Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    I recently bought PHASAR from Marksman Technologies.  PHASAR was
    the highest rated home accounting package in a recent AmigaWorld
    review.
    
    PHASAR is an extremely well thought out package.  It offers multiple
    accounts, split transactions, standard transactions, check printing,
    tax preparation, and extensive database search and sort capabilities.
    For example, you might want to know how much money you spent during
    the year on your hobby.  You may have made purchases via check,
    Visa, or cash through many different suppliers.  In a few keystrokes,
    you can tally all this infomation.
                      
    PHASAR is fully Intuition-ized, but the manual is more MS-Dos oriented.
    The program is pretty popular in the Pee Cee world.
    
    There are at least two excellent shareware programs available, Bank'n and
    Your Money.  While not as extensive as PHASAR, they are damn good.
    I'd suggest checking them out first.  If you find they're too weak,
    you can purchase a commercial package.
                                              
    Ed.
    

    Ed,

    Bankn is on a Fish disk.  Where is "Your Money"?

    -jim

I've recently purchased Money Mentor, and convinced another Amiga user
to try it, and they have also purchased it. I have tried keeping a budget
manually before, but I am lazy, and never make entries properly or on
time. Balancing a checkbook every month was an ordeal for me. I was hoping
that a "home finance" package would solve this problem.

Money Mentor is exactly what I needed. It has, from my point of view, an
extremely good user interface. It was reviewed in Amazing Computing a
while back, and the review is very accurate, if somewhat sketchy. It
allows you to set up 100 expense budget catagories, and 100 income
budget catagories. You can create up to 30 accounts, and any of these
can handle expense or income items, of course. There is a special 
"budget" item called TRANSFER, which moves money between accounts, and
"SPLIT", which allows splitting one transaction between several budgets.

All the above is standard. What is unique is the way transactions are
entered. MM has a feature called "selection scrolls", which allow you
to select from a range of reasonable alternatives, or type in the item.
So most transactions are done entirely with the mouse. What's really
useful is that it "remembers" parts of previous transactions and sets
the default selection for new transactions appropriately. This is hard
to explain without an example:

I select transactions for my checking account. 
It wants to know what kind of transaction. "Checks", the most common,
	is the default. (click...) 
It wants to know the date of transaction. Today is the default. (click...)
It wants the check number. Last + 1 is default, A.T.M. is two clicks.
It wants to know recipient. It puts the 60 most common check recipients
	on the scroll, alphabetically. The scroll is fast, and usually
	no more than 3 clicks gets a name. I can type in a name, of course.
It wants the amount. If the recipient is one I've used before, it defaults
	to the last amount I sent to the same place. Sounds useless, but
	many transactions are repetitive, e.g. mortgages.
It wants the budget category, defaults to the budget for this recipient.
It accepts a note. Defaults to the note for this recipient. I use this
	for account numbers, so this default is useful.

So a transaction takes about 10 seconds. It will alternate between accepting
a check and printing the check, if you select that pattern.

MM provides about 50 different reports, divided between screen reports,
printed reports, and screen graphs. Selections allow comparison of budget
items for a month (showing variance from previous month, from monthly
budget, and from YTD budget). Also will show one budget item by month,
and compute "trend line" of actuals.

For my needs, it's exactly right, and I'm very pleased with the user
interface, which is far superior to "type in" data entry. Try it out at
the store, see what you think.

John O.

    
    I found 'Your Money' on PLINK.  I'll upload it over the weekend.
    
    Bank'n has some advantages over 'Your Money', but the reverse is
    also true.  YM has better searching and sorting routines, but it's
    not possible to delete a transaction; you must 'void' it, which
    I found annoying.
    
    Money Mentor sounds just a lot like PHASAR.  Perhaps all these features
    are standard equipment in a professional version.
    
    Ed.

