest data entries. * Additional editing keys, including insert, delete and backspace. * Deposit Groups for checking accounts. * Sort all accounts from one option. * Save report selection options to macros. * Multiple printed check formats. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________________ * Checking SubAccounts for reporting multiple accounts at one time. Excellent for tracking multiple accounts with shared expenses or tracking rental properties. * Daily, weekly, bimonthly, monthly, quarterly, semiannual, etc., unpaid bill frequencies. * View balance in up to 255 checking accounts at one time. * Hot key for adding Purchase Groups or investment Account Names. * Change and delete functions are on one screen. 1.3 GENERAL PROGRAM FEATURES CashTrac is a flexible personal finance management program designed to keep investment and checking records in a familiar checkbook register format, not in spreadsheet or accounting ledger format. The general features of the program are: * Sixteen separate main Checking Accounts, each having 255 Checking Subaccounts, to record all checking account transactions including major cash purchases. Checking Accounts may also be assigned to track credit card purchases. * An Unpaid Bills function to store one-time-only, daily, weekly, etc., recurring bills and nag when they fall due. Bills are auto- matically debited from the checking account when paid. * An Investment and Savings account program that tracks and reports the performance of up to 255 separate investment accounts. * Flexible report features including tax-deductible purchase reports for any time period to cope with the IRS. * Monthly or "other" time period budget reports to show how much was spent in any of 255 user-defined budget and income categories (Purchase and Deposit Groups) such as food, computers, paycheck, etc. * Investment and Checking account bar-chart style graphing, in color, compatible with all monitor types, and capable of printing graphs to a printer or disk in a format compatible with most word processor text files. * A check printer capable of supporting any form-feed check style. * Data interface to send data to, and receive data from, most spreadsheet and data base programs. CashTrac-7 is fully compatible with data files made with past ver- sions. Data entered with pre-version 7 programs must be converted using the data conversion program provided. 1.4 LICENSE CashTrac version 7 is available only as a commercial program for ________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Page 3 ________________________________________________________________________ sale. A version 7 demo program is also available from Column One, Inc. (See the order form at the end of this manual.) Column One also dis- tributes a CashTrac shareware program (version 6) which is not subject to this license. Copying and use of CashTrac-7 is governed by state trade secret laws and U.S. patent and copyright statutes. Subject to those laws, users may copy CashTrac-7 for their personal use on a single computer. CashTrac-7 may not be modified or copied for use by other than the reg- istered owner without violating U.S. copyright law. CashTrac-7 is also subject to a pending U.S. patent application, therefore, the ideas set forth in this program may not be used without incurring possible future liability. This license does not include the right to make more than one copy for use on more than one computer at any one time unless purchasers abide by an express multiple copy agreement with Column One, Inc. Violation of the law may result in prosecution under Titles 17 and 35 of the U.S. Code and local trade secret acts. Column One will seek the maximum remedies permitted under the respective statutes. 1.4.1 Trademark CashTrac(R) is a federally registered trademark owned by John MacEvoy and licensed to Column One, Inc. John MacEvoy and Column One, Inc., have been distributing programs under the CashTrac trademark since July 1985. The name closely resembles that of a later program (CashTrack) issued by SubLogic Corp. There is no connection between the companies or the programs. 1.5 WARRANTY AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: 1.5.1 Program Warranty The CashTrac-7 computer program is provided AS IS with no warranties express or implied including the warranties of: M E R C H A N T A B I L I T Y and FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS AND YOU MAY ALSO HAVE OTHER RIGHTS WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE. 1.5.2 Disk Warranty Disks sold by Column One directly to purchasers are warranted to be free of defects for a period of 60 days from receipt of the disks by the purchaser. If the purchaser returns the defective disks to Column One within 60 days, the disk and CashTrac programs on that disk will be replaced free of charge. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 4 INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________________ 1.5.3 Limitation of Remedies Column One's entire liability and the purchaser's exclusive remedy shall be the replacement of any defective disks as specified in Section 1.5.2, Disk Warranty, above. If Column One is unable to deliver a disk free of material defects, the purchaser is entitled to a refund of the purchase price upon return of the defective materials, including any purchased manuals along with a signed statement that all copies of the program in the purchaser's pos- session have been destroyed. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS COLUMN ONE, INC., LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, LOST INCOME, OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR FAILURE OF CashTrac PROGRAMS, EVEN IF COLUMN ONE, INC., HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; THEREFORE THE ABOVE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF REMEDIES MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. 1.6 CUSTOMER SUPPORT CashTrac purchasers will be provided with: a. Program update notices whenever major program revisions are avail- able. (Users not responding to two consecutive mailings may be removed from the mailing list.) b. Program updates at a reduced cost. c. Replacement programs for those who either receive bad copies from third parties or somehow damage their only copy. Please contact Column One, Inc., for information on how to obtain a replacement disk. d. A fully-indexed spiral-bound manual or manual on disk (depending on the product ordered), complete with detailed examples. Users may write directly to the program author (John MacEvoy) in care of Column One, Inc., P.O. Box 2607, Gaithersburg, MD 20886 for detailed program information. Users may also receive customer support over the Column One voice line at 301-948-9599. No phone (voice) technical support will be pro- vided without a program serial (registration) number, found at the base of the column on the opening CashTrac screen. ________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Page 5 ________________________________________________________________________ 1.6.1 Electronic Mail System Column One maintains a 24-hour multi-line customer support electronic mail system (bulletin board system, or BBS) at 703-941-2386 or 703-941- 5934 for information exchange and distribution of shareware. CashTrac owners receive additional access time to the BBS. This is a 7-day-per- week computerized mail and file transfer service based on the excellent TCOMM BBS program written by The CommSoft Group. Callers may send mes- sages to, and receive messages from, the author or other users. a. There are several hundred shareware programs available from the BBS at the 703-941-5934 number only. This is a good source of inexpensive and hard-to-find software, and is open to all callers. b. When calling for the first time, registered users should leave a message to Lynn Gilley or John MacEvoy requesting a higher access level. Please also leave your program serial number (located in the base of the column on the CashTrac logo screen). c. The BBS recognizes callers by their first and last names. When calling for the first time, if no other caller has used your name, you will be asked to choose any password, and you will then be allowed access. If a caller has already used your name, the BBS will ask for an existing password. The BBS will disconnect after three failures to guess the right password. In this situation, hang up, call back, and use a variation of your name, i.e., by adding a middle initial, shortening the first name, etc. e. Electronic Mail System Communication Parameters: 300, 1200, or 2400 baud No parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit (IBM PC & compatibles) Even parity, 7 data bits, 1 stop bit (Non-compatibles) 1.7 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS CashTrac is designed to run on MS DOS computers with at least 384Kb RAM, either a color graphics or monochrome display, and DOS 2.1 or higher. Either two double density (362Kb) floppy disk drives, a single high density floppy disk drive (720K or more), or one floppy disk drive and a hard disk are necessary. Graphs will print on all types of monitors including monochrome. If your printer prints the complete IBM character set (the lines, boxes, and foreign language characters), it will support the MS DOS "extended ASCII" character set used to make the graphs. A good way to test your printer is to do a "print screen" (hold the shift key and press the PrtSc key) of a menu screen and see if it prints the lines at the top and bottom of the screen. If your printer prints letters in place of the lines, it may be possible to switch the printer's default character set, as on most dot matrix and laser printers (see the owners manual), ________________________________________________________________________ Page 6 INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________________ install an additional ROM chip (such as the OKIDATA Plug 'n Play module in older OKIDATA printers), or use a printing enhancement program. The user-supported Image Print program produces excellent letter quality characters on most dot matrix printers and will print the MS DOS charac- ter set needed for printing CashTrac graphs. Image Print is available from most shareware program distributors and bulletin boards. ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 7 ________________________________________________________________________ 2.0 INITIAL OPERATION AND SETUP |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | ****** CashTrac 7 ****** 8/3/89 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Checking Investment Utilities DOS Portal Setup Quit | | |--------------| | | | Set defaults | | | | Print Manual | | | | Reformat data| | | | Name disk | | | |--------------| | | | | | | | | | | Set colors, default drives, paths, currency, date format, accounts *SU* | | Hit first capital letter to choose . . . . . | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |I| | |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help| | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| 2.1 CONVENTIONS a. means "press the Return or the Enter key." b. Text to be typed, or text shown as it would appear on the screen, will be in This Typeface. c. F1 key refers to the single key marked F1, not to the F and 1 keys pressed sequentially. d. Alt-F10 means to hold the Alt key and strike the F10 key. Don't hold the F10 key! The same is true for Ctrl-F10 and Shift-F10. 2.2 GETTING STARTED 2.2.1 Overview The detailed procedure to setup and run CashTrac will be presented below. The following general steps will be required: a. Format system disks (floppy disk users) to receive the program. Low density (360K) floppy disk users will need three disks for the program and one for data. Medium density (720K) and high density (1 Meg) floppy disk users will need only one system disk and one data disk. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 8 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ Hard disk users will need a new subdirectory for the program and optionally another for data. This installation assumes that the program and data will be kept in the same directory. b. Copy files from the CashTrac distribution disks to the appropriate floppy disks or hard disk. c. Change the default drive or directory to the disk or directory containing the CashTrac program. d. Run CashTrac (using the CT7.BAT file provided) and set the initial configuration from the Setup option on the main menu. e. Users with existing CashTrac data (version 6 or earlier) should convert data to run with version 7 (see Section 2.5). 2.2.2 Hard Disk Installation a. If you do not have a subdirectory on your hard disk for the CashTrac program and data, use the MKDIR command (see your DOS manual for additional instructions on creating subdirectories) to create one. If you are already using an earlier version of CashTrac or the Teleware Personal Finance Manager, you may con- tinue to use the same subdirectory. If using version 6, the ver- sion 7 CashTrac program will copy over the old program, so be sure to keep a backup of your previous program until you verify that the new program operates on your computer. If necessary to make a new subdirectory named FINANCE, from the DOS prompt type: MKDIR C:\FINANCE Do not bury CashTrac data in subdirectories below subdirectories, i.e., C:\FINANCE\DATA\FILES. This slows down data access speeds and program operation for CashTrac and any other database program. b. Put each of the CashTrac distribution disks in either the A: or B: floppy disk drive and copy all CashTrac files from the CashTrac distribution diskettes (System Disks) to your selected sub- directory. Assuming your subdirectory name on the hard disk is FINANCE, then the correct command to copy files from the A: floppy drive to the FINANCE subdirectory is: COPY A:*.* C:\FINANCE Refer to your DOS manual if you need additional instructions regarding file copying. The following files should be copied to your hard disk: ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 9 ________________________________________________________________________ CASHTRAC.EXE CASHTRAC.HLP CT7.BAT SETUPCT7.OVL UTILCT7.OVL CHEKFORM.CFM 7GROUP1.DAT 7GROUP2.DAT 7SUBNM1.DAT Proceed to Section 2.2.4. 2.2.3 Floppy Disk Installation Users having data drives capable of storing 720K or more may copy all program files to a single system disk rather than three system disks and may ignore the instructions pertaining to making three system disks. Users ordering 3.5 inch CashTrac disks will receive only 1 disk rather than the 2 disks discussed below. Users ordering 5.25 inch disks with the bound manual will receive two CashTrac system disks. Users ordering 5.25 disks without the bound manual will receive two system disks and one CashTrac documentation disk. a. Format four new disks as working system disks using the FORMAT command without the /S. (See your DOS manual for details on using the FORMAT command.) Label these working disks SYSTEM DISK 1, MAIN PROGRAM; SYSTEM DISK 2, CONFIGURATION PROGRAM; SYSTEM DISK 3, UTILITIES PROGRAM; and DATA DISK. The /S option puts a copy of DOS on each of the system disks and allows the disks to be used as "boot" disks, but insufficient space remains to put the necessary files on system disk 1. As a result, the computer must be booted with a DOS disk prior to running CashTrac from system disk 1. Note: The following steps assume that your machine is turned on, has been "booted" from your DOS diskette, and the default drive is the A: drive, i.e., the prompt is currently A>. b. Put the CashTrac distribution disk (from Column One) marked SYSTEM DISK 1 in drive A:. Put the newly formatted working disk marked SYSTEM DISK 1 in drive B:. (Users ordering 3.5 inch disks will have only a single distribution disk and should copy all files to a single newly formatted SYSTEM DISK rather than to three disks as discussed below for low density floppy disks.) c. Copy, using the DOS COPY command, the following files from CashTrac distribution system disk 1 to the newly formatted system working disk 1: CASHTRAC.EXE CASHTRAC.HLP CT7.BAT ________________________________________________________________________ Page 10 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ d. Also copy CASHTRAC.HLP to your newly formatted system disks 2 and 3. CASHTRAC.HLP must be on all your system disks. e. Replace the CashTrac distribution system disk 1 in drive A: with CashTrac distribution system disk 2. Copy the file SETUPCT7.OVL from drive A: to your newly formatted system working disk 2. f. Copy the file UTILCT7.OVL from the CashTrac distribution disk 2 in drive A: to your newly formatted system working disk 3. g. Place your newly formatted data disk in drive B: and copy the fol- lowing files from the CashTrac distribution system disk 2: CHEKFORM.CFM 7GROUP1.DAT 7GROUP2.DAT 7SUBNM1.DAT h. Put your DOS disk in drive A: and copy the file COMMAND.COM from the DOS disk to each of the three system disks, alternately placed in drive B:. i. The following files should now be on your three system disks: SYSTEM DISK 1: COMMAND.COM CASHTRAC.EXE CASHTRAC.HLP CT7.BAT SYSTEM DISK 2: COMMAND.COM SETUPCT7.OVL CASHTRAC.HLP SYSTEM DISK 3: COMMAND.COM UTILCT7.OVL CASHTRAC.HLP DATA DISK: CHEKFORM.CFM 7GROUP1.DAT 7GROUP2.DAT 7SUBNM1.DAT 2.2.4 Loading Sample Purchase Groups There are two sample Purchase Group files (7GROUP1.DAT and 7GROUP2.DAT) on the CashTrac distribution system disks. (Chapter 3 dis- cusses Purchase Groups in more detail.) If you do not want to use the sample Purchase Groups (they are recommended, and may be altered or removed later if you would like to make your own personal files), delete these files from your working data disk or hard disk subdirectory using the DOS DEL command: ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 11 ________________________________________________________________________ DEL 7GROUP*.DAT If these files are left on the data disk they will automatically be superseded for users converting older, version 6 data. Put the original CashTrac distribution disks in a safe place. They should not be used unless your newly created working disks become damaged or the program begins to behave erratically for no reason. Sys- tem disks 1, 2 and 3 (or the hard disk) are now your new working disks. +---------------------------------------------+ | DO NOT WRITE PROTECT YOUR NEW SYSTEM DISKS! | | (Error 54 will result.) | +---------------------------------------------+ 2.3 RUNNING THE PROGRAM 2.3.1 Starting CashTrac a. Floppy disk users, make sure that System Disk 1 is in drive A: and the new data disk is in drive B:. Hard disk users, make sure C:\FINANCE (or the appropriate name if you selected a different subdirectory name) is the default sub- directory. Users with CashTrac or Personal Finance Manager data from versions prior to version 7 should back up their current data on a floppy disk or another subdirectory prior to proceeding. Note: For floppy disks, CASHTRAC.EXE, CASHTRAC.HLP (the help file), CT7.BAT and COMMAND.COM must reside on System Disk 1; SETUPCT7.OVL, CASHTRAC.HLP and COMMAND.COM must reside on System Disk 2; and UTILCT7.OVL, CASHTRAC.HLP, and COMMAND.COM must reside on System disk 3 for the program to function properly. For hard disks, all these files except COMMAND.COM must reside on the CashTrac system subdirectory. b. Type CT7 to run CashTrac. This runs a short batch program, CT7.BAT, that loads a command called SET CT7=123 into the DOS environment and then runs the CashTrac program. If you have memory-resident utility programs that are loaded prior to CashTrac (we do not recommend doing so), the CT7.BAT file may cause an out of memory error. If this happens, either remove the memory-resident utility program from your AUTOEXEC.BAT or put the command SET CT7=123 as the first line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Do not leave extra spaces in the command, for example, SET CT7 = 123. Next, run CashTrac from the CashTrac directory or A: drive by typing CASHTRAC. Do not use the CT7 batch file command. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 12 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ CashTrac uses fast screen printing that bypasses normal DOS screen printing routines. Some computers may not be able to cope with the fast printing, in which case the first screen will have a mes- sage in the upper left corner instructing you to press Esc twice and then exit. If this occurs, start CashTrac with the command: CT7 D (to use the batch file provided), or CASHTRAC D (to run CashTrac directly). This uses the (much slower) standard DOS screen printing. c. If CashTrac can not find the CT7=123 instruction an error message will state "Improper CashTrac Installation." Make sure you are either using the CT7 batch file to run CashTrac, or you have modified your AUTOEXEC.BAT file as described above. If the prob- lem cannot be corrected, exit to DOS, type SET CT7=123 and then run CashTrac by typing CASHTRAC. The program will operate prop- erly for the remainder of the session. d. Initially, CashTrac will not be able to find the configuration file (CONFIG.CT7) and will display a message to that effect. Ignore the message and continue by pressing any key. The CON- FIG.CT7 file will be created by following the steps below. e. The opening screen will display the Column One address, phone num- bers, etc., and will have a serial number in the base of the column. This serial number is embedded in the program, cannot be removed by most mortals without damaging the program, and is reg- istered to the legal owner. When calling Column One for assistance, please provide this serial number. The help screens should now function by pressing F1. If they do not display, refer to Troubleshooting, Chapter 7. Press any key to go to the menu screen. The following section describes cursor controls and general data input information that will be necessary to set the configuration. Please review this section and then proceed with the installation in Section 2.4. ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 13 ________________________________________________________________________ 2.3.2 Key Assignments The key assignments are as follows: Keypad +--------------------+ | 7 | 8 | 9 | | Home | (up) | PgUp | |------+------+------| | 4 | 5 | 6 | |(left)| |(rght)| |------+------+------| | 1 | 2 | 3 | | End |(down)| PgDn | +--------------------+ * Cursor up moves up one field or to the right if there is no field to move up to. * Cursor down moves down one field or left if there is no field to move down to. * Cursor left/right moves one character to the left/right. * Ctrl-right arrow moves one field to the right. * Ctrl-left arrow moves one field to the left. * Tab is the same as Ctrl-right. * The Enter (return) key moves to the next field in the program sequence, which is usually down or to the right. Pressing Enter on the last field enters all data on the screen and starts the data validation and data entry process. * The End key enters the screenful of data and begins the data vali- dation process, regardless of the cursor position. This function is also provided by the F9 key. * The Ins key controls the data entry mode as either overwrite or insert. Its status is indicated by the cursor size and an I or O at the lower left corner of the screen. * The Del key deletes the character at the cursor and moves data to the left to fill the empty position. * The Esc key exits the current screen and moves to the previous screen without acting on any commands given in the current screen. * The Backspace key deletes the character to the left of the cursor and moves data left to fill the empty position. Function keys: * F1 calls the context-specific Help screens. Use PgUp and PgDn to scroll through the help screens for a single topic. * F2 calls the calculator. Esc returns to the current screen. X returns to the current screen and puts the Total in the current field. * F3 scrolls Purchase Groups and investment accounts, when dis- played. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 14 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ * F4 shows all checking SubAccounts within a main account, with balances and associated data. * F5 shows main checking account names. * F6 views the last 10 checking or investment entries (the "did I enter that yet?" screen). * F8 opens a window for Purchase Group or investment Account Name addition; allows adding Groups or Account Names from within the data entry screen. * F9 serves as a GO key, i.e., executes the same function as the End key. * F10 displays free main memory, string and stack space. Main memory is memory available for entry of more data, and shrinks as your files grow larger. Use the Transfer option to shrink data files before running out of memory. Stack space is of interest to programmers and is your computer's scratch pad. If it gets too small (around 100 bytes) there's a problem (probably a memory- resident utility interfering with CashTrac operation). String space is also of interest to programmers and indicates how much memory is available to CashTrac for storing variables. * Function keys F7, F11 and F12 are not used; however, Shift-F7 is used. 2.4 SETTING THE DEFAULT CONFIGURATION This step sets the default colors (or highlighting and underlining for monochrome and composite monitors), tells CashTrac where to find its system and data files, sets the printer port and specifies other default selections. At this point the CashTrac menu screen should be displayed. Press S for the Setup menu (or cursor over to the menu). Floppy disk users must press S for Set defaults, then put system working disk 2 in drive A:. The setup program should load. If it does not, do a system disk directory from the DOS Portal and verify that SETUPCT7.OVL is on your default disk. If it is not, repeat the installation to copy SET- UPCT7.OVL to your working system disk 2 or your hard disk system sub- directory. 2.4.1 Setting Default Values Use the Setup option to set the default (startup) configuration for the folowing items. a. Color: The color selection screen should now be displayed. Back- ground color numbers are listed across the top of the color table. Foreground color numbers appear within the table against the back- ground. Monochrome and composite monitors will work well with the default colors, i.e., you do not need to change the default selections ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 15 ________________________________________________________________________ provided. Suggested colors for color monitors are provided immediately to the right of the default (monochrome) values and must be entered into the color data entry fields for the color values to take effect. Experiment or press the End key to con- tinue to the next screen. Numbers not in the color table for background are not accepted. Foreground colors having values up to 31 are accepted, however these values may cause underlining or flashing screens on your monitor. If a foreground and background are both assigned the same color value, black and white will be substituted. b. System drive and path: Choose the disk and subdirectory where the CashTrac program is stored. Hard disk users: Make the C: (or appropriate) drive the default system drive and the directory containing CASHTRAC.EXE and the other system files the default system subdirectory. If the sub- directory is named FINANCE, the entry would be: C:\FINANCE Floppy disk users: Set the system disk directory to the name of the drive containing CASHTRAC.EXE, i.e., A: or B:. c. Data drive and path: Choose the disk and subdirectory where the CashTrac data will be stored. Hard disk users: The data directory may be the same as or dif- ferent from the system directory. If different, follow the same naming conventions as for the system directory. CashTrac should be run with the system directory as the DOS default unless multi- ple data subdirectories are being used. Floppy disk users: Set the data disk directory to the name of the drive containing the CashTrac data files, also A: or B:. High density floppy disk users may put data and system files on one disk or a separate disk. d. Printer port: This should be 1 unless your printer is connected to an alternate printer port. Users with serial port connected printers should refer to the DOS MODE command for redirecting printer output. e. Checking account: Main account number 1 should be selected unless a different main account is normally used. f. SubAccount: SubAccount 1 should be selected unless a different SubAccount is normally used. g. Screen write mode: CashTrac will write in the normal, but very slow, DOS screen write mode (D), a very fast mode (F) or a snow- ________________________________________________________________________ Page 16 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ less mode (S) that is almost as fast as F but doesn't put static on the screen when writing. Use F unless snow results. Use D when running under windowing or multitasking programs where the CashTrac screen output needs to be controlled by the operating system. If the screen goes blank because F or S will not work with your computer, reboot, erase the CONFIG.CT7 file (on your system disk or subdirectory) and redo the configuration. h. Date mode: Select 0 for MM/DD/YY, 1 for DD/MM/YY, or 2 for YY/MM/DD formats. All data entry and output will be appropriately converted. i. Type of currency: Enter the ASCII code for the desired currency symbol. Any ASCII code (or extended ASCII code for the MS-DOS character set) greater than 32 will be accepted. A few commonly used symbols are: Symbol ASCII Code $ 36 F 70 (Pound) 156 (Yen) 157 Refer to your DOS or BASIC manual for the ASCII codes for addi- tional characters, or while in DOS, hold the Alt key and type a number from 32 to 255 on the keypad. Release the Alt key to dis- play the MS DOS character for that ASCII code. j. Display time of day: Controls a clock on the menu screen. Select Y or N to turn the clock on or off. k. Form feed: Select Y to send a form feed to the printer at the end of each report to eject the page. If the printer is not set to the top-of-form when switched on, the page may eject to the middle of the next page. See your printer manual for the proper method of setting your printer to top-of-form; it involves more than rolling the drum to the top of the page. l. Start in insert or overwrite mode: Select an I to start the CashTrac screen editor in the insert mode (marked by an I at the lower left corner of the menu screen during operation). Select an O to start in the overwrite mode (marked by an O on the menu screen). The mode may be temporarily changed at any time by pressing the Ins key. m. Press the End key to save the configuration on System disk 1 or the hard disk. The configuration file is named CONFIG.CT7. It resides on the system floppy disk, or DOS default directory for hard disks. Saving the CONFIG.CT7 file to the DOS default directory, and hav- ing CashTrac read the CONFIG.CT7 file from the DOS default direc- ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 17 ________________________________________________________________________ tory (rather than the CashTrac system directory) permits CashTrac to be run from any subdirectory containing CashTrac data by put- ting a CONFIG.CT7 file on that subdirectory and putting the CashTrac system subdirectory on the DOS PATH. See Using Multiple Data Disks, below. Floppy disk users must also copy CONFIG.CT7 from system working disk 2 to system working disks 1 and 3, otherwise the configura- tion will not be found when CASHTRAC.EXE loads. This requires returning to the main menu and selecting the DOS Portal Execute DOS commands option. This opens a DOS window and allows CON- FIG.CT7 to be copied from system working disk 2 to the other sys- tem working disks. Type Exit to return to CashTrac. +---------------------------------------------+ | FLOPPY DISK USERS SHOULD NEVER CHANGE | | SYSTEM DISKS WITHOUT BEING AT THE MAIN | | MENU. FAILURE TO FOLLOW THIS RULE COULD | | CAUSE DOS TO CLOSE FILES ON THE WRONG DISK | | OR RUIN THE DIRECTORY. | +---------------------------------------------+ ________________________________________________________________________ Page 18 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ 2.4.2 Using Multiple Data Disks CashTrac will store data on an unlimited number of data disks or sub- directories. There are several ways to run CashTrac with more than one data disk or subdirectory. One of the following methods may work best for you: a. Floppy disk users, keep each data set on a separate disk. When changing disks, always return to the main menu and select New data disk from the Utilities menu. Load the new disk and continue to run the program. Assign a name to each (disk) data set using the Name disk option on the Setup menu (see Identifying the Data Disk, below). b. Hard disk users, keep each data set in a separate data sub- directory. Use the Name disk option to identify each data set by name (subdirectory). Change data subdirectories using the DOS Portal. A second method for hard disk users is to: - From DOS, copy the existing configuration file (CONFIG.CT7) from the CashTrac system drive to the existing data directory. - Run CashTrac in the normal manner. - Do a new configuration naming the new directory as the default data directory. - Exit to DOS when done saving the new configuration. - Copy the new configuration from the DOS default directory to the new data directory. - Put the CashTrac system directory on your DOS PATH (see your DOS manual for additional information on the PATH command). - In the future, change directories to the appropriate CashTrac data directory and type CT7 to run the CT7.BAT file on the CashTrac system directory, which is not on the DOS PATH. - CashTrac will look to the DOS default directory to find CON- FIG.CT7, will find it on your data directory, and will load the appropriate set of default parameters for that data direc- tory. Each data directory must have its own CONFIG.CT7 file naming itself as the data subdirectory and naming a common CashTrac sys- tem directory. 2.5 CONVERTING OLD DATA TO NEW FORMAT Data stored with versions of Personal Finance Manager or CashTrac prior to version 7 must be converted to the new CashTrac format prior to use in CashTrac-7. This is done with the Reformat data option on the Setup menu. First time users may skip to Section 2.7. Version 6 data will be unaffected by the conversion which merely expands the sizes and numbers of the fields available to accept data. Blank fields are added to each record for entry of additional data and ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 19 ________________________________________________________________________ large numbers are converted from their present format to a national standard format, compatible with more software languages. Data entered with versions prior to 6, i.e., 5 or less, will have some transaction types altered to accommodate new usage. All cRedits in the old checking accounts will be converted to Deposits assigned to Pur- chase Group 0 (zero). This has no effect on your account balance because both transaction types were performing the same purpose. How- ever, because there is no Purchase Group 0, when one of these transac- tions is edited, it must be assigned to a valid Purchase or Deposit Group, otherwise the change will not be accepted. The function of the cRedit transaction in CashTrac versions 6 and 7 is different than it was in prior versions. Please refer to Section 3.3, Entering New Checks, Deposits, etc., for a detailed explanation. The next check number on the data entry screen will be 2781. Reset it to whatever your correct check number should be. Because cRedits and Deposits are now assigned to Deposit Groups (or Purchase Groups), if these records are edited and error will result unless a valid Purchase or Deposit Group number is assigned. All Rollover dividend/Interest transactions in the old Investment File will be converted to Interest (reinvested) transactions in the new file. a. Prior to running this option, make a backup of your existing data. You should always keep data backups during normal operation anyway. Never rely on one floppy or hard disk copy of data whether running CashTrac or any other program. Disks fail and there are some nasty DOS bugs known to eat disk directories. Once a disk failure occurs (Error 72), CashTrac can not read or recover the data. b. Initial conditions: 1. Old CashTrac data should exist on any hard disk subdirectory (C:\FINANCE, for example) or floppy disk. Adequate space must exist on the floppy or subdirectory for the new data. New data files will require a bit more space than the old files. Files may be split up among several disks and converted in groups if necessary. 