Momentum Check V5.1 Momentum Check documentation and software may not be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the author. This restriction is partially waived to allow purchasers to make backup disks of the software for archival uses only. The author makes no warranty, either expressed or implied, as to the fitness of Momentum Check and related materials for any particular purpose. In no event shall the author be liable for damages in connection with or arising out of purchase or use of Momentum Check. The sole and exclusive liability of the author shall not exceed the purchase price of the materials described herein. 1 INTRODUCTION Momentum Check was written to whet my appetite to the Amiga programming environment. I enjoyed the multitasking capabilities where I could have my Workbench, a full-screen editor, AND a running version of the program all at the same time. It make developing this product a lot easier and smoother. The product was developed over six months and has evolved into something more practical and powerful than originally sought for. Here is a list of the features: 1. Number of transactions limited only to disk space. 2. Professional data entry process with full-screen editing on forms and transaction batch processing. 3. Capable of printing checks with custom setup. 4. Fast and painless check book balancing. The program automatically prompts you for any outstanding transactions to be reconciled. 5. Inquire and report transactions byu date, check number, and classification code. 6. Custom budget setup with Budget Addendum transaction entry and Budget Analysis. 7. Utility menu of functions to allow you to change posted transactions in the Master Ledger. Also, a backup/restore function is included. 8. Supports any Amiga hardware configuration (although more RAM allows bigger data files to be stored in memory rather than on disk) with an optional, ASCII printer. 2 USING MOMENTUM CHECK Momentum Check autoboots, so all you have to do is insert the program disk in the system drive and turn on the computer. Alternately, you can start Momentum Check at the CLI prompt by typing: 1>RUN Momentum_Check_V5.1 Momentum Check requires that you have another formatted disk named MCdata. This is the data disk in which all Momentum Check files will be created and updated. If you own one drive, Intuition will automatically request when to insert the data disk. After that point, Momentum Check should not require any more use of the program disk. Owners with hard drives may want to install Momentum Check on it. Just copy the program or drag the icon to the desired directory. If you want your data files placed on the hard drive too, then edit your Startup-Sequence to include an ASSIGN MCdata:. Momentum Check works on its own screen, so you can use other multitasking program without the nuisance of another window cluttering the Workbench screen. It also uses the default, Workbench colors set by Preferences. Using Momentum Check is extremely quick and easy. The interactive interface is the keyboard and partially the mouse. Since the bulk of the work will be typing on the keyboard, it seems functionally sound to eliminate the pull-down menu structure to activate the various functions. Note that there are still pull-down windows that are used for informational purposes only. To use the menus, press the UP or DOWN arrow keys or point and click the mouse to move the highlighted bar. Once you have highlighted your choice, press RETURN or click to enter that function. Conversely, pressing ESCape or clicking the EXIT gadget will leave the menu. Momentum Check will prompt you for data in several 3 different ways. Some prompts may come in the form of a solid- square cursor waiting for some type of keyboard input. Or, a requestor-type window may appear with highlighted choices for which you can either click the mouse or use the keyboard. It is important to understand what kind of input the prompt is asking for, so you will not be confused when supplying the information. They are as follows: 1. Text prompts allow any letter/digit combination allowed in the width supplied, whether highlighted or underlined. Examples would be "Pay To The Order Of" and "Authorization" Fields. 2. Numeric prompts only allow the digits zero through nine to be entered. No sign (+/-) or commas are allowed. Dollar amounts allow an optional decimal point. 3. Date fields only allow digits in a month-day-year format. If you just press RETURN at any date prompt, the default system date will be supplied. Note that you could also just enter the month and day, i.e., 0208 for February 8th and then press RETURN for the current year. 4. Yes/No prompts and requestors only allow the letters Y and N to be typed. 5. Classification Code fields are two-characters long with the first one requiring a letter (A-Z) and the second a digit (0-9). Optionally, you can enter just the letter portion and press RETURN to display the Class Codes that begin with that letter. This is useful in searching for the correct Class Code. 6. Resume requestors are prompted with a message alerting you of some condition before proceeding. To continue, you can either press any key or click on the RESUME box. 7. Continue/Abort requestors appear during report printing, causing the display to stop and allowing you to click/press RETURN to continue the report or click/press ESCape to abort the report. 