Pass-the-Bucks is a program that helps you keep track of where
money comes from and where it goes. It can help you monitor budgets,
reconcile bank and credit card statements, and watch the growth (or, ouch!,
decline) of your financial net worth.
More specifically, with Pass-the-Bucks you can--
1) create and describe individual accounts;
2) enter transactions and process them against the accounts;
3) sort the transactions chronologically;
4) display the transactions as a complete chronological journal;
5) display the accounts' data with balances shown as month-to-date,
quarter-to-date or year-to-date sums;
6) display the accounts with percentages comparing actual balances
with budget amounts for expense and income accounts;
7) display (as a ledger) selected transactions that affect a particular
account (including running totals);
8) send any of these displays to your printer or to a RAM file for
inclusion in a word-processing document;
9) modify or delete any transaction;
10) modify or clear any account;
11) display the net-worth amount updated with each entered transaction;
12) maintain several independent account-systems in the same data
file prohibiting cross transactions, but allowing cross totals;
13) reconcile checking account and credit card statements;
NEW 14) graph running totals of any account, group, or NetWorth;
...and many other features...
The program is fast and efficient. You can re-sort a thousand
transactions in about 1.7 seconds; moreover, you can completely reprocess
those same thousand transactions in about 1.6 seconds. Displayed totals are
updated after each new transaction is processed. The program itself uses
about 75K plus the space for accounts and transactions. For 80 permanent
accounts and 1000 transactions, it takes about 155-280K depending upon which
windows are opened.
I recommend that you dump this text file to your printer, because it
will make it easier to take the following quickie tour through the program's
features.
j The Cook's Tour
You are Ivan the Terrible, the Czar of all Russia, and so you need to
keep track of just what goes where in your kingdom. What better helper than
your trusty Amiga!
To start the demo: if you are in Workbench, click on the "Ivan" Icon;
if you are in CLI, make sure you are in the right directory and type "PTB
Ivan". Several windows will be opened:
Bottom Window is a brief listing of the accounts, displayed in batches
of twenty, each with its current balance. Top Windows ("Group
Totals" and "Wash Accounts") are directly on top of each other.
Press F9 (function key 9) to flip back and forth between the
two. Middle Window is labeled "Enter New Transaction". This is ready to
receive data. There are three lines:
1) The bottom line (marked with the "---->") is the data for the working
(new) transaction
2) The middle line is the data entry line with the name of the current
field being edited.
3) The top line displays the previous transaction. It is helpful for
entering similar data into several transactions.
We will return to this Edit Window later.
Try selecting Sort Transactions" from the Project Menu. Notice that
a small blue window appears briefly telling you that the transactions are
being sorted. This is called (would you believe?) the Message Window. It
appears on occasion with its good or bad news.
Now try selecting "Reprocess" from the Project Menu. In the brief
time that the message window appeared, Pass-the-Bucks cleared all the
accounts to zero, and reprocessed all the transactions from the beginning of
the file, reset all the end-of-month totals for each account, and redisplayed
the (possibly updated) totals in the windows. Most of the time is spent
displaying the Message Window and updating the screen. You'll find that you
can reprocess 1000-1500 transactions in about the same about of time.
Press F2. Notice that the next batch of accounts (bottom window) are
displayed. Pressing F1 displays the previous batch. When the screen
flashes, it means that there are no more accounts to be displayed in the
direction you are going.
Explore the menus at the top. NOTE: the menus are attached to the
Edit Window (the MIDDLE window). If you find you cannot get the menus, be
sure that you have clicked in the Edit Window to activate it first. Notice
also that there are Amiga-key shortcuts for a number of common operations.
They are found right in the menus/submenus.
In the Transactions Menu under "Select by...", choose "All trans-
actions" to display a list of all stored transactions. Exit this display by
clicking on the Close Gadget. You can get the same display by pressing F3.
Try Transactions Menu again. This time choose, "Select by..."
AcctNumber. Type in a "12" and press <return>. This generates a ledger-
page listing of all the transactions that affect account #12. Notice, by the
way, that since this is an income account, it is normally negative. Thejfinal total (e.g., -$25000.00) tells you that the cumulative amount of salary
received is +$25000.00. This is normal accounting practice. Think of it as
having transferred $25000.00 from the salary account to the bank account.
This means the balance of the Bank Account (#2) is up, and you can tell how
much of the balance is accounted for by salary by looking at the negative
number under Account #12. So in an income account, -$25,000 is a good thing.
Exit this display by clicking on the Close Gadget or by pressing ESC).
Entering a New Transaction
Now, in the Enter New Transaction window, type in the date "8/25/87".