    I've been doing home budgeting since 1977, when I trashed the credit
    cards and started writing down every check.  My system started out
    purely manual, but I moved as much of it as I could onto my Apple
    II, and later moved it all onto the Amiga.  The first report I added
    when I moved to the Apple was a projection of the accounts into
    the future, based on estimated income and expenses.  If this projection
    shows me "keeping my head above water", then I am confident that
    I have allocated enough to each category.
    
    When we first got the Amiga we tried PHASAR.  It's much more convenient
    than just using spreadsheets, but it can't do projections, and it
    won't write out its data base in a documented format, so I can't
    write my own report generator.  We returned the package.
    
    Currently we use three connected spreadsheets.  One holds the ledger
    for the checking account, for check reconciliation and computation
    of bank balance.  The second takes the current bank balance from
    the first and does a 53-week projection of income and certain frequent
    expenses, computing the current amount and weekly amount not needed
    to cover these expenses.  The third takes the current and weekly
    amounts for this week in each budget category and computes the current
    amounts for next week in each budget category.  Expenses not
    anticipated in the second spreadsheet are subtracted from the proper
    category here, and there is room to move money from one category
    to another in case we spend more than we expected.
    
    This system serves us quite well.  It takes only a few hours a week
    to operate, and by looking at the latest report we can tell quickly
    if we can afford something.  Most important, we always have confidence
    that we will be able to meet our customary expenses over the next
    year.
        John Sauter

    I've got PHASAR too. I find it adaquate. But as John mentioned, it
    doesn't do projections and have good tools for trend analysis. The
    budget integration window is by the month. I find by the week (even by
    the day) and exception processing more usefull. (Easily done in a spread
    sheet). The problem I found with spreadsheets is that you own the data
    management. It's easy to corrupt a spread sheet. PHASAR is realitively
    bullet proof, with one execption: Powering the system down without
    exiting PHASAR. 
    
    What I find most usefull is the ablitity to track charge cards and
    effective balances. I handle charge card receipts like checks and
    charge card statements just like bank statements for confirmation
    purposes. 
    
    What I find frustruating is double entry bookkeeping. I.E. Income and
    Expence catategories never meet. I guess for IRS, this is great.
    but for creative budgeting, it stinks.
    
    Rich
    
    
    
    
    
    

    I also use PHASAR. I am fairly satisfied with the product. However,
    data entry on the product is rather time consuming. But then, since
    I am using it to track 'Employee Paid' expenses and family expenses,
    which includes several (4-6) charge cards, several (10-14) checking
    and savings accounts.... Data entry problems are to be expected!!
    
    PHASAR has already proven very helpful at balancing all of those
    accounts. I am much like John, in that I try to balance out ALL
    of my accounts.
    
    But what I really hope that PHASAR will help with is during income
    tax preparation time. With so many accounts, and several different
    income sources, etc... tax time can be quite nasty. Hopefully, by
    setting up the information correctly, I should be able to cut the
    time that it takes to go through all of the information that we
    have gathered...
    
    Not a bad product. It could be better, but it does the job.
    
    
    =jbf=

     I bought Money Mentor few days ago.  I read the manual and ran the
tutorial and I think I am going to love it.  My only remaining question
deals with balancing the account, from what I have read I don't see how it
can be balanced.  For example if my July bank statement has a closing balance
of $500.00 recorded on the 12th of the month I will not actually receive the
statement until the 15th or 16th.  Assuming that I actually do my balancing on
the 17th ( A miracle given how much I love to balance ) I would still have
to deal with all the transactions which occured since the closing date of
the 12th not to mention the checks written on or before the 12th which were
not yet cashed.  It seems that since these cannot be cleared there is no way to
balance the account.

      The balancing method I normally use is to clear all transactions listed
on the statement then to subtract and add all outstanding transactions to the
bank balance and compare it with my own ending balance.  The difference is the
out of balance figure.


  Thank you for your support

  Harry Arendt
  DNC Developer
  DTN - 238-4313
  Mail CAM::ARENDT

  P.S. The input method is as easy as has been described.
      

