STARTUP ======= You have now entered the Startup interface. This will help you to enter all the necessary information to get you started. In the end, your database will be up-to-date and you will be able to enter further data records as you make further transactions. The Startup will consist of the following steps: 1. Assemble all your account statements, receipts, and read the information. 2. Add subheadings in the main heading money accounts. 3. Add initial information (a) Starting date (b) Ending balance date for each account (c) Ending balance on each account 4. One account at a time, add all the transactions that were made after the end of the last statement period and before the starting date. 5. Check if Startup accounts match your account statements. 6. Repeat if necessary. 7. End Startup. You should read the rest of the information if you have not done so. Some of the information here has been reproduced from the information in KeepTrak which you might already have read. * STEP 1. ORGANIZATION: --------------------- First, you must setup the MONEY ACCOUNTS. You should gather all your account statements and write down the name of each account on a seperate piece of paper. You will need to get all your receipts and other accounting information. Example [1] Savings [2] Checking1 [3] Checking2 [4] Cash [5] VISA [6] AM Express [7] Investment [8] Loan * Next, you must determine the starting date. This date should be one in which you have a fairly good idea about your accounts. It could be a date by which you have received all your statements of a certain period; or it could be today's date if you have a good account of how much you have available in your checking, savings and in cash, along with how much you have charged on your cards. The Startup process requires that you put in the amount of money that you have available in your various accounts on a particular date as the initial amount. Any transaction that you make after that date will thus add or subtract money from that initial amount. If the initial amount is not correct, the subsequent totals will ALL be off. You may always readjust that initial amount if you find that it is in error. If you plan to add in records for the whole year, your Startup date could be the first of January. Then, you must make sure you have your account statements for the period at the end of the previous year. It is not advisable to use Startup if you are adding in records for a whole year. You should only use KeepTrak and follow the guidelines in Section VI: READY TO START. You should also read SECTION IV: BASICS and read about setting up subheadings and how to deal with transfers without affecting another account. * You should now gather the statements BEFORE your starting date for each account. If you have previous statements, you should get them along with statements after the starting date. On a piece of paper, write the ending statement dates for each of the various accounts. For cash or other accounts that might not have a statement, write the starting date. Also write the last statement balance. This might be your ending balance or the amount due on a credit card or loan. For example, Starting date: Dec 1, 1993 [1] Checking1 Nov 15, 1993 2000.00 [2] Checking2 Nov 18, 1993 3900.00 [3] Saving Oct 30, 1993 10000.00 [4] Investment July 1, 1993 30000.00 [5] Cash Dec 1, 1993 54.90 [6] VISA Nov 1, 1993 -690.90 [7] Loan July 4, 1993 -9000.00 [8] Discover Nov 14, 1993 -45.67 Note: Your starting date should be LATEST of all the account statement dates. Also, amounts in loans and credit cards should be put as NEGATIVE numbers indicating a debt. * Remember that you will use the STARTUP program till the Starting date. After you have included all your initial transactions, you will NOT need to use the STARTUP program again. The STARTUP program does not sort data records by date, thus you should not use this program to enter data once you have started entering data using KeepTrak. Also, if you should later find that you missed a data record (something you later discovered in an account statement) use KeepTrak to enter the data. You should then use "INITIAL" as your income source, spending category and the account the money was put in. * To complete the organization process, look at your statements and hilight or set aside transactions that you consider as the initial transactions. These transactions will be those found in your check book that have not been checked off. As for a credit card account, they will be the receipts that were not on the last credit card bill. For an account where the balance date is the starting date, you will not have any initial transactions. Your balance amount will be the amount your account will start off at. * STEP 2. ADDING NEW MONEY ACCOUNTS USING "ADD ACCOUNT" ------------------------------------------------------ Once you have decided upon what your money accounts will be, you need to enter this information into the computer. By selecting the option ADD ACCOUNT, you will be able to type in your subheadings for money accounts, one at a time. Please check to see if you have entered the name correctly BEFORE you press ENTER because you will not be able to remove the subheading from the startup program. If you do make an error, simply ignore the subheading and retype another one. Later on, in KeepTrak, you will be able to delete the subheading that you decided was in error and therefore did not use. You should frequently look at the listing to see what you have entered and what subheadings might not be present. * STEP 3. ENTERING STATEMENT BALANCE INFORMATION USING "BALANCE INF" ------------------------------------------------------------------ Once you have added ALL the money accounts and are ready to enter information from the account statements, you should select the BALANCE INF option. Here you will first enter the starting date, which you should have already determined. Next, in sequence, you will be asked to enter 1. The statement ending balance date 2. The statement ending balance for each of your accounts. NOTE: THE STATEMENT BALANCE IN A CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT SHOULD BE A NEGATIVE NUMBER INDICATING A DEBT. If you entered an account in error, simply put the starting date and an amount of zero. You will be able to remove this entry later from KeepTrak. * STEP 4. ENTERING INITIAL DATA IN EACH ACCOUNT USING "ENTER DATA" ---------------------------------------------------------------- Once you have completed step 3 and entered the statement balance information and the starting date, press CONTINUE and then select the option ENTER DATA. NOTE: The INITIAL data is defined as the data that is AFTER the ending period of the last statement and BEFORE the starting date. For example, you have decided Jan 1, 1993 to be your starting date. You gather all your account statements before and after that date. Let's suppose the last statement for a particular account BEFORE the starting date is on Dec 15, 1992. In this case, all the transactions that are NOT on that Dec 15, 1992 statement (AND BEFORE), i.e., they were made AFTER the ending period of the last statement AND BEFORE the starting, are termed INITIAL and need to be entered using this Startup program. You will be asked to enter the following information: 1. Date of the transaction 2. The amount 3. Whether the transaction was an income (or deposit), or a spending (or withdrawl). Since transfers are not allowed in Startup, you will need to enter seperate data for a withdrawl from an account and deposit to another account. This way money being moved from one account to another does not affect the other account. When you enter data of the other account, you will need to enter all the withdrawls and deposits of that account. This will prevent you from worrying if a transaction was a transfer from another account and whether it was entered earlier. 4. A description to identify the transaction later. (You should enter what the money was spent on, where it came from, or where it was transfered to etc.) 5. A check number, if any. (This will help you later on in checking off the transaction when your next statement comes in). * STEP 5 and 6. CHECK THE DATA YOU HAVE ENTERED USING "CHK REPORT" ---------------------------------------------------------------- Once you are done entering the data for a particular account, you should use the CHK REPORT option to check if the account information is correct. You will see each data record itemized and totaled. The ending total should correspond to the total you might have on a checkbook for instance. You will be able to select BALANCING to check if the amount on your statement balance and check book balance are correct. If you feel there is an error in the ending balance, you should continue entering all the remaining data. If you have made an error in data entry, you should go to KeepTrak and fix it using EDIT DATA. * STEP 7. ENDING STARTUP ----------------------- By this point all your statements should match the reports and balancing information. You should exit startup and use the ADD DATA, EDIT DATA menus in KeepTrak to enter more data. * ENDING REMARKS -------------- You should frequently use the BACKUP program to backup your data. In the event of a computer malfunction or system error, you will be able to restore your data using the RESTORE program. You should also save all your personal data files (the .PER files) on a seperate personal disk. DO NOT COPY YOUR PERSONAL FILES TO THE ORIGINAL KEEPTRAK DISK OR TO ANY OTHER DISK WHICH YOU WILL USE TO DISTRIBUTE THE KEEPTRAK PROGRAM. YOUR PERSONAL DATA FILES (*.PER) SHOULD OCCASIONALLY BE SAVED ON A SEPERATE PERSONAL DATA DISK . ~