4 8. Screen/Printer/Abort requestors are prompted before the printing of a report allowing the user to select the medium in which to report is to be generated. You can either click on the appropriate choice or use the keys S for screen, P for printer and ESCape to abort the report. Whenever you are prompted for data that requires keyboard input, a solid cursor will appear denoting the active field position. You can further edit a field by pressing the BACKSPACE key to delete the character to the left of the cursor. Pressing the DELete key will erase the field entirely. Pressing F10 will restore the field to its previously entered value. This is especially useful in transaction entry if you need to enter the same Transaction Date or Authorization Code. Enter it once, and for each subsequent entry, just press F10 to recall the last value. SETUP CHECKBOOK I. Class Codes Classification codes should be setup if you plan to track all your transactions in some sort of orderly manner. Whenever you make a transaction (Check, Deposit, Withdrawal, or Addendum) you need to mark that transaction with a Class Code. This is where you actually define what those Class Codes reference. Here are some hints in defining your Class Codes: 1. Keep common references under the same letter (A-Z), so you can identify and report those codes more readily and rapidly. For example, you might want to classify all Auto references to 5 start with the letter A, Utilities (Gas, electricity, oil, water, etc.) with the letter U, etc. 2. You might want to classify Charges for bank services and Cash Deposits from your Savings and Payroll. 3. Budget figures should be entered as a yearly amount. If necessary, calculate your monthly estimates by 12. Note that budget amounts are entered as WHOLE dollars with NO decimal point. II. Printer Init This setup function allows the user to direct the output of Momentum Check's report and check printing. First, you should define the destination path. This could be an Amiga I/O port, such as the parallel or serial port, or a file to save your output to disk. Next, you can setup printer initialization codes to be sent before the report or check printing starts. These codes can be used to reset the printer, or select what font, pitch, and margins to use. Refer to your printer manual for those codes you may want to use. I recommend printing reports in draft and checks in NLQ (and italics, if your printer supports it). Also, if you printer has an initialization sequence (such as the Epson codes: 27-64), prefix its use before the other codes. III. Check Layout If you plan on using the Check Print feature, you will first need to setup the layout of your Check Form. To do this, you will need to calculate the coordinates of where the check fields will print. The best way to handle this is to actually make measurements of the check form and simply divide the measurements by the LPI (usually 6-lines per inch) to find the number of rows and by the character pitch (usually 10-characters per inch) to find the number of columns. If you change the pitch or LPI on your printer, then you will naturally have to use those figures as the new divisors. For example, let us say we have a 6 check form that is 8-1/2 inches wide you 3-2/3 inches long. Typically, this would result in an 80-column wide by 22-row long form (Note that most printers allow a quarter-inch gap on both sides of the paper). As far as the check fields placement is concerned, once you have configured the check form height and width, the rest will fall into place. If you do not want certain check fields to print, say the Check Number, just leave the line and column figure to zero and that field will not print. See also Check Print function. IV. Reset Budget This function will reset ALL budget amounts to zero. This is useful for starting a new budget by clearing the old figures. -------------------------------NOTE------------------------------------------ Always exit Momentum Check completely, so the data files will be properly closed. Otherwise, file corruption will occur. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSACTIONS I. Check Writer This is the function to enter any check you may have written or need to print (if you have setup the Check Form). The following is a list of fields requiring input: 1. Check Number will be supplied in sequential order. You can, of course, edit this to whatever number you need. If you change the supplied Check Number, then the next check you enter will automatically increment by one. Please note that this program allows duplicate Check Numbers, since it is not necessary that they will be unique. 7 2. Date is the transaction date on which the check was issued. Remember that just pressing RETURN defaults to the system date. If you need to type the whole date, do just that, i.e., January 1, 1989 should be entered as 01011989. 3. Pay To The Order Of is the name of the person or institution receiving payment. 