RMR Bank Personal Accounts PDA Software - RMR Bank is probably the most comprehensive finance package available for the Pocket PC series of platforms.
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RMR Bank Personal Accounts PDA Software - RMR Bank is probably the most comprehensive finance package available for the Pocket PC series of platforms. |
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RMR Bank is probably the most comprehensive finance package available for the Pocket PC series of platforms. As well as the usual functions of Transaction storing and statement reconciling, Archiving, Standing Orders/Direct Debits and Categories, it also has full multi-currency support, full Quicken/MSMoney interoperability, optional password protection, filters and find modes.In addition it will automatically integrate with the other financially-based RMR programs such as RMRFuel and RMRInvest.Screenshots for PPC version
Screenshots for the UIQ version: Screenshots for Palm version:
RMRBank for Pocket PC $35.00 Purchase Now RMRBank is probably the most comprehensive finance package available for the Pocket PC series of platforms. As well as the usual functions of Transaction storing and statement reconciling, Archiving, Standing Orders/Direct Debits and Categories, it also has full multi-currency support, full Quicken/MSMoney interoperability, optional password protection, filters and find modes. In addition it will automatically integrate with the other financially-based RMR programs such as RMRFuel, RMRExpenses and RMRInvest. RMRBank (Nokia) - $35.00 Purchase Now RMRBank is the most comprehensive finance package available for the EPOC Series of platforms. As well as the usual functions of Transaction storing and reconciling, Archiving, Standing Orders and Categories, it also has full multi-currency support, full Quicken/MSMoney interoperability, optional password protection, filters and 'Look Ahead' modes. In addition it also has optional (free) 'plug-in' modules to do Fuel Consumption monitoring, Home Inventory, Investment Performance tracking, Budget Planning, Utility Usage monitoring and a full Expense Account tracking program. RMRBank (EPOC) - $35.00 Purchase Now RMRBank is the most comprehensive finance package available for the EPOC Series of platforms. As well as the usual functions of Transaction storing and reconciling, Archiving, Standing Orders and Categories, it also has full multi-currency support, full Quicken/MSMoney interoperability, optional password protection, filters and 'Look Ahead' modes. In addition it also has optional (free) 'plug-in' modules to do Fuel Consumption monitoring, Home Inventory, Investment Performance tracking, Budget Planning, Utility Usage monitoring and a full Expense Account tracking program. RMRBank (UIQ) - $35.00 Purchase Now RMRBank is one the most comprehensive finance package available for the Symbian UIQ series of platforms. RMRBank(Palm) - $15.00 Purchase Now RMRBank is a comprehensive finance package for the Palm OS series of platforms. As well as the usual functions of Transaction storing and statement reconciling, Archiving, Standing Orders/Direct Debits and Categories, it also has full multi-currency support, optional password protection, auto-counters and default transactions.
Personal Accounts Suite - Tutorial INTRODUCTION When 5-Alive asked me if I could do an article on how my Personal Accounts Suite software package can be used in a real-life environment, I thought this was a good idea. The program is actually very complex and there are some areas that are perhaps not very well covered in the basic documentation. I have been too busy enhancing the program to spend the time I should updating the help files and instructions I felt the best solution was for this article to explain how I use the program as, not surprisingly, I probably use well over 90% of it’s capability. In fact the only major area I don’t use is the Quicken Import/Export, as I find the program does enough for me so I don’t need a PC equivalent. However, I shall cover that aspect anyway. First a few words about how I use the program. As well as running my ‘normal’ life with the usual Current Account, VISA Account and Savings Account, and about 10 others (TESSAs, PEPs, Building Society, Premium Bonds etc), I also use it to run RMR Software. Obviously it is essential that these aspects are kept separate, so I run them as different Group files entitled ‘Accounts’ and ‘Business’. Also, following an extended stay in the USA, I now have a set of personal accounts over there, as well as the USA part of RMR Software. So, I have 2 more groups, entitled ‘USA Personal’ and ‘USA Business’. Also, RMR Software operates in Germany so I have a ‘Germany’ group and in addition, I keep separate groups for the CompuServe registrations I receive. I keep track of my mother-in-laws savings as well so that is yet another group, and like all developers I have a couple of test groups so I don't risk my own data. It’s worth noting at this point that I intentionally wrote the program so that each group would only operate in one currency, so I cannot combine the UK and USA business accounts into a single group as one has to operate in pounds and one in dollars. So you can see that I could probably be defined as a 'power' user, with 10 Groups and over 80 accounts. On the other hand the program works just as well for my daughter at university who has one group and three accounts. Looking at the other menu options, I have to admit I never use the Password option as I find it a pain to keep typing in. But I know many people appreciate that option. Also, I only occasionally use the ‘Pay Bills’ option to put in a Standing Order in advance of the proper date. With the exception of Quicken Export/Import I use all the other options regularly and these will be discussed later. SETTING UP So now, taking the USA Personal Group as an example, I have defined accounts for a Checking Account, a Savings Account and a VISA Account. Using the ‘Advanced’ feature of the ‘Create/Update’ dialog I have been able to set a credit limit on my Checking Account of $400 and a debit limit on my VISA Account of $5000. Then, if ever the