My Little Realm Enterprises - Charging v/3.3 - ____________________________________________________________________ Important ____________________________________________________________________ Charging is protected by copyright. It is not freeware, and it is not in the public domain. This is the Shareware (evaluation) version of My Little Realm's Charging. It is a full-featured, fully functional program. You are welcome to try it on your computer to ensure that it functions on your system as it should, and that it meets your individual needs. If after 30 uses you decide to keep using Charging, you must pay for the program. To print an order form, press <$> in the Options Window or print the text file REGISTER.TXT. Bonus! Get one MLR stand-alone program free with every order. Read DESCRIBE.TXT for details. This offer expires 12/31/97. My Little Realm Enterprises stands behind all of its products with a 30-day money back guarantee. Thank you for trying Charging! ____________________________________________________________________ My Little Realm Enterprises - Charging - Contents General Information......................................1 Introduction........................................1 Overview.................................................2 Interface...........................................2 Quickeys............................................2 Extended Processing Options.........................2 Getting Started..........................................2 Entering Credit Card Names..........................2 Creating Records....................................3 Changing Records....................................3 Paying Bills........................................4 Exiting Charging....................................4 Program Information......................................4 The Options Window.......................................4 Option 1, Entering New Charges...........................5 Field Definitions...................................5 Credit Card Key Field..........................5 Date Field.....................................6 Amount Field...................................6 Tax Code Field.................................7 Special Projects and Tax Codes............7 Memo Field.....................................8 <+> Command...............................8 Memo Line Amount Rules Summary............9 Option 2, Pay Bills.....................................11 Reviewing Outstanding Records......................11 Option 3, Changing a Record's Information...............11 Reviewing All Records..............................12 Option 4, Print/Delete..................................12 Print Entire File..................................13 Print Outstanding Records Only.....................13 Print Tax Summary Report...........................13 Delete Records and Compress File...................14 Extended Processing Options.............................15 <\> Change Credit Card Names.......................15 Inactive Records..............................16 Spelling Change...............................16 New Credit Card...............................16 Credit Card Names Must Be Unique..............17 Deleting Credit Card Names....................17 Do Not Use a Text Editor......................18 <+> Reset Tax Code Fields..........................18 <-> Delete a Specific Record.......................18 Charging Page 1 ____________________________________________________________________ General Information ____________________________________________________________________ Introduction Keeping records may not be fun, but it is important to the maintenance of a well run realm. To that end, Charging (also known as the Credit Card program) has removed as much of the tedium of data entry as is feasible while maintaining the accuracy and completeness today's realm requires. Charging helps you take advantage of the great offers made by the various credit card issuers. Ford, for example, which offers Visa through Citibank, lets you save as much as $700 per year for up to five years for a total of $3500 that you can put toward a new Ford car or truck. This doesn't mean you have to buy things you shouldn't buy. On the contrary, you should never use a credit card to buy something you couldn't otherwise afford to pay for with cash or a check. But everyone needs and buys groceries, gasoline, and medicine ... all of which can be purchased with credit cards these days. You can put all of those items on your Ford Visa card to save a lot of money on your next car or pickup. General Motors does something similar. And cards like Discover offer refunds. Of course, using your credit cards that much requires that you keep tabs on what is being spent ... just the way you keep track of your checking account (with MLR's Checking program, hopefully!). Charging keeps you apprised of what is outstanding on each card at any moment in time. When you start Charging, it builds the credit card screen and generates the Viewing Window which contains the Quickeys and their corresponding credit card names, the amounts outstanding for each account, and the total amount outstanding for all accounts. It then deposits you in its Options Window. From that vantage point, you choose which task you wish to perform, be it entering new charges, paying off old charges, changing the contents of a record, or printing or deleting old records. Throughout your processing tasks, the Viewing Window is constantly monitored and updated as you add to, update and change your credit card file. So, if you ever need to know what your plastic debt is at any given moment, you have but to bring up Charging. ____________________________________________________________________ Charging Page 2 ____________________________________________________________________ Overview ____________________________________________________________________ Interface. Charging's screen consists of three types of windows: a Working Window, a Viewing Window, and an Options Window. If you are using a color monitor the Viewing Window is always green, the Working Window red and the Options Window blue. You select processes (like adding, updating, or deleting records) in the Options Window. In general, you create records in the Working Window, and you view your outstanding amounts in the Viewing Window. ---------------------------- Quickeys. The Quickey list in Charging consists of the names of all your credit cards. You may list them alphabetically or you may make Quickey associations (make Quickey A American Express, Quickey D Discover, etc.). In general, an alphabetical list is easier to use. ---------------------------- Extended Processing Options. Several processing tasks, called extended processing options or EPO's, are not listed in the Options Windows, because they are functions that only occasionally need to be performed. EPO's are used to "extend" a program's power and functionality. One EPO you should be aware of initially is the Change Quickeys function, which allows you to change your credit card names. You invoke it by pressing the backslash key in the Options Window. To find out what EPO commands are employed by Charging, enter (the question mark) in the Options Window. See "Extended Processing Options", page 14, for a complete explanation. ____________________________________________________________________ Getting Started The very first thing you need to do with Charging is make the program uniquely yours. To do that, you'll probably want to change some of the default credit card names and Tax codes that come with Charging. Entering Credit Card Names. First, gather all of your credit cards. After you start Charging, enter the backslash, <\>, in the Options Window to start the Change Quickeys function. (It's one of the EPO's for this program.) Charging asks which Quickey you want to change. Enter the Quickey and your cursor appears in the Viewing Window. If you merely want to delete one of the default credit card names, press + and then , otherwise key in the name of your credit card and then press . Charging Page 3 If you mistakenly press the wrong Quickey, press while your cursor is in the Viewing Window and Charging resurrects the old credit card name, even if you've already made changes. After you've entered all of your credit card names, press to advance to the next phase of this function, sorting your Quickey names. If you've made letter assignments for your credit card names (that is, if you've associated Quickey A with American Express, D with Discover, and so on), tell Charging that you do not want your Quickeys sorted. Otherwise, sort them. You'll find it easier to spot the credit card name you're after if the list is in alphabetical order. The last phase of the Change Quickeys function is the Tax codes. These categories are generally used for tax deductions, but can be used to tally anything (like part-time income, grocery expenses, gas expenses, etc.). If you're just starting out with Charging, you might want to put this section off until you've had a chance to think about how best to utilize these four categories and to read the section entitled "Tax Code Field" found on page 6. After you have set up the Tax codes the way you want or if you choose not to implement them at this time, press one last time to return to the Options Window. And you're all set! Creating Records. To begin entering records, press <1> in the Options Window to start the Enter New Charges function. Charging asks for the Quickey of the charge card whose record you are entering. Then simply enter the date, amount, Tax Code and memo. The Tax Code and Memo fields are optional entries and can be skipped by pressing or the down arrow key. [Note: Use the up and down arrow keys to advance and retreat through the data fields in Charging.] After you've entered the memo, Charging creates the record and returns the cursor to the top of the Working Window expecting you to create another record. If you have no more charge receipts to enter, press to return to the Options Window. Changing Records. Changing a record's field data is easy. Press <3> in the Options Window to start the Change function and then use the left and right arrow keys to find the record you want to change. When the record you want to change appears in the Working Window, press or to select it. Charging then displays in the Viewing Window the fields which you can change. Each field has an associated hotkey. Enter the hotkey of the field you want to change, and Charging puts your cursor into that field and awaits your changes. When you're finished making changes to a field, press . When you've finished making changes to a particular record, press . Charging Page 4 Paying Bills. With your credit card statement in hand, choose 2, the Pay Bills function. Charging asks which credit card account is being paid up. Enter the Quickey of that account and Charging displays its outstanding bills one at a time. As each record is displayed, Charging asks "Paid? ". If the bill appears on your credit card statement, press or . If the record doesn't appear on your statement, press or use the arrow keys to search through your outstanding records for the ones that appear on the statement. When all of the records that appear on the statement have been marked paid, press to return to the Options Window. Exiting Charging. You leave Charging by pressing in the Options Window. If you made changes to your credit card data file, Charging so notifies you and asks if you want to save those changes. You will almost always respond with or to save the changes. If you do not want to save the changes, press . Following either response, you'll