My Little Realm Enterprises - Savings 3.0 - Shareware Version ____________________________________________________________________ Important ____________________________________________________________________ Savings 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 Savings. 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 days you decide to keep using Savings, you must pay for the program. To print an order form, press <$> in the Options Window or print the text file REGISTER.TXT. My Little Realm Enterprises stands behind all of its products with a 30-day money back guarantee. Bonus! Get one MLR stand-alone program free with every order. Read DESCRIBE.TXT for details. This offer expires 12/31/94. Thank you for trying Savings and Shareware! ____________________________________________________________________ My Little Realm Enterprises - Savings 3.0 - Contents General Information......................................1 Introduction........................................1 Overview.................................................1 Interface...........................................1 Quickeys............................................1 Extended Processing Options.........................2 Getting Started..........................................2 Program Information......................................2 The Options Window.......................................2 Option # 1, Adding Records...............................2 Field Definitions...................................3 Instrument Types....................................3 Option # 2, Updating and Changing the Data...............5 The Change Field Screen.............................5 Changing Amounts....................................5 The CPU and NOU Fields..............................5 Option # 3, Viewing Records..............................6 Option # 4, Deleting Records.............................6 Option # 5, Printing Savings Portfolio...................7 Extended Processing Options..............................7 <\> Change Quickeys K through O.....................7 <+> View All Records in the File....................7 <#> Switch Between Color and B/W Modes.............8 Display the EPO Command Set.....................8 Savings Page 1 ____________________________________________________________________ General Information ____________________________________________________________________ Introduction Savings is a financial recorder that helps you to keep track of all your savings instruments; their values, account numbers, where the legal documents are kept, and any other pertinent information. It also prints the net worth of your total savings portfolio. The Savings program is ideal for the long term investments that you plan to hold for your retirement, for example, or for your children's education. (You might find this hard to believe now, if you're just starting out, but it isn't all that difficult to forget what you have in the way of savings instruments and where you've stored all of the appropriate records after a span of 15 or 20 years.) If you're planning to apply for a home loan or if you're attempting to refinance the mortgage on your present home, make sure your Savings' portfolio is current and invoke option 5 to print out a listing of your portfolio. For details on printing your Savings portfolio refer to page 7. The mortgage company's representative will want to know what you have in the way of assets (how much you have in CD's, mutual funds, etc., and with which banks you are presently doing business). ---------- Please note that Savings is a financial recorder. It is not a financial planner or an investment tool. Savings cannot help you make buy and sell decisions for stocks and bonds. ____________________________________________________________________ Overview Interface. Savings's screen consists of three 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 Instrument types in the Viewing Window. ---------------------------- Quickeys. The Quickey list in Savings consists of the Instrument types you use, such as stocks, bonds, passbook savings plans, etc. Savings Page 2 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 add special savings instruments to your Quickey list. You invoke it by pressing the backslash in the Options Window. To find out what EPO commands are employed by Savings, enter (the question mark) in the Options Window. See "Extended Processing Options", page 7, for a full description of the EPO's. ____________________________________________________________________ Getting Started You shouldn't have to change the Instrument types unless you are a sophisticated investor. As a matter of fact, you can't change the default Quickey names in Savings. You can only append your specific Instrument types to the Quickey list. So, to start, simply press <1> in the Options Window and create the records of the savings instruments you have. You should read "Field Definitions" starting on page 3 for information on the fields in a Savings record and how best to utilize them. ____________________________________________________________________ Program Information ____________________________________________________________________ The Options Window. __________________________________________________ | | | 1 Add 3 View | | 2 Update/ 4 Delete Choice: _ | | Change 5 Print | |__________________________________________________| There are several extended processing options available, as well. See the section Extended Processing Options described on page 7. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 1, Adding Records. To add new savings instruments to your savings file, select 1, and Savings puts your cursor in the Working Window on the Instrument line. Choose one of the Quickeys and press . If you decide to enter an instrument category manually, be sure to keep it short and memorable, because you'll have to spell it the same way when you want Savings to find it for you later on. Savings Page 3 Note: If, by chance, you lose one of your instrument records, use the <+> EPO to find it. See Extended Processing Options on page 7. Pressing anywhere in the Working Window returns you to the Options Window without creating a record. To end an input session, press when the cursor is in the Instrument field. ____________________ ~ Field Definitions ~ - Instrument field (20, required). Instrument Types __________________________ Here Savings asks for the type | Quickeys | of instrument you are entering. | | This is a required entry, and | - Instruments - | it is also where you make use of | | the Quickeys. Please refer to | A Passbook Savings | the Viewing Window on the right | B Cert. of Deposit | side of the Savings screen. It | C IRA | It should look similar to the | D Keough | one here ---> | E Savings Bond | | F General Bond | You can, if you need to, enter | G Stock | your own instrument type manually, | H Mutual Fund | but you should keep the entry | I Profit Sharing | short and simple. Otherwise, you | J Treasury Bill | could have trouble finding your | K | entry when it comes time to make | L | updates. Remember, on subsequent | M | lookups, any instrument you | N | entered manually must be entered | O | manually again and it must be |__________________________| spelled exactly as you originally entered it. You do not have to worry about upper and lower case inconsistencies, however. As is always the recommendation in any My Little Realm program, use the Quickeys whenever possible to save wear and tear on the psyche. The Change Quickeys EPO allows you to supplement the instrument list that comes with Savings. ____________________ - B/C Name field (36, optional). This is the Bank or Corporation name found on the instrument. In the case of stocks, for example, it is the name of the company that appears on the stock (i.e., the company whose stock you have purchased). For passbook savings, it is the name of the bank that issued the passbook. For mutual funds, the mutual trust name. Profit sharing investments should be given the name of the company that handles the investments for you. Savings Page 4 - Holder field (36, optional). Enter the name of the owner of the instrument being recorded. For a Passbook Savings account, for example, it would be the name of the person on the passbook. ____________________ - Amount field ($0.00 < Amount > $5,000,000, required). The information contained in the parentheses above states that amounts must be greater than zero and less than five million dollars. Omit dollar signs and commas when entering this information. If you are entering a stock, bond or mutual fund record and you want Savings to calculate the amount for you, press when the cursor is in the first position in the Amount field. Savings then asks for the CPU (cost per unit) and the NOU (number of units). The CPU and NOU fields are at the bottom of the Working Window. The CPU entry cannot be greater than ten thousand dollars, and the NOU entry must be less than or equal to one million. If the result of multiplying the cost per unit by the number of units is greater than the Amount field limit ($5,000.000.00), you must reenter the CPU and NOU amounts. ____________________ - Date field (required). Use the standard American date format of mm/dd/yy. You typically enter the "recording" date in this field (i.e., the date you enter the record in Savings), even if the record is for a Savings Bond you acquired several years ago. After a record's initial entry, the date field serves to remind you when you last updated the record. For example, if you receive updates from a financial company about your mutual funds every quarter, remember to change the date when you update your mutual funds record. In this case you could use either the date on the update notice or the current date. Savings accepts dates for the current month and the four previous months. ____________________ - Account Number field (34, optional). This field should be used to identify the specific instrument being recorded. For example, you might have numerous certificates of deposit. Each has a unique account number. Use the account numbers to identify each instrument entry. You can also include the interest rate and other pertinent information on this line. Savings Page 5 - Memo field (38, optional). Any additional information relevant to the instrument being recorded should be entered in this field. If you are entering stocks, for instance, you might want to enter the phone number or the name of your broker. You should also make a note of the location of the instrument. For instance, you might keep your CD's in your safe deposit box; your savings bonds in a file folder; or your passbook savings book in your chest of drawers. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 2, Updating and Changing the Data. Select one of the Quickeys or enter your own category (as long as you spell it exactly as you entered it when you first created the record). The Change Field Screen Savings finds the category of ___________________________ instruments you want and asks if | | the first record in the category | Change Fields | is the one you wish to change. | | If it isn't, press or use | 1 B/C Name | the directional keys to find the | 2 Holder | record you want to modify. When | 3 Amount | you find the record you want to | 4 Date | change, press or . | 5 Account Number | | 6 Memo | Savings displays a list of the | 7 Cost per Unit | fields you can change in the | 8 Number of Units | Viewing Window (as shown on the | | right). Enter the field's | Selection? __ | corresponding hotkey, and Savings | | places your cursor under the old |___________________________| information and await your changes. If you decide you want to keep the field's old data, press while you are still in that field, and Savings reinstates that field's old value, even after you've typed something new into the field (as long as it's before you've pressed ). Changing Amounts. A number of the instrument categories can have their amounts changed in different ways. Instruments like stocks, bonds and mutual funds can either have their amounts entered directly, or you can have Savings calculate the amount for you. If the amount can be calculated for you, the hotkeys for the CPU (cost per unit) and NOU (number of units) selections are highlighted. The CPU and NOU Fields. If you used the CPU and NOU fields to have Savings calculate the amount when you created the record, you will find that those figures have been retained. That way you can easily update your record by changing only the field whose value has changed. Savings Page 6 For example, if you have a stock whose value has gone up (or down), but you still have the same number of stocks, all you have to do to update the record is give Savings the new stock price (CPU). On the other hand, if you've sold some of the stock (or bought some more) but its price has remained the same, you need only reenter the new number of stocks. You can also reenter both numbers separately to have Savings recalculate your amount. If you enter an amount directly, using selection 3, and the record has old Cost per Unit and Number of Units values, the old CPU and NOU values are erased. That's because Savings has no way of knowing which old value has changed and which is staying the same (if indeed either is staying the same). Remember: Several types of instruments cannot use the Cost per Unit field or the Number of Units field (e.g., Passbook Savings). For those instruments, you can only enter an amount directly by using selection 3 in the Change Fields sub-menu. Hence, selections 7 and 8 are not highlighted, meaning they are unavailable for those instruments. Note: When updating the Amount field in a record, it's a good idea to update the Date field at the same time. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 3, Viewing Records. Enter the instrument category you want to peruse. Savings displays the first record in the chosen category. If there is only one instrument in that category, Savings tells you so. If there are more than one, Savings tells you to use the directional keys to view your records. If you would like to view all of the records in your savings file without regard to instrument category, use the <+> EPO, described in the Extended Processing Options section. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 4, Deleting Records. You find and select the record the same way you do with the Update/Change function. Once you've selected a record, Savings asks for verification before deleting the record. Be certain that it is the record you want to delete because there is no undelete feature. Note: You cannot press for to respond to the verification query. You can only respond with , , or . The escape key is the same as . Savings Page 7 ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 5, Printing Savings Portfolio. This function lists all of your instruments by category, printing the sub-total of each category as well as the final total of all of the investments in your file at the end of the document. Even if you haven't any interest in the total amount of your savings portfolio, a printout of these records would still prove invaluable should your computer's hard disk ever fail you. Also, should you one day decide to apply for a mortgage or attempt to refinance your present home, the mortgage company with which you do business will need to know your current assests (how much you have in CD's, mutual funds, etc., and with which banks). All you'll have to do is pull out this listing (assuming its fairly recent). The listing should be kept in a file folder marked "Savings" or "Investments" in a metal file cabinet along with your other important banking and investment documents. You can terminate the Print function at any time by pressing . ____________________________________________________________________ Extended Processing Options EPO Definition <\> Change Quickeys K through O. Savings asks you which Quickey you want to change. It then places your cursor in the Viewing Window under the Instrument name you want to change and awaits your new entry or changes. If you press the wrong Quickey, press while the cursor is in the Viewing Window and the old instrument category is restored, even after you've started typing. To end the Change Quickey function, press when Savings asks which Quickey you want to change. Instrument names can be sixteen characters long. Note: The Savings-supplied Quickey Instrument categories (A through J) are immutable. - - - - - - - - - <+> View all records in the Savings file. This allows you to see all of the records irrespective of the type of savings instrument. You browse through your file by using the directional keys. Savings Page 8 This EPO is convenient should you `misplace' one of your records. You can lose a record by manually entering an instrument type and then forgetting exactly how you entered it. Use the Quickeys whenever possible. - - - - - - - - - <#> Switch between color and B/W modes. - - - - - - - - - Display Savings's EPO symbols and their definitions. ____________________________________________________________________ + The End + ____________________________________________________________________ (c) Copyright 1991 - 1994 John L. Salisbury