2. The A: drive is the default for floppies or C:\FINANCE is the default for hard disks. FINANCE is being used for example pur- poses. Any valid name may be used. c. Floppy disk users, put the new blank data disk in drive B: and put the backup of the old data in drive A:. d. Select Reformat data on the Setup menu. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 20 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ e. Select the drive\path containing the old data. This would be A: (floppy disks) or C:\FINANCE (hard disks), where FINANCE is the name of the data subdirectory. f. Select the drive\path to hold the new data. This would be B: (floppies) or C:\FINANCE (hard disks). g. Select the version of the CashTrac or Teleware Personal Finance Manager program used to create the old data files. For example, version 5.15 or 5.12 data would be 5, version 6.03 would be 6. h. Press the End key to begin the process. If errors occur, such as running out of disk space, the process may be repeated as many times as necessary by splitting up data files among more than one disk. Old data is not erased. New files are created having the same names as the old data files but preceded by a 7 (example: 6CHECK1.DAT becomes 7CHECK1.DAT). i. Go to the checking menu and run an Account Activity Summary report to reset the on-screen balance to the correct value. Eventually, you may erase the old data, but not until verifying that the conversion process worked. This completes the configuration. Floppy disk users, remember to put a copy of CONFIG.CT7 on System Disks 1, 2 and 3 if you have not yet done so. 2.6 USING THE CASHTRAC MENU SCREEN CashTrac comprises three programs, linked together by the menu screen. Each program is loaded when the appropriate menu option is selected. The menu option help line, displayed at the bottom of the screen for each highlighted menu option, has a symbol at the end that indicates which program must be in memory to run the option. If the program is not in memory, the menu subroutine loads and runs the pro- gram. On the help line, ANY indicates that the option is available from any of the three programs; CT indicates that CASHTRAC.EXE must loaded; SU indicates that SETUPCT7.OVL must be loaded; and UT indicates that UTILCT7.OVL must be loaded to run the selected option. Each program takes a short time to load, with machines using floppy disks taking the longest time. If ERROR 7 OUT OF MEMORY occurs while running a program from the menu, the CT7.BAT file is not being used or the SET CT7=123 command was improperly installed. See the beginning of Chapter 2 for installation procedures. If a program is not found, change disks to one having the program and try again. ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 21 ________________________________________________________________________ +------------------------------------------+ | Make sure each system disk has a con- | | figuration file (CONFIG.CT7) when | | running CashTrac from multiple disks, | | otherwise CashTrac will revert | | to its default configuration when running| | programs on the second disk. | +------------------------------------------+ 2.6.1 The Program Menu Structure: All CashTrac menus are available on the single menu screen. Menus are selected by using the cursor to move left or right, or by pressing the key corresponding to the first capital letter in the menu name. Menu options are selected by using the cursor to move up or down to the option and then pressing the Enter, End or F9 keys, or by pressing the key corresponding to the first capital letter of the option name. Each menu option has a help line at the bottom of the screen that describes the purpose of the option. A two-letter symbol at the end of the help line explains which program will be loaded to run the option, as explained in Section 2.6. Help screens (F1) do not switch to the selected option until the option is actually run. The remainder of this manual will discuss each of the menu options in detail. +------------------------------------------+ | Use the Esc key or Quit option to jump | | from lower menus to higher menus. | +------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------+ | Floppy diskers| When going from program | | to program via menu selections, CashTrac | | will attempt to find the requested pro- | | gram on the current system disk. If the | | program is not on the disk, a disk change | | will be requested. | +-------------------------------------------+ ________________________________________________________________________ Page 22 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ 2.6.2 Menu Screen The menu screen, shown schematically below, contains useful data other than menus. |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |(Name 1) ****** CashTrac 7 ****** (Time) (Date)| | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Checking Investment Utilities DOS Portal Setup Quit | | |-----------| | | | Add data | | | | Edit data | | | | Reports | | | | Balance | | | | Pay bills | | | | . | | | | . | |--------------------------|| | |-----------| | Pay bills warning window || | |--------------------------|| | Help line describing selected option and the program needed to run option.| | Hit first capital letter to choose . . . . . | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |I|(Data Drive\Subdirectory)|(Messages & Names) |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help| | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| Fields in parentheses in the menu screen above represent information that will eventually be filled in as described below. Name 1, on the screen above, changes depending on the current menu or function. When the checking menu or a checking function is active, Name 1 is the name of the current SubAccount (checking account). See Section 3.1 for SubAccount name information. At all other times, Name 1 is the name assigned to identify the data disk\subdirectory. (See Identifying the Data Disk, below.) At least one SubAccount must be named within the main account for a name to appear here. Time is the time of day and is turned on or off from the Setup menu, Set defaults option. Date is the system date taken from the computer's clock and must be set properly prior to starting CashTrac. If incorrect, use the DOS Por- tal to quickly exit to DOS, reset the clock, and return to CashTrac without reloading the program. The Pay bills warning window indicates (1) that unpaid bills must be paid, and (2) the main checking account number that contains the bills. A bill for a given main checking account may only be paid while that main checking account is active. Bills will be paid only for the cur- rent SubAccount unless multiple SubAccounts (called SuperAccounts) are selected with the pay bills option. ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 23 ________________________________________________________________________ The Insert/Overwrite window (the I or O in the lower left corner) indicates that the insert or overwrite edit mode has been selected. This is controlled by the Ins key or from the Set defaults option. Data Drive\Subdirectory is the drive and path currently in effect, that is, the one selected during configuration or temporarily changed from the DOS Portal menu. Messages & Names shows either the current main checking account name when in the menu screen, or error messages and prompts that warn of invalid data or when to press the Enter (or End) key to continue. 2.7 DATA ENTRY CONSIDERATIONS Most numeric entries should be positive. Do not enter negative num- bers unless specified by the documentation (Open Balance transactions, some split transactions as explained in the documentation). Checks, deposits, etc., are all entered with positive money amounts and CashTrac determines whether to add or subtract the amounts based on the transac- tion type. Do not use punctuation other than a decimal point in numeric entries. The following examples show valid and invalid entries and the actual data stored by the program: Screen Entry Data as stored 10001.01 10001.01 $10001.01 0.00 10,001.01 10.00 10 1.01 101.01 CashTrac reads up to the first non-numeric character, hence the 0.00 after the $ sign, and the 10 prior to the comma. In the last example, CashTrac puts the two valid amounts together because no invalid charac- ter separates them. Data entries are validated when the End or F9 key is pressed or when the (Enter key) is pressed on the last data field. If an error is discovered, an error message will appear at the bottom of the screen and the cursor will return to the field in error. Correct the error and continue. If the first key pressed when entering data in a field is a cur- sor/edit key, the field data will remain on the screen for editing. If the first key is a number, character or punctuation, the field will automatically clear. Any data initially highlighted by the cursor will be taken as data for that field. 2.7.1 Initial Housekeeping a. Name the data disk: (See "Identifying the Data Disk," below.) CashTrac is capable of storing accounts on an unlimited number of ________________________________________________________________________ Page 24 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ data disks or directories as described in Section 2.4.2. The name assigned to the data files will appear at the top right corner of most screens. The name will not appear when in the Checking menu or a checking account function, in which case the name of the active SubAccount will appear in this location. Whatever you write in this field will be the name that appears while that data disk or subdirectory is in use. For example, one of our disks is called "Column One, Inc." because it holds nothing but business data. Another is called "Personal Accounts." Whenever either of these disks is loaded, the appropriate name prints on the menu screens. b. Name the Main Checking Account: CashTrac can group similar accounts (SubAccounts) together within a main checking account file. This is discussed in more detail in Sections 3.1 and 3.8. A name should be assigned to the main checking account, usually account number 1, from the Checking menu, New account, Main Account-change and rename option. This name will appear in the center window at the bottom of the menu screen. c. Name the Checking SubAccount: Checking account data for a single account is assigned to a SubAccount within a main checking account file, as discussed in Section 3.8.2. Unless specified otherwise, data automatically goes to SubAccount 1. Name the SubAccount from the Checking menu, New account, SubAccount-change and rename option. When in a checking account function, this name will appear at the upper left corner of most screens. Failure to enter at least the above three names could result in odd information being displayed in the indicated locations. This will be corrected when the names are entered. d. Identify Purchase and Deposit Groups: This is discussed in detail in Section 3.2. If you are a new user and did not load the sample Purchase Group files during installation, at least one Group must be added prior to entering checking data. All entries must be assigned to either a Purchase or Deposit Group. During data entry, new Groups may be added by pressing the F8 key to open a Group-add window. CashTrac stores checking expenditures in budget or expenditure categories called "Purchase Groups" such as food, clothing, tele- phone, mortgage, MasterCard, etc. Some Purchase Groups may be reserved as Deposit Groups for categorizing deposits and credits. Your disk comes with two sets of sample Purchase/Deposit Groups (7GROUP1.DAT and 7GROUP2.DAT). The Groups in main Checking Account one apply to personal expenses. The Groups in main Check- ing Account two apply to business accounts and follow Schedule C of IRS form 1040. You may add, change, delete, or insert new Groups if you like, or even delete the entire Group files or move them to other accounts. See the Purchase Group Names function, Section 3.2. ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 25 ________________________________________________________________________ If you converted data from an older version of CashTrac, the sample Purchase Group files were most likely overwritten by the converted data and will not appear in your program. e. Identify Investment Account Names: Investments are stored by Investment Account Names which must exist prior to entering investment data. See Section 4.1.1 for detailed information about entering names. Names may be entered during investment data entry by using the F8 key to open an add-name window. Examples of investment Account Names are "Money Market Account," or "Boesky Fund, Ltd." Essentially, whatever you'd like to add to identify an account is acceptable. 2.8 THE HELP SCREENS In addition to the option-specific help lines on the menu screen, CashTrac has context-specific help screens available for most functions and report screens. Help is called from anywhere in the program by pressing the F1 key. Use PgUp and PgDn to page through multiple help screens, where provided. To exit the help screens, press the Esc key. A blank help screen or error message indicates that the help file is missing from the disk or chosen subdirectory. The help file (named CASHTRAC.HLP) must be on the same disk and sub- directory as the operating program, i.e., CASHTRAC.EXE, SETUPCT7.OVL, or UTILCT7.OVL. If experiencing difficulties, recopy the help file from your CashTrac distribution system disk 1 to all system working disks (1, 2 and 3) or hard disk. Be sure the current system disk and subdirectory are the same as the location of the help files. This can be checked from the DOS Portal. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 26 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ 2.9 THE CALCULATOR +-------------------------------+ | CALCULATOR | | | | INPUT: __________________ | | | | (+ - / * =) | | | | TOTAL: __________________ | | | | MEMORY: __________________ | | | | A clear All |S store + mem.| | M clear Memory |N store - mem.| | T clear Total |I store * mem.| | C Change sign |V store / mem.| | D set Decimal |R Recall mem. | | Q sQuare root |E Exponent | | X eXit and put |Esc to exit | | | | Error messages | | | +-------------------------------+ CashTrac has a resident six-function calculator with memory, which is called by pressing the F2 key. The calculator has instructions on its face that are also listed below. It performs chain calculations in the format of standard cal- culators, i.e., 1+1=2, not in a "reverse Polish" (Hewlett Packard) format, 1 ENTER 2 +. The Input line is where numbers entered from the keyboard are dis- played. Characters and punctuation other than a decimal point are ignored. The Total line displays final or intermediate totals, etc. The Memory line displays the contents of the calculator's memory. Press A to clear the Input, Total, and Memory lines. Press M to clear the Memory. Press T to clear the Total. Press C to change the sign, i.e., *, of the Input. Press D to change the number of decimal places displayed, from 0 to 9. Changing the displayed decimal places does not affect the precision of the stored number. To take the square root of a number, enter the number on the Input line and press Q . Press X to exit the calculator and put the Total into the last active field in use. The amount will be truncated to fit in the field, if necessary, reducing the precision accordingly. ________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP Page 27 ________________________________________________________________________ Press S to add the Total to the Memory. Press N to subtract the Total from the Memory. Press I to multiply the Memory by the Total. Press V to divide the Memory by the Total. Press N to subtract the Total from the contents of Memory. Press R to recall the Memory to the Input. Press E to raise the Total to the exponent of the Input. Press Esc to exit to the main program. Use the edit keys to clear the Input. If numbers become too large to display, the display shifts to scientific notation. For example, the number 2.1D+4 is 21000 or 2.1 x 104. The D indicates 10 raised to the power of the following number (+4). Example: To add 123, 456, 789, and 987, then multiply by 11, press the following keys: F2 (calls calculator) 123 + 456 + 789 + 987 * 11 = To subtract 321 from the above result, enter: - 321 = To raise 64 to the .1 power, clear the calculator and input: 64 + .1 E (the + moves the 64 to the Total). Press Esc to return to normal operation. 2.10 IDENTIFYING THE DATA DISK Select this option from the Program Utilities menu. The data disk name provided from this option displays at the top left corner of most menus and serves to identify the current data disk being processed. When in the Checking menu, the name of the active SubAccount prints at the top left corner of the menu screen rather than the name of the data files/disk. If the name is missing, probably the first SubAccount has not been named (from the Checking - Name account - SubAccount - Add menu). When a screen, such as data entry, applies only to a Checking Account function, the data disk name is replaced by the active Checking SubAccount name. To identify the data disk, you may use any name you like such as your own, or a separate name for each data disk or subdirectory. Naming each set of disk files prevents confusion if you have several different copies of CashTrac data in use at any one time. When changing data disks, ALWAYS use the New disk option to close the old data files before using the new disk. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 28 INITIAL OPERATION & SETUP ________________________________________________________________________ Intentionally Blank ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 29 ________________________________________________________________________ 3.0 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | SubAccount One ****** CashTrac 7 ****** 12:45 8/3/89 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Checking Investment Utilities DOS Portal Setup Quit | | |-----------| | | | Add data | | | | Edit data | | | | Reports | | | | Balance | | | | Pay bills | | | | . | | | | . | |-------------------------|| | |-----------| | Pay Bills, Account 1, 2 || | |-------------------------|| | | | Add checks, deposits, unpaid bills, etc., to the checking account. |CT| | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |I|C:\DATA | Main Account One |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help| | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| 3.1 CHECKING ACCOUNT DESCRIPTION 3.1.1 Checking Account Description General Features: a. Keeps a running list of all checks, deposits, withdrawals, and interest in your account, as in a conventional check register. Transactions may be split into an unlimited number of subtransac- tions called split entries, or just splits. b. Keeps a record of major cash purchases and budget limits, should you decide to enter them. Cash purchases (as opposed to checks) are recorded in the Checking Account, but do not affect the account balance. These expenditures are available to the Detailed and Summary report programs and, along with the record of checks, provide an accurate description of what was spent in each Purchase Group. c. Maintains a list of Unpaid Bills that may be one time only or periodically recurring. A warning signals when bills are due. When paid, bills are automatically removed from the Unpaid Bills file and placed in the Checking Account. The due date on periodic recurring bills is automatically updated and the bill is re-entered in the Unpaid Bills file. One-time-only bills are deleted. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 30 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ Over 4000 separate Checking Accounts may be operated on one disk or subdirectory. Also, there is no practical limit to the amount of data disks or subdirectories that may be used with the program. 3.1.2 Sub-, Super-, and Main Accounts CashTrac has 16 main checking account files (1-16). Each main check- ing account file can have up to 255 SubAccounts. Each SubAccount is treated as a separate checking account, but may be grouped with other SubAccounts in the same main checking account for report, graphing, global update, etc., purposes. A grouping of SubAccounts is called a SuperAccount, and any five or All SubAccounts may be included in a SuperAccount group. SubAccounts may be completely ignored and CashTrac will operate as if it has 16 checking accounts. The only extra work that must be done is to name the first SubAccount in the main account, otherwise most check- ing function screens will have no name in the upper left corner. Beyond that, SubAccounts require no additional consideration unless used. If the SubAccount feature is not used, name one SubAccount in the main account. The SubAccount and main account names may be the same or dif- ferent. Think of a main checking account as a file of SubAccounts. Sub- Accounts are individual checking accounts for which you would have a single check register. Why use multiple SubAccounts within a main checking account? First, every SubAccount within a main account shares the same Purchase/Deposit Groups. Second, related SubAccounts may be grouped together for reports. That means that personal accounts can be kept within one main checking account and share personal Purchase Groups, and business related accounts can be kept in a second main account and share business Purchase Groups. Reports and graphs can be run for all personal expenses and income across all personal SubAccounts because of the com- mon Groups, and the same holds true for business accounts. When should multiple SubAccounts be used within a main checking account? We'll explain by way of example. a. You and your spouse each have a separate checking account, but you share expenses and would like to be able to see what your total expenditures are on certain items from time to time. Take a main checking account and name it (using the New account, Main Account option) Personal Checking. Again using the New Account option, add a new SubAccount as First Account and a second SubAccount as Second Account. The names are just examples and may be anything your choose, but the First Account is one of the checking accounts and the Second Account is the other account. b. Continuing the first example, you have a business with three checking accounts (or three businesses with one account--the ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 31 ________________________________________________________________________ important thing is that each account is business related and can share the same Purchase/Deposit Groups). A second main account should be labeled Business Checking. Select this second account from the New account, Main Account options, and enter a SubAccount name for each of the three business accounts, using the New Account - SubAccount options. c. In a new example, you and your spouse have a single, personal checking account, but each has a separate checkbook and check reg- ister. Both of you write checks on the same account. Treat each checkbook as a SubAccount, as described in example 1. When balancing, paying bills, reporting, etc., join both SubAccounts into a SuperAccount, as described below, to view activity in the actual (bank) account. The fact that two series of check numbers are being used concurrently will not affect CashTrac. d. You run a department with a staff of 100 sales(wo)men, each having an expense account, and each having the same expense categories which are used as CashTrac Purchase Groups. As in the above exam- ples, select one main checking account as Sales Expenses. Assign each salesperson to one SubAccount. To report on the department's meal expenses, print reports using a SuperAccount of All Sub- Accounts. To report on one person's meal expenses, use the Sub- Account for that person. Another feature of SubAccounts is the capability of globally updating, with a single entry, all SubAccounts within a main account. In the sales example above, one deposit could be used to update each of the 100 SubAccounts automatically. e. You own several rental properties and need to track expenses for each property as a separate account, but from time to time need to report total expenditures in specific areas, or total rental income for all or groups of properties. Keep each property in a separate SubAccount in a single main account labeled Rental Properties. In each of the above examples, the common factor among SubAccounts is sharing Purchase Groups to support common reports of grouped accounts. If Purchase Groups are not identical among accounts, the best bet is to start a new main checking account. In all cases, the first checking account in a main checking account file is assigned to SubAccount one, regardless of whether multiple SubAccounts are used, so always name the first SubAccount from the New account - SubAccount - Add account option. Otherwise, no name (or stange characters) will print in the upper left corner of the menu screen when switching between main accounts. SubAccounts are contained within main accounts. To access a Sub- Account in main account 2, main account 2 must first be selected as the active main account from the New account menu, then SubAccount 2 must be selected from the New account menu. If you commonly use the same main and sub account, they may be permanently selected as the default accounts from the Set defaults option. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 32 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ +-----------------------------------------------+ | Once a main and SubAccount are selected, | | ALL TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING CHECKING ACCOUNTS | | APPLY ONLY TO THOSE ACCOUNTS unless you | | specify otherwise. | +-----------------------------------------------+ For example, if main checking account #3 is selected as the active main checking account: a. The Checking Account Organize (sort) routine operates on all Sub- Accounts within main account #3. The Organize routine has an option permitting any or all of the 16 main accounts to be sorted. However, if only one main account is selected, only that main account and its SubAccounts are sorted. b. Adding, Changing, or Deleting, etc., Purchase Groups only affects the Purchase Groups associated with main account #3. All Sub- Accounts within main account #3 are also affected. c. Adding, Changing, or Deleting Checking Account records only affects main account #3, but more than one SubAccount may optionally be selected for data entry. d. Printed reports will only select data from main account #3 and the selected SubAccount, although additional SubAccounts may be grouped together for reporting. e. For each of the functions listed above, the name of the active checking SubAccount will print at the upper left of each menu screen, rather than the data disk name. If no SubAccount has been named, no name will print. If odd-looking characters print at the upper left of the menu screen, name the active SubAccount and also name the data disk (data set) from the Setup menu. f. The Minimum Balance Warning applies only to main account #3, i.e., it may be set to a different value for each account. g. Only Unpaid Bills for main account #3 and the default SubAccount will be called for payment. The unpaid bills warning will only indicate the main account having due bills. To pay bills for all SubAccounts within the current main account, All SubAccounts must be selected on the pay bills screen. 3.2 PURCHASE AND DEPOSIT GROUP NAMES Use the Group names option on the checking menu for adding, deleting, etc., Purchase and Deposit Groups. (Use the Investment names option on the Investment menu to do equally wonderful things to investment account names.) ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 33 ________________________________________________________________________ The menu and input screen functions are essentially self explanatory. Purchase Groups are the same as budget categories such as food, clo- thing, insurance, gasoline, etc. Deposit Groups are budget categories for deposits, such as paychecks, rental income, tax returns, etc. All transactions, i.e., checks, deposits, withdrawals, etc., must be assigned to either a Purchase or Deposit Group. +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | A Deposit Group is a Purchase Group having a carat (^) as | | its first character. All Purchase Group Add, Edit, Insert, | | etc., are also the Deposit Group functions. | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ Typically, only income will be assigned to a Deposit Group and only expenditures will be assigned to a Purchase Group. When budget reports are printed, the reported numbers will make the most sense if this rule is followed. However, expenditures may be assigned to Deposit Groups and deposits may be assigned to Purchase Groups. 3.2.1 Adding New Purchase Group Names Select the Add new name option from the Group Names menu. See Sec- tion 3.2 above for instructions on how to get to this menu. New names can be entered during checking data entry by hitting the F8 key without leaving the data entry screen. Press Enter, End or F9 to save the data, then press Esc to return to checking data entry when done adding names. You may enter up to 255 different Purchase or Deposit Groups (for each main Checking Account). Purchase and Deposit Groups are entered only for the active Checking Account. Thus all SubAccounts in main account #1 may have one set of Purchase Groups, all SubAccounts in main account #2 may have a different set, and so on. To copy one set of Pur- chase and Deposit Groups to more than one main account without retyping them, do the following: a. Enter all the Purchase and Deposit Groups for one main account. b. Exit the program to the operating system (DOS). This can be done without terminating CashTrac by using the Execute DOS commands option on the DOS Portal. c. Copy the Purchase Groups from the first file into the second by using the DOS COPY command. For example, to copy the Purchase Groups from main checking account #4 to main checking account #3, type: COPY 7GROUP4.DAT 7GROUP3.DAT The two Purchase Group files will now be duplicates because DOS wrote the contents of the Group file for main account 4 (7GROUP4.DAT) over the contents of the Group file for main account 3 (7GROUP3.DAT). ________________________________________________________________________ Page 34 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ d. Return to operating CashTrac. If using the DOS Portal, type EXIT to return to CashTrac. 3.2.2 Editing Purchase Group Names Select the Edit names option from the Group names menu. See Section 3.2 for instructions on how to get to this menu. CashTrac will request the number of the Group name to be changed. (Use the F3 key to scroll through the list.) To exit without making any changes, press Esc. Otherwise, enter the number of the Group and press End to call the name to the screen. Change the name and press End to store the change. Press End again to continue editing another name or press Esc to quit. 3.2.3 Deleting Purchase Group Names Select the Edit names option from the Group names menu. See Section 3.2 above for instructions on how to get to this menu. +----------------------------------------------------+ | This feature not only deletes the name of a Group, | | IT ALSO DELETES ALL DATA IN THE ACTIVE CHECKING | | ACCOUNT ASSIGNED TO THAT GROUP! Please be careful.| +----------------------------------------------------+ If only the Group name is to be deleted and not the records assigned to the Group, renumber the records (using the Renumber option on the Group names menu) to an empty Group prior to deleting the name. To delete a Group and all associated data in the checking account (including all SubAccounts in the main checking account), select a Group for editing, as described in Section above. In response to the question "Delete this Group Name . . . ?" answer Y. CashTrac will give one opportunity to cancel the deletion request. To quit without delet- ing, press Esc. To delete the Group and all data in the main checking account (including all SubAccounts in the main account), press the End key. 3.2.4 Inserting Purchase Group Names Select the Insert name option from the Group names menu. See Section 3.2 for instructions on how to get to this menu. Enter the number of the location in the Group file where the name will be inserted. For example, to insert a new Group between existing Groups 7 and 8, select Group 8 here. The inserted name will be Group number 8, and the old Group 8 will be Group 9. The other Groups will also be renumbered as necessary. All checking data records in Groups numbered less than the inserted name will be unaffected. All data records in Groups or accounts numbered the same as or higher than the ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 35 ________________________________________________________________________ inserted name will be renumbered, i.e., reassigned to new Groups as appropriate. NOTE: a. In macro files for reports or graphing, the graphing and report options relating to Groups will not be renumbered. b. Old data stored in another file on the same or another disk (see Transfer), will not be renumbered. If you renumber the Groups on your active disk\subdirectory, you should also renumber "archive" files to correspond to the changes. Should it be necessary to transfer data back to the active file in the future for process- ing, this will keep the Group names straight. Similarly, new data from the active file added to the archive file will not be added to the wrong Group. 3.2.5 Renumbering Purchase Groups Select the Renumber option from the Group names menu. See Section 3.2 for instructions on how to get to this menu. This is another feature to be used with care! The Renumber option changes the Purchase Group number of all checking data in all Sub- Accounts in the active main account assigned to one Group to a new Group number. Example: Groups 1 (food), 2 (rent) and 3 (electricity) exist and have data assigned to each. To alphabetize the list, a new Group called electricity is created prior to Group 1 by using the Insert name option. There are now two Groups named electricity. The newly inserted one at Group 1 (which is empty), and the existing elec- tricity Group now assigned to Group 4. Data assigned to Group 1 (food) has been assigned to Group 2 (the new food Group, which was bumped down one when the new Group 1 was inserted), data formerly in Group 2 (rent) is now in Group 3 (the newly bumped down rent Group) and data formerly in Group 3 (electricity) is now in Group 4 (the newly bumped down electricity Group). Group 1 (also named elec- tricity) is empty. Now use the Renumber option to change data in Group 4 [Old number] to Group 1 [New number]. Data in Group 4 will be transferred to Group 1. Finally, use the Edit names option to delete the empty Group 4. Caution: If Groups 1 through 3 exist and have data assigned to them, and data in Group 3 is renumbered to belong to Group 1, then all Group 3 and 1 data will now belong to Group 1. It will not be pos- sible to reverse the process and renumber the new Group 1 data back to Group 3 while leaving the old Group 1 data unchanged because CashTrac won't be able to differentiate between new Group 1 data (formerly Group 3) and old Group 1 data. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 36 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ +-------------------------------------------------+ | If you unintentionally renumber data from one | | Group to have the same number as existing data | | in another Group, it is difficult to renumber | | back again because both sets of data have the | | same Group number. | +-------------------------------------------------+ Solutions (to inadvertently combining Groups): a. The Hard Way: Use the appropriate Edit routine and change each record, one at a time. b. The Easier Way: Do not sort (organize) the file! If the records to be changed back are all in the same time frame or range of records, and none of the older records having the same Group num- ber are intermixed with the record being changed, use the Transfer function on the Utilities menu to copy the records to be changed to a new file, and delete them in the old file. Renumber them in the new file to what they should be, then transfer them back. 3.3 ENTERING NEW CHECKS, DEPOSITS, ETC. Select the Add data option on the checking account menu to display the data input screen for the checking account. Listed below are the kinds of transactions that may be entered and when to use them. Follow- ing them is a list of mandatory and optional data associated with each transaction. 3.3.1 Checking Transaction Types a. Budget: There are actually two budget transactions--monthly and yearly. Monthly budgets have no effect on yearly budget reports, and vice versa. Please refer to the budgets explanation Section, 3.3.12, for more details. b. Checks: Use a Check transaction to record a check written on the account. c. Deposits: Use a Deposit transaction to record a deposit to the account. In prior CashTrac versions, Deposits could be general, to the entire account. Starting with version 7, Deposits must be assigned to either a Purchase or Deposit Group (preferably a Deposit Group). d. Interest: Use this transaction for interest credited to your account. e. Opening Balance: (Called "Open" on the data entry screen). Use this transaction to record the opening balance for an account. It will not be treated as a deposit or a withdrawal in reports. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 37 ________________________________________________________________________ f. cash Purchases: Use this transaction for major purchases where a check was not written but a record of the purchase is desired. Cash Purchases do not affect the balance of the checking account. g. cRedits: The cRedit is the opposite of a cash Purchase and is used to negate the effect of a cash Purchase. Use a cRedit trans- action when you pay for an item and then return it. The cRedit will correct the total expenditures for the appropriate Purchase Group. The cRedit may also be used for cash back in split deposit entries (discussed in more detail in an example below). In CashTrac version 5.15 the cRedit was a deposit to the account, but assignable to a Purchase Group. This is no longer true, and the cRedit has no effect on the account balance. h. Skip: When paying bills, use this feature to skip payment of a bill and go on to the next bill. The skipped bill is unaffected and will return to haunt you until you pay or delete it. i. Unpaid Bills: Unpaid bills are explained in Section 3.4. They are automatic, recurring reminders to pay bills, and automatically enter data into the Checking Account. Also use Unpaid Bills as a file of standard, pre-filled-out checks. j. Withdrawals: Use this transaction for removing money from the account when no check is written. Automatic payments, service charges, ordinary withdrawals, and automatic teller transactions fall into this category. Identify them, if necessary, with a note in the "To:" field. 3.3.2 Mandatory and Optional Data The table below shows for each transaction type (Check, Deposit, etc.) whether a particular field (Check number, date, etc.) is mandatory (m), optional (o), or ignored (i). ________________________________________________________________________ Page 38 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Deposit + + Interest | | cRedit + | | + cash Purchase | | Check + | | | | + Unpaid Bill | | Budget + | | | | | | + Withdrawal | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Check Number i m i i i i i i | | Date m m m m m m m m | | To o o o o o o o o | | Amount o o o o o o o o | | Tax Deduction * o o o o o * o | | Purchase Group m m m m m m m m | | Account m m m m m m m m | | Duplicate o o o o o o o o | | Enter Memo i o o o o o i o | | Split Entry i o i o i i i o | | Write Check i o i i i i i i | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ * For Budgets this field switches to M(onthly) or Y(early); For Unpaid Bills: N(non-recurring), D (daily), W (weekly), B (bimonthly--twice a month), M (monthly), Q (quarterly), S (semi- annual), Y (yearly), # (multiples of years, 1-9). It is mandatory for these transactions. 3.3.3 Valid Data Values The data in mandatory fields is validated against the acceptable values in the table below. If faced with invalid optional data, CashTrac chooses the default value shown in the following table. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Minimum | Maximum | Default | | | Value | Value | Value | |-----------------+-------------+----------------+--------------| | Check Number: | 1 | 999,999 | Note 1 | | Date: | 1/1/20 | 12/31/99 | Note 1 | | To: | | | Blank | | Amount: | .0001 | 9,999,999.99 | Notes 1, 2 | | Tax Deduction: | | | "N" | | Purchase Group: | 1 | Note 3 | Note 1 | | SubAccount: | 1 | Note 4 | Notes | | Duplicate? | | | "N" | | Enter Memo? | | | "N" | | Split Entry? | | | "N" | | Write Check? | | | "N" | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Note 1: There is no default value other than the value appearing on the screen. CashTrac will not continue until a valid amount is entered. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 39 ________________________________________________________________________ Note 2: The amount may be negative for Opening Balance transactions. Negative balances, however, are to be avoided for most situations. The amount may be zero, such as for voiding checks. Note 3: A Purchase/Deposit Group number may not exceed the number of existing Purchase Groups. Use the F8 key to enter Purchase/Deposit Groups during checking data entry. Note 4: A SubAccount number may not exceed the number of existing Sub- Accounts for the current main checking account. Up to five valid Sub- Account numbers may be selected, or All SubAccounts, to globally update the selected SubAccounts using one data entry transaction. Use F4 to view the existing SubAccounts and balances. 3.3.4 Entering Checking Data, General To enter an example check from the Checking Data Entry screen: a. Type a C after Entry Type. Notice the prompt at the bottom of the screen. Press the Enter, End or F9 key. Each key works equally well here. b. Leave the check number as it is, or type a new number, then use the cursor keys to go to the date field. c. The date field starts off at the system date in your computer, but remembers the last date that's entered. Enter a valid date (or leave the existing date), such as 12/31/89, and "cursor down" to the "To:" field. +-------------------------------------------------+ | A post-dated transaction is accepted, but gives | | a warning message--normally it will not print on| | reports unless the report end date is extended. | +-------------------------------------------------| d. Enter the "payee" for the check, or any short memo desired. If the check will be printed on the printer later, then confine this entry to the payee. For check printing and addressing window envelopes, a 65-character multi-line memo may be added with addi- tional information such as an address. e. Enter the dollar amount. Remember to follow the general data entry rules--no punctuation (other than a decimal) and no negative values except for opening balances or some split transactions, as will be discussed below. f. Enter a Y if this check is for a tax deductible item. The check register report can be configured to print tax deduction reports when this field is filled in. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 40 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ g. Pick a Purchase Group number from the list at the bottom of the screen. To see additional Groups not shown on the screen (if any), press F3. h. The number of the current SubAccount is displayed in the last of the five SubAccount fields. To update a different SubAccount or multiple SubAccounts simultaneously, enter the numbers of the accounts (or All for all SubAccounts). i. Each of the remaining options will be discussed below. To keep this example simple, press the End or F9 key to enter the data. This bypasses the need to enter any data in the remaining four fields. Had the Enter key been pressed, the cursor would have stopped at each field. Pressing the End key completed this entry and updated the Account Balance figure by the check amount. +-----------------------------------------------+ | The Account Activity Summary Report resets | | the checking account balance figure. | +-----------------------------------------------+ To view the last 10 entries made to the checking account, press the F6 key. This feature answers the age old question, "Did I enter that yet?" 3.3.5 Duplicating Entries The Duplicate field at the upper right prevents the screen from clearing between transactions and permits entry of a chain of similar or identical transactions. Be careful! There will be data left on the screen other than the expected defaults. Enter a Y in this field to activate the duplicate function. The duplicate function is very useful for (1) making the same or similar entries repetitiously, or (2) sending similar transactions to more than one SubAccount. For example, you withdraw a sum from Sub- Account 1 and deposit it in SubAccount 2. Use the duplicate function to leave the entire transaction on the screen after the withdrawal is entered. Now change the W to a D, and SubAccount 1 to SubAccount 2, and reenter the transaction by pressing the End key. To enter identical transactions in more than one SubAccount, use the multiple SubAccount addition feature by specifying more than one SubAccount number (or ALL) in the SubAccount field. 3.3.6 Entering Memos A 65-character memo may be entered for every "main" transaction (as opposed to a split, discussed below). To do so, enter a Y in the Enter Memo field at the upper right. At the end of data entry for the current record, a "window" will open to receive the memo. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 41 ________________________________________________________________________ Memos print in reports and on checks. Sometimes it's desirable for a memo to do one or the other but not both, therefore: A memo having an "at" sign (@) as its first character will print in the Unpaid Bills reports and will print on checks, but will not print on other reports. This way an address may be added to a recurring bill, such as a mortgage payment, and the address will print on the check, but will not clutter the other reports. However, it will be entered into the check register and can then be modified to be visible or may be deleted using the Edit option. A memo whose first character is a caret (^) will print in reports, but not on checks. Sometimes it's desirable to have a memo show up in reports, but not print on checks. All other memos print both in reports and on checks. A backslash (\) in a memo causes the text following the backslash to print on a new line when printing checks. Therefore an entire address may be put into a memo. For example, "P.O. Box 2607\Gaithersburg, MD 20886" will print on the check as: P.O. Box 2607 Gaithersburg, MD 20886 Other reports will be unaffected. 3.3.7 Split Entries Checks, deposits, and withdrawals may be split into an unlimited, i.e., until you run out of disk space number of subentries. For exam- ple, you have 2 checks to deposit: $100 and $200. You want to make one bank deposit, but want CashTrac to separately log the identity of each check within the single deposit. Assume the first is a state tax refund, and the other is a rebate on your new car, and finally, you want $25 cash back when you make the deposit (note that this $25 is not being deposited and returned, but is being paid prior to making the deposit). CashTrac permits the deposit to be entered as three splits and a main entry. To enter the example deposit: a. Starting at the Checking Data Entry screen, enter D as the "Entry Type," then press the End key. b. Enter a date, and a remark in the "To:" field. An appropriate entry may be that this is a "split" deposit. Typically we enter <> as the main entry. c. Skip the "Amount" field. Any amount entered will be discarded when the split option is activated. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 42 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ d. Deposits must be assigned to Purchase or Deposit Groups for reporting purposes, but CashTrac does not double-enter the main deposit record and the split entry even though both are recorded in the account. Since each deposit entry must be assigned to a Deposit Group, it is necessary to create a Deposit Group for miscellaneous deposits. When making a split deposit, assign the main record to miscel- laneous deposits Group and the split deposits to their specific Deposit Groups. e. To simplify this example, do not change the "SubAccount," "Duplicate," or "Memo" fields; however, there's no reason why they can't be used here. f. Enter Y for the "Split Entry?" field, then press the End key. The cursor will return to the "To:" field, ready to receive the first of the splits. g. Enter "1988 VA State tax return" in the "To:" field. h. Enter 100.00 in the "Amount" Field. i. Enter Y in the "Tax Deduction" field. This isn't formally a deduction, but if entered as a tax deduction, it will show up on tax deduction reports for 1988. That way you won't forget to report the income to the IRS in 1989. j. Assume you have a Deposit Group for taxes and registrations, and it's number 13, so enter a 13 for the Group. k. Press the End key. The "Split Subtotal" field (where "Account" was) now says $100, the Account Balance has not changed yet, and the cursor is back in the To: field. l. Enter "New Car rebate" in the "To:" field, 200 for the amount, N for No tax deduction, and 12 for the Group (assume 12 is for car expenses). m. Press the End key to end the split entry and start another. n. Enter CASH BACK in the To: field, -25 for the amount (note the minus sign) N for No tax deduction, and 12 (or 13) for the Group, because the actual deposit to the Group was reduced by the amount of cash taken back, i.e., not deposited. Getting cash back on a deposit is not a withdrawal--the money was never deposited in the account. The main transaction amount is the amount of the money actually deposited. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 43 ________________________________________________________________________ o. Enter an N in the "Split Entry?" field to stop the split process, then press the End key. The screen goes back to normal for the next entry and the Account Balance increases by $275. Alternatively, if you press the End key and forget to enter the N for Split Entry, press the Esc key to properly terminate the split entry and avoid adding another split transaction. p. On the Check Register report, discussed in Section 3.6.1, the splits appear above the main entry and show no balance at the end of the report line for the split entry. The main entry shows the total of the splits and the resulting balance. The main entry will be the one used for balancing the account later, and will agree with the bank report of the deposit. The split entries will be used for computing budgets and reports of deposits and expendi- tures. Another Example: Entering a credit card payment. Assume a Master- Card (Purchase Group 1) bill for a computer (Purchase Group 2), a couch (Purchase Group 3), and a camera (Purchase Group 4). a. Starting at the checking data entry screen, enter C for check and press the End key. b. Enter the appropriate check number, date, and payee (To:). c. Skip the dollar amount, and enter 1 as the Purchase Group. The main record will be assigned to Group 1 which we will assume is for MasterCard. d. Cursor down or over to the "Split Entry" field and enter a Y. Press the End key and the cursor will return to the To: field. e. Enter the name of the computer vendor, then the dollar amount, then 2 for Purchase Group 2, in the respective fields. Press the End key. f. Repeat step (e) for the other two items on the bill, but use the appropriate information. After hitting the End key for the last split entry, press Esc. This exits the split entry feature and saves the information. +------------------------------------------------------+ | This enters the information for each purchase to | | each Group AND the Group for the main entry. This | | does not "double-debit" the account! On check | | register reports for all Groups, only the main | | record amount (which equals the sum of the splits) | | is debited. On check register reports, budget | | reports, and graphs that look at individual Group | | expenditures, only the split amounts are debited. | | Main records are displayed on the check register | | reports for information purposes only and do not | | affect the summed amounts. | +------------------------------------------------------+ ________________________________________________________________________ Page 44 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ 3.3.8 Selecting Checks For Printing The check writer prints checks either as a batch (any checks falling within a range of record numbers), or as selected checks. One way to select a check for printing is to answer Y to the "Write Check?" field. See Section 3.8 on printing checks for details about printing selected checks. 3.3.9 Sending Entries To Other SubAccounts Why do this? For example, you're entering normal checking account data to SubAccount 1, but you keep a detailed record of all MasterCard purchases and payments in SubAccount 2. A new purchase may be added to SubAccount 2 without changing the active SubAccount from the checking account menu. Put a 2 in the SubAccounts field. From time to time it may be necessary to globally update more than one, or all, SubAccounts with the same entry. For example, you track expense accounts for an entire sales department by assigning a Sub- Account to each sales person. Assume it becomes necessary to assess each for the same expense. Enter the expense as a withdrawal, enter the appropriate information, and then enter ALL for the SubAccounts. Up to 255 different SubAccounts will be updated from the same single entry. (Only existing SubAccounts are updated. Currently unnamed SubAccounts are ignored.) 3.3.10 Using the Credit Transaction Here's a use by example: You pay $15 cash for 12 spark plugs for tuning up your Aardvark-400-RZXGT automobile. (All fast cars have to have an R, X, Z, and/or GT in the name. In italics. Italics are faster than regular letters. Now you know.) Arriving home, and being eager to record your purchase in CashTrac, you enter the $15 as a cash purchase in Group 12, which we'll assume is car expenditures. Later, you notice that oddly, the 400-RZXGT only has 11 spark plugs, so you return one and receive $1.25 credit. You then rush home and enter the $1.25 as a cRedit in Group 12. The net cash expenditure is now $13.75 for spark plugs. The balance of the checking account has not been altered--cash transactions are kept outside the actual account balance. The money is recorded for budget purposes; however, we do not mean to say that RZXGT owners actually need to keep budgets. 3.3.11 On-Screen Balance The Checking Account data entry screen shows the account balance for the current SubAccount and is updated following each entry (or the last split entry). The balance is stored on the data disk between sessions. The balance can be rendered erroneous if you change disks, reboot, or shut off the power without first returning to the main menu and exiting, ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 45 ________________________________________________________________________ which properly closes the data file. Run an Account Activity Summary report to reset the SubAccount balance should this happen. Use the F4 key to display the names and balances of all named Sub- Accounts in the active main account. If a name has not been assigned from the New account-SubAccount-Add option on the checking menu, the account will not be displayed. 3.3.12 Setting Up Budgets Use a Budget transaction to set up conventional budget limits for any Purchase/Deposit Group. Budget transactions may be Monthly or Yearly. A monthly budget limit prints on Monthly Budget Summary and Detailed reports. A yearly budget limit prints on Yearly Budget Summary and Detailed reports. The yearly budget reports can be set up to print budgets for any period, not necessarily a year. The rules are: a. The Budget transaction takes effect for its Purchase or Deposit Group on the date indicated on the transaction. Therefore, after entering the transaction, don't forget to sort the account to put the records in order of date. b. The Budget transaction remains in effect until superseded by the entry of a new Budget transaction at a later date. Thus you need enter only one, and that one will print on all subsequent reports. You also may enter as many as you like (note (e) below). c. Budget transactions do not affect the checking SubAccount balance. They are used only by the budget reports and the graphing program. d. The Budget Reports subtract expenditures from the dollar amount on the last Budget transaction entered prior to the start date of the report. e. Budget transactions occurring after the start date of a Budget Report, but prior to the end date, do not affect the balance in the report. Example: Monthly budget for food. Assume "food" is Purchase Group 1, that the account has been running since 1/1/87, and the budget is to be effective on 8/1/89 and today is 8/15/89. To set up this budget: 1. Go to the checking Add Data screen. Enter a B for "Entry Type." 2. Select any valid date prior to or on 8/1/89 as the budget date. For example, type 8/1/89. 3. For "To:" enter "Monthly food budget." ________________________________________________________________________ Page 46 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ 4. For "Amount:" enter 400.00. 5. For "Yearly or Monthly" enter M. 6. For Purchase Group enter 1, then press the End and Esc keys to enter the data and return to the checking account menu. 7. Use the Organize-Checking account-1 option to sort the checking account. This physically moves the budget entry to the beginning of all the August 1989 records. 8. At the checking menu, select the Reports option. Select a Report Type 5, Budget Details (monthly), a Start date of 8/1/89 and an End date of 8/30/89. Actually, the End date is ignored for monthly budget reports (but not for yearly budget reports). For more information on printing reports see Section 3.5. If no data exists in Purchase Group 1 within August, 1989, no report will print. The monthly budget transaction of the example above will print at the beginning of all monthly budget detailed reports for Group 1, for all months after 8/1/89. That means that only one entry works essentially forever. There is no need for a new budget transaction each month. Enter Yearly Budget transactions in the same manner. The "yearly" only affects the Budget (yearly) report, which may be printed over any time span desired, not necessarily one year; i.e., the End date is oper- ative. 3.3.13 Voiding Checks Void a check by making its amount 0.00 and indicating VOID in the To: field. 3.4 UNPAID BILLS 3.4.1 Entering Unpaid Bills The Unpaid Bills feature allows you to enter a bill when it arrives in the mail, and reminds you when it should be paid. Thus, money may be kept in your account until the last minute. Why should you pay early and let somebody else get interest on your money? This feature also allows you to enter a recurring bill once and have CashTrac debit your account automatically when you decide to pay the bill. A third feature is to use unpaid bills as a file of standard checks or deposits, to be entered or printed on demand. Unpaid Bills may be either Nonrecurring, Daily, Weekly, Bimonthly (twice a month, 15 days apart, where possible), Monthly, Quarterly, Semiannually, Yearly, or number multiples (1-9) of yearly recurring. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 47 ________________________________________________________________________ When a bill must be paid at some time in the future, enter the specific information (such as DATE DUE, TO, and AMOUNT) via the checking Add data screen, with a "U" as the Transaction Type. This sends the entry to the Unpaid Bills File. If the bill is one time only, enter it as a non-recurring bill. If the bill will repeat periodically, enter it as one of the recurring bill types. When the bill is paid (see Section 3.4.2) the information is retrieved from the Unpaid Bills file for the active main account and selected SubAccounts and is displayed on the checking Add Data screen for additions, changes, and/or splitting into subentries. The transac- tion is then automatically entered into the specified checking Sub- Account without retyping and is deleted from the Unpaid Bills file. If it's a recurring bill, the date will be incremented by the appropriate time, and the bill will be returned to the Unpaid Bills file to wreak havoc upon your financial security another day. Bills may also be selected for automatic check printing when paid. (The Unpaid Bill file is also an invaluable date and appointment reminder and has been credited with saving several lives and marriages on birthdays and anniversaries that, but for CashTrac, might otherwise have been forgotten.) An overdue unpaid bill will nag you with a reminder at the bottom right of the menu screen that bills (or birthdays?) are overdue. The reminder switches on: a. When a bill is overdue in any SubAccount, regardless of which account you are in or the bill is in. b. When overdue bills have been paid, but the Unpaid Bills file should be packed to rearrange records or remove deleted records. Packing the file may be done from the checking menu Organize option or from the Pay Bills function (next section). Unpaid bills may also be used for automatic withdrawals, deposits, or even to create more unpaid bills. They are not limited to just checks. Unusual bill frequencies may be created from combinations of the available frequencies. For example, twice weekly bills can be created from duplicate weekly bills, one falling due on the first of the week, and the other falling due in the middle of the week. Two bimonthly bills can make a four-times-per-month bill. This bill would occur 48 times per year as opposed to a weekly which would occur 52 times per year. Also use unpaid bills as a file of standard transactions. There may be bills that recur frequently but not periodically. Rather than typing up a new check each time the bill is paid, enter an unpaid bill for the check, due monthly and starting on an arbitrary future date, such as 1/1/94. To write that check, list the unpaid bills file, note the ________________________________________________________________________ Page 48 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ record number of the bill, and then pay that bill using the Pay Bills option on the checking menu. 3.4.2 Paying Unpaid Bills Unpaid Bills entered according to the procedure above may be paid using the Pay bills option on the checking menu. Bills will be selected from the active SubAccount in the current main account; however, bills may be selected from up to five or all SubAccounts in the active main account. +-------------------------------------------+ | To pay a bill for a given main account, | | you must already be in that main account.| +-------------------------------------------+ Once selected, the Pay bills function asks for SubAccounts, and indi- cates the default SubAccount number. Bills may be paid from any Sub- Account by entering one or more (or ALL) numbers here. The bill, once called to the Add screen, may be debited from any specified SubAccount. Choose the "due date" for selecting bills. In other words, only bills falling due on or before that date will be selected. Bills due at any point in the future may, therefore, be paid on the present day. The next option allows you to select the first bill to be paid, by bill number (record number) on the Unpaid Bills report. Leave this num- ber equal to 1 and CashTrac selects the first due bill (according to the date selected) in the current Checking Account, regardless of the bill number. Set the date to a late date such as 1999 and bills will be selected according to the bill number option and the date will be ignored. The bill number option also causes a pack of the Unpaid Bills file by entering "PACK" in lieu of a bill number. Packing removes deleted bills (which do not display on the report, but nevertheless are still in the file) and reorders the remaining bills according to date. When paying bills, the "Duplicate?" field on the data entry screen now reads "Pay Next Bill?" If you select Y, CashTrac retrieves the next bill for payment. If you select N, then the bill selection screen is returned for manual selection. Bills may be "paid" as deposits (to accommodate periodic electronic checking deposits), Withdrawals (for periodic electronic withdrawals), or any other valid transaction. Also, bills may be split when paid, memos written, and if paid as checks, they may be selected for printing. When paying a series of bills, use the Skip transaction on the data entry screen to avoid paying a bill. No entry is made to the checking account, nor is the date on the bill changed if it is a recurring bill. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 49 ________________________________________________________________________ The bill will, unfortunately, rear its ugly head the next time you pay bills. 3.5 EDITING AND DELETING ENTRIES 3.5.1 Searching for Checking Records All data entered into the Checking or Unpaid Bills files may be retrieved, displayed, and changed or deleted using the Edit data option on the Checking menu. The edit screen requests the characteristics of the record being sought. Enter the type of transaction (B, C, etc., as requested) and either: a. The Record Number of the transaction (the number in the left column of the various reports). A record number search is fast and ignores all other data selections, below, or b. One or preferably more of the following: SubAccounts, Check number (for checks only), Transaction date, Transaction amount, Purchase Group, and To: (for a character string search of the "To:" field). If a record number is not specified, CashTrac will search for records having all of the characteristics specified, but any blank or zero fields are ignored. Since there is no reason why two checks can't have the same number (a certainty if you change banks) or two transaction amounts can't be the same, the search must specify as much information as possible to ensure finding the correct record. Except for record number searches, the program searches the entire file for the record in question (time consuming for large files). If the record is near the end of the file, do a backwards search from end to beginning by putting a B, left justified, in the record number field. Character string searches look for matches between the specified strings and the entry in the "To:" field on the data record. As an example, to find all entries referring to aardvarks, one may search for the entire word or unique parts of the word. Specifying "ard" (without the quotes) will find the following entries: Aardvark-400-RZXGT spark plugs Back Yard Shrubs, Inc. Capital and lower case distinctions are ignored. Left justify the search string or the search will attempt to match any leading blanks along with the string. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 50 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ 3.5.2 Browsing the Checking File Once a record matching the specified characteristics has been found, continue the search for other matching data by pressing the PgDn key. Go back to a previous record by pressing PgUp. Record number searches will browse up and down consecutively by record number. Memo records will appear only with their associated main records, therefore, it will appear that two records have been skipped in the file each time a memo prints. (Memo records take the space occupied by two checking records.) 3.5.3 Deleting Entries a. Deleting One Record: Any record in the Checking or Unpaid Bills files may be found using the above search/browse function, then displayed, and deleted by answering Y in the DELETE THIS ENTRY field. Press the End key to delete the record or press the Esc key to quit and leave the record unchanged. Deleted records remain in the file (but don't display or affect the balance) until the Organize (Sort) routine purges them from the file. Deleting a split entry automatically corrects the amount of the main entry to which it is attached. Deleting a main entry also deletes its memo and all attached split entries. b. Deleting an Entire Main Account: If it is necessary to delete an entire main checking account along with all its SubAccounts: Exit to the operating system (DOS) using the DOS Portal. Delete the data file for that account on the data dis- k\subdirectory. The file names are 7CHECK1.DAT, 7CHECK2.DAT, etc., where the number after the word "CHECK" corresponds to the number of the main checking account (SubAccounts do not have sepa- rate files). For example, the appropriate command to delete main checking account 10 is: DEL 7CHECK10.DAT WARNING: All data in that main account, including all Sub- Accounts, will be deleted! To erase the Purchase Groups associated with that account, delete the 7GROUP?.DAT file, where the ? corresponds to the number of the Checking Account. Do not use the ? itself otherwise DOS will erase Purchase Group files for main accounts 1-9. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 51 ________________________________________________________________________ c. Deleting One SubAccount: To delete all entries in one SubAccount within the current main account, select the New account- SubAccount-Edit name option on the checking menu. Select the num- ber of the SubAccount to delete, press the End key and answer Y in the Delete this SubAcct Name field. The selected SubAccount and all its data will be deleted so be sure that you want to do this. Remaining SubAccounts will be renumbered as appropriate. d. Deleting Batches of Checking Records: The Transfer function (see Section 7.3) allows deletion of records by SubAccount, date, record number, or Purchase Group. Please refer to the instruc- tions for that function. The Group names-Edit names function on the checking menu permits deletion of all checking account data in one Purchase Group. See Section 3.2.3. This method is easiest for deleting one Group. 