be returned to DOS. If you press , Charging instead returns you to the Options Window from where you can resume processing. Why would you ever want to not save changes? Home programs must take into account the unwanted help of children who occasionally get into a program and wreak havoc. Should you find that someone you love is "helping you" with Charging, don't get angry. Just exit the program and don't save the changes. Charging is a powerful program that can do a lot for you, but you have to know how to make it work properly to get the most out of it. Please read the rest of this documentation carefully. ____________________________________________________________________ Program Information ____________________________________________________________________ One of the marvelous aspects of Charging is that it immediately tells you how much you have outstanding on each credit card and the total outstanding for all of your cards. You don't have to request the information, it's already on the screen when you start up the program. The amounts are updated as you enter new charges and refunds, and pay off your existing bills. The Options Window. You have four processing activities in the Options Window: ________________________________________________________________ | | | Please choose one of the following: __ | | | | 1 Enter New Charges 2 Pay Bills 3 Change 4 Print/Delete | |________________________________________________________________| There are also several EPO's available. See the section entitled "Extended Processing Options" found on page 14. Charging Page 5 ____________________________________________________________________ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + There is a shortcut entry to option 1 (called the New + + Charges function). When in the Options Window, if you + + want to enter new charges, simply press the Quickey for + + the first charge you wish to enter. By doing so, you + + automatically start the New Charges function and enter + + your first credit card Quickey at the same time. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 1, Entering New Charges. To process a new entry (either charge or refund), choose 1, the New Charges option. There are five fields to every record if you have made use of the Tax codes; four if you've deleted them. You can abort a New Charge entry at any time by pressing in any field, and no record will be created. To return to the Options Window after entering one or more charge records, press when the cursor is in the Credit Card Key field. ~ Field Definitions ~ - Credit Card Key field (single character entry, required). Charging positions the cursor at the top of the Working Window after the Credit Card Key field label at which point you enter the Quickey of the appropriate credit card. Each charge record requires its own Quickey entry. After you've input a Quickey, Charging verifies your selection by displaying the credit card name in the Verification Box directly below the Credit Card Key field label. If you enter a wrong albeit acceptable Quickey, press the up arrow to return to the Credit Card Key field, and enter the correct Quickey. You do not have to enter your new charge receipts in any particular order, so there is no need to sort them by charge card or even by charge (debit) and refund (credit). If you have not made use of all thirteen Quickeys you will notice that Charging does not illuminate those that are unused. On color monitors the active Quickeys are those displayed in bright yellow, on monochrome monitors the active Quickeys are listed in bright white. The inactive Quickeys are displayed in standard white print. Should you select an inactive Quickey when at the Credit Card Key prompt, Charging tells you that you have chosen an illegal Quickey and asks for another. If you attempt a shortcut entry from the Options Window by pressing an inactive Quickey, Charging simply ignores the keypress. Charging Page 6 - Date field (required). After Charging gets a valid Quickey, it asks for the date of the transaction, which is entered in the standard American format mm/dd/yy. You do not enter the slashes, only the numbers representing the month, day and year. Charging initially displays the system date in the Date field. All you have to do is make the necessary modifications and press . That date, then, will be displayed automatically for subsequent records until you change it again. Note: The numbers representing the month, day and year must be in double digits (e.g., 09/09/93). Charging accepts dates for the current month and the two previous months, so you have at least two months and as long as three months to enter your charging records. Charging does not let you enter future dates. ___________________ - Amount field (must be less than $10,000, required). Charge amount entries must be positive amounts less than ten thousand dollars. Do not enter dollar signs or commas, just the numbers and the decimal point if it is necessary. What if the amount is a refund (credit)? The key is a toggle (i.e., a switch if you will) between the two amount fields you see in the Working Window as long as neither field has an amount in it. To get a feel for this capability try switching between the two fields before you enter an amount ... just press a few times while Charging is expecting an amount from you. You'll see the cursor jump from the Charge field to the Refund field and back again. Note: You can use the down arrow key in lieu of the enter key to switch amount fields. If you inadvertently enter non-numeric data in one of the amount fields, Charging displays an appropriate error message and asks you to reenter your amount. Press any key to get rid of the error message window and enter the correct amount. - Tax Code field (single character, optional) Enter the number of the