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Handy Finance is a Palm OS program, which will help you to track, report, analyze, and plan your personal expenses and gains right on the handheld. It is also a great tool for planning the family budget and/or bookkeeping for a small business.
Below is a description of how your finance can be tracked with the help of this program. This is not a description of program features or interface. This guide shows you typical tasks of personal, family or business money management, and gives you the idea of how to cope with them using Handy Finance. You can choose your own preferable way of tracking finance, i.e. the way, which would be the most convenient and comprehensible. I am not an accountant, and this is just an example of how I am used to do it. For the technical details and pictures, please see the User Manual. To master the program, it would be better for you to use the examples from the manual with Palm in your hands.
To view an example, install all FP_*.pdb files from the "Example" folder on the palm or the emulator. Before installing the example, do not forget to save your financial records, since when installing this example on the palm, all previous data will be erased.
We are happy to announce that there is a freeware Lite Version of Handy Finance for Palm, which never asks you to pay, and does not have any time limitations. At the same time, it is more handy and powerful than many of the analogous pay programs. You can begin using the lite version of the program, and (in case you would need more features) upgrade the program to the full version later, without loosing any data you created by that moment.
First of all, you should set at least one currency. There is a pop-up Currencies List at the bottom of the screen, next to the total amount. Select the "Edit" item in the menu. Do not forget to check the Relation Type in currencies settings: it must be set as "Inverse". After that, set several currencies in the table:
$ 1
euro 0.94
pound 1.47
rur 30
This means that $1 equal 0.94 euro and $1 equal 1.47 pound. You can see how many dollars a pound costs by pressing the icon on the right of the pound's rate.
Set dollar as your home currency in the menu. Thus it becomes your default currency in many parts of the program, and this will save you unnecessary work.
You can otherwise set the currency the way you like better, but before doing that you should select "Direct" in the currency menu:
$ 1
euro 1.063
pound 0.68
rur 0.0333
This means that you can buy $0.68 for 1 pound, and $1.063 for 1 euro.
Below there are two more examples of how currencies can be set:
Direct relation type:
$ 1910 (1$ = 1910 brb)
brb 1 (home currency)
rur 60 (1$ = 60 rur)
Inverse relation type:
$ 1 (home currency)
brb 1910 (1910 brb = 1$)
rur 33 (33 rur = 1$)
In the future, you can track your gains and expenses in different currencies. The program automatically calculates the rates of exchange, and converts the total amount into the necessary currency. You can view the records and figure out the total for each particular currency.
An account is a place where the money is stored. It could be anywhere from a pocket to a bank, from debit card to underneath your pillow etc. It would be much more convenient to spread the piles of money into separate accounts and record all of the expenses from the piles to the according accounts. Say, you have grabbed $10 from underneath your pillow to get something to eat. Now the pile of money under your pillow is $10 smaller and the rest of the piles stay the same.
Each account has its own currency, which is automatically substituted when the money is spent. If paying from your pocket, you mostly use pounds, enter the pounds there. If paying with the under-the-pillow money, you mostly use dollars - enter the dollar currency. It doesn't matter if there are some pounds under your pillow as well - just don't forget to manually enter another currency, when recording your expenses.
As an example, let us set up the following accounts:
Cash, $
(this is your wallet, the "cash-in-hand" you keep in your pocket)
Cirrus Maestro, $
(the card you receive a part of your salary on)
Savings, pounds
("under-pillow", the place where you keep dollars, rubles, and everything earned by backbreaking work J )
What the accounts can also be useful for, see the appropriate paragraph below.
Transactions (or records, postings) are all sorts of notes concerning the expenses and gains. This terminology is applicable to our program as well.
Each expense is taken from a particular pile (account); each gain similarly goes to a particular pile (account as well).
To see the amount of money in each pile, and all the expenses and gains concerning this particular pile, select "Cash" (particular pile) from the List Of Accounts, which can be found in the right-upper corner of the Transaction Window.
You had some money in your pocket before starting using the program, and the amount of this "some" should be written down. Press the button for transaction creating (expenses/gains notes), press "+", write "20" into the "amount" field, and then press the "OK" button. Now you see that you have $20 in your pocket. By selecting currencies from the Currency List, you know that you are able to buy approximately 18.8euro or 29.4pound for this money.