    
    Don't know about Money Mentor, but PHASAR asks you if a transaction
    has been confirmed at the time that you enter the transaction data.
    When you review your transaction list, a column is reserved that
    indicates if a transaction is 'old'.  You can edit any transaction
    in case you accidently cleared one that hadn't actually been confirmed.
    
    When the time comes to balance the account, PHASAR will indicate
    the date that unconfirmed transactions were cleared.
    
    The public domain programs that I mentioned earlier also let you
    set these indicators.
    
    Ed.

Ed, I've been trying to use BANKN but I don't see any way to have
it do a monthly balance??

Maybe I should get PHASER or Money Mentor?

John

re: -.2

When you select "balance account", Money Mentor (MM) asks you to enter
the bank statement balance, and confirm it. It then subtracts the bank
balance from its balance, and that is the "amount to reconcile".

Then it shows you each transaction for the account which is not already
reconciled, and asks you if it is returned from the bank. Compare the
transaction item to the returned check or bank statement, verify that
the amounts are the same, and click "yes" if it's on the bank statement,
"no" if it isn't. If it is returned, then the "amount to reconcile" is
adjusted accordingly. When the list of transactions is finished, the
"amount to reconcile" should be zero. If it is, MM prints "Congratulations,
your account balances." otherwise, the "amount to reconcile" is the
difference. If you're careful, then the difference is already discovered
by comparing the transaction to the returned check or statement.

To remove a difference, if it's an error, just edit the transaction
using transaction search/edit, go through the "balance account" process
again (the "amount to reconcile" will be 0, all the transactions will
be "not returned"). If it's a missing transaction, (such as interest,
or a checking account service charge), just add the transaction, and
"balance" again.

Very quick and easy. No math and transposition errors. So far, it's
never taken longer than 15 minutes, doing 50+ transactions.

John O.

    Re: -.1
    
    Sounds a lot like PHASAR.
    
    Re: -.2
    
    Bank'n lets you toggle a gadget to the right of a transaction to indicate
    that it has cleared.  If memory serves me, (I haven't used it in
    months) Bank'n has a very decent balancing module.
    
    Ed.

Hi John,

I've been using Bankn' lately and find it very useful.  You have to use
the 'SET RECONCILIATION' gadget in the checkbook to mark the transactions
that have cleared and then go into reports for the actual balancing.

				...richard

Hi Richard,

I have been using the set reconciliation gadget and reports (good stuff).
I guess I misunderstood the reports. I'll look closer tonight..


Thanks,

John

    A friend who does some accounting and is a PC buff claims that the
    "standard" in the industry for home accounting is a package called
    "Dollars and Sense".  I took a look at it and in my amateur judgement,
    it looks good.
    
    The problem?  Last time I looked it was only available on the PC
    and the Macintosh.  Any idea if it has shown up on the Amiga?

	re .15

	I second you friend's opinion; I used Dollars and Sense on
	my Apple //c for a long time, and its a lot better than 
	anything currently available for the Amiga.  Unfortunately,
	I haven't heard anything about it being ported over...

	That may have something to do with the fact that it's
	written in UCSD Pascal, and there really isn't any decent
	Pascal support for the Amiga -- just a guess.

	

    
    More on Money Mentor,
    
    After having used money mentor for a couple of weeks I find that
    it lacks some features which I like and has some features that I
    don't like.  On of the most important questions which I would like
    answered at any given time is will I have enough money in my checking
    account to pay my bills this month?  Unfortunatly money mentor only
    allows one budget and then funnels all accounts into this budget.
    I am often interested in how much money I have spent from my checking
    on my budget because my budget is balanced against my income not
    against my available credit.  Also Money Mentor does not handle
    having a budget item such as "Credit Card Payments" for those of
    us who have credit card balances we ar trying to pay off while 
    still using the credit card.  You cannot transfer money to another
    account and have that show up in your budget, ie a payment to an
    outstanding credit card balance.  Also thier is no clean way to
    have a transaction not go into the budget system.  Hence although
    money mentor has a system for transfering money from account to
    account I do not use it, instead I do all transfers by hand between
    accounts.
    