3.5.4 Changing Checking Records Any data found by the search in Section 3.5.1 may be changed to any other valid value. The same rules that apply to new entries apply to changes. Dates must be valid; use no negative numbers except for open- ing balances and some split entries (cash back on deposits); some fields may not be left blank. See Section 3.3, for a description of the mandatory fields and valid data values. No transaction type may be changed to an Unpaid Bill, nor may an Unpaid Bill be changed to any other transaction type. The same holds true for split entries. The dollar amount on a main record, that is, a record having split entries associated with it, may not be changed. Instead, change the amount of each split and the main record will change by a corresponding amount. Use the Esc key to cancel the changes and start over. Press the End key to save the changes and return to the search screen. 3.6 PRINTING REPORTS CashTrac prints reports on the screen, printer ports 1, 2, or 3, or disk. The print screen (Shift-PrtSc) capability will also copy single screens to the printer. Use the PgUp and PgDn keys to page back and forth through the screen reports and Esc to return to the Report menu. Many different reports are available using the options on the report selection screens. The major reports are discussed in the following sections. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 52 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ 3.6.1 The Check Register Report This report lists all transactions in the Checking file, displays a running balance for each transaction (Cash Purchases, cRedits, and Budget transactions do not affect the balance), and may be limited to the transactions between any two dates (but the balance is calculated from the first entry in the data file). Transactions that lower the balance below the minimum balance level are highlighted (see the Section 3.11). +--------------------------------------------------+ | A warning will be displayed if records are | | found to be out of order while printing. Press | | any key to clear the warning. The report | | will continue to print, but under some condi- | | tions, it may be in error until sorted. For | | example, Budget transactions may be out of | | place. There may be records at the end of the | | file that don't print because they are outside | | of the starting and ending dates, thus what | | looks like the ending balance may appear to be | | incorrect because the report hasn't displayed | | the last records. | +--------------------------------------------------+ a. The report displays the following information: 1. Record Number (use this number for fast searches when changing or deleting entries). Note, if the record numbers seen during the search are not consecutive, there are undisplayed memos or deleted records lurking in the file. The sort routine purges the deleted records. 2. Transaction Date 3. Check Number/Transaction Type 4. Tax deductible (TX), yes or no (or budget entry type, Y or M) 5. Reconciled with bank statement (R?), yes or no 6. Purchase Group 7. Remarks (The "To:" field) 8. Amount 9. Balance (computed from the first account entry, regardless of the report dates selected). Balance is blank for a split entry and is only recalculated for the main entry. b. General Report Options (available to all reports): 1. Macro: Many CashTrac functions use Macros to store one or more screens full of selection choices. The same macro add, change, view, and execute functions apply to report selection, graph- ing, and check printer configuration. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 53 ________________________________________________________________________ A macro, in this sense, is a series of memorized options stored in a file for later use. In other words, the options necessary to make a specific report may be stored and used again. To list existing macros: Cursor up to the MACRO field, and type LISTMAC in the MACRO field, then press the End key. The report macro, as with all other macros in CashTrac, is always skipped as the first field. +-------------------------------------------------+ | To list macros, the file COMMAND.COM must be | | present on the A: drive or the drive\path | | specified in the DOS environment under COMSPEC. | | See Chapter 7.0, Troubleshooting, for details. | +-------------------------------------------------+ To make a new macro, type an unused macro name (use the same rules as for naming a DOS file, but without an extension, i.e., BIG, not BIG.MAC). CashTrac will add a CRM (checking report macro) extension. Press the End key. A message will say "ENTER OR CHANGE DATA." Enter new data and press the End key when done to save the macro and run the function. To run an existing macro, type the name of the macro, without the CRM extension, and press the End key. This loads the macro data to the screen. Press the End key again to run the macro. To change a macro, enter the MACRO name in the MACRO field (without the CRM extension). Press the End key. The macro data will load to the screen, or "ENTER/CHANGE DATA" will print at the bottom of the screen if the MACRO doesn't exist. Enter the new data to be stored with the macro and press the End key to continue. The new options will replace the old ones and the report function will be executed. To delete a macro: Macros are nothing more than files on your data disk\subdirectory. The name is the MACRO name you selected followed by CRM for checking report macro, for exam- ple, DEPOSITS.CRM. Erase the macro from the data disk or sub- directory using the DOS DEL command in the same manner as eras- ing any other file. 2. Start and End dates: CashTrac prints only those entries fall- ing on or between the selected dates. The default start date is the date you last balanced the active checking account. 3. Print to screen or printer: Enter a P for printer or S for screen. 4. Print to disk: If you enter a file name (1 to 8 character) here, CashTrac will ignore the screen/printer selection above ________________________________________________________________________ Page 54 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ and will print the report as an ASCII text file to the data disk. The file is suitable for merging into word processing files or printing directly from the disk to a printer using the DOS "COPY FILENAME PRN" command. Do not use a file name extension. CashTrac adds ".CTP" to the end of whatever name you select. 5. Report Heading: CashTrac supplies a heading at the top of every report. However, for more personalized reports, entry of a custom heading overrides the default heading. 6. Printer Setup: Enter a series of three digit numbers to alter your printer's print style, line spacing, etc. For example, on most Epson printers, the command Escape E switches the printer to emphasized mode. The printer manual also gives the decimal value of Escape as 27 and E as 69. Enter 027 069 in the first two fields of the printer setup line and these commands will be passed to your printer. As many 3 digit codes may be stacked on the line as will fit. 7. Printed lines on page and length of form: The length of form indicates the length of the paper in the printer, in lines, from the top to the bottom of the paper. The "Printed lines on page" indicates how many lines to print before going to the top of a new page. The default is for standard 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper, printing 6 lines per inch. If the printer characteristics are altered, via the printer setup command, to 8 lines per inch, the length of form according to CashTrac must be reset to 88 and the lines on page should be reset to somewhere around 80. c. Report Options Specific to the Check Register Report: 1. Purchase Group: All or any number. If "ALL" is selected, all transactions in the file selected under "Record Types to be Printed" will be shown along with the current account balance. If any single Purchase Group is selected, the report will be limited to that Group. 2. Deductions Only: Select Yto show a report consisting only of tax deductible records. Almost all records can be made tax deductible and provide a reminder on tax deduction reports. The above option converts the Check Register Report into a Tax Deduction Report. 3. Unreconciled Only: Select Y to show only unreconciled records. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 55 ________________________________________________________________________ 4. Sort by: Reports will print in order of the records in the file, which should be by date if they have been sorted recently. A report can be made of checks only (plus splits and memos), printed in order of check number, if: * C is selected for "Sort by," and * Under "Record Types to be Printed" at the right, only Checks, Split Entries, and Memos are marked Y, but Splits and/or Memos may be N. 5. SubAccount Number: Select up to 5, or ALL, SubAccounts to group together for the report. This is a powerful feature, and allows several SubAccounts to be joined together for budgeting and reporting purposes. For example, if more than one account is being used for the same expenditures, i.e., spouses sharing expenses but maintaining separate checkbooks, the total expenditures from the separate accounts may be viewed in a single report. SubAccounts are selected only from the active main account. 6. Record Types to be Printed: A Y next to a record type means that it will print on the report. An N suppresses printing of that record type. The final two selections on this list are Purchase Grp Names and SubAccnt Names. Selecting Y for either of these options prints the full name on the report rather than a code. Each name requires an extra printed line. 3.6.2 Account Activity Summary Report This report adds up the entries for each record type for the duration of the account and for the time period selected, and prints a one-page summary. The General Report Options in Section 3.6.1 above are applicable here. On the second report selection screen, only the SubAccounts may be changed to select others or to create a SuperAccount group of Sub- Accounts. +-----------------------------------------------+ | The account activity summary report resets | | the checking account balance figure on the | | add data screen. | +-----------------------------------------------+ 3.6.3 Unpaid Bills Report This report prints the contents of the Unpaid Bills file for the active main account and for the selected SubAccounts. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 56 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ The General Report Options in Section 3.6.1 above are applicable here. Many bills have due dates well into the future. This should be considered when selecting starting and ending dates, otherwise it may appear that some bills are missing. 3.6.4 Monthly Budget Summary Report This report comprises two separate reports--a Purchase Group summary and a Deposit Group summary--and shows in five columns from left to right: a. The number and name of each Purchase or Deposit Group. A final Group, called "TOTAL:," is added to the last line and shows the totals of the other three columns. b. Dollars budgeted. This number is the last Monthly Budget amount entered prior to the start date of the report. For example, assume there are 4 monthly budget entries in Group 1: 1. $1000 on 1/1/89 2. $2000 on 2/1/89 3. $3000 on 3/1/89, and 4. $4000 on 3/15/89. If the start date of the report is 3/1/89, the number in the "$ Budgeted" column will be $3000. The first 2 and the last monthly budget entries will not affect anything. c. Dollars spent (Dollars deposited for Deposit Groups): For the report of Purchase Groups, this is the total of all expenditures in each Group (checks, cash purchases, and withdrawals) minus all credits and deposits to the Groups during the month selected in the start date. If credits and deposits to a Group exceed expenditures, this figure can be negative. For the report of Deposit Groups (which is the second half of the summary report), this figure is the total of all deposits, credits and interest to the Groups minus all expenditures during the month selected in the start date. If the expenditures exceed the deposits, this figure can be negative. It is anticipated that deposits will be categorized by Deposit Group and expenditures will be categorized by Purchase Group. CashTrac will accept mixtures, but the resulting numbers may be confusing to interpret. d. Dollars remaining (Dollar difference for Deposit Groups): the difference of Dollars Spent (or Dollars deposited for Deposit Groups) subtracted from Dollars Budgeted. Again, it can be nega- tive if Dollars Spent (deposited) exceed Dollars Budgeted. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 57 ________________________________________________________________________ e. Dollar carryover: This is the Dollars budgeted for each month from the first of the year minus the Dollars spent (deposited) for each month from the first of the year, including the current month reported. The budget figure used for each month is the current budget figure reported. The General Report Options in Section 3.6.1 above are applicable here. The report START DATE must be the first day of the month to be reported. Only the SubAccount number may be changed on the second report selection screen. 3.6.5 Monthly Budget Details Report This report is identical in form to the Check Register Report except that monthly budget transactions are computed into the balance. Use this report to analyze your monthly budget on a single transaction basis. The General Report Options in Section 3.6.1 above are applicable here. The report START DATE must be the first day of the month to be reported. The End date is ignored and the report will print transac- tions for the entire Start month. Only the SubAccount number may be changed on the second report selection screen. A monthly budget transaction entered according to Section 3.3.12 above on budgets will print as the first record of this report for the selected Purchase or Deposit Group. Subsequent entries will add to or subtract from the budgeted amount. If the selected Group is a Deposit Group, deposits, credits and interest will subtract from the budgeted amount and expenditures will add to the amount. If the selected Group is a Purchase Group, deposits, credits and interest will add to the budgeted amount and expenditures will subtract from the amount. In the Check Register Report, if ALL Purchase Groups were selected, all Groups were reported on one screen. In the Budget details report, one report is printed for each named Purchase or Deposit Group. 3.6.6 Yearly Budget Summary Report This report comprises two separate reports--a Purchase Group summary and a Deposit Group summary--and shows in five columns from left to right: a. The number and name of each Purchase Group (or Deposit Group for the second half of the report). A final Group, called "TOTAL:," added to the last line shows the totals of the four numeric columns. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 58 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ b. Dollars budgeted. This number is the last Yearly Budget amount entered prior to the start date of the report. For example, assume there are 4 yearly budget entries in Group 1: 1. $1000 on 1/1/85 2. $2000 on 1/1/86 3. $3000 on 1/1/87, and 4. $4000 on 3/1/89. If the start date of the report is 2/1/89, the number in the "$ Budgeted" column will be $3000. The first two and the last yearly budget entries will not affect anything. c. Dollars spent (deposited, for Deposit Groups): This is the total of all expenditures in each Group (checks, cash purchases, and withdrawals) minus all credits and deposits to the Groups from and including the start day selected, to and including the end day selected, even though it may be more or less than one year. If credits and deposits to a Group exceed expenditures, this figure can be negative. For the report of Deposit Groups (which is the second half of the summary report), this figure is the total of all deposits, credits and interest to the Groups minus all expenditures during the month selected in the start date. If the expenditures exceed the deposits, this figure can be negative. It is anticipated that deposits will be categorized by Deposit Group and expenditures will be categorized by Purchase Group. CashTrac will accept mixtures, but the resulting numbers may be confusing to interpret. d. Avg Spent (Depos)/mo: This is the average amount spent (for Pur- chase Groups) or deposited (for Deposit Groups) per month and is the amount in the "Dollars Spent (Deposited)" column divided by the number of months from the selected start and end dates to arrive at an average expenditure (income). The time period runs from the first DAY to the last DAY, so if the report starts and stops at days other than the beginning and end of a month, the numbers may not be intuitively obvious. Also, the report uses 30.4 days per month, so there could be a very small round-off error. Assume you spent $100 on 5/2/89 and you asked for a yearly budget report from 5/1/89 to 5/15/89. The average expenditure per month would be about $203. If the end date is shifted to 6/15/89, the expenditure per month will drop to about $66. Only when one month is selected is the figure $100. Explanation: An expenditure of $100 over 15 days is equivalent to $203 over 30.4 days (30.4 % 15 * $100 = $202.66). The program ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 59 ________________________________________________________________________ assumes that if you spent $100 over the 15 days of the report, you would have spent $203 over the entire average month of 30.4 days. Similarly, if you spent $100 over a 46 day report from 5/1/89 to 6/15/89, you would only have spent about $66 over the average 30.4 day month. e. Dollars Difference: This is the difference of Dollars Spent sub- tracted from Dollars Budgeted. The figure can be negative if the dollars spent exceed dollars budgeted for Purchase Groups or dol- lars deposited exceed dollars budgeted for Deposit Groups. The General Report Options in Section 3.6.1 above are applicable here. The report Start Date may be for any day of the month to be reported. The report will select transactions through the selected End date. Only the SubAccount number may be changed on the second report selection screen. 3.6.7 Yearly Budget Details Report This report is identical in form to the Check Register Report except that yearly budget transactions are computed into the balance. Use this report to analyze your yearly budget on a single transaction basis. The General Report Options in Section 3.6.1 above are applicable here. The report Start Date may be for any day of the month to be reported. The report will select transactions through the selected End date. Only the SubAccount number may be changed on the second report selection screen. A yearly budget transaction entered according to Section 3.3.12 above on budgets will print as the first record of this report for the selected Purchase or Deposit Group. Subsequent entries will add to, or subtract from, the budgeted amount. If the selected Group is a Deposit Group, deposits, credits and interest will subtract from the budgeted amount and expenditures will add to the amount. If the selected Group is a Purchase Group, deposits, credits and interest will add to the budgeted amount and expenditures will subtract from the amount. In the Check Register Report, if ALL Purchase Groups were selected, all Groups were reported on one screen. In the Budget details report, one report is printed for each chosen Purchase or Deposit Group. 3.7 BALANCING THE CHECKING ACCOUNT Now that all your checking transactions are in the Checking file, CashTrac will help balance your account. (Cash purchases and credit transactions have no effect on the account balance.) Start the Balance program from the checking menu. The date the account was last balanced will be displayed (if it was balanced) followed by a request for the ending balance from the new bank statement. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 60 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ +------------------------------------------------+ | When using data files from an older version of | | CashTrac or the Personal Finance Manager, this | | date may be incorrect the first time CashTrac | | balances the account. It will correct itself. | +------------------------------------------------+ Enter the number for one to five, or all, SubAccounts to be balanced in this session. Typically only one SubAccount would be selected; how- ever, if two or more people share one bank checking account and keep their own check registers on separate SubAccounts within a main account, the bank statement will include transactions from both SubAccounts. In this case, the two SubAccounts should be joined into a single Super- Account for balancing. After entry of the above information, each transaction (except for cash purchases) displays on the screen with a request as to whether this transaction has been reported in the latest bank statement. Answer Y or N as appropriate. The program does the math. Use the End key to go to the next entry or use PgUp to see the previous entry in the file. PgUp goes back by one record, whether reconciled or not. End goes to the next unreconciled entry. PgDn does nothing. Should you notice a mistake in your data record, cursor down to the field in error and change the entry. The new values will be entered to the account. The dollar amount of a main record having split entries may not be altered from the balance screen. Use the Edit function from the checking menu to change one of the splits comprising the main record. After all entries have been "yessed or noed" the balance that your checkbook SHOULD display is shown next to the ACTUAL balance in your CashTrac account. This reflects the information you entered (Garbage In = Garbage Out). It may be helpful to compare the bank statement with the Check Register report for the same time frame to see if entries are left out or dollar amounts are incorrect. Also run an "unreconciled only" report to see if some unreconciled entries have actually been included on the bank statement. The account may now be considered balanced. If it's too much trouble to find the error, then enter an Opening Balance transaction to cancel out the error. The Checkbook Balance should be the same balance that CashTrac has been showing for your account. If not, the balance shown is correct and you should run an Account Activity Summary report to reset the other balances. The Statement Balance equals the bank statement amount entered at the start of balancing, minus all unreconciled checks and withdrawals and plus all unreconciled deposits and interest. If the Checkbook and Statement balances disagree, and you can't find the error, run a check register for all unreconciled transactions. You can check CashTrac's ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 61 ________________________________________________________________________ math by manually adding and subtracting the transactions as appropriate. If the result is not the same as the reported Statement Balance, the error is the result of CashTrac. If the result agrees, there is an error in a reconciled transaction. To date we have never had a CashTrac error, but we have received several calls from users who could not balance their accounts. In all cases a transaction was entered incorrectly, causing an erroneous result. CashTrac can not protect against this, although if banks issue statements on floppy disk we will provide automatic reconciliation and transaction verification. The sec- ond most common error is a transaction having a wrong date. January of each year results in frequent "losses" of data. In fact, last year's date was put on this year's record. The file was sorted, the record zipped off to join the records for January of last year, and disappeared from view, but still affected the balance. The report selection screen uses the "Date Last Balanced" as a con- venient starting date for printing reports. 3.8 CHANGING THE ACTIVE CHECKING ACCOUNT OR NAME Each main account may have its own name, Purchase Groups, data, etc. Each SubAccount may have its own name and data, but shares Purchase Groups with all other SubAccounts in the main account. Also, any CashTrac function that works on a checking account record or a Purchase Group record generally only works on the active main checking account and its own Purchase Group file unless specified otherwise. The difference between main accounts and SubAccounts is discussed in Section 3.1.2 above. 3.8.1 Change and Name the Active Main Account To change from one main checking account to another main account or to rename any of the main checking accounts, use the New account-Main account option from the checking menu. If a name is not selected for the active main checking account, the name displayed at the bottom of the menu screen will be Checking Account 1. As a reminder, a main checking account can comprise up to 255 Sub- Accounts. If the SubAccount feature is not to be used, the name selected for the main checking account (which prints at the bottom of the menu screen) should be entered as the same name as the name selected for SubAccount 1 (which prints at the upper left corner of the menu screen). If multiple SubAccounts are to be used in each main account (for example, several rental properties will be tracked in one main account, each rental property having a separate SubAccount), the main account name should reflect the nature of the SubAccounts. "Rental Properties" would be a good main account name, and each SubAccount could be named for each piece of property. To change the active main checking account to another main account, select the main account number and press the End key. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 62 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ To change the name of any main account, just cursor down to the name, type the new name, and press the End key. The main account name prints in the bottom middle of the menu screen. 3.8.2 Add, Change, and Select SubAccounts The SubAccounts feature may be ignored and CashTrac version 7 will store checking data as it did in prior versions. The only requirement is that one SubAccount name be added, as described below. If only one SubAccount is used per main account, the SubAccount and main account names should be the same, but may be different. a. To add (name) a new SubAccount: Use the New account-SubAccount- Add option on the checking menu. Type the new SubAccount name and press the End key. The name will appear next to the number of that SubAccount, at the bottom of the screen. Press Esc to return to the menu. b. To change a SubAccount name: Use the New account-SubAccount-Edit option on the checking menu. Enter the SubAccount number from the list on the screen, and press the End key. Put an N in the Delete this SubAccount field! (See next paragraph for deleting.) Change the name and press the End key. Press Esc to return to the menu. c. To delete a SubAccount name (and all data in the SubAccount): Use the New account-SubAccount-Edit option on the checking menu. Enter a Y in the Delete this SubAccount field and press the End key. Press Esc to return to the menu. +------------------------------------------------+ | Deleting a SubAccount name also deletes all | | data in the SubAccount. Be sure you want to | | remove the entire SubAccount before using this | | feature! | +------------------------------------------------+ d. To insert a SubAccount name: Use the New account-SubAccount- Insert option on the checking menu. Inserting a SubAccount places a new SubAccount name between two existing SubAccount names and, therefore, allows the SubAccounts to be listed in a particular order such as alphabetical. Enter the number of the SubAccount that will be moved down to open a space for the new name. Press the End key, enter the new Sub- Account name and press the End key again. All SubAccounts having a higher number than the inserted account will be renumbered, as will the records assigned to those SubAccounts. Press Esc to return to the menu. Example: There are two existing SubAccounts, (1) SubAccount A and (2) SubAccount C. You want to add a third SubAccount B and have ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 63 ________________________________________________________________________ the accounts in alphabetical order, i.e., (1) A, (2) B, and (3) C. Use the Insert option to open a space between SubAccounts (1) and (2) to insert SubAccount B. SubAccount C will be moved down and the remaining list of SubAccounts will be in the correct order. e. To renumber a SubAccount, i.e., transfer all data in one Sub- Account to another SubAccount within the main account (see the Transfer option on the Utilities menu to transfer data from one main account to another main account): Use the New account- SubAccount-Renumber option on the checking menu. Identify the number of the existing SubAccount which is to be renumbered. Identify the SubAccount number to which the existing data will be transferred. Press the End key to start the transfer. When done press Esc to return to the menu. Example: There are three existing SubAccounts, (1) SubAccount A, (2) SubAccount C, and (3) SubAccount B. You want to rearrange the accounts to be in alphabetical order, i.e., (1) A, (2) B, and (3) C. (This example differs from the previous example because all three SubAccounts now exist and contain data.) Use the Insert option to insert a new SubAccount prior to (2) SubAccount C. Name the newly inserted account SubAccount B. There are now two Sub- Accounts named B: SubAccount (2) (the new, empty SubAccount B) and SubAccount (4) (the old SubAccount B having all the data, newly renumbered by the Insert command). Now use the Renumber option to transfer the data in SubAccount B (4) to SubAccount B (2). At this point the SubAccounts are all in order, but Sub- Account (4) is an extra and empty account. Use the Edit (delete) option to delete empty SubAccount (4). f. To select a new active SubAccount: Use the New account- SubAccount-Edit option on the checking menu. The active Sub- Account is the account from which checking data is selected for reports and editing, and is the account to which data entries are sent. The active account selection may be overridden from most of the function screens by selecting other SubAccounts for the specific function. Select the new active account number and press the End key. The program will return to the menu and will display the new Sub- Account name at the upper left of the menu screen. Example: Combining several main checking accounts into a single main account with several SubAccounts. Assume three main checking accounts each have one SubAccount containing checking account data for a different account. Also assume that the Purchase/Deposit Groups for each main account are identical. To transfer main account 2, SubAccount 1 into main account 1 as SubAccount 2, and to transfer main account 3, SubAccount 1 into main account 1, Sub- Account 3: ________________________________________________________________________ Page 64 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ 1. Renumber main account 2, SubAccount 1 as main account 2, Sub- Account 2 using the New account-SubAccount-Renumber menu options on the checking menu. 2. Renumber main account 3, SubAccount 1 as main account 3, Sub- Account 3 in a similar manner. Remember that you must change main accounts from 2 to 3 prior to doing anything to data in main account 3. Use the New account-Main account menu options. 3. Transfer, using the Transfer menu option on the utilities menu, data from main checking account 2 to main checking account 1. Select ALL SubAccounts (or SubAccount 2) to be transferred. Use the transfer and delete option if you want to erase all data in SubAccount 2 (which may be all data in the main account). 4. Transfer, using the Transfer menu option, data from main checking account 3 to main checking account 1. Select All Sub- Accounts (or SubAccount 3) to be transferred. 5. Go to the checking menu and change main accounts to main account 1. Organize acount 1 to put the data in order. 6. Run an account activity summary report to reset account balances in the SubAccounts. 7. Add names to the two new SubAccounts using the New account- SubAccount-Add menu options. 8. Use the F4 key to verify the status of the new SubAccounts. 3.9 ORGANIZING (SORTING) CHECKING DATA The Organize-Checking account or -Unpaid bills option on the checking menu takes all entries in the respective main checking account or unpaid bills data files and rearranges them first by date and then by other fields as discussed below. Thus, records may be entered in any order, or disorder actually, and CashTrac will sort them out. The sorting function in CashTrac is matched to the expected type of data entry and should be run fairly frequently. The longer the time interval between sorting and the more records there are out of order, the longer it takes to sort the file. Some common features of the sort (organize) functions are: a. Up to 32,700 records (enough for several years' worth of data for the average user) may be sorted at one time depending on how much memory and disk space is available. The Sort Window (when sort- ing) shows: File Records remaining: The number of records that may be entered in the data file before hitting the 32,700 record limit. Each of the 16 main checking accounts will hold 32,700 records. ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 65 ________________________________________________________________________ Disk Space: Shows the amount of disk space remaining on your data drive. Prior to running out of space, you should transfer, using the Transfer data option on the Utilities menu, old data in the accounts to a new, less cluttered disk, or delete some files from the existing data disk to free some space. Transferring and deleting data keeps the files at a reasonable size. Bytes RAM: Shows the amount of memory remaining after space has been taken to do the sort. This will get smaller as the data files get bigger. When no more memory space remains, data may no longer be sorted. PRIOR to reaching the limit, you must transfer data out of the data file, add more memory, or remove memory- resident utility programs. Do not wait until after reaching the limit. A transfer and delete operation leaves deleted records in the file to be removed by the organize option. If the file index won't fit in memory, the deleted records can't be removed and the file can not be sorted. Removing memory-resident utility programs will free extra memory; most memory resident programs can and usually do at some time cause memory and data problems with CashTrac and other applica- tions programs. See Chapter 7.0, Troubleshooting. b. To keep sort speeds high, sort periodically. The CashTrac sort routine is specially designed for this application and only sorts records that are out of order. Sorting 3000 records with one out of order takes a few seconds. Most of the time is spent reading and rewriting the data file and depends on the type of disk drive used. Standard floppy disk drives are very slow. Sorting 3000 records with 2000 out of order will take a few minutes for the actual sort. c. The sort and pack routines can and should be run often. If no records are out of order, the function automatically terminates to save time and displays the message "NO SORT NECESSARY." d. The sort function purges deleted records. Until a file is sorted, the deleted records remain hidden in the file, taking up disk and memory space. Deleted records do not normally print on reports, but can be selected for printing from the report selection screen. e. Some reports may give confusing results when records are not in order, therefore all reports, when detecting records out of order, print a "sort warning." Press any key to ignore the warning and continue with the report, then sort when possible. 