balance on my Checking Account drops below $400 or I run up a VISA bill of more than $5000 the program will flash up a warning. So far I haven’t had that happen for real, although I have quite a few E-Mails from grateful customers who have been warned just in time. I have also been able to add an estimated credit interest figure to the savings account so that using the "Add Interest" option in the Standing Orders module, each month an estimated figure is credited to the account. Also, my daughter has asked me to keep track of her USA Savings Account so that is defined in there as well, but as I don’t want it included in my ‘Net Worth’ figure, I have used the ‘Update’ and ‘Advanced’ options to disable it. A little ‘x’ appears next to it, to confirm it is not included. As far as tax is concerned, RMR is not yet large enough to warrant registering for VAT, (more registrations please!) but occasionally it can be useful. So, using "Preferences", "Definitions" and "Tax Rates", I have set 17.5% as one rate and 4.5% as another, as that is the level of Sales tax in Virginia in the USA. While you are in the menu I should also mention I use the Account Details to hold useful things like Account Numbers, Routing Numbers (Sort Code) and Card Numbers, so I use that menu to define those as the headings. (these are known as ‘Labels’ in the program to maintain compatibility with the Data application) As far as currencies are concerned, I obviously have Pounds, US Dollars, Deutschmarks and Euros defined, but as my job involves a lot of overseas travelling I also have Canada, Australia, New Zealand and France as well. I try to get in the habit of updating these once a week from Saturdays paper, using the "Update All" option. Also, my firm gives us a fixed daily living allowance for each country, so I have that recorded in this screen. In most cases the Base Currency you use is obvious, in my case I could probably use either UK or USA but I have used UK as I was born here! Standing Orders (or Direct Debits, Scheduled Transactions, Automatic payments etc; the program has various options) are a most important feature for me. As well as the obvious uses, such as monthly electricity payments and a transfer of cash from my Current Account to the Savings Account, the program also copes with some odd ones, like the Family Allowance, which is paid every 4 weeks. Also, I have the Council Tax, which I pay for only 10 months out of 12 (At the end of 10 payments, the Standing Order is held inactive in the program ready to be reactivated later) and an estimated bonus payment which is paid on the last day of the month. And, as with Transactions, these orders can have an associated auto-counter, a tax rate and can automatically update all the modules. One question I am often asked is why I didn't implement the option of Standing Orders transferring money between groups. The answer is simple, I didn't believe it was a good use of valuable memory when you can have the same effect by defining a Standing Order in the one group taking the money out and another in the second group putting the money in. A bit of lateral thinking! I recently added the option to the Budget Category screen of having multiple Budget sets, and each group can be associated with each one. So in my case I have 2 sets, a personal list with 10 Categories in (Phone, Electricity, Car….), and a business one with each of the 37 programs in our portfolio. Then the two Personal Account Groups have the personal category set assigned to them and the three Business Groups have the business set assigned. This is done through the Preferences, Settings option in the Main screen. I use the Planner for my personal life. Most of the standard billing agencies are defined, Electricity, Phone, TV, Car Tax… and with an estimated value in there for each month so I can see exactly where I stand. I also run it in the fully automatic mode, so that each month it moves on, with each payment being reconciled as it is paid out, and balance constantly updated automatically. Probably the most important aspect is to make sure the bottom line never goes negative, and if you can see that it will in a couple of months time, a quick inject of cash will save you on overdraft charges (and probably recover the registration fee for you) I have 2 cars in the Fuel module, an Escort in the UK and a Plymouth Voyager in the USA. This aspect is covered a bit later, although I have only just noticed, while writing this review, that I can’t have the Escort showing MPG in UK Gallons and the Voyager showing in US gallons. I will have to change that in the next version!! Again I have Shares Investments in both the UK and the USA. No problem here, as I have created two different Share files, one for each country. Then in the UK Personal Account Group I have defined an account called ‘Shares’, and told the program to associate this account with the UK shares, so that it always shows the value of the investment as part of the assets in that group. Similarly, I have an account called ‘Shares’ in the USA personal group that tracks the values of those investments. As far as the Home Inventory module is concerned the same logic applies. Two houses, one in the UK and one in the USA, and each has all insured items detailed there. I also found this module very useful when I was relocating, as I could keep an accurate record of the furniture and possessions that we sent back on the ship. Again I must admit I never use the option to uprate all the Items by inflation each year, although I know many people do I use the Utilities module to keep track of water and electricity usage. So far we are not connected to gas, but I am ready. One slight disadvantage of this is that I designed it for use in the UK where we tend to have quarterly utility bills with a Standing Charge, so a weekly monitoring of the meter readings makes sense. While I was in the USA, I found it didn’t work as efficiently. And finally, there is the Expenses module, which I use extensively when I travel on business. I will cover that in more detail later USING THE PROGRAM A an illustration, let's look at a few days in the life of ‘Al Richey’ and how I use the program.