    In conclusion I believe that Money Mentor could be enhanced by allowing
    more than one budget, allowing transfers to be entered into budget
    catagories, and by allowing the user to identify budget money by
    account of origin.  Money manager seems to treat credit cards in
    the way your mother allways said to use them ie pay off the balance
    each month rather than how most of use them ie as a line item in
    the budget each month.
    
    Let me also add that the user interface is excellent and that the
    ability to edit allmost anything is a welcome relief from doing
    the operations by hand especially at balancing time.
    
    Harry Arendt
    
    Happy to be keeping track of my money.
    
    

    I just bought PHASAR V3.0 and it comes with two disks. One disk
    has 512K written on the label and the other has 1M. This is the
    only  difference between what is written on the labels. After scanning
    the documentation, I could not find any information pertaining to the 
    differences between the two disks. Intrigued, I called the company
    and inquired what the difference was between the disks. The tech
    support person said "If you have 1M in your machine, use the 1M
    disk, if you have 512K in your machine, use the 512K disk". Wow,
    I said to myself, I could have figured that out! So now I ask him,"since
    I have a multitasking machine and even thought I have 1M of memory,
    50% or more of it can be busy with other programs, should I use the 512K
    disk?" he replies "If you have 1M in your machine, use the 1M
    disk, if you have 512K in your machine, use the 512K disk". Now
    my question is, does this guy know what he's talking about or could
    it have something to do with slow/fast memory requirements. Any
    ideas?
    
    Roger
    
    

I just picked up 3.0 this weekend also. Fantastic package! I looked at Phaser
and Money Mentor. Phaser has MANY more features:

	Multiple accounts with auto transfers between (MM does too)
	Special CASH account to track that nebulous bundle from X24 etc..
	Loan/Savings analysis
	Extensive report/summary
	Graphing (MM too)
	Default transactions and split transactions.
	  (such as automatically allocating tax/medical/insurance etc from
	   your GROSS paycheck)
	EXCELLENT Help facilities.
	TAX preparation/projection/reporting/printing
	Custom and automatic Check printing
	Built in calculator
	Address/Phone number book
	Calander/important event with auto notification
	AI decisions on defaults for questions (MM has "Smart Scrolls")
	Neat Tutorial.


As for 512/1Meg.  The manual DOES say that the 512 is for 512K machines
and 1meg is for 1+meg machines. It also says the difference is that the 512
version will only load part of the program into memory at any one time. The
1meg version loads the whole thing.
	    
John

    John
     	Where in the manual did you find this information? I could'n
    find any reference to the 512K/1M difference.
    
    Roger
    

Sorry, I've been trying to find this note!

It's not in the *manual*. It's behind a little icon when you "open"
the PHASER disk called "Please, Read me first!"

Click that one and you get 1 page of 512 vs 1meg info...

John

    Thanks John. I haven't even taken the disks out of their pockets
    yet. I decided to "read the manual" before playing with the software 
    this  time and it figures that I should be bit. That's it, no more
    reading instructions for me, just load the program and figure it
    out from there, from now on!
    
    Roger
    

    	I was curious about the upgrade, so I tried to call their customer
    support number. Well, after being given two different phone numbers,
    I finally talked to someone who didn't know too much about the
    differences but was able to tell me the cost and particulars. The
    thing that suprized me was that the program is distributed by
    Antic software.
    	I'm still wondering is the upgrade worth $30 if you have a 512
    machine? Has anyone out there upgraded?

    Well, I finally got some free time last night to try and experiment
    with Phasar. I ACTUALLY read the documentation on installing the
    software on a hard disk as well as going thru some of the tutorial.
    I did however run into a problem. (at least I consider it a problem)
    
    here's what I did.
    