The same thing can be done with all other accounts by selecting them from the list, one after another.
If you spend 3$ on ice-cream from the pocket, then you should enter:
-3$
Which makes:
+20$
-3$
Total: 17$
By entering each gain or expense, you know exactly, how much money there is in each pile, with no tedious recalculation required.
You may use Finance together with the pop-up calculator. You can run this calculator and perform computations without quitting the program. You can copy a number from the current field of the program, and put the result of calculations back into the program. It is also appropriate to enter numbers with the help of it. Someday, there will be Handy Finance's own calculator.
More about pop-up calculator...
So you have put an end to manual calculation, and thus you know how much money there is on each account. Now you wish to remember what were those -$3 (and a couple of hundreds more expenses) spent on.
To do that, in each record you can create a note (memo), that this money was spent on, say, "ice-cream". However, it would be rather difficult to write whole words such as "ice-cream", "food", "clothes" or whatever every time you buy something. That is why it would be better to enter these words into a list, and just select the items from the list when needed. There are four such lists in the program; they are called "Categories". They are displayed every time you edit spendings/profits (make a transaction). The Categories and the Notes are complementary, not substitutional to each other.
You can name them any way you like. To do this, press the name field, and enter the necessary word.
For a start, let us name them as follows:
1. Category
2. Who
3. Project
4. Miscellaneous
Into the first category you will enter the types of expenses and profits:
- Food (things you bought and ate outdoors)
- Provisions (things you brought and cooked at home, (that is why they were cheaper))
- Fares (bus/trolleybus/tram/subway/taxi/electric train/plane, etc.)
- Municipal Sevice (apartment rent, phone bills, etc)
- Work (salary at the institute, trade profits, etc)
- Debts (money you borrowed/lent)
Enter the people into the second category,:
- Myself
- Wife
- Parents
- Family
In the third category, we will enter some details about the sources of income and expenses, which would clarify the first category:
- Salary at the institute
- Scientific projects at the institute
- Shops trade profits
- Software developments
- Family expenses
For the moment, there is nothing to be entered into the fourth category.
There is no need to create dozens of categories, so it will be easier to work with the program in the future. Before creating a new category, think if it will be really necessary for you. The main aim is memorizing what the money was spent on, and where the money received from, but not a sort of meticulous bookkeeping. Do you usually inquire about how much money you spend on each trip, considering each kind of transport separately? Is it something your wife or boss would ask you about? No? Then create only one "fares" entry.
Do not worry if you would have to create records with similar names in different categories, or records, which would be coincidental with the accounts names. This is quite normal, and may be useful in the future, though at some point you will have to clarify for yourself what is what.
As you can see, there are not too many categories, and they are those we really need.
As times goes by, you decide to figure out what money was spent on, and how much you earned. For example, you want to know how much you spent on food. To do so, you should see "food" expenses only, and count them up. Therefore, you go to the filters, select "food" from the list of the first category, and then press "OK". Now you can see all of the records about "food" expenses, as well as the sum total of such expenses. If you need information about "fares" expenses, select "fares" from the first category in the filters, and thus you will see all necessary data. What to do if you wish to retrieve the total for all records? In the filters of the first category select "all", and then go back. Now you see the total amount of all the gains and expenses.
What if you would like to simultaneously see the total amounts of money spent on food, fares, municipal services, as well as to know what profit you received from your shops, and how much you earned at the institute. Select "Report" in the main menu, and then select the "Category" report type in the right-upper corner. Done! Now at once you can see all gains and expenses in the currency selected.
If you wish to group certain sorts of records, for instance, all "food" expenses, or the expenses only, then select the corresponding checkboxes in the report and tick them off. If a checkbox is ticked off, then the corresponding amount is included in the total amount (otherwise it is not). Mark only "food" and "provisions" and thus you can see how much you spend on subsistence. By unmarking the "institute" and "work" checkboxes and selecting everything else, you can see the expenses only. Then you tick off the "institute", and see negative balance, which means that you would not survive if receiving only a salary J
You can keep the expenses and gains on several accounts. For example, salary and dollars you keep on "Savings", part of the salary goes to "Cirrus Maestro". In addition, you can take a roll from the salary money, and go to a market place, entering the expenses to the "Savings" account. That is why you might want to see the total report about the expenses from all accounts. To do that, before filtration or reporting, on the transaction window select "All accounts" from the list of accounts, instead of selecting just one account. Nevertheless, nothing will prevent you from spending money from and analyzing one account only.