Tax code, if relevant, or press if you want to skip this field. If you have deleted all of the default Tax Codes and haven't defined any of your own, this field does not appear in your Working Window. Charging Page 7 When Charging comes to this field, it displays a field prompt of your Tax codes at the bottom of the Working Window . If you created three categories consisting of gasoline, charity and business expenses, they would appear as: 1 Gasoline 2 Charity 3 Bus. Exp. 4 To tag a charge card record as an expense, for example, press <3> when you're in the Tax code field. If you have undefined Tax codes (as selection 4 is), Charging does not let you enter them. You can use your Tax codes to track any kind of credit card expense, be it groceries, gasoline, professional expenses, whatever. If you wish to change Tax codes in mid-year, be sure you use the <+> EPO to reset the Tax codes you want to change. For example, if you had set up Tax code 1 to be business expense and later that same year you decided to change it to charity, you would have to reset Tax code 1 to blank before making the change. Otherwise, all of those records with a Tax code of 1 which were business expenses would be included with your new Tax code records that are charitable deductions. Refer to the section entitled "Extended Processing Options" on page 14 for more information. ________ _________ Special Projects and the Tax Codes If you find yourself facing a large project for which you want to track the costs, make one of the Tax codes "Projects". Let's say you're planning to build a deck in the backyard, and you want to keep track of the expenses, so you make Tax code 4 "Projects" (or "Deck", if you wish). Then whenever you charge something related to the deck project, you simply tag that record with Tax code 4. In this way you can monitor your deck expenses. To move on to the next project you have to clear all of the records that have a 4 in the Tax Code field. You can either manually change all of those records, or, when in the Options Window of Charging, use the <+> EPO. It resets the Tax Code field of all of the records with the Tax code you specify to blank. It affects only those records that have a current year date. - Memo field (20, optional). General Use. The Memo field, while optional, is nonetheless quite useful. For example, if several members of the realm have the same charge card, identifying the person who made a charge can be beneficial should questions about the purchase arise later. In other ways, the Memo field can be used to identify the store where a purchase was made in the event a general card (like Discover, VISA, or MasterCard) was used. Charging Page 8 The Memo field is also handy if you purchase a product that is covered by an extended warranty offered by the credit card issuer. Numerous charge card companies now offer to double a manufacturer's warranty if you charge an item on their cards. Use Charging's Memo field to make a note of the warranty's expiration date, in addition to the item purchased. <+> Command. If you plan to use Tax codes, described above, you can use the Memo field to deduct a portion of the charged amount that is not relevant for that category using the <+> command. If one of your Tax codes is for business expenses, and you charged a purchase of business items and a personal item, you must deduct the cost of the personal item from the total amount of the charge. This is what the <+> command does. It tells Charging to deduct a certain amount, called an overage, from the amount of the charge. <+> Command Example. Let's say you bought some business items that cost $135.48 and a personal item for $45.40. On that record's Amount (charge) line you would enter 180.48 (the total amount of the charge), and on the Memo line you would enter: Memo: +45.4 birthday gift which tells Charging to subtract that amount, $45.40, when it calculates the Tax totals. When you run the Tax Summary function, you'll find out exactly how much you spent on business expenses because at the end of the Tax Summary Report the final tabulations are listed in this fashion: Groceries Bus. Exp. Bus. Inc. Charity Tax totals: $2500.36 $650.55 $0.00 $1002.00 Less deductions: $430.00 $45.40 $0.00 $0.00 Final results: $2070.36 $605.15 $0.00 $1002.00 The tabulations show that the business expenses totaled $650.55, but that $45.40 (the price of the personal item) was deducted from that total, leaving an actual business expense of $605.15. Note: If a record does not have a Tax code (i.e., the Tax code field is blank), Charging ignores any <+> command that appears on that record's Memo line. __________ To be sure you're getting the deductions you want, run the Tax Summary function (option 4, selection 3). In addition to the credit card name and the record number, Charging prints the Memo line in toto and, in parentheses, any valid Memo line amount it finds. Charging Page 9 If you aren't getting an amount in parentheses when you expected one, you have probably entered the Memo line amount incorrectly. If so, you can use the Change function in the Options Window to correct the record. Remember, the record numbers appear on the Tax Summary Printout so you can go directly to the records in question if you need to make any changes. (Refer to Option # 4, Selection # 3, Print Tax Summary Report, below, for more information.) Memo Line Amount Rules Summary 1. Amount must immediately follow a plus sign (+) 2. Amount must be followed immediately by a space 3. Amount can appear anywhere on the line, along with other notes you wish to append 4. Amount must be less than $1,000.00 5. Amount must be a positive number 6. Only one amount on a Memo line 7. Amount on Memo line must be <= the charge (debit) amount 8. Do not include dollar signs or commas in the amount Note: Memo line deductions are not allowed on credits. If your entry is a credit (refund on a returned purchase), Charging does not look for a deduction on the Memo line. In other words, Charging does not subtract a Memo line amount, even a valid one, from a credit when it comes time to calculate the Tax Summary results. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 2, Paying Bills. Charging asks which credit card account you're paying, so you have to enter the appropriate Quickey. Then Charging displays your current outstanding records for that particular account and asks if each charge or refund has been paid. That is, is it listed on the statement account (which you should have in hand). You respond yes or no by pressing or . This is a single character entry so don't press after your response. As a matter of fact, is equivalent to with this query. When you come to the last record in a given account, Charging tells you that you have reached the end of the file. If you wish to peruse the outstanding records before you leave the Pay Bills function, you can use the direction arrows to do so. If you inadvertently mark a bill paid, use the arrow keys to return to that record and when Charging asks if it has been paid, respond , and Charging rectifies the situation. Once you leave the Pay Bills function, your master file is updated. If you discover after leaving Pay Bills that you have incorrectly declared a record paid, you must use the Change function to correct it. You cannot access a paid record by invoking the Pay Bills function. Charging Page 10 You will note at the bottom of the Working Window that Charging displays the record number of the displayed charge or refund. This is the displayed record's placement in your master file. So even though you know you have only three outstanding records for a specific credit card, the first record number could be 182, the second 201, and the third 206. Reviewing Your Outstanding Records. You can use option 2 to view your outstanding records for a particular Quickey. Use the arrow keys to browse through your file. When you're finished, press to return to the Options Window. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 3, Changing the Information in a Record. Charging asks which record you wish to change. If you know, fine, enter the record number (or a close approximation) and Charging takes you to it. If you're off by a few records or if you didn't know the record number and pressed , you can use the directional keys to browse through your file. When Charging displays the record you want to change, press or to select it. After you select the record you wish to change, the fields you can change are listed in the Viewing Window next to their corresponding hotkeys. Make the necessary changes, and press when you are finished with that record. Charging asks you for the record number of the next record you want to change. If you haven't any more records to change, press once more to return to the Options Window. Reviewing All of Your Records. If you need to see all of your records (outstanding and paid) for all cards, you can select the Change function. Use the arrow keys to peruse your file. Press to return to the Options Window. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 4, Printing and Deleting the File Records. This is the final option in the Options Window, and it displays a sub-menu offering several selections: 1. Print entire file 2. Print outstanding only 3. Print tax summary report 4. Delete records/compress file 5. Return to the Options Window If you want to abort any of the above print functions (selections <1>, <2> or <3>), press . Charging Page 11 Selection # 1, Print Entire File. This printout lists all of the data stored in each record in your file in addition to the record number. At the end of the report, Charging prints the total outstanding charges and refunds. ___________________ Selection # 2, Print a Report of the Outstanding Charges. This function prints a one line banner for each credit card listed in your charging Quickey file. Under each banner are listed the records that are outstanding for that particular charge card. Printed are: the date, memo, record number and the amount of the charge or refund. If a card does not have an outstanding amount, its banner is still printed, with a message indicating as much, so you'll know that its records have been checked. The outstanding report also prints the total outstanding charges and refunds at the end of the listing. Selection # 3, Print Tax Summary Report. The Tax Summary Report prints each charge or refund under one of the appropriate Tax codes that you created using Charging's Change Quickeys function. If a record has no Tax code entry, it is omitted from the listing. Those records with a Tax code and a valid amount on the Memo line have their Memo line amounts totaled and deducted from the total amounts in each Tax code category. If you do not define a Tax code, the message "No code ID" is printed in its stead in the Tax Summary heading, and Charging prints a notice that it found a Tax code that is undefined. This is merely informational; you need not define every Tax code. If you define a Tax code, enter some records with that code, and then delete said Tax code, Charging warns you that you have records with an undefined Tax code when you run this function. This poses no threat to the integrity of your system or your data, but you should be aware of this situation should you enter a new category in that Tax code. Should you decide to use that Tax code at a later date for a different tax category, you must first reset all of the Tax code fields on the older records that have that Tax code. For example, if you start the year with Tax code <2> as Medical, you cannot later change it to Charity without first resetting all of those records that are listed as Medical records. To reset your Tax codes, use the <+> EPO defined in the "Extended Processing Options" section beginning on page 17. Charging Page 12 If you do not have any defined Tax codes, you will not be able to run the Tax Summary Report function. Each tax record generates two lines of output. On the first line are the record number, the date (in MM/DD format), and the credit card name. On the second line are: the Memo, the Memo line amount, if there is one, in parentheses, and the amount. Example: Charity Bus. Exp. ....... 