Sample Workbook
The easiest way to try the features of Home Credit Card Manager is to open the sample workbook and follow the quick tour outlined below. You can open the sample workbook at any time by selecting from the menu.
If you are new to Home Credit Card Manager you may wish to read the Where to Start help topic first.
Contents of the Workbook
The sample workbook contains:
- One credit card account.
- Two statements.
- The first statement contains 25 transactions that have all been matched to categories.
- The second statement contains 28 transactions, with four not matched to categories.
Quick Tour
This section will quickly take you through the main features of Home Credit Card Manager. The exercises are designed to be done in order and should only take a few minutes to complete.
Matching Transactions and Categories
- Open the sample workbook, if it is not already open.
- Double-click on the second statement (the one with the four unmatched transactions). The Transactions for the Statement will be displayed.
- Select a Category for a transaction by clicking in the category column and selecting from the Drop-down list. Repeat this for each of the four transactions with missing categories.
- Sort the transactions by clicking on the table headers. For Example, click on Amount to sort by transaction amount (this is a quick way to find the largest transaction in the statement).
- The category totals on the right hand side of the screen are upated each time you select a category for a transaction. The blank category represents unmatched transactions.
- Click on the summary button to group the category totals at Parent Category level. Click on the detail button to view the category details.
Date and Amount Preferences
Home Credit Card Manager allows you to change the Date format and the Amount format.
- From the menu choose
- Update the settings as required and select Ok.
New Statement
To add a new statement to the account:
- Start at the the Statement View screen for the account (from the menu choose ).
- Select the statement Add button (located under the STATEMENTS title).
- In the New Statements Details form enter a start date of 24 November 2003 (using the date format selected in the Options screen, for example MM/DD/YYYY), an end date of 23 December 2003, a reporting year of 2003 and an opening balance of 2140.94, then press Ok.
Importing Transactions
To load the statement transactions from a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file into the workbook:
- Click on the Import Transactions button on the toolbar (or from the menu choose ).
- Check that the "Statement To Update" is the new one created in the step above.
- Click on the Browse... button, locate the samples directory, select the file named "SampleStatementNov2003.csv" and click on the Open button.
- Click on the Import Transactions button (The Import Transaction Wizard will be displayed).
- The first step of the Wizard allows you to define the characteristics of the file. For this example we have selected comma as the delimiter and we are starting the import at row one (you may need to start at a different row if your file contains header rows you wish to skip).
- Click on the Next button.
- The next three steps of the wizard allow you to define the amount, the date and the description fields in the file. You can select the required column by clicking on the column in the table or by typing in the column number. The first time you run the Import Transaction Wizard it is set up to load the sample file, so you shouldn't need to change any values.
- Continue to click the Next button until you reach the final step. This step will list any important information before the file is imported.
- Click on the Finish button. If everything is ok, then the transactions will be loaded into the statement. If everything is not ok, then you will be shown where the errors are in the file and you will need to go back through the steps and correct the problems.
Category Auto-Matching
At this stage, the new statement created above should have 27 transactions and 27 unmatched transactions.
- Double-click on the new statement. The Transactions for the Statement will be displayed.
- Click on the Auto Match button on the toolbar (or from the menu choose ).
- Check that the "Statement To Update" is the new one created in the step above.
- Check that the "Match to Category Wildcard Patterns" is ticked and "Match to Statements Previously Loaded" is set to "All Statements"
- Click on the Auto-Match button.
- Approximately 17 of the transactions should have been matched for you.
Other Exercises
Try the following:
- From the menu choose . Select different statements, sort the columns (by clicking on the headers), view the summary and detailed positions.
- From the menu choose . Edit a category, add a new category and add a wildcard.
- From the menu choose to a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file. Enter a filename and export the workbook. This new file can be opened in other applications on your machine (eg in a spreadsheet, in a word processor, etc).
Summary
You have now covered some of the major features of Home Credit Card Manager.
If you need help creating your own workbook, refer to My First Workbook.