3.9.1 Organizing (Sorting) Checking Files Select the Organize-Checking account option from the checking menu. The sort routine acts on all SubAccounts within the selected main check- ing account. Select one main account, or select main account "17" to sort all 16 checking accounts. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 66 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ Checking Account records are sorted in the following order: a. By date, then b. By record type, for each day, in this order: BUDGET (Opening) BALANCE CASH PURCHASES CREDIT DEPOSIT INTEREST WITHDRAWAL CHECK c. For checks, for each day, by check number, then d. Split entries are located before their main entries, then e. Memos are located after their main entries. Checks may be printed from the Check Register report in order of check number rather than date. Please refer to the Check Register Report in Section 3.6.1. 3.9.2 Organizing (Sorting) Unpaid Bills Select the Organize-Unpaid bills option from the Checking menu. The sort routine only acts on the selected unpaid bills account (and all SubAccounts for that unpaid bills account). Select one account, or select account "17" to sort all 16 unpaid bills accounts. 3.10 THE CHECK WRITER CashTrac has a built-in check writer that prints checks in practi- cally any format using a form feed check with or without a stub. The CashTrac default format (when no macro is selected) is set for the "Deluxe Computer Forms" general purpose check #1004 or equivalent. We are not connected in any way with "Deluxe." Their phone number is 1- 800-328-7205, but most banks can recommend a local printer of form feed checks. By changing the check printing configuration and storing it to a macro, any format check can be accommodated. The check writer prints memos on the check, useful for addressing the check for window envelopes. Please refer to Section 3.3.6 for informa- tion about multi-line memos. 3.10.1 Running the Check Writer The Check Writer is located within the Utilities (UTILCT7.OVL) pro- gram. If using a hard disk or high density floppy disk, select the Check Writer option on the checking menu to load and run the program. If you are using a floppy disk, select the option to run the Check Writer, and when prompted, put System Disk 3 in the A: drive and press ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 67 ________________________________________________________________________ any key to continue. 3.10.2 Setting the Default Configuration To use a check format other than the built-in format, or to modify the built-in format, select the Check writer-Change configuration option on the checking menu. Macro: Many CashTrac functions use Macros to store one or more screens full of selection choices. The same macro add, change, view, and execute functions apply to report selection, graphing, and check printer configuration. A macro, in this sense, is a series of memorized options stored in a file for later use. In other words, the options necessary to print a specific check format may be stored and used again. To list existing macros: Cursor up to the MACRO field, and type LISTMAC in the MACRO field, then press the End key. The report macro, as with all other macros in CashTrac, is always skipped as the first field. +-------------------------------------------------+ | To list macros, the file COMMAND.COM must be | | present on the A| drive or the drive\path | | specified in the DOS environment under COMSPEC. | | See Chapter 7.0, Troubleshooting, for details. | +-------------------------------------------------+ To make a new macro, type an unused macro name (use the same rules as for naming a DOS file, but without an extension, i.e., BIG, not BIG.MAC). CashTrac will add a CFM (check format macro) extension. Press the End key. A message will say "ENTER OR CHANGE DATA." Enter new data and press the End key when done to save the macro and run the function. To use an existing check writer format macro, type the name of the macro, without the CFM extension, and press the End key. This loads the macro data to the screen. Press the End key again to save the macro. To change a macro, enter the MACRO name in the MACRO field (without the CFM extension). Press the End key. The macro data will load to the screen, or "ENTER/CHANGE DATA" will print at the bottom of the screen if the MACRO doesn't exist. Enter the new data to be stored with the macro and press the End key to continue. The new options will replace the old ones and the new format will be saved. To delete a macro: Macros are nothing more than files on your data disk or subdirectory. The name is the MACRO name you selected fol- ________________________________________________________________________ Page 68 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ lowed by CFM for check format macro, for example, DELUXE.CFM. Erase the macro from the data disk\subdirectory using the DOS DEL command in the same manner as any other file. The default configuration assumes a printer using 10 characters per inch and 6 lines per inch. This can be changed if necessary from the second configuration screen. The fields that may be printed on a check or stub are listed at the left of the screen, such as check number, numeric amount, etc. The next column, labeled Check Field, gives the maximum expected length of the field, in characters. The Row column is for the row, or line number, on which the selected field is to print. The Col column is for the column (in characters, on the check or stub) in which the selected field is to start printing. The next three columns repeat the same information, except these are for placing the fields on the stub. Some of the fields are called Note 1, 2 and 3. The contents of these fields are entered from the second configuration screen. The print locations of these fields are set on the first configuration screen. CashTrac does not care if the first Group of fields is printed on a check or a stub, and whether the second Group of fields is printed on a stub or a check. If your checks start with a stub and are followed by a check, that's also acceptable. If your checks have no stubs, or you would not like to print a particular field, suppress the field from printing by setting the row to 0 (zero). Also, shorten the length of the check (in lines) on the second configuration screen if a stub is not to be printed. The height and width of the check plus stub in lines and columns is set from the second configuration screen. To move a field from where it is and put it somewhere else on the check or stub, find the row and column where you would like it to print and set those numbers into the table. Practice printing on scratch paper until the proper configuration is attained. Hold a blank check and stub up to the light with the scratch paper behind it to verify alignment of the fields before printing on good checks. Make sure that two fields don't try to occupy the same space at the same time. One will lose. Field information to be printed beyond the selected form length or width will be ignored. Similarly, if the selected field length is too short for the actual data to be printed, the data will be truncated to fit the field. Thus, if the Check or Stub field length is too short for the data to be printed, the extra data will be discarded. The number $7,777,777.77 converted to text is a long line, so make sure you leave enough field space for your expected data. Memos: A memo having a ^ (caret, or upper case 6) as its first character will not print on a check. Memos with backslashes (\) ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 69 ________________________________________________________________________ embedded in the text will skip to the next row at the \, and start printing again in the selected memo column. A memo starting with an "@" sign prints on checks, but not on reports. See Section 3.3.6 for an explanation of the uses of the "@", "^", and "\" characters in memos and for addressing checks for window envelopes. On the second configuration screen, the contents of Notes 1, 2, and 3 from the previous screen may be specified. Each may be up to 30 charac- ters long or as short as 1 character. The default Notes put the word "Dollars" after the text statement of the amount, and a dollar sign in front of the numeric amount. The Printer Setup allows up to 10 printer formatting commands, such as changing lines per inch, character size, etc., to be sent to the printer. The specific formatting commands for your printer are provided in your printer's manual. Example: Set an Epson printer to emphasized print, 8 lines per inch. From the Epson manual, the code for emphasized print is Escape E, and the code for 8 lines per inch is Escape 0 (zero). The decimal values for each of the codes is 27 for Escape, 69 for E, and 48 for zero. The proper entries for the check writer setup would therefore be: 027 069 027 048 When set to Y, the "Fill Amount Field?" option will fill all blank spaces in the numeric and text amount fields, as printed on the check and stub, with asterisks (*). When N, the blanks remain blank. The Form Length is the number of lines from the top of one check to the top of the next check including the stub. If the printer is set to 6 lines per inch (which is what most printers do if not instructed otherwise), then the form length is the number of inches from the top of one form to the top of the next, times 6. Altering the printer's line- per-inch setting using the printer setup command requires adjustment of the form length. The Form Width is the number of characters that can be printed from one side to the other of the form. Most printers default to 10 charac- ters per inch unless instructed otherwise. Thus if the check is 8 inches wide, the form width is 8 x 10 or 80 characters. Altering the printer character size or spacing using the printer setup command requires adjustment of the form width. In case of emergency, i.e., the configuration settings are recon- figured beyond recognition (possibly resulting in check writing errors), the default configuration may be restored by not filling in the macro field. CashTrac will then revert to the default internal configuration. 3.10.3 Printing a Test Pattern This feature does nothing more than to fill each field you selected in the configuration and print it on the printer. Use the Check writer- test print option from the checking menu, and select either the default macro or your own custom macro. See Section 3.10.2 for instructions for using macros. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 70 THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS ________________________________________________________________________ 3.10.4 Printing Batches of Checks The Print Batch feature prints all checks falling between a specified starting and ending record number in any selected Checking Account regardless of whether the checks have already been printed or selected. 3.10.5 Printing Selected Checks The Check writer-Selected Check Print feature prints only checks that have been selected during checking account data entry, paying Unpaid Bills, or those that have been manually selected here. When this option is selected, and one or more (or ALL) SubAccount numbers have been chosen, CashTrac prints a full screen of checks start- ing from the end of the file. Checks already selected for printing elsewhere will have highlighted record numbers in the REC column. (The highlight color is the Warning Color from the initial CashTrac Set defaults option.) To select or cancel a check for printing, use the cursor up and down keys to move the cursor (located between the record and check numbers) to the appropriate check and then press the space bar. Use the PgUp and PgDn keys as appropriate to page through the checking account and select/cancel more checks. The P or N at the right of each entry indicates that the check has already been printed (P) or not printed (N). To print one check only, press the 1 key (and not the End or Enter). The check next to the cursor will print, regardless of its printed/not printed, selected/not selected status. To print all selected checks, press the A key. The check writer will start at the beginning of the chosen SubAccount files, find all selected checks, and print them continuously until done. To print the same test pattern as the one on the Check Writer menu, press T. 3.11 CHECKING ACCOUNT MINIMUM BALANCE WARNING Use the Minimum Balance Flag option on the Utilities menu to select a dollar value that causes the Checking Account reports to shift from normal colors to a warning color (selected from the Setup menu) when the balance drops below the selected value. Any number greater than zero may be used. If your account no longer pays interest when the balance falls below $100, then use $100 or slightly more as the entry here. The minimum balance warning may be set to a different value for each main Checking Account and applies globally to all SubAccounts in the main account. To set the warning for a different account, change the active account from the Checking Account menu, then return here to set the new warning. The colors for the warning (and any other aspect of ________________________________________________________________________ THE CHECKING ACCOUNTS Page 71 ________________________________________________________________________ the program) may be set with the configuration program, which is run from the main menu. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 72 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ 4.0 THE INVESTMENT AND SAVINGS ACCOUNTS |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | My data file ****** CashTrac 7 ****** 1:48 5/4/89 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Checking Investment Utilities DOS Portal Setup Quit | | |-----------------| | | | Add data | | | | Edit data | | | | Reports | | | | Investment names| | | | Organize | | | |-----------------| | | | | | | | | Add new investment purchases, savings deposits, share value updates |CT| | | Hit first capital letter to choose . . . . . | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |I|C:\DATA | Main Account One |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help| | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| The Investment Account section of CashTrac is a general purpose savings account and investment tracking program that records, makes simple performance analyses, and reports on investments, using either dollars or dollars per share format (other currency symbols may be selected from the Setup menu). The program manages up to 255 separate investment accounts on one disk or subdirectory (and there's no limit to the number of disks or subdirectories used). Enter the name of each investment account via the Investment Account Names function on the Pro- gram Utilities menu. 4.1 ENTERING INVESTMENT DATA Use the Add data option from the Investment menu to enter new invest- ment data. Prior to entering new data, accounts must be named to receive the data. This is done from the Investment names option and is explained below. 4.1.1 Investment Account Names Use the Investment names option on the Investment menu for adding, deleting, etc., Investment Account Names, i.e., creating new investment or savings accounts. The menus and input screens are essentially self explanatory. Investment Accounts are the names of your investment and savings accounts such as Beneficial Theft and Trust, G.F. Mutton, or Shears & Lemon Bros. ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 73 ________________________________________________________________________ 4.1.2 Adding New Account Names Select the Add new name option from the Group Names menu. See Sec- tion 4.1.1 above for instructions on how to get to this menu. New names can be entered during investment data entry by hitting the F8 key without leaving the data entry screen. Press Esc to return to data entry when done adding names. You may enter up to 255 different Investment Names (for each disk or subdirectory, and CashTrac will address an unlimited number of different disks and subdirectories, therefore the possibilities for new accounts are endless). To copy the set of Investment Names to more than one disk or subdirectory (to make backup disks) without retyping them, do the following: a. Exit the program to the operating system (DOS). This can be done without terminating CashTrac by using the Execute DOS commands option on the DOS Portal. b. Copy the Investment Names from the first disk or subdirectory into the second by using the DOS COPY command. For example, to copy the Investment Names from disk A: to disk C:, type: COPY A:7INVCAT.DAT C: The two Investment Names files will now be duplicates because DOS wrote the contents of the Names file from drive A: to drive C:. c. Return to operating CashTrac. If using the DOS Portal, type EXIT to return to CashTrac. 4.1.3 Editing Investment Account Names Select the Investment names - Edit names option from the Investment menu. See Section 4.1.1 for instructions on how to get to this menu. CashTrac will request the number of the Investment Account name to be changed. (Use the F3 key to scroll through the list.) To exit without making any changes, press Esc. Otherwise, enter the number of the Account name and press End to call the name to the screen. Change the name and press End to store the change. Press End again to continue editing another name or press Esc to quit. 4.1.4 Deleting Investment Account Names Select the Investment names - Edit names option from the Investment menu. See Section 4.1.1 above for instructions on how to get to this menu. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 74 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ +---------------------------------------------+ | This feature not only deletes the Investment| | Account name, IT ALSO DELETES ALL DATA IN | | THE INVESTMENT ACCOUNT ASSIGNED TO THAT | | NAME! Use this feature with care. | +---------------------------------------------+ If only the Account Name is to be deleted and not the records assigned to the Investment Account, renumber the records (using the Renumber option on the Investment names menu) to an empty Investment Account prior to deleting the name. To delete an Investment Account name and all associated data in that investment account, select an Investment Account name for editing, as described in Section 4.1.1 above. In response to the question "Delete this Account Name . . . ?" answer Y. CashTrac will give one opportunity to cancel the deletion request. To quit without deleting, press Esc. To delete the Investment Account name and all data in that investment account, press the Enter (or End or F9) key. 4.1.5 Inserting Investment Account Names Select the Investment names - Insert Name option from the Investment menu. See Section 4.1.1 for instructions on how to get to this menu. Enter the number of the location in the Investment Account names file where the name will be inserted. For example, to insert a new Invest- ment Account between existing Accounts 7 and 8, select Account 8 here. The inserted name will be Account number 8, and the old Account 8 will be Account 9. Any other Accounts will also be renumbered as necessary. All investment data records in Accounts numbered less than the inserted name will be unaffected. All data records in Accounts numbered the same as, or higher than, the inserted name will be renumbered, i.e., reas- signed to new Accounts as appropriate. NOTE: a. In macro files for graphing, the graphing options will not be renumbered as the numbers for Account names are changed. Macros must be revised to account for the renumbered Accounts. b. Old data stored in another file on the same or another disk (see Transfer), will not be renumbered. If you renumber the Accounts on your active disk\subdirectory, you should also renumber the "archive" file to correspond to the changes. Should it be neces- sary to transfer data back to the active file in the future for processing, this will keep the account names straight. Similarly, new data from the active file added to the archive file will not be added to the wrong Account. ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 75 ________________________________________________________________________ 4.1.6 Renumbering Investment Accounts Select the Renumber option from the Investment names menu. See Sec- tion 4.1.1 for instructions on how to get to this menu. This is another feature to be used with care! The Renumber option changes the Investment Account number of all investment data assigned to one Account to a new Account number. Example: Accounts 1 (Amalgamated Fungibles), 2 (Slumlords, Ltd.) and 3 (Megawhat Power & Light) exist and have data assigned to each. To alphabetize the list of Accounts, a new Investment Account called Megawhat Power & Light (MP&L) is created prior to Account 2 by using the Insert name option. There are now two Accounts named MP&L. The newly inserted one at Account 2 (which is empty), and the existing MP&L data, now bumped down to Account 4. Data assigned to Account 1 (Amalgamated Fungibles) remains assigned to Account 1 (the insertion was done below Account 1 and did not affect Account 1). Data formerly in Account 2 (Slumlords, Ltd.) is now in Account 3 (the newly bumped down Slumlords Account) and data formerly in Account 3 (MP&L) is now in Account 4 (the newly bumped down MP&L Account). Now use the Renumber option to change data in Account 4 [Old number] to Account 2 [New number]. Data in Account 4 will be transferred to Account 2. Finally, use the Edit names option to delete the empty Account 4. Caution: If, for another example, Accounts 1 through 3 exist and have data assigned to them, and data in Account 3 is renumbered to belong to Account 1, then all data from Accounts 3 and 1 will now belong to Account 1. It will not be possible to reverse the process and renumber the new Account 1 data back to Account 3 while leaving the old Account 1 data unchanged because CashTrac won't be able to differentiate between new Account 1 data (formerly Account 3) and old Account 1 data. +-------------------------------------------+ | If you unintentionally renumber data from | | one Account to have the same number as | | existing data in another Account, it is | | difficult to renumber back again because | | both sets of data have the same number. | +-------------------------------------------+ Solutions (to inadvertently combining Accounts): a. The Hard Way: Use the appropriate Edit routine and change each record one at a time. b. The Easier Way: Do not sort the file! If the records to be changed back, i.e., newly renumbered records, are all in the same ________________________________________________________________________ Page 76 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ time frame or range of record numbers, and the older unrenumbered records are outside the time frame or range of record numbers, use the Transfer function on the Utilities menu to copy the newly renumbered records to a new file, and delete them in the old file. Renumber the newly renumbered records in the new file to what they should be, then transfer them back to the old file. This will not be possible if the unrenumbered records and newly renumbered records are mixed throughout the data file. 4.1.7 Investment Transaction Types Listed below are the types of investment transactions and when to use them. a. Purchase: Use this transaction whenever money is invested, deposited in a savings or money market account, or is paid for a rental property, etc. It indicates that dollars went out of your pocket into an investment or asset. b. Sale: Use this transaction whenever an asset is liquidated, stock sold, or money is withdrawn from savings or a money market, etc. It indicates that money came out of the balance of the investment and into your pocket. c. Interest (reinvested): Use this transaction for interest earned by investment, savings, or money market accounts that is rolled back into the account, where the interest is retained and com- pounded rather than being paid to you as cash or a check. d. iNterest (paid): The same as (3) above, but the interest is paid to you and not retained. e. Dividend (reinvested): This is similar to reinvested interest in (3) above, but for dividends paid and retained. f. diVidend (paid): This transaction is a dividend that is paid to you in cash or check and is not retained. g. broker Fee: This is money paid out of pocket to a broker for ser- vices, such as the broker's fee, for example, on a stock sale or real property rental. This is for use where the fee does not decrease the value of your investment/asset but does reduce the profit earned. h. broker fEe: This is money paid out of the account to a broker for services, such as the broker's fee, for example, on a stock sale or real property rental. This is for use where the fee decreases the value of your investment/asset. i. Change value: This transaction changes the value of all shares of stock existing as of the date on the transaction. Therefore as share values fluctuate periodically, the Change value command adjusts the balance of the CashTrac investment account to reflect that value. It only affects accounts having assets with share values. ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 77 ________________________________________________________________________ A Change value transaction is automatically inserted in the file whenever a purchase or sale is made or share dividends are entered, based on the assumption that the latest transaction reflects the current value of all shares. This is almost always true. If not, the Change value transaction may be modified or deleted. 4.1.8 Mandatory and Optional Data The Date, Dollar Value per Share, and Account Number are mandatory fields and must be valid (see below) or an error message will print at the bottom of the screen and the data will not be accepted. Number of Shares may not be entered for Interest, Fee, fEe, and Change Value transactions (the field is skipped entirely). 4.1.9 Valid Data Values +---------------------------------------------------+ |Field Minimum Maximum | |---------------------------------------------------| |Date: | 1/1/20 | 12/31/99 | |Memo: | N/A | N/A | |Values per Share: | 0.0001 | 9,999,999.99 | |Number of Shares: | 0 | 9,999,999.999 | |Account Number: | 1 | 255 | |Duplicate? | Y | N | +---------------------------------------------------+ The Account Number must be the number of an account that already exists, i.e., has an Account Name. See Section 4.1.1. 4.1.10 Entering Investment Data, General CashTrac expects to see two kinds of investments: those whose values fluctuate based on market pressures (for example, the stock market, or oil paintings), and those whose values go up as interest is earned and never go down unless money is removed by the owner or trustee. Examples of the latter are savings accounts, money markets, and certificates of deposit. a. Initial Purchase: Any investment that has a potentially fluctuating value, such as a stock, mutual fund, or even a collector's item, should be entered with a number of shares and a value per share. Consider a stock purchase in Amalgamated Fungibles (AmFun) of 20 shares at $12 per share. The initial purchase data entry is obvious from the facts; Value per Share = 12, Number of Shares = 20. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 78 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ Consider the purchase of an investment diamond for $15,000. The Value per Share (or value per diamond) = $15,000. The Number of Shares (or number of diamonds) = 1. As the value of a share (or the diamond) fluctuates based on market conditions, enter a Change Value transaction to keep a cur- rent record of the value of the investment. If the AmFun stock rises to $15 per share, then enter that amount and the program will assume all shares purchased to date have that value. If the value of the diamond drops to $12,000, the program will now report that value for the diamond following entry of that value with a Change Value transaction. b. Subsequent purchases: If you purchase more shares of AmFun stock, enter them as you would an initial purchase. If you purchase shares of Consolidated Comestibles instead, enter them in another account, i.e., under another Account Name. The value of Consolidated's shares will not track the value of AF's shares, and CashTrac assumes that all shares in one account will have the same value at any one time. If a second diamond is purchased for $9,000, the value per share is $9,000 and number of shares of new diamonds is 1. But, CashTrac will only assume a unified value for all shares owned. There are now 2 diamonds at two different values per share, there- fore the second diamond should have its own account because CashTrac will assume both shares (diamonds) are worth $9000 unless told otherwise, if both are in the same account. Each subsequent purchase automatically inserts a Change Value transaction into the account to alter all share values to the cur- rent value. This is almost always a valid assumption, but if not, then change the Change Value transaction or delete it entirely. Entering Change Value transactions to track current market condi- tions provides the advantage of being able to graph current value over time. CashTrac can be used to list and chart the DOW-JONES INDEX and other popular indicators, providing change value trans- actions are entered periodically to update the index value. c. Interest and Dividends: Interest is interest and dividends is dividends. Statements from your bank, broker, or trustee should indicate which is which. When the interest or dividend is paid in cash or check directly to you, then use the interest or dividend (paid) transactions. When the interest or dividend is paid back into your account, or you receive a dividend in stock or other share values, then use the interest or dividend (reinvested) transactions. ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 79 ________________________________________________________________________ When a Dividend (reinvested) is paid as shares, CashTrac enters an automatic Change Value with the Dividend (reinv) transaction to update all shares to the current value of the dividend shares. This is almost always correct, but if not, then delete or modify the inserted Change Value transaction. d. Sales: Back to Amalgamated Fungibles. You have now purchased 6000 shares. The value per share on the last purchase was $300. You are rich. Some or all of the shares may be sold and recorded as a Sale transaction. As with the purchase and dividend (reinv) transactions, a sale of shares also automatically inserts a Change Value to update all shares to the sale price. Change or delete it if you don't need it. The program will let you sell more shares than you bought. The feature could be useful, so we left it in. If you see negative shares, be warned that you sold more than you had. e. Miscellaneous: Accounts may mix transactions having share values and non-share values. The program will keep them straight unless the resulting calculations become impossible, i.e., the series of transactions entered results in calculations based on negative or zero shares. An error 11 could result. If this occurs, review the entries in the account to see if any make an condition impossible to calcu- late, and enter correct information. If all automatic Change Value transactions are removed in share- based accounts, the balance will be computed on the share weighted average value of all the transactions. 4.1.11 Savings Accounts Savings account users may ignore the discussions of shares and Change Value transactions and use Purchases (deposit), Sales (withdrawal), and Interest (reinv) transactions. An investment account without shares behaves like a savings account. When entering savings account information, do not make an entry under Number of Shares. If no shares are entered, CashTrac automatically shifts to an alternate mode of tracking the investment. This alternate mode is compatible with savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and other investments having no share values. Use the transactions listed above for recording deposits, withdrawals, and interest. Savings account reports will, upon seeing no purchased shares, default to a savings account mode of reporting. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 80 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ 4.1.12 Duplicating Entries If the answer to "Duplicate?" is Y, the screen will not clear between entries, permitting a record to be duplicated (with any slight modifica- tions) as many times as desired. 4.2 EDITING INVESTMENT ENTRIES The Investment file may be browsed, retrieved, displayed, and changed or deleted using the Edit data function on the Investment menu. The method for searching, editing and deleting records is identical to the method described in Section 3.5 for editing checking account records. The investment transaction types are different than the checking trans- actions and there is no feature in the investment program that cor- responds to SubAccounts; otherwise, the rules are identical. 4.2.1 Browsing the Investment File The method of browsing the investment file is identical to browsing the checking file, as explained in Section 3.5.2. 4.2.2 Deleting Entries a. Deleting One Record: The method of deleting individual investment records is identical to the method of deleting checking records explained in Section 3.5.3. b. Deleting the Entire Investment File: If it is necessary to delete the entire investment file along with all the individual invest- ment accounts: Exit to the operating system (DOS) using the DOS Portal. Delete the investment account data file on the data dis- k\subdirectory. The file name is 7INVEST.DAT. For example, the appropriate command to delete the entire investment file is: DEL 7INVEST.DAT WARNING: All data in the investment file, including every invest- ment account, will be deleted! To erase the investment Account Names file (after erasing the entire investment file) delete the 7INVCAT.DAT file. c. Deleting One Investment Account: To delete all entries in one investment account, select the Investment names-Edit name option on the investment menu. Select the number of the account to delete, press the End key and answer Y in the Delete this Account Name and associated data field. The selected investment account and all its data will be deleted so be sure that you want to do this. Remaining accounts will be renumbered as appropriate. ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 81 ________________________________________________________________________ d. Deleting Batches of Investment Records: The Transfer function on the Utilities menu allows deletion of records by investment account, date, or record number. Please refer to the instructions for that function. 4.2.3 Changing Investment Records Any data found by the search in Section 3.5.1 may be changed to any other valid value. The same rules that apply to new entries apply to changes. Dates must be valid; use no negative numbers; some fields may not be left blank. See Section 4.1.9, for a description of the mandatory fields and valid data values. Use the Esc key to cancel the changes and start over. Press the End key to save the changes and return to the search screen. 