Reports and filters can be (and should be) combined. For example, you need to know what your family expenses are. To do that, select "Family" in the filters (by the second category "Who"), and select report by the first category. Now you see how much you spent on family purchases, and how much you paid for municipal services. You can also separate your business expenses from family expenses, or personal expenses from business expenses in exactly the same way.
You can limit the reports and the totals by a certain period of time. For that, select in the filters both the appropriate duration limited by the initial and final dates (for example, your family expenses during the month), and either the total amount by the end-date (how much you earned by the end of 2003 year), or the expenses since the beginning of the year/month.
Furthermore, there are reports, which indicate the balance for each day, week or month. For example, when enabling the filter for the family expenses and selecting the monthly report, you see how much you spend on the family during each month.
By combination of the checkboxes in the report, you can answer more complicated questions, such as "what would (will) happen if...?". For example, by unmarking the "Public utilities" checkbox, at the bottom of the screen you will see the sum, which you would have if you were not to pay for public utilities. For more detailed information about the operation, refer the "Complex planning" section.
How do you memorize the amounts of money you lend, and/or how much there is to be repaid to you? Everything is counted in exactly the same way: categories, filters, and reports.
Each time you lend money, create a record with a negative amount, mark the record as "Debts" by the first category, and select the corresponding person from the second category. Each time you are repaid a debt (probably not the whole sum at one stroke), mark this note by the first and the second categories the way you marked it before.
To figure out how much a particular person owes you, select the "Debts" category and the corresponding person in the filters. Now you can see, how much this person took, how he repays, and, finally, how much he or she owes you.
You can also see the debts of all of your debtors. To do that, in the filters select the first category "Debts" only, select the "Who" report, and see who owes what, and what the sum total of the debts is.
In exactly the same way, you can keep records of sums you owe someone. If a single category seems to be not enough for such operations, you can create two separate categories, "Lend" and "Borrow".
The aforementioned examples concern with the simplest "lend-repay" cases, when you have in mind that the debts will be undoubtedly repaid, without any mutual payments or planning. More complicated situations are described below. (Refer to chapter "Mutual Payments").
Now you know how much money you have, what the money was spent on, and where you received it. Now let us try to figure out how much money you would have if...
In each record about expense and profit (transaction) there are three checkboxes: "Receipt", "Billable", and "Cleared". This does not really matter that they have such names. You can use them in any way you like.
Each of the checkboxes can be ticked off. You can separately view the totals for checked, unchecked, and all transactions.
The checkboxes can be displayed directly in the transaction table, so that you can change its settings directly in the table. If the filter for the checkbox is enabled, then while changing the checkbox the transaction will be hidden, and the total amount will be recalculated. But do not tap several checkboxes at a time, it is recommended to wait until the previous record disappears. Thus you can quickly either mark a desired record, or unmark it.
In version 2.1, it is possible to make records visible during changing the checkboxes, while the total amount is recalculated. You can do this with the help of filters by unmarking a checkbox for the appropriate condition. Thus you will be able to change checkboxes and see the renewed total. When doing so, the records do not disappear, and there is no need to go to the filters once more.
For example, on the "Savings" account you track profits from your shops in different districts of the city. Each profit must be tracked in order to get this money from the salesmen. But you do not actually have this money before the salesman gives it to you. That is to say, it is important to see how much money you actually have, and how much you will have, and how much the salesmen owe you.
That is why each profit should be marked as "Billable". In the filters, near the "Billable" field, select "No". Thus, you can see how much money you actually have. Although these sell profits are not displayed and are not added to the total, they do exist. If you want to see how much you would have with all these sell profits, you should select "all" near the "Billable" field. Thus you can see each record, no matter whether it is marked with "Billable" or not. If you wish to see, how much do they owe you according to sales, select "yes" near "Billable", and see the selling only, and the total of money obtained from these sales. If you were interested in profits from a single salesman, then in the filters near "Who", select necessary salesman and see all his sales. Similarly, it is possible to sort the expected profits in different projects by using the third category, "Project".