107 10/08 Discover +21.75 for a present ( 21.75) 120.45 This sample tax record is record number 107, created on October 8, of the selected year (which appears at the top of the report), for the credit card Discover. The second line shows the memo which is "+21.75 for a present", and since there is a valid Memo line amount Charging prints it (in parentheses), and finally, the amount of the charge (printed under the Business Expense heading). At the end of the Tax Summary report, Charging prints the totals for each category, subtracts the deductions, and shows you the final tallies. Selection # 4, Delete Old Records and Compress File. To make the system easy to use, Charging does not require you to delete each record separately because even with a simple and response, deleting hundreds of old records individually can be tedious. Thus, Charging deletes all of the records in the file whose year date is less than the current year date except those which are still outstanding. If you wish to keep your old credit card records, you can direct Charging to dump the records to be deleted to a floppy drive at the time of the delete process. You don't have to save the deleted records, but you might want to find some piece of information stored on one. If you decide to save them, Charging creates a dump file called SAVECARD.MLR on your floppy. Suggestion: Keep all of your dump files on a single high density floppy disk. If you are also using MLR's Checking program, you can put its dump files on the same disk with no conflicts. Keep this disk, then, solely for the Checking and Charging dump files. If a record's year date is less than the system's year date and the record is still outstanding, Charging writes out a copy of the record to your floppy, while retaining the original copy in your master file for you to update later on. The file sent to the floppy is saved under the filename SAVECARD.MLR. Charging Page 13 To keep your credit card file manageable this procedure should be run once a year, ideally at the beginning of the year after most of the previous year's charges have been paid. You do not have to save the current year's deleted records on the same disk that you saved the previous year's. If you do, Charging notifies you that there is a previous dump file on the disk and asks you to select an appropriate action from the following sub-menu. 1 Abort this function 2 Delete the old dump file 3 Replaced the floppy, try again 4 Rename the old dump file If you decide you want to keep the old dump file, you must either remove the floppy and put in another (selection 3) or tell Charging to rename the old file (selection 4). Charging keeps the base name SAVECARD and appends a unique extension. You can also direct Charging to erase the older version of the dump file (selection 2) and proceed with the Delete/Compress function or, finally, you can elect to abort the D/C function altogether (selection 1). Note: Do not confuse the Delete/Compress function with the <-> (Delete) EPO. The Delete EPO removes a specific record from your file regardless of its paid status or creation date. The Delete/Compress function removes your old paid records (those with a year date that is less than the current system year date) and compresses your file. One final reminder, if you need a copy of your Tax Summary Report (option 4, selection 3 -- see above), be sure you print it out before you run the Compress/Delete function. Warning! Potential problems await you if you do not keep your system's date accurate, especially with this function. You risk losing your entire file, for example, if you've allowed your system date to lag a year or two behind and then correct it before running this procedure. If, for instance, you've been creating records while the system year date was 1991, when in fact the real date was 1992, and then you correct the date prior to running this function, Charging will delete all of the records that have a year date that is less than the current year date that are not outstanding ... which in this case could be most of your file. Please, keep the date accurate. If you find yourself with a date error, determine the extent of the damage by viewing your records using the Change function. If there aren't too many records with incorrect dates, note their record numbers and use the Change function to correct them (after you've corrected the system's date), then run the Delete/Compress function. If there are a lot of bad records, put off running the D/C function until next year. Charging Page 14 ____________________________________________________________________ Extended Processing Options EPO Definition <\> Change or delete your credit card names in the Viewing Window. Press the backslash key when in the Options Window to invoke this function. Change Quickeys asks which credit card name you want to change or delete. Press the appropriate Quickey, and Change Quickeys highlights the Quickey in the Viewing Window and waits for you to make the necessary changes in its Quickey field (where the credit card name is). If you press the wrong Quickey, press while your cursor is still in the Viewing Window and Change Quickeys restores the original credit card name, even if you've typed in changes. After you press in the Viewing Window, Change