Monday: Log onto the Internet and download the on-line registrations for the programs. These come from a firm called REGNET, who operate a credit card service for me, and from CompuServe who run the SWREG system. Both of these operate in the USA, so I use the "Open group" option to select my ‘USA Business’ group. First thing to do is enter the REGNET messages so I open the REGNET account by highlighting it and pressing <Enter>. This is the time when I am very grateful for the ‘Default Transactions’ option so I don’t keep having to type in the same thing over and over again. Using the ‘Definitions’ option in the ‘Preferences’ menu I have predefined an entry for each of the programs, which presets the amount and the Budget Category. So now all I have to do is press <Shift+Enter> to call up the list of defaults, select the one I want by tapping the first letter of the program name and there it is, already half filled in. Also, if the details are the same as the previous entry then <Ctrl+Y> is often a quicker solution, as this pre-fills the fields with the last entries. In the case of SWREG, they actually come with a running total for the number of registrations received to date. So now I can go one better with my default transactions. Using the "Auto-Counters" option in the "Definitions" menu, I have defined a counter for each of the programs. Then, when I defined the default entry I used the "Advanced" option to associate the entry with the appropriate counter. So now, when I press <Shift+Enter> and select the program entry, not only is the amount and budget category shown, but the number has appeared in the Reference field. And the really clever part is that it is then increased by one ready for the next time. Wonderful !! Had to write a cheque to pay for some food. I also have a default entry called "Cheque Book", which is associated with a counter called "Cheques", so all I do is press <Shift+Enter>, select Cheque and again, the cheque number is automatically put into the Reference field.
Tuesday: I fire up the program (I tend to shut it down fairly often although I know a number of people who leave it permanently open and use the <Ctrl+Fn+B> hotkey to bring it to the foreground) and it tells me a Standing Order is due. In earlier versions this would have been actioned immediately, but in the later versions you are given an option as to whether to action it or leave till next time. I quite like that, although if it annoys you then just disable the prompting (Preferences option). In this case I say ‘Yes’ and it automatically deducts my monthly Life Insurance payment from the Current Account, and in the process adds that amount to the ‘Life Insurance’ running total in the Budget Module and reconciles and replaces the ‘Life Insurance’ figure in the Planner. I do the registrations again. I always try to log on at least once a day. I decide to move some excess cash from the Current Account to the Savings Account. So I just enter the value and use the "Transfer" field to specify the Savings Account. I could also use this to transfer the money to any other Account in any other Group as well if I wanted. I receive a Bank statement for the Current Account. So I go into the Transactions screen and confirm the "Initial balance" figure is the same as the one on the statement. Now I go through and reconcile each entry by highlighting it and tapping the space bar, or using the pen. The Reconciled balance automatically appears in the top window so you can check against the statement (like most things in the program, this can be disabled if you don’t like it). When complete, I use the ‘Group Reconciled Transactions’ option to move them all to the top. This never seems to balance up first time but I quickly trace the error this time, a £200 Cashpoint (ATM) I forgot to put in. Having done that it is time to Archive those entries. The limit of 400 Entries in each Account has always been a bone of contention with some users, but I have always tried to explain that this Transactions screen is only meant to hold unreconciled transactions, ie those that you haven’t yet confirmed against a written statement. Once they have been confirmed they can be transferred to an Archive file, which can be of unlimited length. So in practice, unless you are trying to run ICI Ltd, the 400 transaction limit between receiving bank statements should be sufficient. People just have to change their mode of operation slightly to compensate. (I should add that RMRBANK, when it comes out, will use a totally different storage system, and that will allow unlimited transactions). So, press <Shift+Ctrl+G> and I transfer the reconciled entries into an archive. Personally I use fairly general archives titles such as ‘UK Business’ , USA Personal’ etc. and I accept that they will contain entries from a number of different accounts. Other people prefer to run a separate archive file for each account or type of account. My method has a slight disadvantage as you may get Accounts from Groups that are assigned to different Budget Categories. In that case you need to use the "Switch Budget Files" option to select the right one. Time for a Backup. Like everyone who has worked with computers for any length of time I have had my fair share of crashes and data corruption. So a quick <Shift+Ctrl+B> from the Main screen and a complete copy of the data is dumped onto my Compact Flash card.