Notice that the letters enter a date in the blue data-entry area. Press
<return> and see that the program converts your entry to 25aug87. Now type
in "2" for the Debit Account, press <return>; type in "19" for the Credit
Account, press <return>. Notice where each of these entries goes on the
third line of the display, and that the field named in the prompt is highlighted in blue on the third line.
Now type in "Burger King" for the description and press <return>;
type in "4.65" for the amount and press <return>. View the whole transaction
on the third line, and then press <return> again at the prompt "Data approved?". This approves the data and sends it off for processing. The
totals are updated in the other two windows.
If you want to exit the demo WITHOUT making any changes to Ivan's
accounts, select "Abort" from the Project Menu (or press RightAmiga-Q). If
you want to save the changes, select "Normal Exit" (RightAmiga-E). If you
want to save the current without leaving the program, select "Store Files"
(RightAmiga-F).
Now, let us proceed in greater detail. 8 Understanding the Window Displays
Previously-Entered Transactions
Press F3 (or choose Begin Display from the Transactions Menu). This
initiates a display of ALL the transactions. Pressing F1 (or F2) will go
backward (or forward) amid the transactions, a screenful at a time. Using
the mouse on the slider gadget (extreme right) will have a similar effect,
but with much larger chunks. Pressing ESC (or clicking on the standard Close
Gadget) will end the display.
Each transaction looks something like this:
(NB: 'xct' means transaction)
xct number descriptions(20char) amount
\ \/ \
123> 12may87 doughnuts 0 4.65 f13t16
142> 15may87 cashed check 1402 200.00 f 1t13
\ /\ / \
xct date reference # 'from' 'to'
(e.g. check #'s) (account numbers)
XCT NUMBER: This is simply the current number of the transaction. If a later
transaction were added with a date previous to this, this number would
change.
XCT DATE: This is the date of the transaction. The transactions are sorted
first by this field and second the first 10 characters of the
description.
DESCRIPTION: This is any set of ASCII characters. There is a routine to
search through these description for any string of characters.
REFERENCE #: This is an optional number (e.g., 1402) associated with the
transaction, such as a check number or an invoice number (numerals
only). This field is not used by Pass-the-Bucks in any calculation or
sorting.
FROM/TO ACCT NUMBERS: 'from' = debit, 'to' = credit. 'f13t16' means that
the amount of the xct is subtracted FROM account #13 and added TO
account #16.
The letter gadgets on the right margin (E,P,D,S) stand for Edit,
Print, Delete, and Search. We'll get to them later. The "X" gadget cancels
all gadgets. The arrow gadgets have exactly the same effect as pressing F2
or F1 (forward or backward one screenful).
Return now to the main window (ESC or Close Gadget).
Displaying Selected Transactions (Ledger Pages)
Choose "Select from..." from the Transactions Menu, and then sub-
select "Acct Number". You will be prompted to enter an account number.
Type in the number 3 and press <return>. PTB then opens a new window to
display all the transactions which affect Account #3. The display of each
transaction is much the same as before except that now the amount of thejtransaction is displayed either in the left (debit) column or the right
(credit)
column, depending on whether the account involved (in this example, #3) is
being debited (subtracted from) or credited (added to).
debit credit cumulative
amt amt balances
\/ \ / \/
123> 12may87 doughnuts 0 4.65 \/ 146.78 f 3t16
142> 15may87 cashed check 1402 200.00 346.78 f 1t 3
debit/credit amts: This is the amount of the transaction displayed in the
appropriate column.
cumulative balance: This is the balance amount in the account after the
processing of this transaction.
Notice, by the way, the letter gadget "M" (for Mark), and the two
arrow gadgets which have the same effect as pressing F2 or F1, namely,
forward one screenful, or backward to the beginning. NB: This is different
from the F1 of the "All transactions" display.
Return to the main window (CloseGadget or ESC).
.(NEW 4.0) The Graph Window
Choose "Graphs" from the Accounts Menu, (or Press RightAmiga-v). PTB
opens a high-res, interlaced screen entitled Graphs. The grey window at the
top is the display area; the bottom window houses the control gadgets. Try
clicking on one of the 6 colored squares, then click on the "Not Yet Set" box
near the top. Click again. There are 4 settings for this Graph Type
selection box. Notice that each time you click on this Graph Type box, the
box to the right of it becomes active, waiting for some numeric entry.
After selecting "Account", try entering the account number 3 into the
Graph Type box via the keyboard. When you press <RETURN>, PTB graphs the
running totals for Account #3 in the color of the currently selected square.