    1) I created a drawer from dh0 and called it phasar.
       I copied the contents of the phasar disk to this drawer.
    2) I created a sub-drawer and called it demo. I moved the Phasar
       .reg and phasar.reg.info files into here.
    3) I created a sub-drawer and called it 1988 ( my stuff).
    
    The phasar.reg icon had a default tool of phasar. I set the default
    tool to dh0:phasar/phasar.
    
    When running the program from dh0:phasar (click the icon), the program
    would inquire as to the whereabouts of the .reg file. I would tell
    it /demo and the program would continue ok. If however I went into
    the demo drawer and clicked on the phasar.reg icon, the program
    would apparently attempt to load but then hang the machine. It would
    seem to me that a person should be able to have multiple drawers
    containing multiple .reg files and be able to use any of these by
    clicking on its icon. That's the impression I got by reading what
    the manual says about installation. 
    
    What seems to work however is to have the multiple drawers containing
    multiple .reg files and when the program is invoked, to set the
    user preferences for the .reg path to be the path of the next .reg
    file desired. Then you quit out of phasar and re-run the program.
    This is reasonably painful and I'm not convinced the proper way
    of doing this.
    
    Soo, has anyone else tried this and had the same problem?
    
    I did call Antic Software and they indicated that you "probably
    cannot" use the .reg icon to invoke the program. If this is true,
    then what is the purpose of the icon in the first place.
    
    Roger
    
     
    

I just use the .reg ICON to drag to a backup floppy after a session. Makes 
it quick to save a copy.

Funny, you'ld think setting the .reg ICON default tool to phasar would work...
They probably don't handle WB args properly. That's why they have thier 
preferences file. The program looks *in there* to find it's data file name.

This isn't a big deal for me. I use records by the year (a 1988 drawer, 1989
etc..Simply as possible) so changing the prefs file isn't so bad.

John

    
    Wierd... I run Phasar from the reg.info icon all the time without
    any problems.  However, I have only one subdirectory with Phasar
    and the reg.icon in the same subdirectory.
    
    Ed.
    	

	Yeah, it's true, PHASAR isn't smart enough to grab the incoming
	Workbench arguments when it starts up, so the only .REG file it
	knows about is the one whose location is stored in PHASAR's
	config file.  I think some (stupid) programmer set up the
	register-file's .INFO just as a piece of superstitious behavior.

	It's too bad, 'cause I'd like to be able to use the program with
	several sets of books...

    I've seen PHASAR mentioned in this note as being from Marksmen
    Technologies and Antic Software. There's a PHASAR in the Abel and
    ComputAbility lists from Finally Software. Is this the right PHASAR?
    I don't want to end up with some Star Trek game to balance my
    checkbook.
    
    /tom
    
    

    
    PHASAR was written by Marksman Technologies, published by Finally
    Software, and eventually purchased by Antic.
    
    My version 3.0 says Finally Software on the box and disk.  My friends
    version 3.0 says Antic software.  His titles screen has actually
    been modified to reflect the new Antic ownership, but otherwise
    the programs appear to be identicle.
    
    I wonder if this is the same Antic who publishes most of the best
    Atari ST software?  I'd take it as a good sign if they're branching
    out to the Amiga.
    
    Regardless of the name on the box you buy, PHASAR is a great package.
    
    Ed.

    re: .29
    
    Yes, it's the same Antic.  They have a become a software publisher
    with a number of nice programs for the ST.  Now they are trying
    to cash in on that fame with ports to the Amiga market.

     I have some questions for you people out there with PHASAR.   One of the
gripes that I have with MONEY MENTOR (MM) is that it will not allow me to
seperate out the accounts during report generation and that it will not allow
a transfer to show up in a budget.  I have two good examples to illustrate
this problem, however a note of setup will help at this time.

     I have a checking account which is the major focus of my financial life.
My checking account is the place where both my wife's checks and my checks are
auto deposited and where my morgage, auto loan and weekly savings are auto
widthdrawn from.

