Budget Maker version 1.0 by Robert M. Balay One of the things that many people would like to do with their computer is to keep track of their finances. Now there is a program to help you budget your money. What's so special about this program? Nothing really. It's not fancy. The features aren't particularly great, or outrageous. What it is designd to do is to help you make a budget for yourself. Making budgets is not a particularly exciting task, in comparison to some of the other more fun things you could be doing with your computer. Most people (myself included) tend to see financial planning as a mundane chore, to be performed by little nerdy guys with thick spectacles, and a sharp pencil. Therefore, if you see financial planning as mundane, then you will probably also find this program fairly boring. On the other hand, if you do find your financial situation exciting, then you're either rich enough to afford an accountant to take care of them for you, or you're barely scraping by from month to month. I assume, since you have a copy of my program and are now reading this documentation file, that you would fall into the latter category (as do I). Dodging the bill collector or juggling your money to make ends meet can be exciting in a different sort of way (mostly stressful). This program can be step one in a scheme to help you achieve your personal financial goals. It is intended to be used as a tool to help you identify where your major monthly expenditures are, and to plan for them in a carefully considered way. If you're not in dire straits, financially, but would like to have the security of having a monthly financial plan, you will also find this program as a valuable tool. Hardware Requirements Budget Maker will run on any Atari ST computer. It is recommended that you have a printer. Getting Started Double click on the icon labelled BUDGET.TOS from the desktop. On the first screen, you will be asked if you want to load a budget file. Since this is your first time, you will not have a budget file to load. However, if you would like to see what a sample budget looks like, you can answer "Y" (for yes) to this question, and then type "SAMPLE.BDG" to the file name prompt. It is important to remember that everything you enter while in this program requires you to press the [Return] key after you have typed your entry. This is standard for most data entry in most programs. Use the [Backspace] key to back up the cursor and delete unwanted characters on a line. Page 2 If you decided to load the sample budget to see what it looks like, you will now receive a prompt that asks you if you want to edit the budget. You may enter "Y" or "N". If you choose "Y" for "Yes, I want to edit budget data," then you will go into the editing part of the program (see the section entitled 'Editing Budget Information' below). Creating A New Budget If you decided not to load a previously saved budget, or the sample budget, you will be asked to enter the amount of your monthly income. This should be the total amount of income that you (and your wife, if married) receive every month, after taxes. If you don't know exactly what your monthly income is, you can put in an estimate, and edit it later when you get the exact information. Entering New Expenses Once you have entered your monthly income, you will then be taken to the expense entry screen. This screen says "Add Monthly Expenses" at the top. On the left hand side of the screen, you will see the amount of monthly income, the total amount of all expenses entered so far, and the amount of money remaining, or the amount of money required to meet expenses. At this point, you will begin entering expense descriptions and amounts. For example, if you spend $300.00 per month on rent, you can type "Rent" in the description field, and press [Return]. Note that a "." has been placed at the end of the description entry line, so that you know what the maximum length of the description you may enter is. If you enter a description past the "." then things may not look pretty later on, when you go to print the report. Next, you would be asked to enter the amount. You would type "300" and press [Return] or [Enter]. Each description and amount that you enter will appear on the right hand side of the screen. The total amount of expenses and money remaining is calculated for each amount entered, and updated on the left side of the screen. When you are done entering descriptions and amounts, then you have made you budget. To quit entering, type the word "end" in the description field and press [Return]. You will then be asked if you want to edit the budget information. Note: You can leave the "Add Monthly Expenses" screen at any time and edit by entering "end" in the description field and entering "Y" to the "Edit Budget Data (Y or N)?" prompt. You will always return to the "Add Monthly Expenses" screen when you do. Editing Budget Information The first thing you will always see when editing budget data, is the monthly income prompt. The amount entered previously will be displayed. If this amount is the one you want, then press [Return] or [Enter]. Otherwise, type in the number you want over the existing number and press [Return] or [Enter]. Page 3 The next thing you will see is the "Edit Monthly Expense Data" screen. All of the expense entries will be displayed, with a number to the left of each. This number is simply used to reference the item for editing. In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you'll see the total amount of expenses entered so far. If you wanted to edit one of the items, you would simply enter the number to the left of the description. Once you did this, the existing description would be displayed in an entry field. To edit the description, simply type over the existing entry and press [Return]. If you do not want to change the entry, just press [Return]. Once you have edited the description field, the amount for that expense will be displayed in an entry field. Again, to edit the amount, type in the number you want over the existing number and press [Return] or [Enter]. If you do not want to change the amount, simply press [Return] or [Enter] and the number will not be changed. After you have entered the amount, the previous screen will appear, with the list of expenses. If there are more than 19 expenses in the list, you can view those by entering "999" instead of a line number. If you are on a subsequent screen, you can enter "998" to return to a previous screen. Once you are done editing, enter "0". This will return you to the "Add Monthly Expenses" screen. At this point, you may continue to enter expenses, or type "end" in the description entry field to quit. Finishing Up After you have entered the last expense, typed "end" for the expense description, and said "No" to the "Edit Budget Data?" prompt, you will be prompted to print out the budget you have constructed. Answering "Yes" to this prompt will cause a report to print, which details all of the information you have entered. I suggest that you make a hard copy of your budget and keep it around for use in planning your monthly activities, and also for keep tracking of how well you are doing at staying within your budget. Finally, you will be asked if you want to save your budget. If you answer "Yes" to this question, then you will be prompted for a disk file name. If you loaded the budget from disk when you started the program, you can simply press [Return] in order to save the file back to disk with the same name. While almost any name will work, it is best to use something that is easy to remember and won't conflict with other files on your disk. "BUDGET.DAT" is easy to remember, if you can't think of anything else. If you are doing a new budget every month, you may want to name your budget files with the month name. For example, in January, you might want to use "JAN.BDG", or "JAN.BUD". Whatever is easiest. Once your data has been saved to disk, or if you decided not to save your budget, the program ends and returns you to the desktop. Page 4 NOTE: The enclosed program and documentation are SHAREWARE. If you like the program and use it often, then I request that you make a donation in the amount of $10.00. If you don't like the program, and don't use it, then pass it on to a friend and delete your copy. If this program causes you to save a little money, then what's a measly $10 compared to what it's saved you??? Send donations to: Robert M. Balay 900 Park Ridge Rd. A-2 Durham, NC. 27713 I can also be reached on CompuServe - UserId: 74716,101 or GEnie: User Name: RBALAY If you have information about bugs that need to be fixed, or questions about the operation of the program, you can send them to me at any of the above addresses!