(Each horizontal screen pixel represents one day.) Now select a different
color, and try another account number, say, 5. PTB displays both graphs at
the same time, each with its own color.
PTB also displays the title of the Account or Group in the selected
color, along with the Auto Scale Factor. This Scale Factor is the number of
dollars represented by a single pixel up or down. Hence, a Scale Factor of 1
would indicate that each pixel represents $1.00; a Scale Factor of 10, would
be $10.00; a negative Scale Factor (e.g, -$5.00) would tell you that the
whole graph is inverted to display the account or group amounts that would be
normally negative, such as an income account. Larger Scale Factors are for
larger of amounts of money, so that the entire graph can be seen, that is,
the entire graph has been "shrunk" to fit the grey display window.
By default, the Scale Factor is calculated automatically to fit the
full vertical display area. If you click on the box that says "Auto", it
will change to "Manual" and the box to the right of it will become active.
Type in the desired Scale Factor and press <RETURN>. Use AUTO scaling to
best see the shape of the data. It will best exaggerate the ups and downs.
Use MANUAL scaling if you want to compare two DIFFERENT sets of data. Note
the auto scale factor displayed after the Graph Description near the Color
Square. Pick the largest one to enter as the manual scaling factor. This
way you must make sure they both have the same Scale Factor. Then click on
"Redraw", PTB will erase the graphs and redisplay each of the graphs using
the same (Manual) Scale Factor.
Notice that the color square you last select is marked with a little
cross. This cross tells you that PTB will perform its graphing commands upon
the data in the Account (or Group, or NetWorth) whose name appears to the
right of the color square.
Exit from Graphics by clicking on the normal Close Gadget.
PHere is more detailed description of each gadget in the control
window.
Graph Type:Cycles through the four selections with each click
"Not Yet Set"> no graph will be drawn
"Net Worth " > the next box hold a system number
"Account" > the next box holds an account number
"Group" > the next box hold a group number
Color Squares:The square with the cross shows the active square. The Draw
command applies to the current active square. The graph
color corresponds to color of the square.
Draw:Draws the currently active Graph. It does so without erasing
anything, thus allowing you to draw several different graphs
using the same color if you desire.
Clear:Clears all graph drawings from the grid, but without clearing
the Graph Selections.
Redraw:Clears grid, and draws all Graph Selections.
" The Edit Window for New Transactions
The window labeled "Enter New Transactions" is Grand Central Station
for all the Pass-the-Bucks activities. So far, we've looked at some
transactions that have been entered previously. Now let's enter a new one.
Entering Dates
On the middle line of the Edit Window, there is a blue strip with the
word "Date:": preceding it in white. Type in the date November 12,1987, in
the format mm/dd/yy (i.e., 11/12/87) and press <return>. Notice that the
program translates the date into "12nov87" on the line below (the "current
transaction" line). Also, the prompt line now says, "Debit Account:", and
the field "f00" is highlighted. Now press <Shift-LeftArrow>. The program
has "backed up" to the date field again. This works for any field.
Try entering the date September 1, 1987, as "090187", or "9/1/87" or
"9-1-87", backing up between each try to the Date prompt. Now try typing
"3" for the date. Notice that just the day of the month has changed. Now
try "10/5"(or "1005") to change both the month and day-of-month. Enter the
letter "t", and notice that the program converts it to today's date (current
system date); likewise "y" converts it to yesterday's date.
Do NOT use the form 10oct87. The program will reject it. This
format "10oct87" was chosen for its compact display. It also puts the most
variable portion first, and the least variable last.
Summary:
If the date displayed is 05may87 and system date is 10may87, then:
t changes date to 10may87 (today)
y changes date to 09may87 (yesterday)
3 or 03 changes date to 03may87
20 changes date to 20may87
4-1 or 4/1 or 0401 changes date to 01apr87
090588 or 9/5/88 changes date to 05sep88
Entering Account Numbers
Now let's say that Ivan has just purchased two Russian Wolf Hounds to
maul wondering serfs found on the palace grounds. He paid $250 for them by
check. So the $250.00 is being subtracted from account #2 (Royal Bank) and
added to an expense account #28 (Serf Hunting). You can see these accounts
in the bottom window. Enter "2" for the Debit Account, and "28"
for the Credit Account.
Entering Amounts
Enter "250" for the amount. Notice that "amount" is in dollars, so
that you may enter "250" or "250.0" or "250.00" all with the same result.
Five cents must be entered as ".05", ten cents as ".1" or ".10".
dCorrecting errors
After you have entered the amount, you are asked to approve the whole
transaction as it stands there on the last line of the Edit Window. If all
is okay, press return. If anything is wrong, you may (1) backup to the
problem field by pressing Shift-LeftArrow; or (2) start over by typing in "n"
(or "no", or "no way, Jose", etc.) and then pressing <return>. You may
accept any field as is, by simple pressing <return>.