4.3 PRINTING INVESTMENT REPORTS CashTrac prints reports on the screen, printer ports 1, 2, or 3, or disk. The print screen (SHIFT-PrtSc) function will also copy single screens to the printer. Use the PgUp and PgDn keys to page back and forth through the screen reports and Esc to return to the Report menu. Many different reports are available using the options on the report selection screens. The following sections discuss the major reports. 4.3.1 The Account Statement If ALL accounts are selected, the report shows every transaction for every account in one report. If one account is selected, the report shows each transaction for that account and the current value of that account after each transaction. a. The report displays the following information: 1. Record Number: Use this number for fast searches for changing and deleting. 2. Transaction Date 3. Account Number: If ALL transactions are selected for printing, this field is listed, otherwise it is not on the report. 4. Transaction Type/Entry Type 5. Remarks 6. Dollars Per Share: This figure is the dollars per share for the listed transaction, providing shares were entered. If the transaction does not include shares, such as a savings deposit (purchase), then it is just the dollars of the transaction. 7. Shares: If one account is selected and the transaction has shares associated with it, the number of shares prints just below the dollars per share. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 82 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ 8. Dollar Value: If one account is selected, this number is the current value of the investment after the transaction. If ALL accounts were selected, this field is not printed. 9. Number of Shares: Shows the number of shares in the account. If one account is selected and there are no shares, the printing of the 0.000 is suppressed. b. General Report Options (available to all reports): These options are identical to the Checking Account general report options as discussed in Section 3.6.1. Select the Account State- ment report and desired options, then press the End key to go to the next screen. c. Report Options Specific to the Account Statement Report: RECORD SELECTION OPTIONS: Actually, there is only one option: to select ALL accounts or one account. Select ALL accounts to "dump" all transactions to a report. Select one account to see the his- tory and current value of the selected account. RECORD TYPES TO BE PRINTED: Put a Y next to each transaction type to be printed on the report. The final selection on this list is Account Names. Selecting Y for this option prints the full Account Name on the report rather than a code. This requires an extra printed line. 4.3.2 The Account Activity Summary Report This report summarizes the Purchases, Sales, Fees, etc., in the selected time period and for the entire report and reports gains and potential profits. The General Report Options described in checking report Section 3.6.1 are applicable here. On the second report selection screen only the Account Number may be changed. If ALL accounts are selected, a summary prints for each account. Use PgUp and PgDn to page through the report on the screen. The report prints one summary per page on the printer. Two report summaries will fit on a page by altering the Lines per Page and Length of Page in the General Report Options. At the bottom of the report are: a. Start Date Value: This is the current value as of the selected starting date. b. End Date Value: This is the current value as of the selected end date. ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 83 ________________________________________________________________________ c. Gains During Time: This is the change in current value between the selected dates that resulted from other than interest, dividends, sales, or purchases. In other words, it reflects capi- tal gains, but only gains during the interval. For a strict income tax evaluation of capital gains, take into account the values of shares outside the reporting time frame. +------------------------------------------------------+ | Do not use the "Gains During Time" value reported | | for income tax reporting without considering the | | initial basis of the asset, which may fall outside | | the reported time frame. | +------------------------------------------------------+ d. Current Value: This is the value of the investment today, or as of the last entry in the account. It is not affected by the selected dates. e. Potential Profits: If the investment were liquidated today, these are the profits you would have, based on the current value. This figure comprises: Current Val - Purch & Fees + Int & Div (paid) Current Value includes Interest and Dividends reinvested. 4.3.3 Summary of All Accounts This report shows, in five columns (from left to right): a. Account Name as entered from the Utilities menu. b. Current Value of the investment as of the last transaction entered. c. Total Shares Owned, which is the number of shares currently owned. d. Duration of the investment from the date of the first transaction to the end date selected on the report (on the upper right corner of the screen). The number is in years, i.e., 1.5 years is 18 months. e. Average Annual Return: This figure is the percent increase in value of the investment, including cash payments, from the first day of the investment to the end day of the report, normalized to an annualized percentage rate. Note that the rate calculation tracks from the FIRST DAY to the REPORT END DAY. Ten percent interest earned in a month with 31 days will have a lower annual- ized percentage rate than 10% earned in a month with 28 days, because the interest is earned in a shorter time period and there- fore at a slightly higher rate. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 84 INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS ________________________________________________________________________ Example: (Assume a savings account with interest compounded at 6% per year or 0.5% per month). A savings account has $1000 deposited on 3/1/89. On 4/1/89 the bank pays $5 interest. Assume the bank pays interest through 9/1/89 as shown in the table below. Also assume that on 10/1/89 you do not enter an interest payment into the investment account. On each month the bank pays inter- est, and the account statement report will show: REC DATE TYPE REMARK AMOUNT BALANCE === ====== ======= ================ ======== ======== 21 3/1/89 PURCHAS Initial Deposit $1000.00 $1000.00 22 4/1/89 INT-rnv Interest payment $5.00 $1005.00 23 5/1/89 INT-rnv Interest payment $5.03 $1010.03 24 6/1/89 INT-rnv Interest payment $5.05 $1015.08 25 7/1/89 INT-rnv Interest payment $5.07 $1020.15 26 8/1/89 INT-rnv Interest payment $5.10 $1025.25 27 9/1/89 INT-rnv Interest payment $5.13 $1030.38 Successive "Summary of All Investment" reports will report the average annualized return on the $1000 deposit on successive dates as: Start Date End Date Rate Reported ========== ======== ============ 3/1/89 3/1/89 0.0% 3/1/89 4/1/89 5.9% 3/1/89 5/1/89 6.0% 3/1/89 6/1/89 6.0% 3/1/89 7/1/89 6.0% 3/1/89 8/1/89 6.0% 3/1/89 9/1/89 6.0% 3/1/89 10/1/89 5.2% Each line above represents one separate report for each set of dates. Note that the percent is 5.9 after the first payment. The interest is calculated from the first day of the investment to the last day of the report; on 4/1/89 the interest period is 32 days-- slightly more than an average month. For the subsequent time periods the effect of the single end day added to the total period gets smaller, and the percent approaches the expected interest paid of 6 percent. For October, no interest was entered, there- fore CashTrac bases its calculations on the interest earned over the total time period, and the effective annualized rate begins to drop to reflect the decreased earnings as seen by CashTrac. CashTrac performs in a similar manner for stock based accounts, calculating the performance on an annualized rate for any combina- tion of purchases, sales, changes in value, etc. The performance calculation considers the number of days each purchase was invested, and tracks an unlimited number of transactions. Obviously the report gives only a general performance figure ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGS Page 85 ________________________________________________________________________ because of the many different possible investments. A later module (enhancement) to CashTrac will provide specific performance analyses geared to each type of investment, such as Treasury Bills, analyses of each block of stock purchased, bonds, etc. f. THE BOTTOM LINE summarizes, for all investments, the values shown. The Account Activity Summary report presents similar numbers, but for each account. 4.4 ORGANIZING (SORTING) INVESTMENT FILES Select the Organize option from the investment menu. The sort routine organizes all investment accounts by date. See Section 3.9 for additional sort routine details. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 86 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ 5.0 PROGRAM UTILITIES |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | My data file ****** CashTrac 7 ****** 8:45 5/5/89 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Checking Investment Utilities DOS Portal Setup Quit | | |---------------| | | | Import data | | | | Export data | | | | Transfer data | | | | Graphing | | | | New data disk | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | Import data from data bases and spreadsheets. *UT* | | Hit first capital letter to choose . . . . . | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |I|C:\DATA | Main Account One |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help| | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| 5.1 IMPORT, EXPORT, TRANSFER & GRAPH DATA These four functions are all executed by the Utilities program (UTILCT7.OVL) which is automatically called from the main menu when one of the options is invoked. The Utilities program may not be run as a "stand alone" program but only as an option from the CashTrac main menu. If an OUT OF MEMORY error occurs when running the Utilties program from the CashTrac main menu, make sure you are using the CT7.BAT batch file to run CashTrac or that you have installed SET CT7=123 in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (either method works), as required in the Installation section of Chapter 2, and that there are no extra spaces in the command. For example, an Error 7 OUT OF MEMORY would occur if the command SET CT7 = 123 were added to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (note the extra spaces around the = sign). 5.2 IMPORTING DATA Use this option to take data created by any other program into a CashTrac data file. Data must exist on a disk (source) file in the below specified format. The source data file may be created by any pro- gram, such as a spreadsheet, database manager, word processor, etc. 5.2.1 Source File Format The source file data may be in a delimited format or an undelimited format, as described below. ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 87 ________________________________________________________________________ 5.2.2 Import Data, Delimited Format In delimited data records, each field is separated by a comma. Each character field is enclosed within quotes. The valid values and lengths from the table in Section 5.2.4 must be observed. Numeric values may be shorter than the table value, but not longer. Here is a sample delimited record (with the "To" field shortened to fit on this page): CHECKING RECORD "O",12,1,85,123456,"N","Y",123,123,"Payee goes here ",355.75,"*" | | | | | | | | | +-To: | | | | | +Year | | | | +-----SubAccount Amount + | | | +--Day | | | +---------Purchase Group Split Subtype+ | +----Month| | +-------------Reconciled +--Record Type| +-----------------Tax Deduction +----------------------Check Number INVESTMENT RECORD "P",2,27,81,123,"BORROWED BIG BUCKS TODAY ",1234567.89,1234567.890 | | | | | | | +# of Shares | | | +Year| +For: +-----------$ Amount | | +---Day +------Investment Account Number | +-----Month +--------Record Type 5.2.3 Import Data, Undelimited Format Undelimited data record fields have a space between each field. Com- mas and quotes are assumed to be text data and are imported. In the sample undelimited record below, each field must be of the length specified in Section 5.2.4, even numeric data. The example date is 9/9/85. Each 9 is preceded by a blank (in addition to the delimiter which also happens to be a blank) to make it two digits long. Note the slashes. CashTrac actually doesn't care what separates each field so long as the fields are the correct length and are separated by some- thing. CHECKING RECORD O 9/ 9/85 123456 N Y 123 123 Must be 25 char long 1234567.89 * | | | | | | | | | +To: | | | | | +Year | | | | +---SubAccount Amount+ | | | +---Day | | | +-------Purchase Group Split Subtype-+ | +------Month| | +----------Reconciled +Record Type | +------------Tax Deduction +---------------Check Number ________________________________________________________________________ Page 88 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ INVESTMENT RECORD P 2/25/81 123 INITIAL STOCK PURCHASE 1234567.89 1234567.890 | | | | | | | +# of Shares | | | +Year| +For: +-----------$ Amount | | +---Day +------Investment Account Number | +-----Month +--------Record Type 5.2.4 Imported Data Value Table The table below shows the required length of each data field for both checking and investment records. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | FIELD LENGTH MAX MIN VALID CHARACTERS | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Record Type | 1 |Upper Case | | B C D I M O P R S W Z (Checking) | | | |Only! | | C D E F I N P S V Z (Investment)| | Month (MM) | 2 | 12 | 1 | | | Day (DD) | 2 | 31 | 1 | | | Year (YY) | 2 | 99 | 0 | | | Check Number | 6 | 999999 | 1 | (MIN=0 for non-checks) | | Tax Deduction | 1 | | | Y or N only, in caps. | | Reconciled | 1 | | | Y or N only, in caps. | | Purchase Group| 3 | 255 | 1 | | | Invest. Acc't | 3 | 255 | 1 | | | Check SubAcc't| 3 | 255 | 1 | | | To or For | 25 | | | Must be this length! | | $ Amount | 10 | 9999999.99 | 0 | Open Balance may be negative. | | No. of Shares | 11 | 9999999.999 | 0 | | | Split Subtype | 1 | | | C D I W * (Checking only) | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 5.2.5 Import Data Selection Screen The following selections apply to Importing Data. SEND DATA TO: Pick a 0 to send imported data to the Investment file, 1 through 16 to send data to Checking Accounts 1 to 16 respectively, or -1 to -16 to send imported data to the Unpaid Bills files for Checking Accounts 1 to 16, respectively. This is the "target" file. DRIVE\PATH: Select the drive\path where the above selected account resides. DOS rules for naming paths apply. Examples of valid drive\path formats are: B: C:\DATA\FILES ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 89 ________________________________________________________________________ DATA FORMAT: Select 1 if character data in the file to be imported is delimited by quotes and commas. Select 0 if all data is separated by a space or other character. DRIVE\PATH: The drive\path where the FILE NAME below resides. FILE NAME: The name of the file containing the data to be imported. This is the file created by your spreadsheet, database manager, etc. After all selections have been made, CashTrac will begin importing records and appending them to the end of the existing data file. In the process, each field is checked for validity. If all fields in a record are valid, the record is saved. If any field is invalid, an error mes- sage gives the type of error, the number of the record in the source file, and gives an option to skip the record and continue or stop to fix the data and start over from the first source record. If starting over, the data already appended to the "target" file will make the file physically bigger according to the DOS file directory. The next time data is written to the target file, the new data will be appended to the data already transferred. It is, therefore, advisable to experiment with backup data files. Use the Transfer option to delete unnecessary appended records. 5.2.6 Importing Split Entries Split entries are somewhat tricky and their importation should be avoided if possible. a. Use an "S" for the record type. b. The split entry will attach itself to the first main record fol- lowing the split or series of splits. c. The "attached" main record must be the same type as indicated in the Split Subtype field shown above. d. The date for all splits and their main record will be set to the date of the first split. They must be the same. e. The check number for all splits and their main record will be set to the check number of the first split. They must be the same. f. A mismatch between the split subtype and the attached main record type will result in an error message. All splits in the series must be deleted from the target file. 5.2.7 Importing Memos ________________________________________________________________________ Page 90 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ Memo records are synthesized from combinations of numeric and charac- ter fields in the two records following a main record in the CashTrac data files. They may not be imported. 5.3 EXPORTING DATA Use this option to take data created by CashTrac and put it into a disk file in a delimited or undelimited format suitable for being "imported" by most spreadsheet, data base, or other programs. To determine whether the data needs to be delimited or undelimited, see the instructions for the program receiving the data. 5.3.1 CashTrac Source Files Data may be taken from the Investment file, any of the 16 checking account files, or any of the 16 unpaid bills files. 5.3.2 Export Data, Delimited Format Delimited data records are created in the same form as shown in Sec- tion 5.2.2 and obey the value and size limits given in Section 5.2.4. 5.3.3 Export Data, Undelimited Format Undelimited data records are created in the same form as shown in Section 5.2.3 and obey the value and size limits given in Section 5.2.4. 5.3.4 Export Data Selection Screen The following selections apply to Exporting Data: a. TAKE DATA FROM: Pick 0 to take data from the Investment file, 1 to 16 to take data from main checking accounts 1 to 16 respec- tively and -1 to -16 to take data from the unpaid bills files for checking accounts 1-16, respectively. SubAccounts within each of the 16 main accounts will be selected below. b. DRIVE\PATH: The drive\path where the above-selected account resides. DOS rules for naming drives and paths apply. Examples of valid drive\path formats are: B: C:\DATA\FILES c. OUTPUT FORMAT: Select 1 to delimit the exported data with quotes and commas. Select 0 to delimit the data with spaces, i.e., make an undelimited record. d. DRIVE\PATH: The drive\path where the data file named below will reside. ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 91 ________________________________________________________________________ e. FILE NAME: The name of the file that will receive the exported data. Choose a file name compatible with the program that will eventually import the data. For example, LOTUS 1-2-3 expects a numerical import file to have a .PRN file extension and will not recognize files with other endings. f. SubAccounts: When transferring checking or unpaid bills data, select from 1 to 5 (or ALL) SubAccounts within the selected main account (1 to 16) to be the source of data. This entry is ignored if the investment file (0) is selected. g. PURCHASE GROUPS and INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS: Select one or all Pur- chase Groups or Investment Accounts to be exported. For a list of available Groups or Accounts, type 999 and press End. h. DELETE DURING TRANSFER: Select Y to delete data from the CashTrac source file as it is being exported, i.e., this is a batch delete. i. STARTING AND ENDING RECORD NUMBERS: Use record numbers (from main program reports) to select data for export, or j. STARTING AND ENDING DATES: Use dates to select data for export. k. MEMO records will not be exported. 5.4 TRANSFERRING DATA Use this function to transfer batches of data among the various CashTrac data files. Data may be transferred from the investment file, or a checking account on a drive\path to any other investment file or checking account on any other drive\path. The transfer options and process for transferring data are identical to those in the above Section for exporting data. The only difference is that data will go to a CashTrac account (data file, in the CashTrac format) rather than an export file, i.e., an ASCII file for input to other programs such as spreadsheets, data bases and word processor files. In that case, the following screen data fields replace the "FILE NAME" and "OUTPUT FORMAT" specified above: SEND DATA TO: Use 0 for an investment account, 1 to 16 for a main checking account, or -1 to -16 for an unpaid bills account. Do not transfer data from an account back to itself, that is, to the same account on the same drive and subdirectory. Data may be sent from and to accounts by the same name, so long as the target account is on a different disk or subdirectory. The program will transfer checking data to the investment file and vice versa. This feature can prove handy every now and then, but each record may need to be altered to reconcile the transaction type with the ________________________________________________________________________ Page 92 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ new account prior to being available for printing reports. Use the Edit function. CAVEATS: a. When transferring by record number and deleting, be sure to not transfer a main record without its split or memo and vice versa. A free-standing split or memo will attach itself to the closest main record. A main record deprived of its splits can not have its dollar amount altered. If any of these events occur, the safest course of action is to delete the parasitic memo or splits, and delete the lone main record transferred without its split entries. Therefore, transfers by date should be used to avoid these problems. It may not be possible to delete the parasitic memo by this means, in which case, please refer to Troubleshoot- ing, Section 7.5.7. b. Records transferred and deleted may affect account balances. For checking accounts, jot down the ending balance before and after the transfer. Add an Opening balance transaction as the first record of the account, i.e., at the earliest date, to adjust for the loss of records. Example: The object is to remove all entries from January 1, 1988, to December 31, 1988, from main checking account 1, Sub- Account 1, which is assumed to be the default checking account, and to store that data in an archive account, 16. Assume also that main account 1 and main account 16 are located in different subdirectories, although that is usually not the case. Main account 1 is in the default data subdirectory set up in the con- figuration file, and main account 16 is in the C:\CT6\OLD-DATA subdirectory. The screen below shows the entries to be used on the TRANSFER DATA screen. 1. Run a check register report on main account 1, SubAccount 1, having a selected ending date equal to or later than the last entry in the account. The balance at the end of the report is the current balance, newly reconciled from the first entry of the account. Assume for this example that the balance is $3,300. 2. Do the data transfer, using settings on the screen below. ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 93 ________________________________________________________________________ |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Example TRANSFER DATA 7:20 5/5/89 | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Take data from: 1 DRIVE\PATH: C:\DATA | | |- (Use 0 for Investments, or 1-16 for Checking Acc'ts) | | | | | Send data to: 16 DRIVE\PATH: C:\CT6\OLD-DATA | | (Example: A: -or- C:\CASHTRAC\ARCHIVE) | | | | Select SubAccounts (ignored for non-checking files): 1 | | | | Select one or all Purchase Groups/Investment Accounts: ALL | | Delete records as they are transferred (Y or N)? Y | | | | Transfer Data (Choose either record numbers or dates.) | | | | Starting with record number: ____ and Ending with record number:____ | | Starting on (MM/DD/YY): 1/ 1/88 and Ending on (MM/DD/YY): 12/31/88 | |+------------------------------------------------------------------------+| ||I|C:\DATA | |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help|| |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| 3. Run the check register report again on main account 1, Sub- Account 1 again and note the new ending balance. Assume it is now $4000. The removed records accounted for a net expenditure of $700 (new balance, $4000 minus old balance, $3300) that is no longer in the account. 4. Correct the existing balance by entering a new Opening Balance transaction of -700, having a date of January 1, 1989 or ear- lier. For investment accounts, it is probably best to transfer only dormant or closed investments in order to avoid removing important early transactions in the account. c. It may be helpful to verify that there are no unreconciled check- ing account transactions in the block of data to be transferred. Use the UNRECONCILED ONLY option on the Check Register report. It's hard to balance a checking account if some unreconciled records are removed from the account. 5.5 GRAPHING The graphing options are contained in program UTILCT7.OVL which is run from the main menu, not as a stand-alone program. Low density floppy disk users should select the Graphing option, put system working disk 3 in drive A: when prompted, then press any key to continue. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 94 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ If an OUT OF MEMORY error occurs when loading the graphing program from the CashTrac main menu, refer to the discussion in Section 5.1. Use the graphing program to make bar charts, in six colors on color monitors, or in "black and white" on monochrome monitors. The graphs consist entirely of text characters, therefore no graphics capability is necessary. Graphs may be printed on the screen, to a disk file, or to a printer. If the graph is sent to a printer, the printer must be able to print most of the MS-DOS set of 256 characters, sometimes called graphics, but actually special text characters that have nothing to do with MS-DOS graphics. If your printer printed the menu screen as suggested in Sec- tion 1.7, it will print the graphs. If not, then refer back to Section 1.7 for instructions on how to develop an MS-DOS character printing capability. 5.5.1 The Graphing Setup Screen There are several graphing options that must be selected prior to printing a graph. The first fourteen are common to both investment and checking data graphing and are: a. Macro: Many CashTrac functions use Macros to store one or more screens full of selection choices. The same macro add, change, view, and execute functions apply to report selection, graphing, and check printer configuration. A macro, in this sense, is a series of memorized options stored in a file for later use. In other words, the options necessary to make a specific graph may be stored and used again. To list existing macros: Cursor up to the MACRO field, and type LISTMAC in the MACRO field, then press the End key. The graphing macro, as with all other macros in CashTrac, is always skipped as the first field. +-------------------------------------------------+ | To list macros, the file COMMAND.COM must be | | present on the A: drive or the drive\path | | specified in the DOS environment under COMSPEC. | | See Chapter 7.0, Troubleshooting, for details. | +-------------------------------------------------+ To make a new macro, type an unused macro name (use the same rules as for naming a DOS file, but without an extension, i.e., BIG, not BIG.MAC). CashTrac will add a CGM or IGM (checking or investment graph macro) extension. Press the End key. A message will say "ENTER OR CHANGE DATA." Enter new data and press the End key when done to save the macro and run the graph. ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 95 ________________________________________________________________________ To run an existing macro, type the name of the macro, without the CGM or IGM extension, and press the End key. This loads the macro data to the screen. Press the End key again to run the macro. To change a macro, enter the MACRO name in the MACRO field (without the CGM or IGM extension). Press the End key. The macro data will load to the screen, or "ENTER/CHANGE DATA" will print at the bottom of the screen if the MACRO doesn't exist. Enter the new data to be stored with the macro and press the End key to con- tinue. The new options will replace the old ones and the graph will be executed. To delete a macro: Macros are nothing more than files on your data disk or subdirectory. The name is the MACRO name you selected followed by CGM or IGM for checking or investment graph macro, for example, DEPOSITS.CGM. Erase the macro from the data disk or subdirectory using the DOS DEL command in the same manner as any other file. b. TIME UNITS (D, W, M, Y): Select whether the graph will plot data by days, weeks, months, or years. c. ROLLING TIME FRAME: Choose a number from 1 to 37. This permits the graphing program to always plot the most recent of the selected number of days, weeks, etc., regardless of the current date and is a handy feature for macros. If only one set of data will be plotted, up to 37 time periods may print on one graph. Selecting more than 37 will result in an error (harmless). If more than one data set (discussed below) will be plotted on one graph, the maximum number of time units will automatically drop to fit more bars on the graph. A ROLLING TIME FRAME overrides the Starting and Ending dates. To print by dates, leave this field zero or blank. d. START and END DATES: If the ROLLING TIME FRAME above is zero (0) or blank, the graph will print data between the selected dates. If the time period is larger than will fit on one graph, the num- ber of days, weeks, etc., that can fit will be plotted, ending on the END DATE. If the TIME UNITS chosen are MONTHLY, the selected day is ignored. Data for the month is plotted. If the TIME UNITS are YEARLY, then all data in the selected year is plotted, regardless of the selected month or day. e. PRINT TO SCREEN OR PRINTER: Select S to print on the screen, or P to print on the printer. f. PRINT TO DISK: Enter a file name here to override the above printer or screen selection and print the graph to a text file. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 96 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ The file may then be merged with a word processor file, edited (or not) and printed. Graphs printed to disk lose their color information, so different STYLES should be selected for each data set rather than COLORS (discussed below). Do not use an extension on the filename. CashTrac will add .CTG to the end. To print a list of existing graph file names, type LISTCTG and press the End key. +------------------------------------------------------+ | For Print to Disk to work, the file COMMAND.COM | | must be present on the A: drive or the drive\path | | specified in the DOS environment under COMSPEC. See | | Section 7.0, Troubleshooting, for details. | +------------------------------------------------------+ g. ACCUMULATE TOTALS: If "N," then the graph shows only the activity in each time period. If "Y," then each time period reflects the activity in the time period plus the activity in the previous time period. For example, the graphing options are chosen to show weekly deposits. $1000 was deposited each week, with accumulated totals: Week 1 is plotted as $1000, Week 2 is $2000, etc. With no accumulated totals, Week 1 is plotted as $1000, Week 2 is $1000, etc. h. POLARITY: With + (positive) polarity, positive values (deposits, interest, credits) are plotted above the time axis and negative values (expenditures) are plotted below. Zero polarity causes all values to plot above the axis regardless of whether they are posi- tive or negative values. Negative polarity is the opposite of positive, i.e., deposits are down, expenditures are up. i. SHOW GRID LINES: Enter "Y" or "N." j. If plotting checking data, the next step is to select the main checking Account Number to be plotted (1 to 16). If plotting investment data, the next step is (l), below. k. SubAccount No.: For checking account data, enter from 1 to 5 (or "ALL") checking SubAccount numbers here to be plotted. The effect of selecting more than one SubAccount is to cause the selected SubAccounts to be treated by CashTrac as a single SuperAccount containing all of the data of the individual SubAccounts. l. SELECT "###" OR "E" FOR ENTIRE FILE: If graphing checking data, then "###" stands for a PURCHASE GROUP number. If graphing investment data, then "###" stands for an INVESTMENT ACCOUNT num- ber. ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 97 ________________________________________________________________________ CashTrac will plot four separate sets of data on one graph. Each of the four columns on the setup screen permits selection of options for each of the four data sets. In each of the four columns in this row, select a Purchase Group, Deposit Group, Investment Account number (as appropriate) or an E to plot data from the entire file. If the Group or account number is unknown, then enter 999 and press the End key to display the Group/Account list. A blank field causes the data selected underneath to be ignored. If all four fields are blank, no graph will plot and processing will return to the main menu. When graphing checking data, if E is selected for a data set, CashTrac plots the data values associated with the main records and ignores splits. If just one Purchase or Deposit Group is selected, CashTrac plots splits and only main records having no splits. It does not graph both a split and its associated main record as this would show a falsely large data value. m. SELECT TRANSACTIONS TO BE PLOTTED: For each of the next nine lines, select the type of transaction you would like to see plotted. Put a Y in the first column if you would like a certain transaction type to be included in the first data set in the graph. Put a Y in the second column for the second data set, etc. If more than one transaction is selected in a column, it will add algebraically to the other transaction types selected in that column. For example, Purchases add to the total, Sales subtract from the total, etc. There are some exceptions listed below. For Checking Account graphing: Monthly and Yearly Budget values will print only in data sets where one Purchase Group is selected. They will not print where E (Entire file, i.e., all Purchase and Deposit Groups) is selected. Selecting Average Balance overrides all other selections, i.e., only the balance for the selected SubAccounts will print. If Balance is selected, but not Accumulate Totals, checks and with- drawals are subtracted from deposits and interest to give the net activity on the account in the time period. If the totals are accumulated, the graph shows the account balance as it changes over the entire time period. For Investment Account graphing: The current value of an account will print only in data sets where one Investment Account is selected. It will not print where E is selected. For long time frames (weeks, months, year) the current value plotted reflects the value at the end of each time interval which is shown on the horizontal (time) axis. A Y for Current Value overrides all other transaction selections. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 98 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ n. COLOR: The color of the bar used to plot each of the four data sets may be selected here. The value of each color in its respec- tive color is printed just above this line (0, 1, 2, etc.). Some numbers print the same color as the background and are not visible on some screens. These are the correct colors to pick for invisible graphs of investments going nowhere (joke). Monochrome monitor users may want to select one color for all graphs (or highlighted and normal) and vary the appearance of the data sets with the Style option (below). o. STYLE: The style of the bar used to plot each of the four data sets may be selected here. The styles are shown next to A ( X ), B ( X ), C ( X ), and D ( X ). Color monitor users may want to pick all Style A, but vary the colors, above. Printing to a disk or a printer removes the color information, therefore it is usually more effective to vary the graph style when multiple data sets are printed to disk or paper rather than varying the color. Press End to continue and print the graph. A window displays pertinent data as CashTrac prepares the graph. The data base informa- tion necessary to create a graph is stored in memory, therefore the first time CashTrac graphs a file, the "READING ENTIRE FILE" message displays. Under that message are three status lines. The first indi- cates the amount of space, in records, remaining in the data file. The second indicates the amount of free memory after the file has been read into memory. When this number reaches zero, CashTrac will no longer be able to graph your account. Before that happens, either transfer data out of the account (see the Transfer option on the Utilities menu), free more space by removing memory-resident utility programs, or add memory to your machine. The third status line indicates how many records CashTrac found within the selected time frame. A number here does not mean any data meets the selection criteria, just that it's within the time frame and that the computer is working. If the next graph requests data from the same data file as the first graph, the window indicates that the file index is still in memory, and also shows the number of records within the time frame. 5.5.2 Printing The Legend If the graph prints on the screen, press L to print a legend or summary of the selection criteria. If the graph prints on the printer or disk, the legend prints automatically. ________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM UTILITIES Page 99 ________________________________________________________________________ 5.5.3 Graph Precision To permit graphing on monochrome, mono-graphics, and color/enhanced graphics equipped computers, and to provide full color graphing without shifting into the rather awkward 40 column CGA mode, CashTrac produces graphs with text characters. In addition to hardware compatibility, this permits graph files to be saved to disk and merged with any text file for word processing. The main disadvantage is that in the text mode only 25 lines are available on which to place a character, whereas in the CGA mode there are 200 lines. The result (the bottom line, so to speak) is a sacrifice of some precision. CashTrac plots values on any of 20 lines, therefore a graph may only display 20 discrete values. The characters used for graphing, like this X, extend from the bottom of one line almost to the bottom of the next line. As a result, the height of a bar is only a close approximation of the actual value graphed, as shown below. 80-|-------XX---- -| XX XX 70-|-XX-XX-XX---- -| XX XX XX |------------- The graphs use text characters that tend to spill over lines. Note that the graph above shows values of 70, 75, and 80. Also, if a very large value, e.g., $50,000, is plotted next to a very small value, e.g., $5, the latter will be too small to be represented by a full character on the graph and will plot as zero. 5.5.4 Miscellaneous Graph Notes Yearly budget level values are plotted as * characters on the graph. Monthly budget levels are plotted as r characters. 5.6 START NEW DATA DISK This function is not applicable to hard disks and only applies to systems running CashTrac on floppy disks. CashTrac will manage accounts on any number of different data disks (and subdirectories). However, there is a quirk in DOS that destroys data disks if the proper precautions are not followed when changing disks. If DOS has wrecked a disk (the directory and file allocation table, actually), it is extremely difficult to recover the data files, if not impossible. Column One will not endeavor to recover the data because of the complexity of the problem. However, this problem is ________________________________________________________________________ Page 100 PROGRAM UTILITIES ________________________________________________________________________ easily avoidable. The only sure way to protect your data is to follow the precautions here and to keep frequent, multiple data backups. One backup is insufficient to guarantee protection. A foolproof backup method is discussed later in Section 8.4. The DOS quirk is explained in detail at the end of this section. The rule to follow to avoid the DOS disk gobbler is to never change a disk while files on the disk are open. This applies to all programs, not just CashTrac. The problem can occur in CashTrac on floppy disks when the disk has been changed without first returning to the CashTrac menu screen. At the main menu, all data in memory is written to disk, and the files are closed. After files are closed, disks may be changed without danger of data loss. As an extra precaution, use the New data disk option on the Utilities menu to ensure that all files are closed prior to changing data disks. The DOS quirk can also damage system disks. Do not change a system disk unless CashTrac requests a different disk. To tell if your disk has been damaged by the DOS bug (it's not really a bug, just some thoughtless DOS programming), run the DOS utility CHKDSK. See your DOS manual for details. If the result shows errors, the disk is damaged and must either be fixed using various utility pro- grams, such as the Norton Utilities, or the backup data set must be used. We recommend the latter as far easier and more reliable. (There's no problem with Mr. Norton's utilities, it's just that DOS scrambles the disk so badly that it's almost impossible to unscramble.) A data disk with a damaged directory is extremely hard to rebuild. The problem can occur with any program, including CashTrac. Here's the cause: when DOS opens files on your data disk, DOS records the directory and file allocation table in memory. When DOS writes data to the disk, or closes the files, it writes the updated directory and file allocation table onto the disk. If you've changed disks between opening the files and/or writing to the files, DOS writes the updated directory onto the wrong disk, scrambling the new disk. Actually, the data on the new disk is fine. The problem is discovering how to rebuild the disk file directory. DOS should check to see that the disk has been changed before writ- ing, but it doesn't. We warn you in Chapter 2 not to change disks without returning to the menu. We provide a New data disk function accessible from the Utilities menu that closes all data files, then reopens new files on the new disk. This problem can occur with any program, especially those relying heavily on disk data files, such as CashTrac and data base manager pro- grams. If you've lost data from other programs, this problem is a likely cause. ________________________________________________________________________ DOS PORTAL Page 101 ________________________________________________________________________ 6.0 DOS PORTAL |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | My data file ****** CashTrac 7 ****** 8:45 8/3/89 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Checking Investment Utilities DOS Portal Setup Quit | | |---------------------| | | | Data path change | | | | dAta directory | | | | Program path change | | | | pRogram directory | | | | Execute DOS commands| | | |---------------------| | | | | | | | | TEMPORARILY change the CashTrac data drive and path. |ANY | | Hit first capital letter to choose . . . . . | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |I|C:\DATA.2 | Main Account One |Esc to Quit |F1 for Help| | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| The DOS portal is the program user's interface with DOS. It permits executing DOS commands and changing the drives and paths where CashTrac finds data and programs. 6.1 CHANGE DATA DRIVE (TEMPORARY) Use this option (named Data path change) to temporarily change the drive and or path where CashTrac looks to find its data files. To change a drive only, enter the drive letter followed by a colon, for example, B: and then press the End key. To change a path, enter the new path using the format C:\FINANCE\DATA and press the End key. (The actual path may be different from this example, but the format of the DRIVE:\DIR\SUBDIR should be the same.) Use only valid path names as defined by your DOS manual. In either case, if the drive or path is not found, an error will be indicated, the data drive will be reset to the DOS default drive (the drive and subdirectory active in DOS when CashTrac was loaded). No harm done, just try again. However, CashTrac may not be able to find its data and system files until the paths are reset, depending on which directory was the DOS default when CashTrac was loaded. By changing the data path, several different sets of data may be kept on several different subdirectories or drives. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 102 DOS PORTAL ________________________________________________________________________ 6.2 DATA DISK DIRECTORY This option (called dAta directory -- use an A to run from the key- board) executes a DOS DIR /P command on the currently chosen data disk and subdirectory. For this option to work, the DOS command processor (COMMAND.COM) must be on the disk in the A: drive (or the "SET COMSPEC=" DOS command must have been used to alter the DOS environment to direct the operating system to look elsewhere). In other words, if your computer can't find DOS (COMMAND.COM), it can't execute the command. For most floppy disk users, formatting the CashTrac system disk using the DOS FORMAT /S command (as stated in the Installation section of this manual) will ensure COMMAND.COM is where it should be. Hard disk users may cure any problems either by putting a DOS disk in drive A:, copying COMMAND.COM to the default CashTrac directory (the directory shown at the DOS prompt when CashTrac was loaded), or by use of the DOS COMSPEC command (see your DOS manual). 6.3 CHANGE SYSTEM DRIVE (TEMPORARILY) Use this option (called Program path change) to alter the drive or subdirectory where CashTrac looks to find its help files and associated programs (the utility menu options, the checkwriter and the setup menu options). The format for entering a change is the same as described above for changing the data drive\path. 6.4 SYSTEM DISK DIRECTORY This option, called pRogram directory (use an R to run from the key- board) is identical to the dAata directory option above, but displays a directory of the files on the chosen CashTrac system disk or subdi- rectory. 6.5 EXECUTE DOS COMMANDS This option allows you to leave CashTrac resident in memory while running DOS commands or other programs (Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) mode). When finished frolicking in DOS, type EXIT to instantly return to the CashTrac main menu. If you have trouble with this function, please note that the discus- sion of COMMAND.COM in Section 6.2 above applies equally here. ________________________________________________________________________ TROUBLESHOOTING Page 103 ________________________________________________________________________ 7.0 TROUBLESHOOTING CashTrac version 7 was written on a Compaq 386 and as of August, 1989, has proven compatible with MS-DOS computers. However, not all MS- DOS computers are 100% compatible with the Compaq MS-DOS standard (which we find to be more "IBM compatible" than IBM), regardless of what the salesman said. There are too many different machines, operating systems and special circuit board combinations to test all of them. Program functions and features were selected to be as compatible as possible with a wide range of computers (nothing has been programmed to address a specific piece of hardware), and so far the program has been successful. Our experience is that most problems can be solved using the troubleshooting guide below. 7.1 REPORTING PROBLEMS If you cannot solve your CashTrac problems, please send us a note, call us on the BBS (the author is available to answer messages directly), or on our voice user-support line at 301-948-9599. All users are welcome to make FREE use of the BBS; however, user support on the 948-9599 number will be provided only to registered users who give their CashTrac serial number. We'll help resolve the problem. If you experi- ence problems that are not covered by the guidelines below, they could be caused by memory-resident utility programs such as multitaskers, cal- culators, calendars, screen blankers, clocks, etc. Memory-resident pro- grams cause so many unpredictable problems that vary with the particular programs installed, the machine, and its operating system, that it's essentially impossible to trace the problem without testing the particu- lar machine with its software. Unpredictable problems increase markedly for any applications program if more than one memory-resident program is in use. To determine whether memory-resident utility programs are causing problems, they must be removed. Make sure to remove those loaded from both the AUTOEXEC.BAT and the CONFIG.SYS files. A simple method for removing these files without erasing them is to rename them to AUTOEXEC.OLD and CONFIG.OLD. (Rename the files to their original names when done testing.) Test CashTrac in a "clean," rebooted machine. If the problem cannot be resolved with the information in this section, then please request help from us. Indicate the model of computer, oper- ating system version, and add-on circuit boards such as screen adapters, LANs, etc. A final, and frequent, source of errors that can't be resolved is a damaged program. CashTrac is frequently received on disks sent through the mail, and the program is sometimes damaged by magnetic fields and rough handling. Stray magnetic fields reset some bits in the program, and the result is an error that's uncorrectable. See our Warranty policy in Section 1.5.2 for information about how to obtain a replace- ment program. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 104 TROUBLESHOOTING ________________________________________________________________________ 7.2 LEVELS OF ERROR MESSAGES There are four levels of errors, each level easily spotted by the form of the error or warning message. The first level consists of warnings located in a highlighted box in the center of the screen. For example, the Sort message that indicates the need to reorganize the data base, the Help file not found message which means just that, etc. Warning messages indicate that the program will not be able to operate properly until some housekeeping is done, but the condition is not critical. The second level consists of data validation errors, indicated at the bottom of the screen by a brief message and the cursor returning to the field in error. Operation of the selected function can not continue until the problem is resolved. See the data entry section for the field in question regarding data specifications. These are minor editing errors and are discussed in the applicable data entry section. The third level is heralded by a box in the center of the screen with the words ERROR MESSAGE and ERROR ## in LINE #### usually followed by a short description of the error. These errors are generated from the operating system, are fairly serious, and require the corrective actions outlined in Section 7.3. Fourth level errors are biggies, but are fortunately rarely experi- enced. These errors can't be intercepted or controlled by CashTrac, and result in the program shutting down after displaying the error message. They are discussed further in Section 7.4. 7.3 THIRD LEVEL ERRORS These errors are indicated by a box on the screen with the error mes- sage listed within. The error number is assigned by DOS (not CashTrac) and can be found in most BASIC manuals. Usually program operation will continue unaffected once the error condition is cleared, or operation will return to the menu to be started over. The most common errors are listed below. ERROR NUMBER CORRECTIVE ACTION 7, 14 Out of memory. First, make sure you've got SET CT7=123 as the first line in your CashTrac startup batch file (CT7.BAT) or your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If yes, then type SET (in DOS) to view the DOS environment to make sure the line is in place. If the line CT7=123 is not present, the computer is not using that copy of CT7.BAT or AUTOEXEC to boot. If all is well with the chosen batch (BAT) file, either more memory must be added to the computer, data files must be made smaller with the Transfer option, or memory-resident utility programs must be removed from memory. ________________________________________________________________________ TROUBLESHOOTING Page 105 ________________________________________________________________________ 11 An internal math error occurred, probably as a result of mixing share and non-share transactions in a single investment account, and the result is impossible to calculate. Enter real values in the account and continue. The program will continue by itself. Please notify the Column One if the prob- lem can not be corrected. The program is written to handle unconventional data combinations. 24, 25 Check the printer. It's either off, broken, not "on line" or not "selected." 27 The printer is out of paper. A note on the OUT OF PAPER error: CashTrac takes several sec- onds to respond to a printer out of paper error. This is the result of DOS waiting an agonizingly long period for slow printers (notably the original IBM/Epson dot matrix printer) to execute a form feed. Early versions of DOS interpreted slow form feeds as broken printers (some users did too) and this particular error response time was extended on later DOS versions to the blazing turtle pace we see now. 52 Internal file error, usually the result of selecting a disk or subdirectory that does not exist. Please notify the author if the problem can not be corrected. 53 The program could not find an expected data file. No action necessary. 54 Internal file processing error. 1. The system working disk is write protected or damaged. Remove the write protect tab if present, or 2. A CashTrac data file name has been chosen as a directory name. Ensure no directory names end in DAT or CT7. 56 The target file in a Transfer operation cannot hold all the records to be transferred. Pick another file or send fewer records. 57 Faulty input or output device (disk or printer). This is a hardware problem. 61 Disk is full. Start a new disk, transfer data or delete files. 63 Invalid file data. Delete the record where the problem occurred and reenter the data. Try the function again. 64 Invalid file name. Refer to your DOS manual. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 106 TROUBLESHOOTING ________________________________________________________________________ 67 Bad path name or too many files on disk. 68 Device is unavailable. Use another printer port. 70 Remove the write protect tab from the disk. 71 Drive door open. Put a disk in the drive and shut the door. If: 1. you have the C: drive selected on your configuration file, and 2. your machine only has no C: drive, but 3. can accept a C: RAM drive which is currently not loaded (such as with the AST SuperDrive program), you will find it very difficult to shut a door that doesn't exist. 4. Reboot, erase the configuration file, and make a valid one. 72 Faulty disk or drive. Exit and run CHKDSK (see DOS manual) or reformat the disk, or toss it out and use a good one. 75 Bad path name. Refer to your DOS manual. 76 Path does not exist. Try again. Errors not listed above are not expected. If they do occur, please notify us. A detailed description of each error can also be found in the "Error Codes" section of your DOS BASIC manual under the same num- bers. 7.4 FOURTH LEVEL ERRORS Fourth level errors are those that terminate program operation and return control to the operating system. They are, fortunately, rare during program operation and most are easily and permanently rectified. The most common are: a. PARITY CHECK 1 or 2: Memory chip failure. See your DOS manual, or switch the computer off for about 15 seconds and reboot. Many times this error is transient. ________________________________________________________________________ TROUBLESHOOTING Page 107 ________________________________________________________________________ b. OUT OF MEMORY: If this occurs while attempting to execute the checkwriter or functions from the Utilities or Setup menu the com- puter is probably not out of memory, but rather the command SET CT7=123 is not being entered properly. See the initial installa- tion instructions of Chapter 2.0. Type SET while in DOS to verify the presence of CT7=123 in the DOS environment. It should list on the screen with other cryptic data. If CT7=123 is not there, one of the instructions for installation was probably not followed and the installation should be verified against the pro- cedure in Chapter 2. If it is there, and there are no spaces between CT7, =, and 123, then the computer is probably running out of memory. If this happens, remove memory-resident utilities, reduce the size of the CashTrac data files using the Transfer option on the Utilities menu, or add memory. c. STRING SPACE CORRUPT DURING G.C.: (The G.C. stands for garbage collection. Really.) This error is usually the result of CashTrac competing for space with incompatible memory-resident utility programs. Follow the steps in Section 7.1 to see if the problem could be caused by a memory-resident program. 7.5 MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS 7.5.1 Data Disappears In January of each year we receive a few complaints about lost data. If the January Data Monster strikes your computer, remember to check the date of newly entered data for last year's date. Most of us uncon- sciously (wistfully?) enter the wrong year during January of a new year. After sorting, CashTrac moves the records one year closer to the begin- ning of the file. Prior to sorting, the records will be at the end of the file, but they will not print if the selected start and end dates for the report exclude the new "year old" data. Thus, the records will appear to have been lost. Use the Change function to correct the prob- lem. 7.5.2 Cursor Misbehaves If the cursor goes to a part of the screen where it doesn't belong and won't come back, then your program has probably been damaged by being squeezed or archived prior to arrival. A few popular archive and squeeze programs have bugs that usually cause this problem. The solu- tion is to write to us for an undamaged copy of the program (see Section 1.5.2). ________________________________________________________________________ Page 108 TROUBLESHOOTING ________________________________________________________________________ 7.5.3 Help Screen Problems If the Help screens won't print when you call for Help, i.e., press the F1 key, and the screen comes up blank (but with a border) or a warn- ing says the help screens weren't found, then the help file for the pro- gram is not on the disk selected as the system disk or subdirectory. The file CASHTRAC.HLP must be copied onto the same disk and subdirectory as CASHTRAC.EXE, UTILCT7.OVL and SETUPCT7.OVL. Depending on your com- puter's disk configuration and floppy disk data densities, the files may be on three different disks or on one disk. In any event, the help file must be located on the same disk with each EXE or OVL file. Go to the DOS Portal menu and do a directory of the system drive and see whether the help file is present. If not, copy CASHTRAC.HLP from the CashTrac distribution disk to each system working disk. 7.5.4 Checking Account Names Disappear Main checking account names are stored in a file named ACCOUNT.CT7. If this file is not on your data disk and subdirectory, then you (1) haven't entered names yet, and CashTrac displays default names, i.e., Checking Account 1, etc., when the F5 key is pressed, or (2) somehow erased it. SubAccount names appear in the upper left corner of checking screens. It no SubAccount names appear, they may not have been entered. Use the New account-SubAccount-Add account options from the checking menu. 7.5.5 Erratic Operation If bizarre characters print in the upper left corner of the menu screen, name the data disk\subdirectory from the Name disk option on the Setup menu. Also, name the first SubAccount for the active main check- ing account. If the program starts to behave erratically on startup, look for problems in the configuration file (CONFIG.CT7) on the system dis- k\subdirectory. Erase the file or just redo the Setup options. 7.5.6 Sort Message Will Not Clear From time to time, the SORT message flashes on the screen when print- ing reports to warn that the records are out of order and should be sorted (Organize, from the Checking menu for checks and unpaid bills, or the Investments menu for investments). If the message flashes several times (it should only warn once, then go away) in one report, and if it does not clear after Organizing, your data disk may have been damaged by DOS. This problem usually occurs on floppy disks when the disk has been changed without first returning to the menu screen, which writes all data in memory and closes all files. To tell if your disk has been damaged by the DOS bug, please refer to Section 5.6. ________________________________________________________________________ TROUBLESHOOTING Page 109 ________________________________________________________________________ 7.5.7 Parasitic Splits or Memos A memo or one or more split entries can become separated from the main record to which they should be attached. (See CAVEATS under Trans- ferring records, Section 5.4.) Normally, deleting a main record will also delete its associated memo and split entries; however, a main record with a parasitic memo and split entries, i.e., a memo and split entries that belong to a different main record, where that main record has been deleted or transferred, may not know the parasites exist. In this case, deleting the main record may not delete the memo or split entries. To delete the parasites, run a check register report and note their record numbers. (Memo records are not numbered on the reports, but use the two record numbers in succession after the main record.) Use the Transfer option on the Utilities menu (see Section 5.4) to transfer and delete these record numbers. Transfer to an empty data file or to another disk or directory, then delete the new file. 7.5.8 Data Add Screen Balance Error If the balance on the checking account data entry screen disagrees with the balance shown on the reports, the reports are more likely cor- rect. If this occurs, run an account activity summary report to reset the data entry screen balance. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 110 MISCELLANEOUS ________________________________________________________________________ 8.0 MISCELLANEOUS FEATURES 8.1 CASHTRAC FILE DESCRIPTIONS Depending on how many Checking Accounts you use, there could be many different data and program files on your disks. a. Following installation, system disk 1 (or the hard disk system sub- directory) must contain the following files. COMMAND.COM DOS command processor, put there by the DOS FORMAT; CONFIG.CT7 CashTrac configuration file, created by the Set defaults option during installation; CASHTRAC.EXE Main CashTrac program; CASHTRAC.HLP Help file, all programs; and CT7.BAT Batch file to load and run CASHTRAC.EXE b. Following installation, system disk 2 (or the hard disk system sub- directory) must contain the following files: COMMAND.COM DOS command processor; CONFIG.CT7 CashTrac configuration file; CASHTRAC.HLP Help file, all programs; and SETUPCT7.OVL The configuration program, makes CONFIG.CT7. c. Following installation, system disk 3 (or the hard disk system sub- directory) must contain the following files: COMMAND.COM DOS command processor; CONFIG.CT7 CashTrac configuration file; UTILCT7.OVL Graphing & Utilities program; and CASHTRAC.HLP Help file, all programs. (COMMAND.COM may be omitted from the hard disk CashTrac system direc- tory.) ________________________________________________________________________ MISCELLANEOUS Page 111 ________________________________________________________________________ d. The data disk (or hard disk data subdirectory, which may be the same as the system subdirectory) will contain some or all of the following files based on the number and types of accounts used: 7CHECK*.DAT Checking account data, where "*" represents the number of the main checking account, from 1 to 16; 7GROUP*.DAT Purchase Group data for main checking accounts 1 to 16, where "*" represents the associated main checking account number; 7UNPDB*.DAT Unpaid bills for main checking accounts 1 to 16, where "*" represents the associated main checking account number; 7INITC*.DAT Scratchpad (initialization) information for main check- ing accounts 1 to 16, where "*" represents the associa- ted main checking account number; 7SUBNM*.DAT SubAccount names for main checking accounts 1 to 16, where "*" represents the associated main checking account number; 7INVEST.DAT Investment data, 7INVCAT.DAT Investment Account Names, SORT.DAT Temporary sort file, may be erased, ERASE.ME Temporary scratch file, may be erased. ACCOUNT.CT7 Main Checking Account names file, ********.CFM Check writer configuration macro, ********.CGM Any check graphing macro file, ********.CRM Any check report macro file, ********.CTG Any graph printed to disk, ********.CTP Any report printed to disk, ********.IGM Any investment graphing macro file, ********.IRM Any investment report macro file, and ********.PRN Database/spreadsheet export files. e. Files ending in .COM, .EXE and .OVL are executable program files and should not be altered. f. Files ending in .DAT are random access data files and will be damaged if they are read into a text editor (word processor) and then saved. They should only be read and written to by CashTrac. If you experi- ment, do so with a backup copy. g. Macro and configuration files are sequential files and may be read and altered by standard text editors, but at your own risk. Changed and missing data can cause serious program malfunctions. The cure is to erase the file and let CashTrac rebuild it. No harm will be done in that case. h. Files ending with .CTG, .CTP and .PRN designed to be accepted and used by other programs. No harm will result from the deletion or alteration of these files. Entire files may be copied into each other (fully overwrite), i.e., if you need to duplicate a Group file or want to copy all Checking ________________________________________________________________________ Page 112 MISCELLANEOUS ________________________________________________________________________ Account #5 data to account #1. Use only the DOS Copy command to manipu- late .DAT files. Do not concatenate, i.e. join files, using the DOS COPY + command. The first two records of each file contain valuable information that will be lost, and CashTrac may not recognize the newly added data records. Use the CashTrac Transfer option to combine two or more data files. +---------------------------------------------------+ | Reading the file into a word processor/editor and | | storing it will result in a wrecked file! | +---------------------------------------------------+ 8.2 PROGRAM SPEED CashTrac depends heavily on disk storage of data, as the memory of most machines can't handle a fraction of the program's data require- ments. Unfortunately, floppy disk drives and some hard disk drives are very slow, holding up sorting and report writing. Some hints that will speed up program operation are: a. Very large data files slow down reporting because the program cal- culates balances from the first record in the file as a safety measure. Use the Transfer option on the Utilities menu to move ancient data to a backup file and shrink the size of the active data files. b. Use a RAM disk if possible. It will provide a tremendous increase in program speed. Caution: Remember to copy data back to your floppy or hard disk when done, otherwise it will be erased when the power is shut off. c. Hard disk users, use subdirectories close to the root directory. The more "buried" the data files are on a hard disk, the slower the program runs. Data subdirectories of the form: C:\FINANCE are superior to subdirectories of the form: C:\CASHTRAC\FINANCE\DATA. This holds true for any program that needs to frequently read disk data. Each time file data is requested, the drive must first check the root directory, then the subdirectory, sub-subdirectory, etc., until it finds the data, which results in slow operation. d. Put the following statements in your CONFIG.SYS file on your boot disk or hard disk root directory: FILES=10 BUFFERS=15 ________________________________________________________________________ MISCELLANEOUS Page 113 ________________________________________________________________________ This increases the ability of your computer to quickly find disk data. It will not affect other programs unless they require even more files and buffers, in which case, use the number they require. The same result is obtained with more buffers, but excessive numbers of buffers take up memory without adding speed. There are programs available that optimize the number of FILES and BUFFERS for your machine. Regardless, CashTrac does not need a FILES or BUFFERS entry in the CONFIG.SYS file to operate properly. e. Some memory-resident utility programs severely retard program speed. Prime examples are the multitasking and windowing pro- grams. For comparisons, run CashTrac with and without resident utilities to see if marked differences in speed result. 