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Text File | 1997-04-16 | 30.3 KB | 602 lines

9. Using the program The first time you will run DPBank, the program will ask you on what drive you want to make the DPBank directory (\DPBank). This directory HAS to be on RAM disk as it will contain all the necessary files to keep your accounts (it will not allow you to select flash disks anyway). These reason is that the account files will change each time you use DPBank, so a Flash card is not useable! Here is a small tutorial for getting the ``feel'' of the program. Once the program has started, you will be asked to enter some information. I will describe the procedure now. . Account group name: this is the name that will appear under the DPBank icon on your System screen. The default is simply ``Accounts''; . Currency file: you need to define your home currency symbol you want to use (up to 5 numbers or characters, but please make sure that this is correct, since it is the only thing you cannot change later!) and any other foreign currencies you plan on using (not necessary for the moment). The default is the System currency you set; . Accounts: enter your most used account first since DPBank will always show this one on start. You then need to enter the real opening balance, it's currency, as well as the date of this balance (no future dates are allowed here). Make sure that the currency is correct, since you cannot change this later on. After that you can enter some useful information for this account (especially if you use cheques, choose yes in the ``Uses cheques?'' line). Since this is the first time you're using DPBank, it will display a dialog with some information on how to use DPBank optimally; please read it. When you've read it press ESC, you are then welcomed with your first account in the form of a ``card''. This is just like a filing card and each account you add, will appear to the right of this one (no re-ordering for the moment, but see section 13 ``Future'' for features planned for next versions). You see the first transaction which is always the ``opening balance'' with the balance you entered. To add a transaction, simply press the space bar (or Psion-n). You will see the transaction dialog which I will describe now. 9.1 Transaction dialog The first line asks you for a description. It is not mandatory to enter a description, since if this line is left blank, the auto description will be used (unless of course you don't have any auto descriptions!) The second line is the auto description choice (select with TAB). If you want to select an auto description, be sure to leave the description line blank! Note that this line only appears if you have entered at least one auto description. The third line is the amount and the fifth asks for the currency of this amount (select with TAB to expand the choice if you have set several currencies). The fourth line asks if this transaction is a credit or a debit in your account ie: if you give money to the bank or take back from them). I've put it here so you don't need to move around with the cursor too much in order to enter a new transaction. Finally, your are asked for the date of this transaction. You can enter future transactions. For this example, do not change this since it automatically defaults to today's date. Just enter an amount and a description or use the auto description to see how it works. The date defaults either to the date of the highlighted (selected) transaction or to today's date if the (previously) highlighted transaction was the last one in the account. If all goes well (if you entered enough information), you will see this transaction appear on the last line in reverse characters (highlighted). You can now move up and down on the two different transactions. Once you get some more items entered, you will be able to move from page to page, below are the commands you can use to move. 9.2 Moving around . right/left: moves from one account to another . up/down: moves from one transaction to another . Psion-up/down: equivalent to page up/down; moves 10 transactions at a time . Psion-control-up/down: jumps to first/last transaction in account . Psion-left/right: equivalent to home/end; goes to first/last accounts in group. You can also press the first letter of the account you want to jump to. If more than one account has the same first letter, pressing the first letter a second time will jump to the next and so on. 9.3 New accounts Now press Psion-shift-n (for new) or choose ``Add new'' from the ``Accounts'' menu choice. You will be asked for the new account's name as well as it's balance (with the corresponding date and currency) and some useful information (just like the first one actually...) You then see that a new ``card'' appears. You can now move between between the accounts with the cursor right/left. 9.4 Transfers Now that you have two accounts, you can make a transfer from one to the other. Choose ``Transfers'' from the ``Transaction'' menu choice or press Psion-t for a shortcut. You are then shown the Transfer dialog. It is quite straight forward, and I don't believe you need instructions ;-). 