When all is acceptable, press <return>, and the program
(1) processes the transaction immediately,
(2) posts the updated totals to the top and bottom windows of the screen,
(3) moves this transaction to the top line of the Edit Window as the "last
transaction", and
(4) clears the data (except the date) from the current transaction in
preparation for the next one.
Displaying Accounts Data
Now, from the Accounts Menu, select "Display Accounts". Once the
window has displayed its data, explore the menus at the top of the window.
Notice a new letter gadget "C" (for Continuous Edit); know also that the "M"
gadget in this window stands for "Move". From the leftmost menu ("Display")
choose "Basic Data" if it is not already selected. Data from each of the
accounts is displayed on lines like these:
acct # description budget current balance
\
12> Royal Salary 4 -1 1 60000 -25000.00
13> Serf Hunting 7 1 1 4000 824.00
/ | \
group type system
BUDGET: This amount is stored as an annual budget. Depending upon the
setting in the "Period Length" menu, it is displayed either as an annual,
quarterly, or monthly figure.
CURRENT BALANCE: This is stored as the year-to-date figure. Depending on the
setting in the "Period Length" menu, it is displayed as a year-to-date, a
quarter-to-date, or month-to-date figure.
GROUP: This number tells you what special group this account belongs to. The
sum total of all the accounts having the same group number appears in the
upper window on the original screen. These groupings are optional and
arbitrary, and are set completely by the user. Each account may belong to at
most one group.
TYPE: This number refers to the one of the standard accounting terms such as
ASSET (3) or LIABILITY (-3) or EXPENSE (1). These codes may be displayed by
choosing the Help Window from the Display Menu.
dSYSTEM: This field (default=1) allows you to create several (up to 8)
completely independent accounting systems within the same file. The
advantage of a separate system is that you can be assured that transactions
cannot accidentally transfer money from one system to another. Yet the group
totals allow you to add up balances from different systems, e.g., a common
credit card for both business and personal charges, a common bank account for
two people or for one person with two different uses.
From the Display Menu, select "Comparison Totals", and watch the
changes in the title bar at the top of the window. In the account lines, the
figures given after the description indicate the (user-set) budget for this
period (year, quarter, month), the current balance, the percent of the budget
since the beginning of the period, and the number of percentage points
difference between this and the percent of the time elapsed from the
beginning of the period. For example, consider an expense account. If the
fiscal year started on January 1 and the current date is April 1, then about
25% of the year is gone. If 30% percent of the budget is spent, then the
deviation from 25% is +5%; this means that you are over budget for this time
in the year.
From the Period Length Menu, select "Quarter". Note that the budget
amounts are 1/4 of what the yearly budgets were. The balance displayed is
the amount brought into the account since the beginning of the period. So,
for an expense account, it represents exactly how much was spent since the
beginning of the current quarter. The percentages and deviation are likewise
calculated with the quarter as the basic unit. Similarly, the period length
of "Month", displays all as beginning from the current month (i.e., based on
the last end-of-month totals).
The BaseMonth Menu allows you to choose months other than the
(default) current one in order to see the balances as of the end-of-month
marker (cf. End-of-Month, below) for the selected month.
End-of-Month (EOM)
Pass-the-Bucks (PTB) keeps track of the year-to-date balances for
each account at the end of each month for (1) up to eleven previous months,
(2) for the current month, and (3) a total for the "Initial Status" balance
at the beginning of the fiscal year. This enables quick calculation of
quarter figures and various budgets, etc.
In order to maintain this, PTB uses dummy end-of-month transactions.
They look like this:
150> 99may87 ~~~~~~~eom~~~~~~~ 0 0.00 f 0t 0
The significant elements are:
1. the "99" for the day of the month. This forces the EOM transactions
to come after all the other transactions of the month.
2. the tildes (~) at the start of the description.
3. the 0's in the "from" and "to" accounts: viz.,"f 0t 0".
When PTB processes one of these EOM transactions, it makes a copy of the
current year-to-date balances for this particular month-end. The easiest way
to produce one of these EOM transactions is to use the End-of-Month selection
from the Project Menu. This procedure (1) creates an EOM transaction for thejcurrent/recent month, (2) sorts the transactions, (3) reprocesses all the
transactions again.
Explore the BaseMonth Menu attached to the original Edit Window.
Notice that eleven months of the (user-defined) fiscal year are present and
also an EOY (end-of-year). [NB: to specify the fiscal year beginning, use the
program AcctSetup]. "EOY" refers to the status of the accounts at the end of
the previous fiscal year.