4. Amount is a numeric figure which would naturally be entered with a decimal point with two places. 5. Class is the two-character classification code for which the check refers to. If you do not remember the exact Class Code, you may optionally type just the first letter, for which you think it belongs to, and press RETURN. A table of all the Class Codes will then display at the bottom of the screen. Again you will be prompted for the full Class Code and again you can optionally type just the first letter. Once you have entered a valid Class Code, the description of that code will appear. 6. Authorization Code can be defined up to three characters, designating the person who authorized the transaction. I designed it generally to accept initials, but you can fill that field with whatever characters you desire. For example, I use ROB for whenever I make a transaction and SUE for whenever my wife does. Just be sure to remain consistent, so you may use the reporting features effectively. 7. Depending on whether you setup the Check Form, you may be prompted if you want this check printer. When you answer yes, the transaction is flagged to be used in the Check Print function. Answer no if you do not want the check to be printed. 8. Finally, you will be asked if you want to write this transaction. It defaults to yes, since you will naturally want to file the Check transaction. Answer no if you do not want to save the transaction. 8 II. Deposit This feature is the function to enter deposits to your checking account. If you do not want your checks to 'bounce', then you will need to make deposits. Here is a list of required fields: 1. Date is the transaction date in which the deposit was made. 2. Explanation is a description field for which you can further explain the nature of the deposit. The program defaults to the string "Deposit" in which you can append information or delete it entirely. 3. Amount, Class Code, and Authorization are entered in the same manner as Check Writer. 4. Finally, you will be asked if you want to write this transaction. It defaults to yes, since you naturally want to file the deposit. III. Withdrawal This is the function to enter any withdrawals made to your checking account. Examples of this are transfers from the checking account to your savings account, bank service charges, automatic withdrawals (EFTs), etc. Here is a list of required fields: 1. Date is the transaction date in which the withdrawal was made. 2. Explanation is a description field for which you can further explain the nature of the withdrawal. The program defaults to the string "Withdrawal" in which you can append information or delete it entirely. 3. Amount, Class Code, and Authorization are entered in the same manner as Check Writer. 4. Finally, you will be asked if you want to file the transaction. The default is yes, so you can file the deposit. 9 IV. Budget Addendum This function is optional to use. If you want to track the money earned and/or spent that has not been transacted through your checking account, then you would need to enter such 'transactions' as an addendum. Please note that addendums are NOT reconciled with the bank, so the amount does not affect the checkbook balance. Addendums are for budgeting informational purposes only. An example of the usefulness of this function would be something like the following: 1. You leave work on Friday with a payroll check of $500. 2. You deposit $375 in your checking account, $25 in your savings account, and you pocket the remaining $100. 3. On the way home, you put gas in your car and spend $10. 4. You take your wife out for $20 dinner and a $10 movie (keep the date cheap, so you can save your money for software). 5. Before retiring to the bedroom, you realize you better enter those transactions before you forget them, so you boot-up Momentum Check V5.1. 6. $375 is entered as a Deposit with a Class Code of D1 - Rob's Income. The remaining transactions are Addendums, because there is no matching checking account entry -- see? 7. $25 with a Class Code of D2 - To Savings. $10 with a Class Code of A9 - Gas. $20 with a Class Code of F0 - Food. $10 with a Class Code of E0 - Entertainment. 8. After posting the transactions, you will notice that your checkbook balance only reflects the $375 deposit, as it should. However, if you were to print a Budget Analysis report, you will see that the other four transactions have been factored in. 10 V. Void Transaction This function was designed to eliminate erroneous transactions. If you discover that you have made a mistake during transaction entry, you ca fix the error by voiding the transaction. When you enter this function, it will automatically display the first ten transactions. If you have entered more than ten transactions and the erroneous transaction does not appear on the list, then press the DOWN arrow to display the next ten transactions. Conversely, you may press the UP arrow to display the previous ten transactions. When you locate the transaction to be voided, just enter the line number (1-10) in which it is displayed. The transaction will have its date and amount zeroed and all balances will be