* * * My Little Realm * * * - Savings v/2.5 - ____________________________________________________________________ General Information ____________________________________________________________________ Important Savings is protected by copyright. It is not freeware, and it is not in the public domain. This is the evaluation version of My Little Realm's Savings. It is a full-featured, fully functional program. You are welcome to try it on your computer to ensure that it functions on your system as it should, and that it meets your individual needs. If after 30 days you decide to keep using Savings, you must pay for the program. To print an order form, press <$> in the Options Window. Bonus! Get one MLR stand-alone program free with your order. Read DESCRIBE.TXT for details. This offer ends 12/31/94. My Little Realm Enterprises stands behind all of its products with a 90-day money back guarantee. Thank you for trying Savings! ____________________________________________________________________ Introduction Savings is a financial recorder that helps you to keep track of all your savings instruments; their values, account numbers, where the legal documents are kept, and any other pertinent information. It can also print the net worth of your total savings portfolio (option <5>). Savings is ideal for the long term investments that you might be holding for your retirement, for example, or for your children's education. (You may find this hard to believe now, if you're just starting out, but it isn't all that difficult to forget what you have in the way of savings instruments and where you've stored all of the appropriate records after a span of 15 or 20 years.) If you're planning to apply for a home loan or if you're attempting to refinance the mortgage on your present home, update all of the records in your Savings file and invoke option <5> to print out a listing of your savings portfolio. The mortgage company's representative will want to know much of what you have in the listing (how much you have in CD's, mutual funds, etc., and with which banks you are presently doing business). ---------- Please note that Savings is a financial recorder. It is not a financial planner or an investment tool. It cannot help you make buy and sell decisions for stocks and bonds. ____________________________________________________________________ The Interface Windows. Savings's screen consists of three types of windows: a Working Window, a Viewing Window, and an Options Window. If you are using a color monitor the Viewing Window is always green, the Working Window red and the Options Window blue. You select processes (like adding a record) in the Options Window. You create and view your records in the Working Window, and you find your Quickeys in the Viewing Window. ---------------------------- Extended processing options. Several processing tasks, called extended processing options or EPO's, are not listed in the Options Windows, because they are functions that only occasionally need to be performed. EPO's are used to "extend" a program's power and functionality. To find out what EPO commands are employed by Savings, enter (the question mark) in the Options Window. The EPO's of Savings are defined at the end of this document. ---------------------------- Quickeys. The Quickeys in Savings give you single key access to the types of savings instruments you can invest in. Enter them once, and you'll never have to enter them again. See the section "Extended Processing Options" for full information on adding your own savings instruments to the Quickey list. [Note: You cannot change the instruments that come with Savings.] ____________________________________________________________________ Program Information ____________________________________________________________________ The Options Window. __________________________________________________ | | | 1 Add 3 View | | 2 Update/ 4 Delete Choice: _ | | Change 5 Print | |__________________________________________________| There are several extended processing options available, as well. See the section Extended Processing Options described at the end of this document. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 1, adding records. To add new savings instruments to your savings file, select 1, and Savings will put your cursor in the Working Window on the Instrument line. Choose one of the Quickeys and press . If you decide to enter an instrument category manually, be sure to keep it short and memorable, because you'll have to spell it the same way when you want Savings to find it for you later on. Note: If, by chance, you lose one of your instrument records, use the <+> EPO to find it. Pressing anywhere in the Working Window will return you to the Options Window without creating a record. To end an input session, press when the cursor is in the Instrument field. ____________________ ~ Field Definitions ~ - Instrument field (20, required). __________________________ Here Savings asks for the type | Quickeys | of instrument you are entering. | | This is a required entry, and | - Instruments - | it is also where you make use of | | the Quickeys. Please refer to | A Passbook Savings | the Viewing Window on the right | B Cert. of Deposit | side of the Savings screen. It | C IRA | should look similar to the one | D Keough | here ---> | E Savings Bond | | F General Bond | You can, if you need to, enter | G Stock | your own instrument type manually, | H Mutual Fund | but you should keep the entry | I Profit Sharing | short and simple. Otherwise, you | J Treasury Bill | could have trouble finding your | K | entry when it comes time to make | L | updates. Remember, on subsequent | M | lookups, any instrument you | N | entered manually must be entered | O | manually again and it must be |__________________________| spelled exactly as you originally entered it. You do not have to worry about upper and lower case inconsistencies, however. As is always the recommendation in any My Little Realm program, use the Quickeys whenever possible to save wear and tear on the psyche. The Change Quickeys EPO allows you to supplement the instrument list that comes with Savings. ____________________ - B/C Name field (36, optional). This is the Bank or Corporation name found on the instrument. In the case of stocks, for example, it is the name of the company that appears on the stock (i.e., the company whose stock you have purchased). For passbook savings, it is the name of the bank that issued the passbook. For mutual funds, the mutual trust name. Profit sharing investments should be given the name of the company that handles the investments for you (usually the company for which you work). ____________________ - Holder field (36, optional). Enter the name of the owner of the instrument being recorded. For a Passbook Savings account, for example, it would be the name of the person on the passbook. ____________________ - Amount field (must be greater than zero and less than $5,000,000). Omit dollar signs and commas when entering this information. If you are entering a stock, bond or mutual fund record and you want Savings to calculate the amount for you, press without entering an amount in the Amount field. Savings will then ask for the CPU (cost per unit) and the NOU (number of units). The CPU and NOU fields are at the bottom of the Working Window. Amounts up to five million dollars can be entered for each instrument. The CPU entry cannot be greater than ten thousand dollars, and the NOU entry must be less than or equal to one million. If the result of multiplying the cost per unit by the number of units is greater than the Amount field limit ($5,000.000.00), you will have