Wednesday: I do the registrations again The monthly VISA bill comes in, so I reconcile it (works out right this time) and archive the reconciled entries. Again, I have this payment setup as a default entry. I predefined it so that the description was ‘VISA Bill’, it was a Debit, it was transferred to the VISA Account and it was associated with the "Cheque" counter. So all I do is go into the Current Account, press<Shift+Enter>, add the actual amount, and everything is done for me. I don’t know how I managed before I implemented these default entries. Although the default is for a second dialog to appear so you can change the details for the receiving account if you wish, I personally don’t like this. So I have that aspect disabled (Transactions - Preferences - Settings), so it goes into the two accounts, debited from the Current Account and credited to the VISA Account, without any more action from me. My wife has filled the car with fuel. She is very well trained and has now got used to the idea she must make a note of the mileage on the VISA credit receipt. You won’t be surprised to hear that this is the subject of yet another default transaction. This time it is setup so the Description is "Fuel", the amount is "Debit", the Budget Category is "Escort", and in the "Modules" sub-dialog I have it so that the Escort is updated in the Fuel Manager. So I go into the VISA Account and select it with <Shift+Enter> and fill in the cost. Slight change here in that another dialog pops up and asks me how many litres of fuel went in and the total mileage, plus a setting for the type of driving you have been doing and a free field for any remarks. The VISA entry appears and the account is debited. If I now go to the Fuel module, there is the new entry with the fuel consumption figures all worked out. And checking the History/Graph displays shows me if the car is behaving. It doesn’t happen on this occasion, as I only recently had the car serviced, but I have a reminder set so that the program warns me just before the next service is due. I have a memory like a sieve, so this is very useful. I check the water and electricity meters and enter the readings in the Utilities module. I try to do that once a week to see how it is going.
Thursday: Registrations again The Standing Orders run again, to take the rent money out of my Checking Account in the USA. Useful feature here is that I told that Standing Order to have the Warning Attribute set, so it has a little star next to it to remind me that I actually need to write the cheque out and pay it. If I forget the program will keep reminding me, each time I start and stop it, that I have "Outstanding Transactions" Roll on the day when the program will actually pay the bill as well !! Time to update the Investments. I do a quick check on the Internet and in the papers and use the "Update All" option to update them. The values in the Accounts are automatically updated as well. I take the opportunity to find out how much I am worth in total and tap on the Group Worth window in the main screen. This gives me a readout of total worth across all Groups. Pleasantly surprised, probably not going to go bankrupt yet. It is getting close to the end of the month and my Pay Slip has arrived. I won’t actually get the money until the end of the month but I can still put it in and post-date it. By highlighting it and pressing ‘D’ it will become a deferred transaction and won’t appear in the overall balance. I have actually taken this one step further and have used the Preferences menu to make this procedure automatic. Any entry I have that is post dated will automatically be deferred and then will become ‘live’ when that date is reached. I also find this mode useful for payments I know I should get eventually but don’t know when. I simply put them in for a year ahead, then when I am notified they have arrived, highlighting the entry and pressing ‘T’ (for today) will reset the date and remove the deferred flag. Although I like not having deferred entries included in the total, as usual you can change that logic in the Preferences menu. Out of interest I use the Look Ahead mode to see what the state of my finances will be on the 2nd of the following month when the pay has gone in, the Standing orders have been actioned and the automatic Interests have been credited. This is a fairly slow process so I don’t do it very often. Hopefully I can speed it up in later versions. My wife asks if we paid the rent last month. A quick trip into the appropriate Archive file and I use the Filter option to look for an entry containing the word "Rent", between 2 appropriate dates. Find it !!