adjusted accordingly. All voided transactions will display in a different color with the word ("Void") contained at the end of the explanation field. VI. Check Print This function requires that you have properly setup the Check Form layout. If you have not done this, please refer to the SEtup Check Form procedure. You would enter this function only if you plan to print checks that have been flagged Yes from the Check Writer function. You will first be requested to mount the check forms on your printer and prompted to optionally print a test check for alignment purposes. Now, if you have setup your check form to print the Check Number field, the function will continue by printing the checks. If you have suppressed the printing of the Check Number field (by setting the line and column placement to zero), then you will be prompted for the initial Check Number on the form. This way, your check transactions will automatically be updated with the actual number they were printed on. VII. Transaction Post This is the most complex function written for Momentum Check, but it is the easiest to execute. you would execute this function whenever you are ready to move the entered transactions into the Master Ledger file. Among that, other support files are 11 created to make the Inquiry & Report processing and other functions faster. This is what it does: 1. Even if you did not create any transactions, you can still run this function. You would do this in the event that you accidentally deleted or corrupted one of the support files. 2. Phase I will move the transactions into the Master Ledger file, keeping them sorted by Transaction Date. The Transaction file is then emptied to accept more transactions. 3. Phase II will recalculate the daily balance to each Master Ledger entry and create an index file sorted by Check Number. 4. Phase III will create an index file sorted by Class Code. 5. Phase IV will create an index file of outstanding transactions that have not yet been reconciled. As a user of this program, all you need to know is if you want your checkbook balance updated, you are going to have to execute this Transaction Post. ------------------------------NOTE------------------------------------------- Always exit Momentum Check completely, so the data files will be properly closed. Otherwise, file corruption will occur. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 RECONCILIATION This is a simple function to use, because it is so automatic that you cannot make a mistake. When your monthly checkbook statement arrives from your bank, you just type No at the Outstanding prompt for each transaction that has been cleared by the bank. Banks usually have the statement by Transaction Date order, as is the order the Momentum Check entries are displayed. This reduces in searching for the entry to be cleared. Please not that you can also use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move the highlighted bar. Also, if you cleared an entry by mistake, just move the highlighted bar on the entry and type Yes to make it outstanding again. Once completed, match the Checkbook balance against the bank's statement balance. The amounts should exactly agree. If not, you either mismarked a transaction that has or has not been cleared by the bank or you forgot to enter a transaction (the usual case). To fix this, just go back and enter and post the missing transactions. Do the reconciliation process again until the checkbook balances. To exit Reconciliation, press the ESCape key, as in any function. REPORTS I. Inquiry & Report This is an exciting function that allows you to print out the Master Ledger file in three different formats and with selectable ranges on various fields. First, you will be prompted to select a report to edit/print. If you have not created any reports yet, then select the last option: Create A New Report. The function will then display the reporting parameters and you will be asked if you want to delete the reporting parameters and you will be asked if you want to delete the current report format. You will only answer Yes to this question if you want to remove the report format from the list. Next, you will be asked if you want to modify the report format. When you answer Yes to this prompt, you can do the following: 13 1. Report Name is a subtitle that will appear in the report headings at the top of every page. You should naturally assign report names that would reflect upon the following parameters. 2. Report By is a selectable format of how the report should be sorted by. You can sort by Date, Check, or Class by using the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to highlight your choice and then pressing RETURN. 3. Date Range Start and End allows you to specify what transaction dates to print. For example, if you want to see just March 1989 transactions, you would enter 03-01-1989 thru 01-31-1989. The default is 01-01-1900 thru 12-31-9999 which would proceed to print ALL transaction dates. 4. Check Range Start and End allows you to specify what check numbers to print. For example, if you use different sets of checks for different reasons, this may be of use to you. The default is 1 thru 999999 which would proceed to print ALL check numbers. 