9.5 Currencies The strong point of this program is its currency management. I was looking at some of the other bank account programs for the Psion Series 3a but I haven't found one that allowed me to do what I wanted very easily: see my bank account in my local currency, but allow me to enter transactions in foreign currencies (when I travel) for my credit card for example (well, of course, other ``monsters'' could do that... but I didn't need the rest!). If you've always looked for such a feature, then here you have it! To go to the currency maintenance, press Psion-shift-u or choose ``Currencies'' from the ``Special'' menu choice. You will be asked if you want to add/delete/modify a currency (unless you don't have any currencies in which case you go directly to the add section). Select add and you will be prompted with a dialog. The only thing that needs some details is the conversion rate. You can enter the rate in both ways, this means that you can enter for example: 1$ = XX amount in your local currency, or 1 amount of your local currency = XX $. This is up to you and actually depends on your country's money strength and traditions... Just be sure to enter the correct choice in the ``Rate is for 1 unit of'' by choosing foreign or local (as in the above example). Deleting and modifying currencies is quite intuitive, just try it. Note that you cannot delete a currency which is currently being used in a standing order or as base currency for an account (including global). Just a quick note here: all currency conversion are made through your home currency. It might not give you the exact direct conversion rate if say for example you have UKP (home currency), USD and CAN$, when you enter a USD amount into an account kept in CAN$ since the program will transfer USD to UKP then to CAN$. 9.6 Auto descriptions If you're really in a hurry (and you usually are ;-)), auto descriptions can greatly simplify your life. If you want to add or delete an auto description, press Psion-shift-a. You cannot edit an auto description, so delete it first, then add a new one. If you delete the last auto description, you will not get the ``autodescription'' line in the ``transaction dialog'' anymore (that was just in case you didn't need them). Auto descriptions are limited to a maximum comma separated list of 255 characters (internal OPL limitation). Thus you can have many small auto descriptions, but only a few (well 9) of 25 characters (maximum I have allowed per auto description). 9.7 Categories For each transaction, you can assign it to a category. This field is usually used for budget categories, but you can actually use it for anything you like (maybe to remember where the money came from/who paid if the account is shared between several people/...). For each category you must assign a ``short code'' (2 letters/numbers max) that will be displayed on the screen. Categories display can be toggled on/off in the preferences. If you intend to export to Quicken, be sure to enter the same category names that you use in Quicken (in the long name field of course). 9.8 Standing orders Standing orders are transaction which happen every month (like payments or your salary ...) You can enter these in the standing orders dialog which is called with Psion-shift-o. Choose whether you want to add/delete/modify a standing order. If no standing orders are entered yet, you are defaulted to the add option. You will be asked to enter some details and when everything is correct, it will save the standing order to disk. As soon as the chosen day comes around, you will see the standing order appear. You can also make future standing orders appear by changing the preferences (see section 9.18 ``Preferences''). For the time being if you want to make a standing transfer, you will need to make two different standing orders. Just a word of caution though: once the standing order has appeared, do not delete it, as it will NOT come back again during that month! Please be careful with future standing orders! See also section 12 ``Technical'' for more information on how the program works. 9.9 Editing transactions Press Psion-e or simply Enter to edit the current (highlighted) transaction. As usual, the dialog is quite intuitive and looks quite like the ``New transaction'' dialog. Note: if you have deleted the original currency the transaction was made in, you will get the conversion into your account's main currency with the last rate you used. Otherwise you will get the foreign currency and amount (what else did you expect ;-). 9.10 Evaluating transactions When in the transaction dialog, you can evaluate an amount automagically simply by entering the string to evaluate in the amount line. You can even use the calculator memories! For example, if you have 100 stored in the M1 calc memory, typing ``m1+25'' will result in a transaction with an amount of 125. 9.11 Copy / Insert transactions You can copy a transaction into the memory buffer with Psion- c. Alternatively, when you delete a transaction, it will be put into the memory buffer as well for safety reasons. Just press Psion-i as in all ``normal'' Psion applications to insert the transaction again. Notes: . This does NOT work with transfers; you would only get back the transaction from the current account. . You can copy/insert transactions over different accounts and even different groups. 9.12 Reconciling transactions You can check the transactions which have appeared on your bank statement when you receive it at the end of the month; this is called ``reconciling''. It is only useful if you keep back transactions from other months, so you can see up to where you have already checked. I usually delete old transactions once the statement has arrived. Individual reconciliation is done with Psion-r or more simply shift-enter. Reconciled transactions are marked with a check mark at the far right. You can reconcile up to (and including) the current (highlighted) transaction with Psion-shift-r. This might take some time, depending on the amount of transactions you have in your account, so please be patient. 