Quickeys does one of two things depending on whether there was a credit card name in the Quickey field you just modified. One: If the field was blank before you entered a credit card name, Change Quickeys adds that name to the credit card Quickey list and then looks at the entire credit card master file to see if any records with that Quickey exist. If it finds any, it makes them inactive. Inactive Records. An inactive record is one you are no longer be able to access using Charging. You can view an inactive record, and it is included in Tax Summary Reports, but you won't be able to change its contents. Caution! Once records are made inactive they can never be made active again. Two: If there was a credit card name in the Quickey field before you entered the current credit card name, Change Quickeys displays this sub-menu: _________________________________________ | | | This is a: | | | | <1> Spelling change | | <2> Credit card change | | <3> Cancel | | | | Selection: _ | |_________________________________________| Charging Page 15 Spelling Change. You will sometimes find that you've misspelled the name of a credit card entry after you've created a number of charging records for that Quickey. To have Change Quickeys change all of the records in the entire file that have the old name to the name you have just entered, select 1, Spelling change. This is also called a global change. Every record in the entire data file with the old credit card name (that is currently active) will have its credit card name changed to the new credit card name. New Credit Card. If the credit card name you just entered represents a new charge card, select 2. Change Quickeys will change the outstanding records, if there are any, with the old name to the new name and make all of the other (paid) records with that Quickey inactive, as described above. Only the outstanding records with the old credit card name are affected by the # 2 (new credit card) selection. The records that have the old credit card name that are marked 'paid' will be made inactive. Credit Card Names Must Be Unique. If you have AT&T's Visa card and Ford's Visa card, for example, you could make the former's Quickey name "Visa -- ATT" and the latter's "Visa -- Ford". You cannot just enter "Visa" twice, however, because Charging needs to be able to distinguish between the two credit card names. Deleting Credit Card Names. You can delete credit card names from your active list (those accounts that appear in your Viewing Window), but Charging does not let you delete a credit card name that has an outstanding balance. You can change a credit card Quickey name, but you cannot leave the name field blank. After you delete a credit card name from your credit card Quickey file, Change Quickeys erases the credit card name in the Viewing Window (if there are no outstanding bills), and makes all of the records with that Quickey inactive. ___________________ When you've finished updating your credit card name list (i.e., when your cursor is at the "Which Quickey would you like to change?" prompt), press . Charging Page 16 Charging then asks if you want your Quickey list sorted. This is largely a matter of taste. If you don't have many cards or if you've made letter associations for your credit cards (i.e., for American Express, for BanCard/One, for Discover, and so on), tell Charging not to sort your list. The sort is ascending alphabetic. After you've replied to Charging's query about sorting your Quickey list, it asks if you want to change your Tax codes. The list supplied with Charging is of a general nature and includes: Medical, Charity, Child care and Expenses. You can change any of them. Charging tallies your expenses (or incomes, if you wish) for these four categories when you run the Tax Summary Report. See Option # 4, Selection # 3, Print Tax Summary Report, in this document for complete details. Note: If you have previously used My Little Realm's Records of the Realm program to set up your credit card Quickeys, they are used automatically by Charging. Once you have installed Charging, however, you are no longer allowed to use the Records of the Realm program to change your credit card Quickey file. You must Charging's <\> EPO (Change Quickeys) function to do so. This is to insure the integrity of your credit card data. Please do not attempt to thwart this protective measure. It is for your benefit. Warning! Do Not Use a Text Editor. It is imperative that you do not attempt to change your credit card Quickey file by using a text editor. Always use Charging to make the necessary changes. Charging not only oversees the changes to your credit card Quickey file, but also makes the requisite changes to your credit card data file at the same time. - - - - - - - - - <-> Delete a specific record from your charging accounts file. You must first select the record to be deleted, finding it and selecting it the same way you do in the Change function. Charging then highlights that record's contents and asks if you are sure. Review the contents carefully. If you are sure you want that record deleted from your master file, press . You cannot press for for this final query. Charging Page 17 <+> Reset Tax code status in all records that have a specific Tax code to blank. For example: If you've set up one of your Tax codes as a special projects code, you can reset the Tax code status on all of the records with that Tax code to blank. Only the records with a current year date are affected. - - - - - - - - - <#> Switch color modes between color and B/W. - - - - - - - - - Display the EPO symbols and definitions available for Charging. ____________________________________________________________________ + The End + ____________________________________________________________________ (c) Copyright 1991 - 1995 John L. Salisbury