Friday : Off on a business trip to France. Go to the currency screen and put French Francs as the default secondary currency. Go to the Expenses module and create a new trip. Enter the Allowance I get for the trip from my Company, in this case as a per-diem value as I am not sure how long I will be away. I’m using the car so I add the mileage rate I am allowed. Make sure I have logical categories defined for the sort of things I will be spending money on, hotel, food, taxi etc. Start running an Expenses memo <Shift+Ctrl+Z> to keep a record of the times of the trip for the subsequent claim.
Saturday: Pay first hotel bill in French Francs. Go to VISA Account and press <Shift+F> to turn on the foreign currency option. Now when I enter the transaction, an extra field has appeared so that I can enter the value in French Francs. I select the ‘Modules’ button and tell the program to add it to my French trip using the ‘hotel’ category. Press <Enter> and it is all there. Same for the dinner I have that night. I realise I haven’t set that up as a default transaction yet, so do that now. Drive to the next hotel, use the "Enter journey" option in the Expenses Trip to make that an entry for claiming back later. Amount is calculated automatically, and I can see the running total at the bottom. Much later : Back from the trip. Managing Director asks me how much I spent on food. Pull up the Expenses trip and use the filter option <Ctrl+B> to set the Category to food. Tell him !! Company accounts tell me the exchange rate I had used was incorrect, so I use the "Recalculate" option to refresh all the values for the new rate. The program doesn’t attempt to format the printout for this module as all companies have different claims forms, but I use the export option to generate all the information in a simple text document which I transfer to the PC to be cut & pasted into the companies claims form. Finally I reconcile the entries, which tells me the claim has been submitted., When I receive the money I simply archive the trip entries and delete the trip.
QUICKEN EXPORT/IMPORT Although I don’t use it personally, I promised to discuss the Import/Export option. There seems to be some misunderstanding here between Quicken synchronisation and Quicken compatibility. Synchronisation is an automatic process ,which enables you to plug the programs together and they will automatically match entries. As far as I am aware, no third-party program (except Pocket Quicken on WINCE machines) offers this option as Intuit will not licence the necessary code. What all other financial programs offer is Quicken compatibility, which means you can exchange data using a common format called QIF (stands for Quicken Interchange Format) . The easiest thing to do to see how this works is run a quick test yourself. Just go to an appropriate Account and select the Export option. (Note that if you do this from the main screen you can export all the accounts in one go). Select QIF in this case, although you could export in CSV (Comma Separated variable) or straight ASCII text, and accept all the other defaults for now except where you want the resultant file to go. Press "OK". This generates the QIF file. Now copy the file from the Psion to the PC using Psiwin. Many people don’t realise that a QIF is simply an ordinary text file. Open it up in a word processor or text editor and read it through, it should be fairly obvious, and you will see each entry has a number of formatted lines, each split with a ‘^’ character. Now go into Quicken, select the Import option, bring the file in, and you should see all the details appear. If you now select the Quicken Export option and re-export the file, you should then be able to import it into the Psion program easily. That is what I do to test the logic of the code. The main problem people normally have is with the date format. There is a bug in Quicken, which may or may not have been fixed, whereby the date format used in the export mode is fixed and is not affected by the setting you make inside the program. Now, logically, you would expect USA versions to use MM/DD/YY and UK versions to use DD/MM/YY. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to work in practice and I have seen all sorts of combinations. All you can do is export a file from Quicken and look at it in a text editor. The dates are in the format Dxx/xx/xx, so you need to find one of those lines to see what format your particular version of Quicken is using.
CONCLUSION As I said at the beginning, the purpose of this article was not to do a review of the program, as obviously I am a bit biased. The purpose was to show you how it can be used in a real life environment and to introduce you to some of the more advanced aspects of the program and show how the whole package is designed to be fully integrated, and used in the most efficient way. I hope that purpose has been accomplished. If you aren’t already a user of the program, and would like to try it, remember it is Shareware, so you don’t have to take my word for it, you can download it from http://www.rmrsoft.com and try it out for yourself. Everything I have discussed above can be checked out, with the exception that in an unregistered version you will be limited to 3 Accounts in each Group Enjoy it. Al Richey RMR Software.
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