Loadstar 49

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Text File | 1988-01-01 | 17.4 KB | 593 lines

: ------------------------------------- *** CALCULATING YOUR SPREADSHEET *** ------------------------------------- In order to figure the totals in your POWER BUDGET sreadsheet, you must select the >CALC< option. When you do this, your entire spreadsheet will be calculated. This takes around fifteen seconds maximum. You can browse through the spreadsheet and see the results of >CALC< by using the ENTER option. ------------------------------------- THE RESULTS OF >CALC< ------------------------------------- The year end totals (stored in the month before January) are the sum of what was entered for the rest of the year. It is January added to February added to March and so on. All income sources in YEAR END are yearly totals also. At the top of every month is the TOTAL EXPENSES category. This is a DEDICATED or "figured" category also. It contains the total of what you have spent that month. In the YEAR END slot, TOTAL EXPENSES is how much you've spent in the entire year. At the bottom of each month is The AFTER EXPENSES category. It shows how much money you have left (if any). In the YEAR END category, it shows your surplus for the year (if any). AFTER EXPENSES may be a negative number due to over spending or it may be negative because monies deposited in the bank are considered outgoing money. The SAVINGS EXCLUDED shows how much money is left, including what you've put in the bank. You may move through the year end totals just like any other part of the spreadsheet by using either a joystick or the cursor keys. YEAR END is month zero and thus is just before JANUARY. To move back into JANUARY and the rest of the spreadsheet, just move left or right. You aren't allowed to enter values into the totals because these are dedicated fields. -11- ------------------------------------- **** GENERATING REPORTS **** ------------------------------------- REPORT is probably the most powerful feature of POWER BUDGET. With it you can analyze your budget from every possible angle. REPORT requires a printer. To generate a report, move the cursor to REPORT and hit RETURN or fire. You'll be asked whether you want a year end or a monthly report. ------------------------------------- THE REPORT ------------------------------------- You'll see six columns in your report. These are: CATEGORY AMOUNT SUBTOTAL %INCOME %CAT %EXPENDED AMOUNT is the amount you entered for each category to the left. SUBTOTAL is the amount spent up to the current month of the report. For instance the SUBTOTAL for WAGES in MARCH would be: JAN wages + FEB wages + MARCH wages %CAT is a comparison (by percentage) of a monthly category to the total amount spent in that category for the entire year. %EXPENDED is a comparison of each category to the total amount of everything expended in all other categories combined FOR THAT MONTH ONLY. On the YEAR END report sheet, everything is the same except that you're dealing with the sum of every category for the year. Confused? The report is really very easy to understand once you've seen your own figures calculated. NOTE: TO ABORT A PRINTING, JUST TURN OFF YOUR PRINTER. -12- ------------------------------------- *** CALCULATOR *** ------------------------------------- POWER BUDGET comes equipped with a five-function calculator. To use it, just move the window to CALCULATOR from the MAIN MENU. Just enter values, hit RETURN, and choose a function of PLUS, MINUS, DIVIDE, or EXPOTENTIATION. To exit the calculator, press the EQUAL key or press RETURN without entering a value. Or hit RUN STOP RESTORE. -------------------------------------- T H E B A N K -------------------------------------- Power budget also keeps track of your bank account for you. Any money you deposit or withdraw (for withdrawals see page 16) is tabulated in your bank. Thus, if you deposit $30.00 in the bank in January, your bank balance will become $30.00. If you deposit $50.00 more in March, your account will be $80.00. But what if you already have a balance when you start the year? After all, there was life before POWER BUDGET, wasn't there? You may start out the year with a balance without having to deposit to it by selecting the BANK option. When this option is selected, you are asked for a beginning balance. Enter the beginning balance and hit RETURN You must then use the DEFINE FIELDS option (SEE PAGE 12). The beginning balance will be saved along with the fields, background and text colors, whether or not you redefine them. Remember: Everytime POWER BUDGET boots, it will load your beginning balance. -------------------------------------- JOYSTICK/MOUSE SPEED CONTROL -------------------------------------- The main menu was designed for maximum efficiency with CURSOR controls but DOES offer control by either a JOYSTICK or MOUSE. If the main menu reacts too quickly with your joystick or seems too "sensitive" to your mouse, press F1 to slow the response. You will see a number faintly flash at the bottom of the screen. This number is a delay loop number eg. the number that POWER BUDGET counts to after a joystick or mouse operation before the program goes on to anything else. The count can go up to 3000. If the response is too sluggish, you can speed it back up with F8 all the way to 0 which is too fast even for me! The speed is set to 100 when POWER BUDGET boots up. -13- -------------------------------------- DISK COMMANDS FORMATTING DISKS -------------------------------------- You can send disk commands from the main menu by selecting the DOS CMD option. You can erase a directory but you can't format a blank disk with this feature. To format a disk you must select the FORMAT DISK option. POWER BUDGET handles all the tricky details of this disk command. -------------------------------------- DEFINING CATEGORIES -------------------------------------- "Sure, Jeff, POWER BUDGET is all right for a home budget but I want to use it for my business expenses. I can't use reports with categories like 'spouses wages' and 'groceries'. What can POWER BUDGET do for me?" YES! If you're using this program for a specific purpose, you CAN redefine each of the fifty categories to whatever you want! There are only two stipulations: CATEGORIES 1, 2, and 3 MUST