9.13 Deleting transactions Just press Psion-d or the delete key to delete current (shown in highlight) transaction. In case you've mistakenly deleted a transaction, you can get it back by pressing Psion-i (for insert). Note: deleting single items does NOT affect the balance, even if the transaction is cleared. By this I mean that it will not issue a new ``Opening Balance''. It will of course set the balance to the correct state in itself. You can delete up to (and including) the current (highlighted) transaction with Psion-shift-d or more simply shift-delete. This on the other hand, WILL update the balance and put a new ``Opening Balance'' as the first transaction. This is used at the end of the month when you have reconciled all your transactions with the bank's statement. 9.14 Archiving transactions You can archive any transactions (you have the choice of dates and types of transactions) to another file by either selecting ``Archive'' from the ``Group'' menu choice or pressing Psion-a directly. This file will be a ``regular'' group file and appear under the DPBank icon on your System screen. To open it again, simply choose ``Open group'' from the ``Group'' menu choice or use the shortcut Psion-o. Note: for the time being you cannot append transactions to another file. You must either overwrite it or make another archive file. 9.15 Exporting transactions Pressing Psion-shift-e lets you export any transactions from the current account into either a pure ASCII (TXT) file, a Quicken (QIF) file or to a Psion database (DBF) file. If you don't define a complete filename with an extension, the program will set the default extension for you. You have the choice of which transaction type (reconciled, unreconciled, ...) you wish to export and the record separation character you wish to use in the ASCII export. If you use the ASCII export, you'll get a file with each line representing a transaction. If you want to export to Sheet, you'll need to use one of the various txt2spr utilities after having exported to text. Each field in a transaction will be delimited with whatever character you've chosen. The fields are in this order: 1. Date (in whatever format your Psion uses, be sure to set the correct format for Quicken files in the Time application, ie: DD/MM/YY for Europe and MM/DD/YY or YY/MM/DD for USA). NB: the date separator is also taken from Psion's Time application, please set all preferences there before starting DPBank (as DPBank only retrieves the prefs once at the start). 2. Description 3. Local amount (in terms of what currency the account is held in) 4. Balance associated with that transaction (may not be correct if you don't export all transactions!) 5. Cleared flag (0=uncleared) 9.16 Sum up transactions This option is accessed with Psion-shift-s. It allows you to sum up various transactions which start with the same description or have the same category. This allows you to use the auto descriptions and then make a new transaction at the end of the month with that transaction's amount being the sum of all the same transactions and the date being the last date of the summed up transactions. This avoids keeping many transactions in an account and thus speeds up the program a bit. Sounds a little complicated, but it's real easy to use, just try it. You can also only view the result without modifying any transactions; this is particularly interesting for use with categories for example. 9.17 Viewing global amount and balances It is quite straight forward: just select the appropriate choice from the menu or use the shortcuts Psion-g (for global) or tab (for balances). 9.18 Preferences Press Psion-q to go to the preferences menu. You can choose the number of days that are displayed from future transactions in the future view. The future view is obtained by pressing the diamond key. This is only useful if you have lots of standing orders and would like to do a ``what if'' choice. You can choose if you want to see warnings (when deleting transactions for example) or not. I suggest you leave them on for some time until you get comfortable at using the program. You can also choose the currency used in the ``Global'' window. Here you can also select the amount of memory you want to use for the cache (ie: set aside for keeping procedures in memory instead of always loading/unloading them). For OPL programmers, this is the CACHE xxx,yyy command. If you don't understand the technical nature of all this, just set it to 2000 (which is the minimum it will use if you allow any cache size below this anyway) and you will see a considerable speed increase already in the screen refreshing. A cache size of 2000 will need about 3k of extra memory. I've allowed this option because DPBank was originally intended for people with low memory possibilities (256/512k Series 3a still exist you know ;-). It was thus highly optimized for memory usage and not speed. (Unfortunately, you have to choose between the two.) On the other hand, people with 1/2Mb Psions felt a little "slowed" down... so hopefully this will please everyone now. The "allow big amounts" option allows you to enter bigger amounts than those normally allowed. You can enter amounts up to 999 999 999 999.99 with this option. Hopefully this will be enough for all of you now; if not, just transfer me a significant part of it ;-) The downside to this is that you will not be able to see the "Balance" column anymore on the screen (it would have made it too clogged). On the other hand, the amounts will be displayed with triad separation (if you allowed this from the System preference of course). To see the balances, you can still press Psion-b or more simply TAB. 9.19 Password protection To use password protection, press Psion-w or select ``Password'' from the ``Special'' menu choice. You will have the choice of asking for the password only on startup or also when you switch back to DPBank if you leave it open. The procedure is quite easy to understand and similar to the System's own password. A word of caution here: password protection does not mean that the files are encrypted! If you have sensible data to be kept on your Psion, don't rely on ANY password to keep your thief away from it. Even the System password is bypassable! Also, be sure to remember your password since forgetting it means that you will not be able to access your bank data any more ... Be careful if you want to password protect your accounts group when switching to DPBank, not to leave DPBank in a menu or a dialog when you switch from it! If you do, it will not be able to ask for the password and anyone can then look at your accounts. 