Several displays can take as their starting point the currently
selected BaseMonth instead of the current status. For example, if you
explore the Accounts Menu, you will notice that the selection "As of..." has
as one of its options "BaseMonth". This will display the accounts as of the
end-of-month of the selected month. If you explore the Transactions Menu,
you will see that the selection "Starting from..." has the option
"BaseMonth". This means that the display of selected transactions (ie.,
selected by account number, group number, etc) will begin with the EOM
transaction of the selected BaseMonth.
Note that PTB gets its notion of what the current month is from the
number of EOM transactions in the list rather than from the dates of the
transactions.
Creating an Accounting System
Having examined the Ivan's accounts, you will now say, "But what
about starting from scratch?" Two different types of consideration are
involved here:
1. Understanding enough about accounting to know WHAT to create.
2. Using Pass-the-Bucks to create accounts.
The first is more fundamental, the second more practical. If you have a
general sense of accounting procedures, skip on to the more practical
elements in the next section.
Double-entry accounting
The assumption of double-entry accounting is that every time you
debit (subtract an amount from) one account, you must credit (add the same
amount to) another account.
For example, if you buy a hamburger with $1.95 cash, you would
subtract $1.95 from petty cash, and add $1.95 to, say, food expenses. This
means that your balance (current total) in the Petty Cash account would
decrease, and the balance in Food Expenses account would rise. This makes
intuitive sense.
However, consider what happens when you account for your weekly
salary check of $550.00.
1. Since you get a check, you would naturally expect your Checking
account to rise. But that means that some other account must be debited. So
we need an account to keep track of your salary. We must debit this account
by $550.00, leaving its balance as -$550.00. This looks strange: a negative
amount for a salary. But if, for the moment, you ignore the minus sign, then
the balance in your Salary account is $550.00. Picture the result as:
Salary -550.00
Checking 550.00j
2. In the following week, you win at the races and get a check for
$250.00. To account for this, you debit the Miscellaneous Income account
(giving $-250.00, and credit the Checking account (giving $800.00).
Salary -550.00
Misc Income -250.00
Checking 800.00
3. Then you get another $550.00 salary check. You again debit the
Salary account (giving $-1100.00), and credit the Checking account (giving
$1350.00).
Salary -1100.00
Misc Income -250.00
Checking 1350.00
The secret here is realizing that the Salary and Misc Income are
measuring Income (hence the creative name "Income Accounts"), whereas
Checking, like the Petty Cash Account, is measuring Assets. The Food
Expenses, as you have guessed, is called an Expense Account.
Normally,
Income accounts should be negative numbers
Expense accounts should be positive numbers
Asset accounts should be positive numbers
Liability accounts should be negative numbers
The last type account, Liability, is used to keep track of money that you owe
to someone else. Let's say you borrow $40.00 cash from a friend. To account
for this, you must create an account to keep track of how much you we the
friend. Let's call the account, George's Loan. You subtract $40.00 from the
George's Loan account and add $40.00 to the Petty Cash account. You then
promptly buy a $9.00 pizza. This gives the following results:
Checking 1300.00 ( asset )
Petty Cash 31.00 ( asset )
George's Loan -40.00 ( liability )
Salary -1100.00 ( income )
Misc Income -250.00 ( income )
Food Expenses 9.00 ( expense )
Each moment in the financial story is called a transaction. If you spend a
little time with the accounts displays above, you will see that the numbers
really do show you where money has gone.X Creating an Accounting System with Pass-the-Bucks
Take the following steps:
1. Make yourself a list of the different accounts your system will have
all year. This should include your
a. Assets (checking, saving, bonds, petty cash, etc.)
b. Liabilities (loans, credit cards balances)
c. Income (salary, interest, dividends, gifts, misc income)
d. Expenses (food, rent, car, entertainment, clothing, etc.)
e. An Status Quo Account (cf. ____ below)
The number of accounts in this list will be the number of Permanent Accounts
in your system for this fiscal year. This list may be altered later.
However, it's a good idea to leave a few blank accounts so that you may
easily add new accounts that you have not yet realized you want. The
Pass-the-Bucks accounts displays are in batches of 20. So I recommend that
you set the number of Permanent Accounts to a multiple of 20.
2. Decide what month/year you will begin your fiscal year, (i.e., what
month/year you will begin monitoring your money with the program. The date
you choose (i.e., January = 1, February = 2, ...) is called the Fiscal Year
Start. It is best to make a clean start at the beginning of a month.