to reenter the CPU and NOU amounts. ____________________ - Date field (required). Use the standard American date format of mm/dd/yy. Savings will offer your computer's current system date. Make the appropriate changes and press the down arrow or . You typically enter the "recording" date in this field (i.e., the date you enter the record in Savings), even if the record is for a Savings Bond you acquired several years ago. After a record's initial entry, the date field serves to remind you when you last updated the record. For example, if you receive updates from a financial company about your mutual funds every quarter, remember to change the date when you update your mutual funds record. Savings will accept dates for the current month and the four previous months. You cannot enter future dates. ____________________ - Account Number field (34, optional). This field should be used to identify the specific instrument being recorded. For example, you might have numerous certificates of deposit. Each will have a unique account number. Use the account numbers to identify each instrument entry. ____________________ - Memo field (38, optional). Any additional information relevant to the instrument being recorded should be entered in this field. If you are entering stocks, you might want to enter the phone number or the name of your broker. You should also make a note of the location of the instrument. For instance, you might keep your CD's in your safe deposit box; your savings bonds in a file folder; or your passbook savings book in your chest of drawers. You can also include any interest rate or other pertinent information on this line. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 2, updating and changing the data in records. Select one of the Quickeys or enter your own category (as long as you spell it exactly as you entered it when you first created the record). Savings will ask if the first record of the category you selected is the one you wish to change. If it isn't, press or use the directional keys to find the record you want to modify. When you find the record you want to change, press or . Savings will display the fields you can change in the Viewing Window. Enter the field's corresponding hotkey, and Savings will place your cursor in that field and let you make the necessary modifications. If you decide you want to keep the field's old data, press while you are still in that field and Savings will reinstate that field's old value. A number of the instrument categories can have their amounts changed in different ways in this function. Instruments like stocks, bonds and mutual funds can either have their amounts entered directly or you can have Savings calculate the amount for you. If the amount can be calculated for you, the CPU (cost per unit) and NOU (number of units) selections will be highlighted. If you've used the CPU and NOU fields to have Savings calculate your amount for you, Savings has retain those figures for future reference. That way you can easily update your record by changing only the field whose value has changed. For example, if you have a stock whose value has gone up ... or down ..., but you still have the same number of stocks, all you have to do to update the record is give Savings the new stock price (CPU). On the other hand, if you've sold some of the stock (or bought some more) but its price has remained the same, you need only reenter the new number of stocks. And, of course, you can always reenter both numbers to have Savings recalculate your amount. If you have CPU and NOU figures in your record but you choose to enter the amount directly, Savings will delete the old CPU and NOU values because it has no way of determining which figure has changed, of if both figures have changed. [Tip: It's wise to use the NOU and CPU figures whenever you can. Savings makes a handy calculator.] Note: Several types of instruments cannot use the cost per unit field or the number of units field (e.g., Passbook Savings). For those instruments, you can only enter an amount directly by using selection 3 in the Change Fields sub-menu. Hence, selections 7 and 8 are not highlighted, meaning they are unavailable, for those instruments. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 3, viewing records. Enter the instrument category you want to peruse. Savings will display the first record in the chosen category. If there is only one instrument in that category, Savings will tell you so. If there are more than one, Savings will tell you to use the directional keys to view your records. If you would like to view all of the records in your savings file, without regard to instrument category, use the View All function, invoked by the <+> EPO, described in the Extended Processing Options section. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 4, deleting records. You find and select the record by using the directional keys to find the record you want to delete and then pressing or in response to Savings's query "Delete? ". Once you've selected a record, Savings will ask for verification before deleting the record. Be certain that it is the record you want to delete because there is no undelete feature. If you are sure, press . [Note: You cannot press for in this final query.] ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 5, printing savings portfolio. This function lists all of your instruments by category, printing the sub-total of each category as well as the final total of all of the investments in your file at the end of the document. Even if you haven't any interest in the total amount of your savings portfolio, a printout of these records would still prove invaluable should your computer's hard disk ever fail you. Or, should you one day decide to apply for a mortgage or attempt to refinance your present home, the mortgage company with which you do business will need to know your current assests (how much you have in CD's, mutual funds, etc., and with which banks). All you'll have to do is pull out this listing. The listing should be kept in a file folder marked "Savings" or "Investments" in a metal file cabinet along with your other important banking and investment documents. You can terminate the Print function at any time by pressing . ____________________________________________________________________ The Extended Processing Options. EPO Definition <\> Change Quickeys K through O. Savings will ask you which Quickey you want to change. It will then erase the old name and position your cursor in the Viewing Window, awaiting your new Quickey instrument entry. If you press the wrong Quickey, press while the cursor is in the Viewing Window and the old Quickey instrument category will be restored. To end the Change Quickey function press when Savings asks which Quickey you want to change. Quickeys can be sixteen characters long. Note: The Savings-supplied Quickey Instrument categories (A through J) are immutable. - - - - - - - - - <+> View all records in the Savings file. This allows you to see all of the records irrespective of the type of savings instrument. You browse through your file by using the directional keys, + , and + . This EPO is convenient should you `misplace' one of your records. You can lose a record by manually entering an instrument type and then forgetting exactly how you entered it. Use the Quickeys whenever possible. - - - - - - - - - <$> Print an order form. - - - - - - - - - Display the Savings's EPO symbols and their definitions. ____________________________________________________________________ + The End + ____________________________________________________________________ (c) Copyright 1991 - 1992 John L. Salisbury