9.20 Compression The files are automatically compressed each time you switch accounts or when you exit DPBank. If you leave the program running for a long time and have made lots of changes to transactions, it may be wise to compress the file to gain some disk space. This is simply done with Psion-k. 9.21 Useful info For each account you can save some useful information. Press Psion-u for the dialog. This is also the place where you change the name of the account. You can enter text details like the account number and telephone number of the bank by choosing "Enter more details". If your bank offers monthyl interest rates, you can tell DPBank to approximate them for you automatically at each end of month. When you enter interest rates, they are always in annual rates. Banks give them in annual rates, so this simplifies your entry. For debit interests, please enter them as negative interests. The other options are self explanatory so just take a look at them. 9.22 Printing To print, you need to first use the "Print Setup" (Psion-y) dialog to fix the number of lines per page as well as the printer device. You can select either parallel, serial or file printing. Printing does NOT work with PsiPrint and there's nothing planned in that direction (because it would mean a major investement for me and would use up quite some memory). If you want to print to your PC's printer, you should choose a remote file to PRT: or LPT1: or whatever is suitable (but NOT the serial device!). Printing is then accessed with Psion-p as usual and it's quite straight forward... why am I writing all these docs in the end? ;-) Categories will be printed if you have them displayed, otherwise they'll not be printed. 9.23 Diamond key The diamond key lets you switch between actual and future transactions display. Let me explain this: if you want to enter future transactions, you will not see them unless you are in the future transactions view and you've set the number of future days in the preferences. There is no status bar on the right of your screen for screen space reasons. If you want to see one temporarily, just press Psion-Menu. Alternatively, if you don't know which view you're in, just press the diamond key and read what the program displays in the bottom right corner of your screen. 9.24 Plotting acount data You can use Nick Dawkin's excellent Plot utility that allows you to view your data graphically in a time wise manner. You can download this program from Nick's site at: http://www.pavilion.co.uk/users/ndawkins/ Alternatively, you can mail Nick at: ndawkins@pavilion.co.uk Please pass all Plot ideas/comments directly to Nick. 9.25 Plugins Plugins allow you to customize DPBank to what you need it to do. If you can program in OPL, you can very easily make your own plugin. If you can't program, then you can use other people's plugins. At time of writing, an important category analyzer plugin is being written by Christian Bormann. You can email Christian directly for more details at: bormann@ikf.uni- frankfurt.de DPBank plugins must reside in an \app\dpbank directory of any drive. For DPBank to recognize the plugin, it must also find a special file that has an "dpb" extension in the same directory. This file is distributed by the plugin author. For OPL programmers, see the file PLUGINS.TXT for technical details about making plugins that work dynamically with DPBank. 9.26 Switching back to DPBank with a hotkey There is a system wide hotkey implemented if you leave DPBank open: Psion-ctrl-d (all 3 keys pressed simultaneously). Be careful not to leave DPBank in a menu or a dialog box. If so, the program cannot be responsive to shut-down messages (when you press delete on the system screen for example) or hotkey messages. Of course, if you prefer, you can assign DPBank to one of your system buttons (eg: ctrl-Sheet) with the system preference; this has the advantage of going back to DPBank in all cases. 10. Registering DPBank This program is now shareware since it took quite a considerable amount of time to make. If you don't like this idea, fine: either use version 1.0 of this program or write your own ;-) I don't believe it's really worth it for such a small fee ... In any case, please read the file ``REGISTER.TXT'' for details of how to register and the cost. The future of this program depends if enough people like it and register it. 11. Limitations and bugs . Only 12 accounts can be tracked PER group . Only days 1-28 are allowed for standing orders . It can get quite slow when a lot of transactions are kept in the file (approx, over 50) . DPBank will now work if you use the comma as decimal separator when you start the program; but do NOT change the decimal separator once you've created a group, otherwise DPBank will not start anymore. . When reconciling foreign amounts, sometimes the amounts are too big and you can only see the end of the local amount in the dialog (when the amount is automatically displayed); simply press cursor left to see the beginning of the local amount. . NEVER leave the remote link on! Due to some obscure Psion problem (bug?) it might trash your files! . A lot of bugs have been found during beta testing (and have of course been fixed). I can't garantee you that the program is completely bug free (and I suppose there still must be the odd one lurking around in there; programmer's axiom: there are always at least 2 bugs in a program ;-). If you do find one, please report it to me! See section 16 ``Author'' for my address. And remember: the best cure is prevention! Always keep a backup copy of your vital data (and I do suppose your bank account is vital data, no?). 