8.3 EXITING THE PROGRAM (QUITTING) Always use the QUIT option on the main menu when leaving CashTrac. Never quit by rebooting or turning off the power. Because: Data is stored in buffers prior to being written on the disk file. Buffers accumulate data until full and then, when ready, write to the disk. If you exit by removing the disk and turning off the computer or by reboot- ing, there will be unwritten data in the buffers that will be lost. If you exit via the Quit option, the buffers will first be emptied, data will be properly stored, and then the program will quit. If power is lost, the machine locks up, etc., the same problem can occur. Usually, the most serious problem that occurs is loss of one record and possibly an incorrect account balance on the checking account data entry screen. The cure: retype the missing record and run an account activity summary report to correct the balance. +-----------------------------------------------+ | The account activity summary report resets | | the checking account balance figure. | +-----------------------------------------------+ 8.4 KEEPING BACKUPS After a few months you'll have sizable data files. Both floppy disk and hard disk users should keep an original and two backups of their CashTrac data--an "odd day" backup and an "even day" backup. When back- ing up data on an odd-numbered day of the month, use the odd day backup disk, and when backing up data on an even-numbered day use the "even" disk. If the disk holding the original data goes bad, as sometimes hap- pens, and you unwittingly back up bad data on your backup disk, you may have a bad original and a perfect backup of the bad data. However, by using our recommended method, you will have two backup disks. Only one backup disk will be in use every other time you backup data. Should "today's" data go bad and you backup that data, there will always be a second disk available to restore both the original and the bad backup. ________________________________________________________________________ Page 114 MISCELLANEOUS ________________________________________________________________________ The method works, and we strongly recommend it for your data files from other programs as well as your CashTrac files. If Error 72 (disk error) occurs, CashTrac is neither at fault nor able to recover the data. Disk fault errors are the result of faulty or damaged disks and the error message is simply passed on to CashTrac by the disk drive. Fingerprints, dirt, coffee spills, chronic cigarette smoke, etc., all damage disks. Sometimes even a static spark will erase enough of the disk to render it useless. It's important to keep disks clean and safe, and to keep multiple backup disks for the inevitable times when disk damage does occur. 8.5 MAKING ADDITIONAL DATA DISKS Any number of data disks or subdirectories may be used with the pro- gram. To make a new data disk, start at the main menu, put a formatted disk in the selected data drive and start entering data. +-------------------------------------------------+ | Always return to the main menu and use the | | New disk option prior to changing data disks. | +-------------------------------------------------+ To make a new data disk without having to rewrite all the Purchase Groups and Investment Accounts, copy the following files from the old data disk to the new data disk: a. For Investment Account names, copy 7INVCAT.DAT from the old to the new disk. b. For Purchase Group names, copy 7GROUP*.DAT from the old to the new disk. The * represents the number of the checking account Pur- chase Groups to be copied. c. For SubAccount names, copy 7SUBNM*.DAT from the old to the new disk. 8.6 A NOTE FROM THE PROGRAM AUTHOR CashTrac represents a lot of work by a lot of people, including those users who took the time to submit suggestions (your suggestions provide the basis for many enhancements), and especially those who volunteered their time to "beta" test the program. Their help was greatly appreciated. We also appreciate those who support the shareware concept by registering their copies of version 6. Shareware is not free soft- ware. Without your registration fees we are unable to provide user sup- port and quality program upgrades. We thank you for your support. Frequently, users who like CashTrac ask us if they can help spread the word. We have yet to be "discovered" and can use your help. A let- ter to your favorite computer magazine telling them about CashTrac would be very much appreciated. Thanks. -John MacEvoy ________________________________________________________________________ Page 115 PROGRAM SPECIFICATIONS ________________________________________________________________________ 9.0 PROGRAM SPECIFICATIONS 9.1 MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS Computer: MS or PC-DOS 8086, 80286 or 80386 Disk Drives: 2 DS DD floppy or 1 DS DD floppy and a hard disk, or 1 high density floppy Monitor: Color/Composite, Monochrome, Mono- graphics, CGA, EGA, VGA Memory: 384 Kb Operating System: MS DOS 2.1 or greater 9.2 CHECKING ACCOUNT CAPABILITIES Number of Main Accounts: 16 Number of SubAccounts: 255 per main account Total No. of Checking Accounts: 4080 Budget Categories per Account: 255 Records per Main Account: 32,700 Unpaid Bills Functions: Yearly Recurring, Monthly Recurring, Non-Recurring, Automatic debit of checking account Check Writer Format Configurable to multiple check styles 9.3 INVESTMENT ACCOUNT CAPABILITIES Number of Accounts 255 Number of Records 32,700 ________________________________________________________________________ Page 116 INDEX ________________________________________________________________________ aardvark, spark plugs ............................................... 49 account activity summary report, checking ........................... 55 account name, adding new ............................................ 73 account statement report, investment ................................ 81 account, graphing ................................................... 96 accumulate graphing totals .......................................... 96 active checking account ............................................. 31 active main checking account, changing .............................. 61 active SubAccount, selecting ........................................ 63 activity summary report, investment ................................. 82 add new account name ................................................ 73 add new group name .................................................. 33 adding SubAccounts .................................................. 62 address, Column One ................................................ 126 backing up data .................................................... 113 balance, as shown on entry screen ................................... 44 balance, resetting on data entry screen ........................ 45, 109 balance, SubAccount display ......................................... 45 balancing the checking account ...................................... 59 broker fEe (out of account), investment ............................. 76 broker Fee (out of pocket), investment .............................. 76 browse, investment records .......................................... 80 browsing the checking file .......................................... 50 browsing the investment file ........................................ 80 budget report, monthly details ...................................... 57 budget report, monthly summary ...................................... 56 budget report, yearly details ....................................... 59 budget report, yearly summary ....................................... 57 budget transaction .................................................. 36 budget, on graph .................................................... 99 budgets, how to set up .............................................. 45 bulletin board system ................................................ 5 calculator, operation ............................................... 26 calculator, turning on (F2) ......................................... 13 capabilities, checking account ..................................... 116 capabilities, investment account ................................... 116 cash back with deposit .............................................. 42 cash purchase transaction ........................................... 37 CASHTRAC.EXE, running ............................................... 11 CFM (check writer macro) files ..................................... 111 CGM (check graphing macro) files ................................... 111 change active SubAccounts ........................................... 63 change data drive temporarily ...................................... 101 change SubAccount name .............................................. 62 change system drive temporarily .................................... 102 change value record, automatic ...................................... 77 change value transaction, investment ................................ 76 changing (editing) investment data .................................. 80 changing active main checking account ............................... 61 changing data, checking ............................................. 49 changing group names ................................................ 34 ________________________________________________________________________ INDEX Page 117 ________________________________________________________________________ changing investment account names ................................... 73 check format or configuration ....................................... 67 check number, sort by ............................................... 55 check register report ............................................... 52 check transaction ................................................... 36 check writer operation .............................................. 66 check writer, check format .......................................... 67 check writer, general ............................................... 66 check writer, print batch ........................................... 70 check writer, printing selected checks .............................. 70 check writer, selecting checks on entry ............................. 44 check writer, test print ............................................ 69 check, standard file ................................................ 47 checking account (main), explained .................................. 30 checking account name ............................................... 61 checking account names disappear ................................... 108 checking account, active account .................................... 31 checking account, data entry ........................................ 36 checking account, general ........................................... 29 checking account, list names (F5) ................................... 14 checking account, setting default ................................... 15 checking account, transactions ...................................... 36 checking SubAccount, setting default ................................ 15 clock, system ....................................................... 22 color settings ...................................................... 14 color, graphs ....................................................... 98 Column One, contacting ............................................... 4 combine main accounts into SubAccounts .............................. 63 COMMAND.COM ......................................................... 11 CONFIG.CT7, saving .................................................. 16 configuration, default .............................................. 14 conventions, notation ................................................ 7 converting data ..................................................... 18 credit transaction .............................................. 37, 44 CRM (check report macro) files ..................................... 111 CTG (graph printed to disk) files .................................. 111 CTP (report printed to disk) files ................................. 111 cursor controls ..................................................... 13 cursor problems (error) ............................................ 107 customer support ..................................................... 4 data disappears .................................................... 107 data disk directory ................................................ 102 data disk name ...................................................... 27 data disk, start new ................................................ 99 data disks, multiple ........................................... 18, 114 data drive, default ................................................. 15 data drive, temporarily changing ................................... 101 data entry, checking ............................................... 36 data entry, general ................................................. 23 data entry, interest and dividends .................................. 78 data entry, investment .............................................. 72 data entry, investment, mandatory and optional ...................... 77 ________________________________________________________________________ Page 118 INDEX ________________________________________________________________________ data entry, investment, share-based accounts ........................ 77 data entry, sales ................................................... 79 data entry, savings ................................................. 72 data export ......................................................... 90 data file descriptions ............................................. 110 data format, delimited (import and export) .......................... 87 data format, undelimited (import and export) ........................ 87 data transfer ....................................................... 91 data validation ..................................................... 23 data value table (import) ........................................... 88 data values, investment, validity ................................... 77 data, checking, mandatory and optional .............................. 37 data, converting .................................................... 18 data, importing ..................................................... 86 data, validity, checking ............................................ 38 date, system ........................................................ 22 dates, graphing ..................................................... 95 default configuration ............................................... 14 delete entire checking account ...................................... 50 delete entire investment file ....................................... 80 delete SubAccount name .............................................. 62 delete, batch, checking ............................................. 51 delete, batch, investments .......................................... 81 deleting entire SubAccount .......................................... 51 deleting entries, checking .......................................... 50 deleting entries, investment ........................................ 80 deleting group and account names .................................... 34 deleting investment account names ................................... 73 deleting one investment account ..................................... 80 deleting one investment record ...................................... 80 deleting one record ................................................. 50 delimited data format (import and export) ........................... 87 deposit group name, adding .......................................... 33 deposit group names ................................................. 32 deposit group names, editing ........................................ 34 deposit transaction ................................................. 36 deposit, split with cash back ....................................... 42 directory, data disk ............................................... 102 directory, system disk ............................................. 102 disappearing data .................................................. 107 display SubAccount balances ......................................... 45 dividend (paid) transaction, investment ............................. 76 dividend (reinvested) transaction, investment ....................... 76 DOS portal ......................................................... 101 drives, default, data ............................................... 15 duplicating entries, checking ....................................... 40 duplicating entries, investments .................................... 80 duplicating group names ............................................. 33 duplicating investment names ........................................ 73 editing group names ................................................. 34 editing investment account names .................................... 73 electronic mail system ............................................... 5 ________________________________________________________________________ INDEX Page 119 ________________________________________________________________________ End key ............................................................. 13 enhancements ......................................................... 1 Enter key ........................................................... 13 entering data, general .............................................. 23 erratic operation .................................................. 108 error messages, level 3 ............................................ 104 error messages, level 4 ............................................ 106 error messages, levels ............................................. 104 errors, validation ................................................. 104 execute DOS commands ............................................... 102 exit ............................................................... 113 exit to DOS, temporary ............................................. 102 export data selection screen ........................................ 90 exporting data ...................................................... 90 F keys .............................................................. 13 F1 key .............................................................. 13 F10 key ............................................................. 14 F2 key .............................................................. 13 F3 key .............................................................. 13 F4 key .............................................................. 14 F5 key .............................................................. 14 F6 key .............................................................. 14 F8 key .............................................................. 14 F9 key .............................................................. 14 features, general .................................................... 2 fee, broker ......................................................... 76 file descriptions .................................................. 110 floppy disk default data directory .................................. 15 floppy disk, system, default ........................................ 15 free memory display ................................................. 14 function (F) keys ................................................... 13 go key (F9) ......................................................... 14 graphing ............................................................ 93 graphing setup screen ............................................... 94 graphs, printer required ............................................. 5 grid lines, graph ................................................... 96 group name, adding new .............................................. 33 group names, editing ................................................ 34 hard disk default data directory .................................... 15 hard disk default system directory .................................. 15 hardware requirements ........................................... 5, 116 help files, where to put ............................................ 11 help screen error .................................................. 108 help screens, discussion ............................................ 25 help screens, if blank .............................................. 25 help, calling (F1) .................................................. 13 IGM (investment graphing macro) files .............................. 111 import data selection screen ........................................ 88 importing data ...................................................... 86 initial operation .................................................... 7 insert SubAccount name .............................................. 62 inserting group and account names ................................... 34 ________________________________________________________________________ Page 120 INDEX ________________________________________________________________________ inserting investment account names .................................. 74 installation, floppy disk ............................................ 9 installation, hard disk .............................................. 8 interest (paid) transaction, investment ............................. 76 interest (reinvested) transaction, investment ....................... 76 interest transaction, checking ...................................... 36 investment account activity summary report .......................... 82 investment account name add key (F8) ................................ 14 investment account name, adding ..................................... 73 investment account name, deleting ................................... 73 investment account names ............................................ 72 investment account names, changing .................................. 73 investment account names, duplicating ............................... 73 investment account names, general ................................... 25 investment account statement report ................................. 81 investment accounts, general ........................................ 72 investment data entry ............................................... 72 investment reports .................................................. 81 investment transaction types ........................................ 76 IRM (investment report macro) files ................................ 111 keyboard usage ...................................................... 13 keys, keypad ........................................................ 13 legend, graph ....................................................... 98 macro, change check format .......................................... 67 macro, change checking report ....................................... 53 macro, change graph ................................................. 95 macro, check writer configuration ................................... 67 macro, check writer format .......................................... 67 macro, checking report .............................................. 53 macro, delete check format .......................................... 67 macro, delete graph ................................................. 95 macro, deleting a check report ...................................... 53 macro, graphing ..................................................... 94 macro, list check formats ........................................... 67 macro, list checking reports ........................................ 53 macro, list graphs .................................................. 94 macro, make new check format ........................................ 67 macro, make new checking report ..................................... 53 macro, make new graph ............................................... 94 macro, run check writer format ...................................... 67 macro, run checking report .......................................... 53 macro, run graph .................................................... 95 macros, listing ............................................. 53, 67, 94 main checking account, explained .................................... 30 memory display (F10) ................................................ 14 memory-resident utilities .......................................... 103 memos, entry ........................................................ 40 menu screens ........................................................ 22 menus, general structure ............................................ 21 minimum balance warning ............................................. 70 monthly budget details report ....................................... 57 monthly budget summary report ....................................... 56 ________________________________________________________________________ INDEX Page 121 ________________________________________________________________________ multiple data disks ................................................. 18 name main checking account .......................................... 61 names, duplicating .................................................. 73 names, duplicating groups ........................................... 33 names, investment account ........................................... 72 names, purchase & deposit group ..................................... 32 naming SubAccounts .................................................. 62 naming the data disk ................................................ 27 new data disk ....................................................... 99 opening balance transaction ......................................... 36 operation, initial ................................................... 7 options, graphing ................................................... 94 organizing (sorting) checking files ................................. 64 organizing (sorting) investments .................................... 85 organizing (sorting) unpaid bills ................................... 66 out of memory error ................................................ 107 parasitic records .................................................. 109 parity check error ................................................. 106 phone number, Column One ............................................. 4 polarity, graph ..................................................... 96 portal, DOS ........................................................ 101 precision, graph .................................................... 99 printing checking reports ........................................... 51 printing graphs ..................................................... 95 printing investment reports ......................................... 81 PRN (database/spreadsheet export) files ............................ 111 purchase group add key (F8) ......................................... 14 purchase group names ................................................ 32 purchase group names, editing ....................................... 34 purchase groups, adding ............................................. 33 purchase groups, duplicating ........................................ 33 purchase groups, general ............................................ 24 purchase groups, sample ............................................. 10 purchase transaction, investment .................................... 76 quitting CashTrac .................................................. 113 ralph the wonder dog, shift-F7 ...................................... 14 RAM drives ......................................................... 112 remedies, limitation ................................................. 4 rental property, accounts for ....................................... 31 renumber (transfer) SubAccount ...................................... 63 renumbering groups .................................................. 35 renumbering investment accounts ..................................... 75 report by check number .............................................. 55 report options, general, checking ................................... 52 report options, investments ......................................... 82 report, check register .............................................. 52 report, checking account activity summary ........................... 55 report, monthly budget details ...................................... 57 report, monthly budget summary ...................................... 56 report, tax deductions .............................................. 54 report, unpaid bills ................................................ 55 report, unreconciled check records .................................. 54 ________________________________________________________________________ Page 122 INDEX ________________________________________________________________________ report, yearly budget details ....................................... 59 report, yearly budget summary ....................................... 57 reporting problems ................................................. 103 reports, investment ................................................. 81 reports, printing, checking ......................................... 51 resetting screen balance ............................................ 45 resident utilities ................................................. 103 Return key .......................................................... 13 review data entry (F6) .............................................. 14 rolling time frame .................................................. 95 sale transaction, investment ........................................ 76 savings account data entry .......................................... 72 savings account name,deleting ....................................... 73 savings accounts .................................................... 79 savings accounts, data entry ........................................ 79 savings accounts, general ........................................... 72 scroll groups and accounts (F3) ..................................... 13 searching ........................................................... 49 sending checks to another SubAccount ................................ 44 serial number ....................................................... 12 SETUPCT7.OVL .................................................... 9, 110 shift-F7, ralph the wonder dog ...................................... 14 skip unpaid bill transaction ........................................ 37 sort (organizing) checking files .................................... 64 sort by check ....................................................... 55 sort by check number, report ........................................ 55 sort message won't clear (error) ................................... 108 sort records warning ................................................ 65 sorting (organizing) investments .................................... 85 sorting (organizing) unpaid bills ................................... 66 speed, program ..................................................... 112 split entries, importing ............................................ 89 splitting entries, checking ......................................... 41 standard check file ................................................. 47 starting program .................................................... 11 startup, program ..................................................... 7 string space corrupt ............................................... 107 style, graph ........................................................ 98 SubAccount, adding .................................................. 62 SubAccount, change name ............................................. 62 SubAccount, delete account .......................................... 62 SubAccount, delete name ............................................. 62 SubAccount, edit name ............................................... 62 SubAccount, insert name ............................................. 62 SubAccount, naming .................................................. 62 SubAccount, renumber (transfer) ..................................... 63 SubAccount, select new .............................................. 63 SubAccounts, combining several main accounts ........................ 63 SubAccounts, display all balances ................................... 45 SubAccounts, explained .............................................. 30 summary of all accounts investment report ........................... 83 SuperAccounts, explained ............................................ 30 ________________________________________________________________________ INDEX Page 123 ________________________________________________________________________ support, customer .................................................... 4 system disk directory .............................................. 102 system drive, default ............................................... 15 system drive, temporarily changing ................................. 102 tax deduction field ................................................. 39 tax deduction report ................................................ 54 temporary exit to DOS .............................................. 102 terminate and stay resident mode ................................... 102 time frame, rolling ................................................. 95 time units, graphing ................................................ 95 trademark [CashTrac(R)] .............................................. 3 transaction types, graphing ......................................... 97 transaction types, investments ...................................... 76 transactions, checking .............................................. 36 transfer (renumber) SubAccount data ................................. 63 transfer data ....................................................... 91 troubleshooting .................................................... 103 TSR mode ........................................................... 102 undelimited data format (import and export) ......................... 87 unpaid bill reminder ................................................ 47 unpaid bills report ................................................. 55 unpaid bills transaction ............................................ 37 unpaid bills, entry ................................................. 46 unpaid bills, paying ................................................ 48 unreconciled check records report ................................... 54 updates, program ..................................................... 4 UTILCT7.OVL ..................................................... 9, 110 utilities, main program ............................................. 86 utilities, memory resident ......................................... 103 validation of data .................................................. 23 voiding checks ...................................................... 46 warning, minimum balance ............................................ 70 warning, sort records ............................................... 65 warranty, disk ....................................................... 3 warranty, program .................................................... 3 withdrawal transaction .............................................. 37 yearly budget details report ........................................ 59 yearly budget summary report ........................................ 57 Page 124 CashTrac Order Form Use this form to order the CashTrac program and manual directly from Column One, Inc. Purchases may also be made directly by calling 301- 948-9599 (voice), 703-941-2386 (modem), or 703-941-5934 (modem). VISA or MasterCard accepted. Pricing:* Commercial program with bound manual: $29.95 Commercial program with manual on disk: $19.95 Demo program (limited to 200 entries in each account): $7.00 Extra manual (each, ordered with above): $10.00 Manual (each, ordered without program): $12.00 Shareware program (version 6, unlimited): $7.00 Shipping and Handling: U.S. & territories: add $5 for shipping and handling. Overnight delivery, add $18.50 for Federal Express. Canadian delivery: add $2 for surface mail, $5 for air mail. Delivery outside North America: add $11 for air mail. Please make checks payable to: Column One, Inc. P.O. Box 2607 Gaithersburg, MD 20886 ________________________________________________________________________ Disk Format: 5 1/4 in. ___ 3 1/2 in. ___ Number of programs: _____ at $ ____.__ per program. 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