Personal Finance Manager Help/FAQ

JDM Software

General Information

The Personal Finance Manager was designed to be an aid in creating and managing your personal budget. It is scalable enough to allow you to use it for detailed budgeting principles such as income allocation or to simply use it as an electronic account register.

The program is intended for individuals who would like to get (or keep) their financial lives in order. Many people come to realize that without proper budgeting guidelines in place, their debts start accruing at a much faster pace than their assets. In order to grow your net worth, you need to know where your money is coming from and where it is going. The best way to do this is to create a simple budget plan and adhere to it, systematically monitoring your progress.

This tool provides a simple means of quickly setting up a budget based on your current income. It will generate spending guidelines for various expense categories which will help you create an initial budget that can then be refined as your lifestyle changes. You can set up your own accounts, transaction types, and expense categories which you will use to track where your money is being spent on a regular basis. Finally, as you continue to use the tool, you can graphically monitor your progress and determine areas that might need attention.

With a little regular effort, budgeting will become a habit that will help you to maintain positive cash flow and less stress when the bills arrive. You will know your financial status at all times, which will help give you a stronger sense of confidence. Money is the primary cause of many personal and relational problems. Knowing how to manage it and establishing a discipline for doing so is key to avoiding such problems and is the foundation for financial success.

Topics

Entering Data
Storing Data
Working with Tabs
Working with Spreadsheets
Backing-up and Restoring Databases

Entering Data

Data entry is very straightforward in the Personal Finance Manager. Each time you enter an amount or text into an entry field, you must press <Tab> or <Return> (<Enter>) or select another entry field with the mouse in order to register the value.

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Storing Data

Data is only changed locally as you enter it. To actually store changes to the database permanently, you must select "Save" under the "File" menu or press <F2> (function key 2). Attempting to quit the program will bring up the same dialog to remind you to save your changes. If you do not wish to save the data, select "No" when you see the dialog, and when you restart the budget tool, the data will appear as it was when you last saved it.

If you want to be very cautious, you can locate the "db" directory under the install directory. Within that directory are all the database files for any users created. You can backup your <user>.dat file as another name and restore it to the original name if things go wrong. This should not be necessary, however, for the typical user.

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Working with Tabs

Many of the windows in the Personal Finance Manager are contained in tabs, forming an electronic notebook. This method keeps information relatively uncluttered, and allows you to quickly navigate through categories.

Another great advantage of the tabbed notebook is that pages can be "torn out" for comparison to other pages. For instance, if you wish to compare transactions for two months side-by-side, you can remove a page for one month and select the other month. You can remove as many tabs as you wish, but the screen will grow increasingly cluttered if you do not replace them.

To remove a page from any notebook, single-click the left mouse button on the dashed line under or beside the tab name. To re-insert the page into the notebook, select the "X" at the top-right corner of the isolated tab window.

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Working with Spreadsheets

If you wish to change the size of a column in a spreadsheet (to view information that does not fit in a particular cell, for example), move the mouse over the column border you wish to expand. The mouse cursor should change to a crosshair when re-sizing is valid. Press and hold the right-most mouse button, and drag the border left or right. In some spreadsheets, all column widths are adjusted at the same time when any single border is moved. In others, only columns to the right of the adjusted column will resize.

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Backing-up and Restoring Databases

In order to safeguard your financial data against unintentional deletions, overwriting, computer crashes, and other potential problems you should make it a habit to perform regular backups of the database. You can do this manually at any time by selecting "Backup Database" under the "File" menu, or you can enable the program to perform automatic backups for you.

To enable automatic backups, select "Auto-Backup Settings" from the "File" menu. First, select how often you want backups to occur in general. Note that backups can only occur when the program has been run, so if you have backups enabled "Daily" and you do not run the program for a week, you will not see backup databases for the days missed.

Next, select the maximum number of database files you wish to preserve. You can set this value as low as "1" and as high as "99", depending on how much financial history you want to maintain, how frequently you perform backups, and how much memory you wish to consume. The database files are generally less than 1MB even for large databases, so you do not need to worry about consuming large quantities of memory. When you have reached the selected number of backup database files, the program will begin deleting the oldest database files as it stores new ones to replace them.

Finally, select the directory into which you wish to have your database files backed up. By default, this will be the same "db" directory under the main installation directory that your main database file is loaded from. But if you wish to change the directory (to another drive letter, for example) you can do so by entering it manually or selecting "Browse Directories."

When you have made your selections, press "Ok" and the settings will be saved. If the directory you specified is invalid or non-existent, you will be given the opportunity to either create the directory or change the path you entered.

If you need to restore a database for any reason (your current database file becomes corrupted or you accidentally enter data incorrectly and save the database) you can do so by selecting "Restore Database" under the "File" menu. A warning will pop up indicating that by restoring a database, your current database file will be overwritten. Select "Ok" if you wish to proceed, then find the database file you wish to restore. Usually, the default database name is your username followed by the date the database was saved. Auto-saved databases have "bak" in the name. All database files will end in the ".dat" extension.

Once you selected a file, press "Open" and, if the selection is valid, another window will come up indicating you need to restart the program. The program should exit automatically. Once you restart the program, you should see the contents of the older database. If you feel you have made an error in restoring the database and wish to undo the changes, there w ill be a file called <username>_last.db in the same backup directory you restored from. Just follow the same procedure to restore that file and the changes will be undone.

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