5. Select Classification Codes allows you to specify which Class Codes to print. Now, there are several different ways of expressing this. You may list each Class Code singly by naming each one separated by commas, for example, A0, A1, B2, D0, E5. You may use a range of Class Codes separated the low and high codes with a dash, for example, A0-A9, B5-C4. You can also use a wildcard to specify all Class Codes that start with the letter by appending an Asterisk, for example, A*, D*. Further, you can precede any of the before mentioned with a tilde (~) character to say NOT include. For example, ~A3 says to NOT include transactions that have a class code of A3. ~D0-E3 means do NOT include transactions that fall in the range of D0 through E3. You can mix and match any of these combinations to give you the desired result. When entering this string, do not include any spaces between any of the parameters. There is minimal error-checking on this field, so unpredictable results may occur if you enter invalid Class Codes. 14 6. Allows you to either select a specific authorization code to print or the default ALL. You may want to print just those tranactions that were authorized by your spouse, so you can track what he/she has been doing with the checking account. This field has been the cause of arguments between me and my wife, so use it at your own risk! 7. Finally, you can select what type of transactions you want included to your particular report format. They are Deposits, Withdrawals, Outstanding, and Addendum. You can move the highlighted bar with the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys. You can toggle whether you want to include that transaction type or not by pressing RETURN. If the transaction type is highlighted, then that transaction type will be printed to the report. For example, this would be useful to print just checks that are NOT outstanding. In that case, you would deactivate ALL transaction types. Once you have completed filling out the report format, you will be asked if you want to save the changes to disk. If you answer No, then the changes will not be filed, but they will still be used as the reporting parameters should you decide to print the report anyway. This is useful if you want to temporarily change a parameter and not save it permanently. Finally, you will be prompted to where the report should be printed to: Screen, Printer, or Abort. Press S for screen, P for printer, or ESCape for about or use the mouse to click on the appropriate boxes. When you send your report to the printer, another requestor will appear to allow you to abort the printing process while it is generating. Please note that you can only use the mouse to click on the ABORT box to do this. II. Budget Analysis This report will print an analysis of your Master Ledger file by Classification Code. It will summarize this year's activity against the budget amounts AND against last year's activity, if any. This report is extremely useful to track where your money is going to or coming from. Note that ALL transaction types are processed here (checks, deposits, withdrawals, and addendums). 15 The mounts are printed in rounded, whole numbers without decimal points, since it really is not necessary to track the pennies. You can use this report in conjunction with the Inquiry & Report processor by printing out the detail transactions for selected classification codes. This report can also help you with your taxes, provided you have properly setup and used the Class Codes. Please note that this report was designed to run for yearly totals, so all budget figures and amounts will be projected for the year. To generate this report, you are asked to supply the starting date of this year's activity to report on. Generally, you would probably want to run this for a calendar year, so you would enter 0101 and the current year. You could track, though, from any starting date, say, June 18, 1989 (06181989). Next, you would be asked for the year this budget reflects (4-digits). Again, this would normally be the current year if you are tracking it by calendar. This might be different for those users who wish to run by their own fiscal year. Once again you are prompted for the report output destination: Screen, Printer, or ESCape for Abort. III. Class Code List This report will print a list of ALL Class Codes, whether they are defined or not. You should deep a hardcopy of your Class Codes for quick reference for reports that list the Class Code without the class description. Also, it is handy to print out a blank one before you start defining them, so you could use it to pencil them on paper before entering them on the computer. IV. Transaction List This report is the same list you can print during Transaction Post. It may be useful to print out your transactions (especially if you enter a lot of them at one time) before posting them, so you can double-check your entries. 