Category : Financial and Statistics
Archive   : BAM351.ZIP
Filename : NEW.DOC

NOTE: This file documents the new features present in version 3.51. It is
not necessary to read this documentation unless you are uncertain as to
how to use these new features.

Bank Account Manager v3.51 new features include:

1) New automatic transaction support.
2) New macro support.
3) New default date support.
3) New file listing display.
4) New help line format.
=============================================================================
New support for automatic transactions:

Bank Account Manager now lets you enter MONTHLY automatic transactions!
Automatic transactions are those transactions that occur on your account
for which you have to take no action. For instance, you can have your car
insurance premium automatically deducted from your checking account every
month. Or, you may have your payroll check deposited into your savings
account every month.

Adding an automatic transactions is very simple. Choose "Automatic
transaction" from the "Transactions" menu option. You will be shown the
standard transaction entry window. Fill in all information for your
transaction, including the date on which this months automatic transaction
occurred. This transaction will be given a category of "Initial automatic".

Bank Account Manager will then add this transaction in a file called
BAM.AUT. Note that this transaction also gets entered into the regular
transaction file.

Now, every time you start the program, it will scan the list of automatic
transactions to see if a new transaction needs to be entered for this month.
If so, it will update the transaction file with this new entry. Notice that
these new transactions get added to the END of the transaction view screen,
and are given their own transaction category. This allows the user to quickly
see which automatic transactions have been entered when the program started.

There may be months where an automatic transaction doesn't take place.
In this case, simply remove the automatic transaction generated for that
month.

If you wish to change the automatic transaction in any way, (Change the
payee/payer, memo field, amount, etc) simply locate the INITIAL automatic
transaction, and edit it to reflect the new information. The program will
update the automatic transaction accordingly, and the next time it adds the
automatic transaction, it will be with the new information.

To stop an automatic transaction, simply locate the INITIAL automatic
transaction, and delete it. This will also remove the automatic transaction
from the BAM.AUT.

What if you decide to change an account number? You are asked if you
wish to update all transactions as well. If you choose to do so, the automatic
transactions are updated as well.

NOTE: There is no way to have daily automatic transactions, yearly automatic
transactions, or selective automatic transactions. The program only provides
support for MONTHLY automatics!
============================================================================
New macro support:

As you can tell from the main menu, there are several macro support
functions now available. Starting and stopping macro recording are simple
enough and will not be discussed further. Listing macros, removing one
macro, removing all macros, reading and writing macros are all simple enough
as well, and will not be discussed in detail.

Macros allow the user to automate certain tasks. Perhaps even allowing
the user to automate common transaction entries. Note that you cannot "pause"
a macro once expansion is in progress. However, the tabbed data entry forms
can be used to fill in any needed fields.


The most important thing to know about macros is the following:

In any view screen, at any prompt, and in any window, you may press
to start macro recording. You should notice that in the upper
left hand corner there is a "Recording..." indication. While this message
appears, you are still recording a macro. This allows you to move right to the
point where you wish to start recording macros, without having to jump back to
the main menu. Pressing after recording has started will STOP
macro recording.

All macros have a description associated with them, as well as a key. You are
limited to a 25 character description per macro.


Editing a macro:

Many times, after recording a macro, there are some superfluous keystrokes. By
choosing the "Edit macro" option, you may remove, or add, any keystrokes you
wish. Use the cursor keys to navigate through the window, and use the
key to save your changes. If you wish to use these keys within the macro,
toggle the "Literal/Command mode" setting by pressing the key.
An indicator is present in the window informing one of the current mode.


Editing a macro NAME:

The option simply allows you to change the description (name) of a macro. It
does not actually edit the macro keystrokes.


Reading/Writing macros:

The program will by default load in a file called BAM.MAC. If you save all of
your macros to this file, they will be loaded every time the program is run.
You may, however, also place these macros in any file you wish.

The program keeps track of whether or not any changes have been made to the
macros, and will warn you at program exit if you have not saved these changes.
In addition, when the program performs a DOS shell, it will also deactivate
the macros, and will warn you if they have not been saved.
============================================================================
New default date support:

Previous versions of the program would display all dates by the given
DOS country information. Although this was an effective method to provide
multi-national support, some users prefer certain date display formats
over the default DOS one.

My setting the correct default date information in CONFIG, you can
control how any date is displayed. A few notes on this:

Any upper case letters imply that any leading zeros are displayed as
blanks instead. Any lower case letters imply that leading zeros are
displayed instead of blanks. Some examples:

Date format Display for January first, 1993
----------- -------------------------------
MM/DD/YY 1/ 1/93
MM/dd/yy 1/01/93
mm/dd/yy 01/01/93
MM-dd-YY 1-01-93
mm-dd-yy 01-01-93


Notice how you may also use a "-" character instead of the normal "/"
character used as a separator.
========================================================================
New file listing display:

The file listing display has been updated to allow the user to actually
read other disk drives. There are now indicators for: (A:, B:, C:, D:, E:,
etc) By moving the highlight bar over one of these indicators, you may read
the information for any disk in those drives.
============================================================================
New help line format:

While in any view screen, you may now press the , keys in
order to get a help line on functions/keys associated with those command keys.
This allows the help line to display more information that previously, and
also prevents the user from unnecessarily resorting to the on line help.