BE INCOME CATEGORY 4 MUST BE A SAVINGS ACCOUNT OF SOME KIND. This is because of the way the >CALC< feature does its figuring. You don't want your income sources figured as bills, do you? That's illegal! The rest of the categories may be almost anything you want... up to seventeen characters. To define your categories, select the DEFINE LABELS option. When you do you'll be presented with the first field. If you want to change it press RETURN and enter your alteration. If you don't want to change the field, move up or down through the list with the joystick, mouse or cursor keys. When you come across another field that needs changing, press RETURN again. YOU EXIT THE DEFINE ROUTINE BY MOVING PAST CATEGORY FIFTY. To SAVE your new categories, follow the instructions given on the screen. Be sure to use a POWER BUDGET disk. POWER BUDGET will load your redefined categories automatically everytime you use it. Your redefined categories are saved in a file called "DEFINE" on the disk. If you don't want POWER BUDGET to LOAD the redefined categories, you can scratch the DEFINE file or just depress the SHIFT/LOCK key while POWER BUDGET is loading. If you're working on two separate budgets with two different sets of categories, you can copy POWER BUDGET to another disk and define the categories just for that disk. -14- NOTE! SET THE BACKGROUND/TEXT COLORS TO YOUR FAVORITE BEFORE SAVING REDEFINED CATEGORIES. BACKGROUND/TEXT COLORS AND THE BEGINNING BANK BALANCE ARE SAVED, TOO! -------------------------------------- DISPLAY COLORS -------------------------------------- You can choose the display colors by selecting TEXT COLOR and BKGND COLOR from the main menu until the text/background color combination meets your taste. It is a good thing to DEFINE categories, afterwards, even if you don't need to define them. That way POWER BUDGET will boot up in your favorite colors! ------------------------------------- LISTING THE DIRECTORY ------------------------------------- Select the DIRECTORY option and POWER BUDGET will list the directory of any disk. POWER BUDGET files will appear highlighted in the listing. -15- ------------------------------------------ A D V A N C E D D A T A E N T R Y ------------------------------------------ Remember in algebra class where: 7 - 7 = 0 BUT 7 - ( - 7 ) = 14? Well, POWER BUDGET has had algebra lessons, too. If you receive income from sources which are usually creditors you can turn the bill into income. For example if you receive a refund in the amount of $180.00 from the telephone company and your bill was $40.00 for the month, you've made a gain of $140.00. You could enter this $140.00 in income in POWER BUDGET not as OTHER INCOME but in the TELEPHONE category. How? Simply by entering it as -140.00 Entering a negative bill TAKES AWAY from your TOTAL EXPENDITURES and balances out as MORE MONEY left over AFTER EXPENSES. You'll always know a refund because it shows up as a NEGATIVE BILL in your spreadsheet. Negative bills DO NOT add to TOTAL INCOME but lessen the TOTAL EXPENDITURES. If your total expenditures come up negative then the absolute value can be considered extra income and mentally added to the balance. -------------------------------------- ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL -------------------------------------- POWER BUDGET'S BUILT IN BANK You can show a withdrawal from the BANK by entering a negative deposit into the spreadsheet. This gives you extra money for your expenses but again not as INCOME. You just come up with more of a balance when everything is calculated. The SAVINGS EXCLUDED category will read differently during a month with a negative deposit: It will show how much money would be left had you not made the withdrawal which will be less instead of more money. -16- NOTE: YOU CAN'T WITHDRAW MORE THAN YOU HAVE. IF YOU TRY, NO WITHDRAWAL WILL BE MADE. -------------------------------------- MANAGING BANK MONEY -------------------------------------- Of course you may make more than one deposit or withdrawal per month. To manage these transactions, use the spreadsheet calculator to add and subtract to your deposit. Any interest earned in the bank should be recorded as either a negative deposit, or more efficiently in redefined INTEREST category... as a NEGATIVE BILL of course. NOTE! AMAZINGLY IMPORTANT: FOR THE MOST PART THERE IS NO NEED TO LOAD OLD DATA IN ORDER TO ADD NEW DATA TO YOUR POWER BUDGET FILE. WHENEVER A WITHDRAWAL OR DEPOSIT IS MADE, THE DATA, AT LEAST FOR THE CURRENT MONTH, SHOULD BE LOADED!! IF IT ISN'T LOADED, THE INTEGRITY OF YOUR BANK BALANCE WILL BE DESTROYED ON UPDATING. -17- ---------------------------------------------- L A S T M I N U T E A D D I T I O N ! TRANSFERRING POWER BUDGET FILES ---------------------------------------------- POWER BUDGET users shouldn't have to copy an entire disk in order to backup their files. Since RELative files are almost impossible to copy unless the entire disk is copied along with them, I've added an option to transfer POWER BUDGET files from disk to disk. All you need do is LOAD the file that you want to transfer in the normal fashion. Once the file has been LOADed, use the CREATE FILE option to create the destination file (this must be done unless the file you're transferring to has the same name). Now, with the main menu active, press SHIFT-SPACE. Normally POWER BUDGET only UPDATEs any NEW or ALTERED data, but by pressing SHIFT-SPACE, you're telling it to dump EVERYTHING in the file. Now select UPDATE and save your figures to the new file normally. Here's a recap: 1. LOAD SOURCE FILE 2. CREATE DESTINATION FILE 3. PRESS SHIFT-SPACE TWICE 4. SELECT UPDATE 5. TURN AROUND THREE TIMES AND HIGH-FIVE YOUR MONITOR! POWER BUDGET is designed to keep quick and accurate track of all your expenditures and income. I've included fifty categories in order to make your records more complete. Use POWER BUDGET to its fullest extent and you'll make your next auditor's life miserable with your agonizingly extensive records. If you include receipts and invoices you'll probably NEVER be audited again! Happy bookkeeping! ...Jeff POWER BUDGET AND ITS DOCUMENTATION ARE NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN! B U L L E T I N B O A R D S B E W A R E ! POWER BUDGET IS AN EXCLUSIVE LOADSTAR PROGRAM! -18- -19-