12. Technical The program uses several files. It uses four common files for each group (preferences, currency, categories, and standing orders) and two files for each account (the real data and the information). All these files are in a \DPBANK directory. If you want to delete a whole group, you must delete all the files with the same name (but different extensions). This means that for each account you must delete 2 files (the Data and the Info). The currency and the categories file are the same for all the groups on the same drive. All other files are independant of each other and can be changed from group to group. Each account file is a separate DataBase file (although you cannot open it using DATA because it contains fields which are not alphabetical strings). It is compressed each time you switch accounts but if you do a lot of transactions on one account without switching to another, you can also manually compress the file with Psion-k. Actually, the hardest part is understanding the standing order technique. Each time you write or modify a standing order, it is written to the standing order file. The standing orders are checked when you change the number of future days shown or if the date changes (you can leave the Psion off; the next time you run DPBank , it will check for standing orders by itself). If there are any standing orders that need to be written to an account, then it will ``transfer'' a copy of it to the actual account and write a record into it. It will then change the date in the standing order file on which the next SO must next appear. Thus, if you delete or modify a standing order, it may not immediately take effect if you are showing future days. Especially if you modify a SO that has already appeared once, it will appear again under the new name, so you have to manually delete the old occurences ... 13. Future I plan on adding these features for future versions: . Re-ordering of accounts . More localisation of the whole program (any volunteer(s) to translate only the program and/or the documentation into other languages?) . Better standing orders . More accounts . Show conversion rate when reconciling foreign currencies... . Sorting of auto descriptions/categories . Faster global indexing Quite a long list, and so many other things to do :-( 14. Thanks to I would like to particularly thank Philippe Lebreton, Jason Savage, Simon Wallace, Arnaud Weil and Konstantin I. Saliy for originally beta testing this program and giving me some new ideas. My biggest thanks must go to: . Arnaud for having translated the whole documentation and program into french (for which I was too busy myself). . Espen Joranger for the Norwegian translation of the program. . Karsten Weisbauer for the German translation of the whole documentation, program and help file! . Nick Dawkins for his excellent Plot utility. . Christian Bormann for his excellent beta testing and category analyzer plugin. Also a very special thanks to Anne-Laure, my girlfriend, for having supported me while I was programming and for having showed me that you can never make a fool proof program however hard you try! And last but not least, all the users which have already registered the program since version 1.1 (you know who you are!), thank you all! 15. Legal stuff DPBank is provided ``as is''. This means, it does what it does, and I cannot be held responsable if it crashes your system, or causes any other dammages. If however you do have a problem with it, please report it to me and I will try to help you out to fix it. You are not allowed to reverse translate this program and/or use any part of it in your own programs without my prior consentement. 16. Support / ideas I will offer free support by electronic mail to all registered users. If you are having problems setting up the program, I will of course also help you if you're not registered yet, BUT please, be sure to re-read this manual before asking for help. Thank you! See my "Future" section above (and the DPBank homepage if you can) for all the things that have been requested and that will (hopefully once) be implemented. 17. Author Snail mail: Daniel Pfund 19, ch. Tirelonge CH-1213 Onex Switzerland You can also reach me via Email (preferred !): ``Pfund3@uni2a.unige.ch'' or if this address doesn't work anymore (stops around the 11th of October 1997) you can still write to me at: ``Pfund@POBoxes.com'' or ``101743.775@compuserve.com''. If you have World Wide Web access, I strongly suggest you check out the DPBank page at: ``http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/8130/'' for any updates/bug reports. 18. Planet Pfund I have founded my own company specializing in Psion computers. We offer a vast range of Psion products and accessories at competitive prices. If you need to buy some Psion product, why not check out Planet Pfund first? Our web site is: http://www.planet-pfund.com Even though we are Swiss based, we can ship worldwide; be sure to visit us once! [End of DPBank documentation]