When the salesman gives you the money, unmark the "Billable" checkbox for all sales you have got money from.
If you expect a serious event with lots of expenses to happen, then, for sure, it is important to estimate whether your finances would stand such test. In exactly the same way we mark planned expenses as "Billable", and enter the probable amounts. Then, as things are being done, in the desired records we unmark the "Billable" checkbox, and correct the amount if necessary. What lacks in such scheme is that you see the total as "all or nothing". What if you want to try to combine different planned expenses, and, perhaps, refuse some of them? No problem! By using the "Cleared" checkbox, mark the transactions, which you want to be excluded from future expenses, and then select "no" for the "Cleared" filter.
Thus, by changing "Cleared" checkbox, we can see how different combinations of the expenses and gains planned correspond with actual financial conditions.
Yet we have one checkbox more, and we are able to hold another independent combination of transactions. At the same time, we can note any logical characteristic for the future accounting, and this will not necessarily be planning.
Below is what "primary destination" of all three checkboxes is:
"Receipt" - you have a document (check), which confirms a spending or a gain.
"Billable" - if you, for example, spend your own money on a train ticket during a business trip, and you are to be reimbursed for your expenses, then any reimbursable expense should be marked with this checkbox.
"Cleared" - the transaction is finished, checked and/or cleared. For example, for the transactions marked as "Billable", you should manually set "Cleared" when an expense is reimbursed.
That is to say, you can use the checkboxes any way you like, but do not forget that the only thing they do is helping you to create your own reports in the future.
In addition to the checkboxes, you can write down the transactions as future dates (weeks and months). In the filters, there is a feature of setting the final date, after which the transaction will not be taken into account. By setting final dates in the filters, you can estimate how much money you could have in different time periods.
You can also go to the Reports and select a report for a particular period of time, e.g. a monthly report. In this case, the sum of expenses and gains (the monthly balance) will be displayed near each month, and at the bottom there will be the total for the selected months. When unmarking the time-periods checkboxes, beginning from the bottom, you can see the sum total by the end of the period, which includes the months selected.
You can save much time during the creation of the planning records if you use the creation of transactions according to a template. To do that, select the initial record, which would become a "framework" for the future group of the records. Go to the transaction generation page. Now you can generate a group of records with similar categories and different fields for several months (weeks, days) in advance.
For instance, after selecting the current month's salary, go to "Generation", and create a list of salaries for the coming year.
You can also create planning records not only for the nearest future, but also for either all sections of a particular category or a particular account.
Let us create such records to track the profits received from your shops. Create a note about a profit got from a salesman. Go to generation, select "Who" in the "By all" section, and then generate profits got from all other salesmen. The unneeded records can be deleted afterwards, the needed ones can be edited.
At the same time, do not forget marking the necessary checkboxes (for example, "Billable") in the initial record, if you want your new transactions to be included in the planned records. After generation is finished, you may unmark the checkbox again in the initial record.
Complex planning is possible, when combining the filters and reports, similarly as when you create a complex report. You can even represent planned expenses and gains as separate categories. So, in the report about these categories, you would be able to easily estimate how your future expenses and gains would correlate with each other, and/or with the current state of your finance. This can be done in exactly the same way. Create a report by the needed category, and then mark the checkboxes, which you want to be included in the total.
In order to view only the needed columns in the table of transactions, you may adjust it as you wish. To do that, press the title of the table. Moving the stylus can change the column width. If you let it go (no moving), the list of the fields, which can be either added or deleted, will appear. After the desired columns are lined up, adjust their width. Now this configuration is saved, and will be the default configuration every time you run the program.
As for me, I have the following columns: "Billable" checkbox, "Category", "Who", "Project", "Notes", "Total" and "Currency". It is enough for me to see first several letters only, to understand what a certain category or a record actually is.
Checkboxes and notes can be edited directly in the table. If the checkboxes filters are enabled, then while changing the checkboxes, the records disappear. Do not press several records at a time; wait until each previous record disappears.
In the table of accounts, you can adjust column width only.
If the actual amount of your money mismatches the total in the program, this probably signifies that you either mistaken somewhere, or forgot to enter a record for some expenses. To equalize the calculated and the actual amounts, create a reconciliation record. Select "Tools - Reconcile" in the menu and enter the desired total. Program will create reconciliation record automatically. This record can be marked as a reconciliation record by one of the categories.