16 V. Outstanding List This report will simply print a list of entries from your Master Ledger file that have not been cleared by the reconciliation function. This list may be useful to print, when manually checking the entries against the bank statement. UTILITIES I. Master F/M This function allows you to edit a transaction that has already been posted in the Master Ledger file. You can search for the transaction that needs to be fixed in one of two ways: by check number or transaction date. If it is a check that needs editing and you know the check number, then use the C option and directly enter that transaction. Otherwise, enter the D option and search for the transaction date. Note the use of the UP and DOWN arrow keys to scroll through the transaction entries. Editing the transaction is as just as simple as entering the transaction. You can still use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move the cursor through the fields. Just follow the prompts. Please note that if you do change one of the key fields (Transaction Date, Check Number, or Class Code) a Transaction Post will automatically execute to rebuilt the indices. II. A/C Change This function allows you to globally change an Authorization Code in the Master Ledger file to another. This is useful should you need to change someone's initials, etc. Simply type the name of the old Authorization Code and type the new name you want this function to change it to. Voila! That is all there is to that. 17 III. Class Change This function allows you to globally change a Class Code in the Master Ledger file to another one. This is useful if you decide to rearrange your Class Code table after you have used it for a while. This eliminates the need to edit each transaction, singly, thus making what could have been tedious work to something far less painful to do. This function is similar to the A/C Change, but Class Change has to perform a Transaction Post at its conclusion to rebuilt the Class Index file. All you need to know is that everything is automatic, just let the computer do all the work. IX. Archive This function allows you to backup your Master Ledger file from within Momentum Check. Although you should perform routine backups of all your data disks, this function may help you 'remember' to do so. Please note that this routine only copies the Master.idx file, and none of the others since they can be rebuilt from the Master Ledger file vial Transaction Post. This archiving feature will work with one or two floppy drives or without any hard drives. ------------------------------NOTE------------------------------------------- Always exit Momentum Check completely, so the data files will be properly closed. Otherwise, file corruption will occur. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 PROGRAMMER'S NOTES If you know how to program in any Amiga programming language (especially AmigaBASIC), then this section may be of use to you. Below is a list of file layout specifications. It explains what each file contains and what format the fields are saved. Master.idx: Master Ledger File, 64-byte fixed. 1. Transaction Date STRING 8 YYYYMMD 2. Check Number SINGLE 4 *See note 3. Class STRING 2 "A0"-"Z9" 4. Explanation STRING 26 Free text 5. Authorization STRING 3 Free text 6. Outstanding STRING 1 Y/N 7. Amount DOUBLE 8 ######.## 8. Daily Balance DOUBLE 8 ######.## * -3=Addendum, -2=Withdrawal, -1=Deposit, 0=Void, 0=Check Note that record one is a header record which provides a pointer to the number of records contained in the file in Check Number field. Check.idx: Check Number Index, 8-byte fixed 1. Check Number SINGLE 4 2. Record Number SINGLE 4 Note that record one is a header record which provides a pointer to the number of records contained in the file Record Pointer field. Class.idx: Class Code Index, 18-byte fixed 1. Class Code STRING 2 "A0"-"Z9" 2. Transaction Date STRING 8 YYYYMMDD 3. Check Number SINGLE 4 4. Record Pointer SINGLE 4 19 Note that record one is a header record which provides a pointer to the number of records contained in the file Record Pointer field. Outstanding.idx: Outstanding Index, 4-byte fixed 1. Record pointer SINGLE 4 Note that record one is a header record which provides a pointer to the number of records contained in the file Record Pointer field. Report.idx: Inquiry & Report, 128-byte fixed 1. Report Title STRING 20 Free text 2. Report By STRING 1 1=Date, 2=Check, 3=Class 3. Date Range Start STRING 8 YYYYMMDD 4. Date Range End STRING 8 YYYYMMDD 5. Check Range Start SINGLE 4 0-999999 6. Check Range End SINGLE 4 0-999999 7. Class Select STRING 75 Free text 8. A/C Select STRING 3 Free text 9. Include Deposits STRING 1 Y/N 10. Include Withdrawals STRING 1 Y/N 11. Include Outstanding STRING 1 Y/N 12 Include Addendum STRING 1 Y/N Note that record one is a header record which provides a pointer to the number of records contained in the file Check Range End field. Setup.dat: Setup Menu Parameters 1. Output Device 2. Report Printer Initialization 3. Check Printer Initialization 4. 260 Class Codes with Budget Amounts 5. Check Length 6. Check Width 7. 6 Check Lines with Check Columns 20 ============================================================================ DOCS PROVIDED BY -+*+-THE SOUTHERN STAR-+*+- for M.A.A.D. ============================================================================