• Written by Marek Pawlowski, Editor

Here we look at a wonderful freeware release. In its earliest incanations this did little other than total up numbers, which while useful, did not really justify its title of Pilot Money. Now, however, the application has become one of the first "heavy weights" for the little grey machines.

Although applying the term "heavy weight" to a machine designed to support small, fast and useful applications may seem a little contradictory there is a certain group of applications available which are already clearly a head and shoulders above the rest. Pilot Money is one of these.

When you start the program a screen appears displaying the Stingersoft (the company who make Pilot Money) logo and a progress bar as the program looks through your account records so it may present you with the next screen. The following screen serves as the main interface for the program.

Now I have been using this program in its various beta forms and full releases for some months now, mainly to keep track of personal expenses and payments and as I have done so it has become ever clearer how powerful a tool this can be, on a machine so small. Every time one comes to use it you discover a new function, another customisable option or something added to make it all the more intuitive to use.

To add an item you simply click the "New" button at the bottom of the screen which presents you with an electronic version of a standard expenses form. You have a number of options already. There is an function for date and time, which can either be used as the default, which is the current data and time, or as a customisable one. You can then enter a description for the record, which will appear as its title on the main screen. You can even choose from a number of pre-defined titles.

Now you can enter an optional cheque number, for your own records. Then write in the amount, and whether it is a debit or a credit. You nw have the option of adding it as recurring entry, attaching a type defintion (such as Visa or AMEX) and finally notifying the program whether it is "cleared" or a "private" entry. If needs be you can add a memo to the entry in case all the other options weren't quite enough.

Although all of the above may sound a little complex most of it just revolves around clicking a check box or hitting a button, and even then most of it can be left as the default settings. It takes around 20 seconds for me to enter a lengthy description and set the various details for a record.

Once you have a few records to work with you can begin to use some of the more powerful functions of the software. For instance it supports the usual categories list of Pilot applications meaning you can file away records into different "accounts". The total for each separate "file" is displayed the whole time at the bottom of the screen and at the top a "+" sign indicates you are in the black and a "-" if you are in debt. You can even have all your records and the subsequent total displayed at once by selecting "All".

Now we move swiftly on to my favourite function of the program - the reporting tools. When I saw this listed in the menu, my first thought was they would be some little utilities which were there more for fun than any serious use. How wrong could I be?! These are really very useful and powerful tools for displaying a variety of different bits of information. For instance you can have the following displayed:

• Ending balances
• Min Balances
• Max balances
• Total unpaid
• Current balance
• Reconciled balance
• Expenses
• Number of unpaid cheques
• Number of transactions

All of these are displayed for each seperate "file" you have specified and they provide a very speedy insight into your financial activites over the last few months.

Pilot Money now has an exporter function which enables you to export records to your PC for your finance packages there. We are yet to test this, but from our reports it is said to work very well indeed.

All said Pilot Money is a superb application, and moreover it is totally free of charge. StingerSoft have done a great deal for the Pilot scene and this is one very good example of their work. There are very few rough edges and with the rate at which versions are being produced (practically weekly) these are sure to be ironed out very quickly.

For information and downloads see: StingerSoft

All information contained within the magazine is ©PMN Publications 1996.