3. Decide what you want as a heading on printouts, e.g., your name.
4. Now run the program PTBSetup either by a double-click to the
WorkBench icon, or typing PTBSetup from a CLI. Fill in the number of
Permanent Accounts, the Fiscal Year Start, and the Account Title. Click on
Continue. Pass-the-Bucks then creates an empty accounts data file for you
called (by default) "Accts".
Filling in the Empty Accounts
To begin customizing your system, run the Pass-the-Bucks program.
From the Accounts Menu, select Display Accounts (or press RightAmiga-D).
When the empty accounts list is displayed, select the Help Window from the
Display Menu to bring up a handy list of the "type" codes for income,
expense, etc. Then choose the Basic Data item from the Display Menu. Now,
click on the "C" gadget (for "Continual Edit") at the right and then click on
the account number where you wish to begin entering. For each account, you
will asked to provide:
1. a account title (20 char)
2. a group number (ignore this for now)
3. a type (i.e., asset, liability, etc. Cf. Help Window)
4. a system number (accept the default, 1, for now)
5. a yearly budget amount, for income and expense accounts.
(Each of these entries may be modified later.)
The difference between the "C" gadget and the "E" gadget is that "E"jexits from Edit Mode after each account, whereas "C" continues on to edit the
next higher account number. If you need to go back to change a previous
entry, you may click on the Close Gadget or press ESC, and then use the "E"
gadget to edit the faulty account.
The Status Quo Account
Whenever someone starts an accounting system, they usually do so in
the MIDDLE of their own financial history. This means that there are already
real amounts in their checking, their petty cash; they already have debts in
the form of loans or credit card bills. This means that somehow those
amounts have to get into the system.
However, if you credit the Checking Account balance by the current
bank balance of $350.00, then you must debit some other account. Which one?
This requires a special sort of account which we will call an Status Quo
account (type = -4).
So before you exit the Accounts Display, be sure to add an StatusQuo
Account (only one) to your system.
Initializing the Account Balances
The means for getting the initial amounts into the liability and
asset accounts is the status quo transaction. The terms status quo literally
means the state from which. For our purposes, it refers to the beginning
state of the account.
For example, say you are beginning your account system as of the
beginning of March, 1988, and you have $85.34 in petty cash. Enter a
transaction having the date "3/00/88" and description "Status quo", with the
amount $85.34, transferring it FROM your Status Quo account TO your Petty
Cash account. Do the same with your other asset accounts. If you currently
owe MasterCard $121.93, then enter a transaction with this amount,
transferring it FROM your MasterCard account TO your Status Quo account. In
general, the status quo transaction is a transaction which debits the Status
Quo account and credits an asset account, or debits a liability account and
credits the Status Quo account. When you have finished the status quo
transactions, the balance in the Status Quo account will tell you the
system's notion of your starting Net Worth.
To finish this initializing phase,
1. sort the transactions (Project Menu or RightAmiga-D),
2. reprocess them (Project Menu or RightAmiga-R), and
3. display them (Press F3).
The final transaction should look something like this:
03/00/88 ~~~~~~~ eoy ~~~~~~~~ 0 0.00 f 0t 0
This special transaction is created initially by the PTBSetup program when
the data file was first generated. The acronym "eoy" stands for end-of-year.
This is the borderline between the setup (status quo) amounts and the
transactions that you will enter during the year. At this point it would be
a good idea to store the data on disk (either RightAmiga-F or "Store Files"
from the Project Menu).j
You are now ready to use your account system.
Wash Accounts
Sometimes you may want to keep track of money for a particular
purpose or event, like a trip or a project, but you don't want to take up a
slot in the Permanent Accounts all year long. PTB handles this situation
with what is called the Temporary (or "Wash") Account. Basically, a wash
account is:
1. created when you name it and put something into it,
2. accessed by means of this name, and
3. removed when its balance is again exactly $0.00.
There is enough room for 21 wash accounts at any one time. But since they
are removed whenever their balance becomes zero, many more than 21 can be in
the system in the course of a year.
Creating a Wash Account
Assume you are taking a business trip to Denver, and that your office
will reimburse you. The first transaction charges the $349.00 plane fare to
your Visa card.
1. Enter the date
2. Enter the number of the Visa account for the debit account (FROM)
3. Enter a "w" for the credit account (TO)
4. Enter "Denver" for the account name
5. Enter "plane fare" for the description
6. Enter $349.00 for the amount
Notice that PTB makes the account name into the first part of the description
and automatically follows it with a slash. The size of the rest of the
description is determined by the size of the account name. The maximum total
for the two together plus the slash is 20 characters. Moreover, the "w" has
been translated into a dummy account number, '1'.