For example, you have 12.5$, whilst the program indicates that you have 14$. Create a reconciliation record with -1.5$, and thus the total amount will become correct.
Sometimes it is important to see the monthly remains or carry the remains over the next month.
To see the remains of a necessary month, enable the filter by the final date, and set the date on the last day of the month.
To quickly estimate the remains several months forward, select monthly report. After that, you should unmark the checkboxes bottom-up, and as a result you see the remains of the last marked month.
There is no automatic carry-over function in the program. That is why if you need to carry over the remains from one month to another, you will have to do it manually. To do that, refer to the total by the end of the month, and then create a transaction for the last day of the month, entering the amount, which is opposite to the total. Now the sum total for the month is zero. After that, create a transaction for the first day of the coming month, and now the total is equal to the one of the previous month, but is carried over the beginning of the next month. Generally, the total was not changed, but now you can enable the filter for the beginning of the next month, and the sum total will be correct.
You might need to exclude such transactions-remains from the reports in order to, say, see each monthly balance (which would be zero taking into account the transactions-remains). You can use any of the checkboxes for transactions-remains, and mark them when needed. In this case, in order to exclude transactions-remains, select "no" for this checkbox in the filters.
Everything considered above, is concerned with tracking of your personal finance. Now, let us examine a more complicated case - mutual payments among several people on the basis of family budget tracking. This is the way you can create other schemes of mutual payments, for example, for your business companions.
The task is the following. There are several members of the family, and there are several categories of general family expenses, which are conventionally divided among the members of the family (assuming that in equal parts). General expenses imply handing money over for certain purposes among different members of the family, handing over with no particular reason, expenses, repayments management.
It is better to set up at least one account for each of the family members. It would be inconvenient to use categories only. Now there are several accounts, which do not indicate the actual amount of money you have, but they are necessary for some other purposes:
Wife (wife's expenses)
Parents (parents' expenses)
Common money (everyone's cash)
The checkbox "include in the total" may be unmarked, since these accounts do not show actual state of your personal money, and there is no need to add them to the total amount. An expense of each of the family members should be entered to his or her account only. This is not an easy task because all of the records you will have to create by yourself, demanding your family members to give you all receipts, reports and so on. For example, if your wife have spent $100 for foodstuffs, enter to the "Wife" account:
-100$
It is necessary to create a category, which would fix common family expenses (i.e. those which are divided among all family members). For a start, this will be the "Family" (by the "Who" second category). Besides the fact that categorization allows to track mutual payments, you will be able to enter data other than family expenses to these accounts.
It is very important to enter the records into the program exactly the way they took place in reality, without any interim mental arithmetic. For instance, if you give your wife your $500 to be spend on foodstuffs, then it should be noted the following way:
To account: "Cash"
From account: "Wife"
-500$
who: "Family" (you gave your wife $500 for family expenses)
And only after that, enter the purchases to the "Wife" account. Thus, when you give your wife $500 to buy foodstuffs, you will able to see in the report that you have spent $500 on foodstuffs. There will be +500$ on wife's account, which means she should spend the money on foodstuffs. As you enter the food expenses, the family money on her account will decrease, and when the sum comes to zero, this would signify that your wife spent all the money you gave her, but did not spend her own money. If your wife continues spending money on foodstuffs, the family expenses sum will become negative, and this would mean that she spends her own money.
Similarly, if you spend lots of your own money, and the parents would reimburse it in the future, then you should note it as follows:
To account: "Cash"
From: "Parents"
+70$
who: "Family" (received $70 reimbursement of family expenses)
As you might notice, when you transfer money from one account to another, in the record there are both the initial account and the account-addressee. When doing transaction:
To account: "Cash"
From account: "Wife"
-500$
we get two different records for each of the accounts:
to: "Cash" from: "Wife" -500$
to: "Wife" from: "Cash" +500$
That is why such notation is called "Double transaction".
Suppose you have several family expenses categories. Let them be "Food" and "Public Utilities" in the first category. We initially came to taking a certain sum from each member, while paying for utilities in equal parts, after they are paid. That is why you do not know exactly how much money it would take. Then you would have to mark each of the family expenses records not only as "Family" in the first category, but also to specify whether you paid for foodstuffs, or for municipal service.