     My basic problem is that I want to ask most of my major questions about
my checking account without giving up the other features of the system.  My
basic problem with MM is that the reports do not allow you to seperate where
the money came from when tracking the monthly budget.

EXAMPLE 1:

     If I buy something with a credit card then MM wants to know which budget
catagory this should be charged against.  This is fine for overall processing
however at the end of the month I need to know what portion of the money spent
in the month came out of my checking account seperatly from the money spent
from a credit card.  This way I can check to see if enough money is being set
aside to pay for non-monthly bills like car insurance, property taxes and
car repairs.  MM reports only tell me about expenses versus budget without
breaking out the accounts that the expense money came out of.

EXAMPLE 2:

     MM allows for transfer between diferent accounts however it will not allow
this transfer to be noted in the budget.  This means that the money that I
weekly transfer from checking to savings does not show up on my budget and
each month I have an artifical surplus in the expense versus income catagory.
I want this transfer to be part of my budget the part called savings.  If I
transfer the money by hand then MM wants to know where the money comes from
and this distorts my income statement.  So if I want to use the transfer
feature I cannot count these in my budget.

EXAMPLE 3:

     MM assumes you are one of those poeple who pay off your credit cards.  I
am not.  Therefore I have an item in my budget called CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS, as
you can see this precludes using the transfer feature again and tends to screw
up the income on the other side.

EXAMPLE 4:

     MM can only operate on one account at a time so a split between different
accounts is not allowed.  This means that convenient operations like entering
my pay become a labor to enter into the seperate checking, federal income tax,
medical, and social security accounts.  I have read that PHASAR allows this to
happen easily.


Can anyone with PHASAR comment on it's ability to handle these situations.



    Thank you for your support
    
    Harry
    

    PHASAR doesn't allow you to split categories and accounts on the
    same transaction. The budget capabiltiy of PHASAR is week. You set
    up a budget by month. The problem comes if you have sporatic sources
    of funds there is no easy labor saving way adjusts the budget.
    PHASAR will not allow you to get a tolal of only selective categories
    in an account or to omit one account's entries from a category display.
    PHASAR will allow you to view any selection of categories and produce
    a monthly graph an hard copy  report. 
    
    You can fool PHASAR often with negitive amount transactions.
    I keep categories as barometers and as a budget mechinism.
    The automatic transactions for deposit withdraw a negitive amount
    it separate categories and account. Sporatic funds are dispersed
    in that manor. Thus each categories tolal is a budget. This 
    would be simple it I could create categories that are relations
    of other categories both income and expense.  
    
    I'm really waiting for someone to come out will a more configureable
    financial program.
    
   ... Rich
    
    
    

    Phaser does allow you to split catagories on a single transaction
    and a 'standard transaction' such as inputing your paycheck can
    be dispersed into different accounts.
    
    tom
    

    
    
    Howdy,
    
    Well I broke down and bought PHASAR therefore I will be selling
    Money Mentor after the first of the year.  I like some of the 
    features of PHASAR especially that it can be intalled on a hard
    disk.  I am also impressed with the abilty to forecast taxes and
    analyze loans.  I have just completed the tutorial and am preparing
    to set up my budget system for 1989.  If anyone has suggestions
    for how a budget should be setup on PHASAR I would love to here
    them.  I will report on what I like and don't like about PHASAR
    after I have worked with it for a while.
    
    
    Harry

    
    FWIW,
    
    	I  just started using BANKN. It is a very limited program from
    what I can see compared to Phasar but my needs are simple home budget
    stuff. I believe in packages that just fit my needs. The only problem
    I have is I can't get a chronological running total like the one
    on my register. I am considering writing a Basic program to extract
    that info from the data file. Anyone else interested in BANKN or
    is there someone that has solved this problem?
    
    Steve.
    

    If any part of BANKN will do it, it would be the Query program.
     I've run off a chronological report before, but I haven't tried
    to do one with running totals.  Seems like you could force it by
    requiring a total line after every record, but I hesitate to say
    that for sure until I've had a chance to poke around with the program
    a bit more.  You could also try printing to a file (BANKN lets you
    do this, right?) and writing a simple basic program to read that
    file.  Insures that your data is in the right order, and also keeps
    you from having to worry about bankn's record formats.  
    