When you OK the transaction, the program creates a new wash account
with the amount $349.00. You may view it in the Wash Account window at the
top of the screen. (PTB puts it in front of the Group Totals window,
whenever a wash account is accessed in a transaction.)
Accessing a Wash Account
Add a $6.50 limo charge (paid in cash) to the account as follows. The
debit account number is Petty Cash account, the credit account is "w". The
Temporary Account Name is "Denver" as before. The description is "limo
fare". The amount is $6.50. When you approve the transaction, watch the
balance in the "Denver" wash account. It should be $355.50. Any number of
other charges may be handled the same way.
Removing a Wash Account
When the office gives you a reimbursement check for $355.50, youjenter it as follows: the debit account is "w", the Temporary Account Name is
"Denver", the credit account is the Checking account, the description
something like "reimb" or "check". When PTB processes the transaction, you
will notice that the account is removed.
Display the Transactions of a Wash Account
You may display all the transactions that pertain to the same Wash
Account as follows: From the Transactions Menu, choose "Select by..." and
"Wash Acct Name." Then Type in the name of the Wash Account and press
<return>.
Changing a Wash Account Name
The only way to change the name of a Wash Account is to edit the
transactions that create and modify it.
Edit Old Transactions
Changing Transaction Data
Transactions may be edited even after they have been entered. Simply
display the transactions (e.g., F3), click on the "E" (edit) gadget, then
click on the transaction you want to edit. The Edit Window comes to the fore
and displays the transaction's fields. You may bypass a field by pressing
<return>. After you have changed the field you desired, you may bypass all
other fields and send the data off by pressing F6. You may exit from this
window in three ways: (1) by cycling through all the fields and then the
"Approve Data?" prompt at the end; (2) pressing function key F6 at anytime in
the edit; or (3) aborting the procedure by either clicking on the Close
Gadget or pressing ESC. Notice that the "E" gadget is still selected. This
means that you may immediately click on another transaction and go again
into edit mode. Even if you exit from the Transaction Display and re-enter
it, the "E" gadget will remain selected until another gadget is selected.
Moving/Sorting Transactions
You may move a transaction within the chronological list by simply
editing the date and re-sorting all the transactions (RightAmiga-S or "Sort
Xcts" from the Project Menu). The transactions are sorted first on date, and
then on the first 10 characters of the description field.
Reprocessing after an Edit
After you have edited one or more old transactions, it is always good
idea to sort them and then to reprocess them all (RightAmiga-R or "Reprocess
Xcts" from the Project Menu). NB: the present version of PTB does not update
the account balances after a re-edit.
Printing Transaction
If you want to try printing transactions, click on the "P" gadget on
the far right. You will be asked for a starting page. For now, type in "1".jIf you want to maintain a hard copy listing of the transactions, you need not
print the entire list each time, only the most recent part -- the part that
changes. Once you set the number of lines per page on the Printer Output
Control, PTB can start the printing with the correct transaction.
Reconciling Bank Statements
The "Mark" system
Reconciling your own records with those of a bank (ie, for checking,
savings, Visa, etc) can be a messy operation because the check are not
necessarily processed by the bank in the order in which you write them. To
audit the account, you must be able to choose which transactions should be
included in the running balance, and which should (for the purpose of
checking the bank statement) be ignored. Pass-the-Bucks's solution to this
is the Mark System. (Ok, it's a dumb name. Give me a better one.)
Using Marks
Marks may only be used from the Selected Display of Transactions.
Call up display of a particular account or group. Press the Right Mouse
Button to show the Marks menu. Choose Misc 1 from the menu. Now click on
the "M" gadget near the lower right border. Note that the running totals
have all gone to zero. Now go to any transaction and click anywhere on its
line. Note that the amount of the transaction is now added to the running
totals. Click on another. Then click on the first one again. Note that
clicking toggles the mark on and off. By the way, the marks are stored with
the transactions in the permanent data file.
Clearing Marks
If things get confused, and you need to clear a particular mark from
all transactions from #n and up, then simply click on transaction #n, and
then select Clear Marks from the Marks Menu.
Renaming Marks
Every transaction may have as many as 8 different marks associated
with it (you guessed it, one for each bit of a byte). The same transaction,
for example, must be considered in both the checking account and also the
Visa account, and perhaps will be "marked" in one context but not in the
other. You may name the different marks by means of the Edit Marks selection
from the Marks Menu. L
Customizing the Environment
Printer Output Control
From any of the Transaction Display windows or from the Accounts
Display Window, press F5. This action calls up a special requester entitled
"Printer Output Control". This allows you to control certain features when
printing. Try clicking on some of the fields. Notice that some fields cycle
through 2 or 3 possible values and others first need to be activated and then
require a typed entry.