As times goes by, you want to inquire about how much money each of the members spent on what. To do that, select "all accounts" in the list of transactions, in order to receive a report about all transactions at once, instead of just about the current one. After that, go to the Reports section, and select "Family" in the filters by the second category. In the reports, select account report "to account (where)" in the list in the right-upper corner of the screen.
The program will have to think a bit, and then it will show you the list of accounts, displaying the family expenses sums near each account. Since you could spend your money on family expenses from several personal accounts ("cash" and "savings"), you should sum them. To do that, mark the checkboxes of these two accounts, and unmark all other accounts. Now the expenses of each of the members of the family are written near his or her account, while yours are shown at the bottom of the screen.
Later you can specify the criteria of each expense. First, select "Food" category in the filters, and look through the report about food expenses. Then select "Municipal Services", and see the report about the corresponding payments.
You can look through any of the reports, for example, a monthly report to figure out how much each person spent on what. To do that, set the first day of the month as the beginning of the period, and the last day as the end of the period. You can do it another way by tracking expenses permanently, without dividing them into months. In this case, it becomes unnecessary to pay debts to each other in the end of the month, and to shift off all the family expenses to a person, which spent the less.
If you want each of the member's family expenses sums be equal by the end of the month, you can create mutual debt amortization and/or remains carrying over.
Never transfer money directly from one category of expenses to another. This would be wrong because if you simply add a "food" expense, you do not change the actual amount of the foodstuffs bought. If any of the family members spent too much on public utilities, while another member spent a lot on foodstuffs, and you want to equalize their expenses by mutual payments, than you should record the operation as a double transaction with opposite amounts:
To: "Parents" from: "Wife" -500$, "Municipal Service"
To: "Parents" from: "Wife" +500$, "Food"
In this example, the wife's expenses (food) and parents' expenses (municipal services) are equalized if your wife spent more for food and less for services.
A similar scheme can be applied to other categories, no matter if a category is included to or excluded from the common family expenses, if there are mutual debts by such categories among the members of the family.
If you use monthly bookkeeping, you can carry over a part of the expenses. For example, your wife spent on common expenses $250 instead of agreed $200 (surplus $50). Then you can enter -50$ to this month, and +50$ to the next month on her account. This means that she would have to spent $50 less next month. Keep in mind that if next month your wife spends less money on common needs, someone would have to spend more (perhaps it would be a last-month's-debtor; the debt for the next month can be reentered in the same way). And be careful, if everyone spent more, and there is a surplus on everyone's account, you might end up losing, since nobody would spend money on foodstuffs next month.
To make the mutual payments, it is very important to correctly track the expenses and money movements by categories. There is a possible situation that when there is a common account (with the money for the family expenses) the money from this account can be spent on other purposes, as well as be taken by the members of the family for their own purposes. It is recommended to avoid such situations, and it would be better to set up a separate account for the "food-utilities" money, and spend the money from the account on common needs only.
However, if you want to do it this way, the scheme described above is not appropriate for such account. You cannot record that "food" money moved from your account to the common account, whilst, for example, this money was spent on something else, and you took some back. This is why it is quite difficult to detect how much and whose money were taken from this account. To do that, for example, in the "Who" category you should specify at whose expenses certain things were purchased, and make a separate section for common family expenses in the third ("Project") category, e.g. "Family expenses". Then you should analyze this account separately and specify who spend how much on the family expenses.
The following scheme is also possible. All in-payments of the common account are marked with family expenses category, but if other expenses take place, the desired sum (by the family expenses category) is written off from the common account to the person, who spends money, and only after that the sum is recorded as an expense on the account of this member.
If you wish to figure out the expenses on all of your accounts, excluding the interim accounts, then you should go to the accounts table and mark the "Include in total" checkbox for your accounts, unmarking all other accounts. After that, enable the "Total account: yes" filter, and select "all accounts" in the transaction list. Now the total will display you the money on the marked accounts only. And the reports will be calculated for the selected accounts only.
Similarly, you can figure out how much money you have on all of your accounts in different currencies. To do that, select a currency report in the same way.