    I'm out of town for training until this weekend, so I can't get
    to my machine to verify any of this.  It's coming from memory, so
    please take it with proper suspicion.  (My memory has a tendency to 
    generate a few single-bit errors now and then... but what are a few 
    jumbled facts between friends, huh?)  

    
    					John

    
    I tried the query program using the 'cum(amount)' command. It does
    a running total ok but adds everthing. The checks should be subtracted
    and the deposits added. Also it doesn't pick up the beginning balance.
     I haven't seen a way to easily print the register - there is no
    print command from that menu that I remember.
     However, I have started writng a basic program to extract the data
    from the cktrans.dat file. It doesn't look too tough. I post a message
    here if I'm successful. Thanks for the info :)
    
    Steve.

    There has not been much activity on this note in a while but I thought
    that I could record some observations for anyone who comes along
    needing information.
    
    	I owned Money Mentor, sold it and now own Phasar.  I got rid
    of money mentor for one reason, I wanted to be able to create reports
    that were specific to one account and could not do it.  Phasar has
    a report generator on it which I thought I could use.  Well I have
    owned Phasar for some time now and I am finally getting down to
    designing a system to support my ideas.  I will post them here in
    the hope that others will be able to benefit from them.  The first
    problem I wanted to address is the idea that certain money is deducted
    from my check before I see it, for example federal tax.  So the
    reports that I am interested in are;
    
    1. Gross income VS Gross expenditure.
    2. Net income VS Net expenditure.
    3. Account specific income VS account specific expenditure.
    
    The first case is particularly useful when calculating taxes and
    is the most general case.  Providing the income catagories/accounts/
    expense catagories system is set up properly this can be generated
    by Phasar with no customization.
    
    The second case answers the question "Is the amount of money going
    into my checking account sufficent to cover what is going out?"
    This is not as easy as it may seem because most systems regard
    transfers between accounts to not be expenses and therefore not
    counted in the report totals, this would lead to an imbalance in
    the report by the amount requested.  In Phasar you can use a kluge
    call "NOCASHFLOW" which will allow money removed from one account
    to be added to another without distorting the income figures.  However
    this would not change the fact that you would still be listing the
    transfer as an expense in order to balance against the income for
    the account.  It has become clear to me that fund transfers must
    balance with budget expenses in order to generate built in reports.
    A simple example will illustrate.
    
    	Phred makes 1000.00 per month gross pay.  He pays 100.00 in
    federal taxes and the rest goes into his checking account via
    direct deposit.  He transfers 100.00 per month into his savings
    account and has a 1000.00 balance on his mastercard for which he
    pays 50.00 per month.  Phred budgets 50.00 per month for clothing.
    In January Phred starts using PHASAR to manage his money and that
    month he uses his credir card to buy 50.00 worth of clothing.
    
        Phreds financial descisions begin with how he sets up his PHASAR
    system.  These are his questions:
    
    Should he set up a dummy account for his federal tax to be deposited
    in so he can use the figure to project his taxes?  Or should he
    use the dummy account to deposit in and then pay out an expense
    labeled federal tax and use the expense in calculation of his tax?
    
    How will Phred enter the transfer of the checking to savings so
    as not to distort his cash flow?
    
    How will he enter a combined credit card payment which will reflect
    his purchase and attempt to pay off his balance?
    
    How will he generate reports which will measure his net caash flow
    as well as his gross cash flow?
    
    Stay tuned for our next installment.
    

    
    How does PHASAR compare with NIMBUS?  Anyone using NIMBUS?
    

    Has anyone tried Desktop Budget from Gold Disk?  I have a coupon for
    1/2 off any Gold Disk software, and was thinking of getting Desktop
    Budget.
    
    Thanks,
    Dave