The Lines/page field allows you to govern the number of print lines
PTB will display on a page. Some printers automatically space down about 5-7
lines on the page when you feed in an individual sheet. Experiment with
setting this field to produce the output you want.
The final field ("Output to...") determines what PTB does with the
formatted output. If PRINTER is selected, PTB sends it to the printer device
[PRT:]. If PRINTER is not selected, then the temporary diskfile is retained
when the printing is completed, otherwise it is deleted. This means you may
later use the formatted output in a word processing program that can read
textfiles. You will have to remove the printer control codes at the
beginning and between pages.
MORE TECHNICALLY: The temporary files used by PTB are prefixed with
"t:". Therefore, you may ASSIGN t: (through a CLI) to some directory either
in RAM: or on a disk. Use a command line something like one of these:
assign t: ram:
assign t: df0:
assign t: df1:data
When you click on a "P" gadget, PTB puts up its "Men at Work" sign, i.e.,
"Formatting for Printer", and then the following:
1. moves into the t: directory
2. opens a file
-- i.e., xctfile for transactions
acctfile for accounts
grpfile for group data
smryfile for summary page
3. sends format control characters as per the Printer Output Control
4. sends formatted data
5. closes the file
6. sends the following command line: "run > NIL: PTBtype t:filename"
7. returns control to you
Since, RUN is used, the printing continues in the background leaving you free
to continue working in PTB. HOWEVER, you must not leave PTB until the RUN
command is finished...unless, of course, you like to see GURU messages.
The command (program) "PTBtype" is a custom routine which pauses
after each formfeed code to allow you to CONTINUE or QUIT by means of a
system requester. This enables you to print without continuous forms and
without an automatic sheet feeder.
Customizing Screen Colors
j Included with PTB is a public domain program called "PopColours"
(yes, British spelling). This program allows you to change the colors of any
screen while a program is running. Why bother? Your eyes may not like PTB's
default colors. You can change them while PTB is running and have them
stored with the datafile. Here's how.
Be sure that the PopColours program is stored in either the c:
directory (or in a directory accessed by your PATH parameters). Then while
PTB is running,
1. select PopColours from the Project Menu,
2. press LeftAmiga-N to get to the WorkBench screen.
3. Look for a window bar that says "PopColours" on it. Move the pointer
to it and click on it. A window with several gadgets will drop down.
4. Move the pointer to the top of the WorkBench screen (You may have to
move a CLI window down). Holding the left mouse button down, drag
the WorkBench screen slowly down until the PTB screen is visible
behind it. Position the 2 screens so that the PopColours window is
visible.
5. Click on the gadget that says "TOP SCREEN". It will change to
"SECOND SCREEN" at which point you may use the arrow gadgets to
select the various colors and adjust them with the sliders gadgets.
They operated the same way as the Preferences Screen.
6. Be sure to adjust the colors for different display windows for best
readability. Then, click on the close gadget of the PopColours and
move the WorkBench Screen back into place. Press LeftAmiga-M.
7. Be sure to store your current data (Project Menu, Store Files, or
RightAmiga-F) on disk. The colors will always return to these
settings whenever you call up this accounts file.
NB: KNOWN BUG-- There is a problem with running POPCOLOURS when PTB is called
from the WorkBench. It is similar to the one mentioned above for printing
data. The system will hang up if you try this without an open CLI somewhere.
Interlace Screen
The advantage of the interlace screen is that more data can be
displayed vertically on the screen: twice as many transactions or accounts,
twice as many group totals and wash accounts. The current version does not
allow the larger number of groups or wash accounts, but will display more
transactions and accounts. You will probably need an anti-jitter filter for
your screen if the flicker bothers your eyes.
From the Project Menu select Screen, Interlace. Then store the file
and exit. (Right-Amiga e). The Message Window informs you that the next time
you call up this accts file, the screen display will be interlaced.T Function Key Summary
The function keys have the following roles:
ESC= In general, this aborts any current operation, e.g., an edit, a
display or a search, etc.
F1 = Backward one screenful (varies depending on current display)
F2 = Forward one screenful
F3 = Display All Transactions starting from most recent.
F4 = Access the Reference Number field during a transaction edit.
F5 = Call up the Printer Output Control Requester (during displays of
transactions, groups, or accounts.
F6 = Skip to end of an edit and approve current data.
F7 = (currently unused)
F8 = Same as "S" gadget: begin/continue search through transactions.
F9 = Toggle WashAccount window and GroupTotals windows.