This method is also appropriable when analyzing any group of accounts. This is very convenient when you track similar expenses on several accounts at once.
There is no feature of direct setting hierarchy neither for the categories nor for accounts (e.g. "Family expenses - Food" or "Family expenses" - "Municipal service"). Nevertheless, you can set a hierarchical system for the categories.
In the example described above we divided family expenses into two sorts, and then analyzed both the expenses as a whole, and each expense separately. Similarly, you can set a hierarchical order for the categories. To do that, create a main category in the first table of categories, and several specified categories in the third table. For example, you want to analyze all the gains as a whole, and each record separately. There is a section "Work" in the first category. Therefore, in the third category we create the following sections:
Work - Institute (salary at the institute)
Work - Trade (your shops income)
Work - Other (something else)
Each gain from your work mark with "Work" by the first category, and then mark one of the specified sections "Work - ..." by the third category.
To analyze the gains from work as a whole, enable the "Work" filter by the first category, and see the total. (You can also make a report by the first category, and see the income from work). To work out work gains in detail, enable the filter by the "Work" category in exactly the same way, then go to the report and select a report by the third category ("Project"). Now you can see how much you gained from work as a whole, how much is the income from the shops, etc.
One of the distinctions of the free version is the impossibility to organize such hierarchy, when only the first category can be analyzed.
We illustrated feature of auxiliary accounts (the accounts, which do not reflect the actual amount of money, but help tracking gains and expenses) usage by the example of mutual payments among the members of the family.
The usage of the auxiliary accounts can be extended, if you, for example, create a separate account for some specific expenses, planning or money movements. You can also try to track what your wife spends money on, or what salary your parents receive. Or you can set up a separate account for the past expenses/incomes, which took place before you started using the program.
It will be appropriate to unmark the "Include in total" checkbox for the auxiliary accounts, which do not reflect the actual amount of money, so that you can see the sum you actually have.
In the versions 2.1 and higher, the auxiliary accounts can be directly excluded from the reports and totals for all accounts. For this purpose, there is the "Total account" filter. With the help of the filter you can exclude the accounts unmarked with the "Include in total" checkbox.
You might want sometimes to be reminded about the debts to be repaid or the purchases to be made.
For example, you usually lend money and mark the money you lend by the "Debts" category. However, you wish to remind yourself about it once again. To do that, create a planning record for repayments (See the "Planning and Checkboxes" section). When editing the record, go to the "Reminders" section, and set date and time of reminding, and the way the reminding should be executed.
There are several such reminders:
When any of these reminders comes, the "Reminder" checkbox becomes marked for the desired record so that the record could be found with the help of the filters. On the first page of transaction editing, the alarm clock icon is highlighted for the records with reminders.
In the very beginning, you have set several currencies with certain rates. Now we have lots of different expenses and gains in different currencies. The money we have in different currencies is recalculated into the resulting (home) currency. And this is a sound decision because when we evaluate different money according to the current rate, we will see the actual total. When the currency rates change, we enter new rates of exchange into the table of currencies, and see the new totals according to the new rates.
If you are interested in such questions as "How many dollars was my salary I received in rubles last year?", you are recommended either to set a hard (stable) currency (dollar, for example) as your home currency, or to select a hard currency separately, and fix rate for each desired record. To see the details about the operation, refer to the documentation.
When we translate money from one currency to another, an amount in initial currency is subtracted, while different amount in different currency is added. In the program, you can make it with the help of an operation called "cross transactions".
For example, we exchange $10 to rubles. To do that, create a double transaction inside of the account:
from: "Cash"
to: "Cash"
-10$
Then press the icon between the amount and the currency, so you can see two amounts, each of which has its own currency:
from: "Cash"
-10$
to: "Cash"
+19500brb
Near the lower amount set the "brb" currency, then press the icon with a downward arrow, and thus dollars are translated into rubles according to the current exchange rate. If you need to change the exchange rate, press the icon once again, and then enter the necessary rate. If you have done everything accurately, you will see the amount you need.
It is not recommended to set categories within a single account to make a transaction. It would be better to create a special category for such interchanges or leave it blank.
Similarly, you can create a record about translation from one currency to another between the accounts. In this case, the record can be marked by categories if you, for example, translating from rubles to dollars, and give the money to your wife right away.
