Personal Accounts 97

(C)opyright 1992-1997 Gareth Evans

Personal Accounts 97						15th June 97

Personal Accounts 97 is written for the Psion Series 3a computer.  I developed it for my personal use and have now adapted the program to make it more practical for public use.  It provides an easy to use facility to manage finances in various bank accounts. You can credit and debit your accounts, transfer money to other accounts, set up standing orders,  print accounts and edit, amend and reconcile the various accounts at a later date, all with auto date and balance sort, there is now an overall balance showing the total amount available to you and a standing order predict feature. You can have many different accounts using the three categories, Current, High interest and Visa. However, due to the limited screen size I have made the maximum transaction that can be carried out to be £99,999.99. Anyone with more money than this in their accounts please forward a significant portion of it to me and I will give the problem my fullest attention!

Installation

Simply copy the programs Accounts.opa to your APP directory overwriting the existing file if you are upgrading, accounts will automatically erase the old accts_pt2.opa file if it exists. If you do not already have this directory, you can either make it by pressing Psion+  whilst on the system screen with the Time application highlighted, or you must include  it in the path when you are in the Copy file pop-up menu. i.e. \app\accounts, see the Psion manual for more details.
 Once you have copied the file, again with the cursor on the system screen, press PSION I.  When the install application dialog pops up, select Accounts.opa and press return. Personal accounts should now be installed and can be run in the usual manner. If you would like to add sound to the program just copy the accompanying wve files to your acc\accounts  directory, or if you prefer to your wve directory. If a any time you get fed up of the noises you can now select sound off from the menu. However as I occasionally use the beeps for warnings, to stop the sound being turned off accidentally you have to use the menu to turn it off rather than just pressing the associated key. 

The first time you run the program it creates the following directories :-
\ACC - This directory holds the records of the individual accounts.
\ACC\ACCOUNTS - This sub-directory holds the general housekeeping files and the wve files, if you chose to install them.

Using the program for the first time

Note: You don’t HAVE to use the Psion key in accounts. i.e. To select a Debit just press “D”.
The first choice you will be given is to select if  you would like to use a password or not. If you choose to select a password, from then on you  will be prompted for the password before the program will run.  Next you have to name the first of your accounts, this can either be a "Current account", a "High interest account" or  have no extension i.e. a Visa type account. You can now add your bank account No. and sort code details for the normal accounts and  credit limit and pay by day for the Visa type.  This is just used for information in the status window and can be left out if not required.  You will then be presented with a screen with the words :- DATE      DETAILS     DEBIT   CREDIT    BALANCE    and no records. If you press the menu button you will then get a menu showing all the functions available to you. As you become more familiar with the program you will find that you can use the "short-cut" keys i.e. PSION C or just C  instead of going to the menu and selecting Credit account. 
Note: When you use some of the functions ie. Credit / Debit, you will need to press ESC to get out of the procedure, this is to save time when putting in multiple entries.

After you have placed some transactions in your account you will notice the cursor on the LEFT of the screen, this shows the current transaction. Before you use some of the functions you need to place the cursor alongside the selected transaction, using the up and down cursor keys. If for instance you want to change the amount of one of the transactions you simply move the cursor alongside it and press PSION E  or  E (for Edit) and you will get a dialog pop up allowing you to change any of the details. If you want to move a screen at a time then you press the PSION key and the up or down keys or just the left and right keys for start and end of the file.

If  you select the delete Record (R) function you are given the option of just deleting the "current" transaction or to delete all of the records up to a given date, if you choose the latter your  final balance will not be affected because the new first record will now read BALANCE and show a credit or debit that relates to the balance at the time of the last erased record. This enables you to quickly reduce the length of  the account records, because after you have a few months' worth of transactions  you will notice that the auto-date sort and balance sort starts to slow down. You have now got the option to select just the reconciled records. 

The reconcile/hide function is activated by the M (Mark) key, or the space bar if you want to reconcile the record quickly. The reconcile option just tags the record as having been "checked off" your statement, it is indicated, by a  hash symbol, you can then erase them selectively, as described previously, to tidy up your list. However, the hide option, as indicated by the lock symbol, will hide the amount from the overall balance, this is to enable you to put in cheques etc. in advance of when they will be drawn. The date sort option under the Special menu  is to resort the account fully if any problems occur with the autosort, it should normally not be needed, however under exceptional circumstances the file could become unsorted. One of the latest additions is the summary screen (Z), yes, I’m running out of letters, this shows a balance of the first 14 accounts both on the current date and at the end of the month taking into account all of the standing orders.
 
Most of the usual Psion conventions apply when using the program i.e. PSION X  or X to exit. In order to protect against prying eyes the program will automatically turn itself off  after System power ON, the only exception to this is if you are registered and have selected disable auto off, when you turn off the Psion.  For registered users you have the choice whether to use this facility or not. The compress function is to reduce the size of a file that has had a lot of amendments done to it. This is necessary because the Psion does not release all of the ram after it has erased a record, but as the file is effectively compressed each time you change accounts you should only need to use this if you have a single account installed.

Pressing 1 is the easiest way to jump to the system screen. Hopefully all other functions are self-explanatory and you will have no other problems. However as is the way of such things, there is almost certainly still a few bugs lurking around in the depths of the program, so if you discover any or can think of any improvements. Please drop me a line and I will try to help.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

The standing order section has been totally re-written and is now much more user friendly. However due to a different file type, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than V3, you may find that you need to edit some of your standing orders to ensure that they are correct.  
When you select the standing orders you now get a list of all entries, and you can edit, enter and erase as with a normal account type. The arrows  by the account show the direction of money, i.e. to or from the account. The type will show a W, M, Q, Y, 4W or a number. The letter designates the frequency of the standing order and the number shows the number of times you want it to be executed. Entering a 0 will set it to infinite. 

Disclaimer

Personal accounts is  Copyright (C) Gareth Evans, 1992-1997. Permission is given to freely distribute this software and documentation as long as the following restrictions are observed: 

- The software and documentation should not be modified without permission  from the author.
- No fee may be charged for distribution of this software apart from a small handling charge.
- The following four files must be passed on together.

accounts.opa		The program
accounts.rtf		This file in word format
accounts.txt		This file in plain text
changes.txt		List of amendments

There may also be several sound files included, however these are not essential.

The author accepts no responsibility for damage or loss due to the use of this software. Use of this software is at the users own risk. Every effort has been made to ensure that this software works correctly and can cause no damage to the system on which it is run. 

Registration

This program is shareware.  If you like it and use it regularly it would be greatly appreciated if you use the transfer function to place 10 pounds into my current account! To help you remember my address, after about 25 boot ups , you  will notice a nag screen  that will appear showing it in full.  Registering yourself  will ease both your conscience and my overdraft.  I will then send you  a code that you enter in the Registration dialog  (Y)  that will show you as a registered user, disable the nag screen and enable some extra functions. 
Please ensure that you let me know the version number of Accounts that you are registering and a telephone No. where you can be contacted. It would also help me if you state where you obtained your copy of Accounts.

If you wish to register or pass any comments, you can contact me at the following address:-

GARETH EVANS
LYNTON
PRESTON-ON-WYE
HEREFORD
HR2 9JX

		:01981 500 483

cix		:gareth@cix.compulink.co.uk
email:		:evansga@LNSEC1.AGW.BT.CO.UK       (it’s a one in Lnsec1)	

Note to revtran users.

If you have, or are thinking of ripping this program off. Please don't!  A great deal of work has gone  into  writing this program and 10 UKP is not a great deal of money to ask, so if you do find Accounts that useful, please show your support and register it!
Thank you.

THE END