For the records with translations from one currency to another, the icon between the amount and the currency is highlighted.
If you use, for example, money orders, the amount received would be less than the sent one. This also can be recorded as a cross-transaction. The currency on both sides will be the same, but the amounts will differ. This is also an appropriate way of noting percent (ATM fee), which is to be paid off when you cash money, since the amount written off from your card will be greater than the amount you receive. You can also set the percentage, which either added or taken to any part of the transaction.
Similarly you can enter the percent your salesmen receive. For example, salesman A earned 100$ per diem, and he is supposed to get 20% income. Then you should write:
[X] percent: -20%
to account: "Savings" [X] %
+100$
from account: "Salesman A" [ ] %
-100$
By marking the percent checkbox and pressing "Apply percent now", you will receive +80$ on your account.
You might need to reduce the number of records without loosing an ability to analyze them. Probably you want to reduce the number of records in order to increase operating speed, or you want your records look more neatly. For that purpose, there are two operations. First operation is archiving (merge of similar records). Second operation (rollup) is deleting of the selected transactions with an ability to create one resulting record.
The automatic archiving command ("Tools/Archive" menu) merges the similar records from a selected period into a single record, taking into consideration all double transactions and other fields. For example, you spent some money on food, fares, and municipal service last month. After the automatic archiving is processed, there will be a single resulting record about costs on food, another one about fares, and one about municipal service. If you gave your wife money to spend on foodstuffs, all such expenses will be saved to a separate record on your account, as well as on your wife's account. And thus it will keep the balance on both accounts. You can set the conditions for a mergence in the Archiving Dialog. For example, you can merge similar transactions within one day or one month, as well as select similar transactions by either the first category separately, or by all categories at a time.
Thus you can noticeably decrease the number of transactions without loosing the data about totals of different accounts and the ability to analyze the records by categories.
You can also process the archiving manually. For that purpose, there are filters, which allow selecting a group of transactions you want to delete, and the "Tools/Delete filtered", command, which deletes all selected transactions and creates one resulting record.
So we want, for example, to get only the total balance for several past months. Select a final date in the filters, memorize the total, delete the selected period, and create a single total transaction with the recorded amount. Be careful when doing it, since if there are double records in the selected transactions, the balance on these accounts may be distorted. To exclude the double transactions, you should select "Account from: no source" in the filters*. Version 2.2 (and higher) would suggest separating the double transaction automatically during archiving and deleting of the period, and will also help you to create a total transaction.
Similarly you can create a compression of several groups of transactions with different filter setting.
*Note. In version 2.1 the filtration of single transactions was revised (the "Acc from: no source" filter). Before, the filtration of such transactions floundered each time the accounts in the table were dragged over. Now everything is all right with it. After the version 2.1 is installed, once you drag any of the accounts, the transaction will be corrected. After that, the filtration of the single transaction will start working, and you will be able to drag the accounts as many times as you need.
You can look through your financial records on a desktop computer. To make such operations possible, the program Handy Finance Desktop was developed. The free version allows viewing all the data, making filtered extracts, calculating the total according to them in any desired currency, and saving the filtered extract as an Excel document.
Please note that if in security setting on your palm data synchronization is prohibited, you will not be able to view your data on the computer.
To view your data on the computer, extract the "Handy Finance Desktop" archive, and run Finance.exe. Then you must sync your palm. Go to the "Exchange" page, select "Automatic exchange" in Finance Desktop, and then select your palm from the list. Press "Import". Now your financial records can be viewed in the "Transaction" page. Above there are filters, which act the same way as the filters on the palm. Nearby, there is the sum total and the currency.
If you wish to save your data to any other place, copy the FP_*.pdb files from your catalogue in Palm Desktop (usually they are stored in "C:\Program Files\Palm\your name\Backup\"). In the future, you will be able to set them manually. If you save your data in Finance Desktop, then the data will be stored in the Finance.mdb file. You can download them back to the palm at any moment.
The full version of the Finance Desktop allows you editing your records. For the moment, only step-by-step editing is possible. This means that at first, you edit the records on the palm, and then you must sync, and get the data to the desktop. After that you can edit the records on the desktop, send them to the palm back again, and only after that you can edit the data on the palm.