Money Mirror Deluxe User's Guide (Edition 1)

Contents

  1. What is Money Mirror?
  2. Setup: Establishing Accounts and Depositing
  3. Transfers: Transactions and Payments
  4. Browsing Transactions
  5. Editing Features (Browse Screen)


1. What is Money Mirror?

Money Mirror is a simple accounting program for the PalmOS platform. It was developed entirely on a Handspring Visor but should work on any device running PalmOS version 3.0 and up. It requires a free runtime library by OrbWorks (included in Money Mirror packages, or get it directly from www.orbworks.com).

There are two versions of Money Mirror: the freeware one with full basic functionality (which will remain free) and a commercial version with additional user-requested features. They are completely compatible with each other and can read each other's databases.

Money Mirror lets you manage any number of accounts and is meant to give you an idea of how much money (or credit) you actually have available for spending. Money Mirror supports deposits into accounts, transactions among accounts, and payments from accounts.


2. Set up: Establishing Accounts and Depositing

When Money Mirror is run the first time, it displays an initial greeting and then it automatically configures itself for 3 default accounts called Savings Account, Checking Account and Cash Account. These may be deleted or modified by entering the account preferences screen. The Account Preferences screen is accessed by clicking the (i) button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
 
 
Message displayed when Money Mirror is started for the first time.  Money Mirror creates a "settings" database, which keeps tracks of your account names and current balances.
The startup screen after first startup with the default accounts displayed.  Click on the (i) in the upper-right corner of the screen to Create, Delete and Rename accounts.

The startup screen can be customized to quickly display current information about your accounts:
 
Money Mirror displays 3 accounts on the main screen at a time, but has support for an infinite number of accounts.  To change which account is displayed on the main screen, simply click on the slot you wish to change.  A drop-down list of all the Money Mirror account databases appears;  selecting one will make it active

 
 
    Steps for creating a new account:
  1. Click the (i) to enter the Account Preferences screen.
  2. Click New.
  3. Enter a nickname for the account (a descriptive title)
  4. Enter a Database Name for the account (a short name)
  5. Click Save. (This saves the changes you have just made.)

    6. Click Done.

 
 
 
 
Steps for changing an existing account's nickname:
  1. Click the (i) to enter the Account Preferences screen.
  2. Use the Next and Previous buttons to locate the account to change.
  3. Change the nickname for the account.
  4. Click Save.

    5. Click Done.
(NOTE: If you change the accounts database name, you will not be able to access that account's data any more! It is okay to change the nickname though.)
 
 
Deposit Screen after account is deposited into for the first time.  When you deposit funds into an account that didn't have any entries in it before, Money Mirror will create the database.

To set the Default Account for deposits, click the [<-] button. Next time you return to the Deposit screen, the account you set will be the default.

After creating a new account, money should be deposited into it. To do this, simply tap the [Deposit] button from the main screen and select it from the drop down box. A good name for this deposit is "Starting Balance."
 


3. Transfers

Depositing gets money into your account system.  Once money has been deposited, Money Mirror allows you to transact money between accounts or to make Payments.
 
In this example, our hypothetical user is en route to Miami to hear a steel pan band, and is transferring $100 from the Checking account to the Cash account (probably withdrawing from an ATM).

Again, just as on the Deposit screen, you can set default accounts by clicking the [<-] buttons next to each account.


 


4. Browsing Transactions

The browsing screen allows you to view and manipulate the data in your accounts.  To get to it from the main screen use the Drop Down box next to the Browse/Report buttons to select an account, then click Browse.
 
 
This is the Browse screen.  It automatically views the last 6 transactions of the selected account.  On the bottom of the screen, the text "Viewing X to Y" lets you know which Transaction Numbers you are viewing.  

The Jump button allows you to move to any transaction in your account.  
The Sort button will sort the entire account by transaction date.
The Purge button will delete all transactions in your account and create a new transaction with your current balance (see below).

Sorting
 
 
Sorting an account is easy.  Simply browse the account and click the Sort button.  Currently, Money Mirror only sorts by date.   Future versions will be able to sort by any field, including a new field called Category which will be implemented.

Purging
 
Purging an account periodically (every few months) helps keep Money Mirror executing quickly because Money Mirror always calculates fresh balances from your current account data.  With several months of data (depending on how many transactions you do per month), Money Mirror may begin to respond to some commands slowly.

Editing

Switch to Edit mode by click the little bracketed text in the lower left of your screen [del].  Clicking this will change it to [edit].   Then, clicking on a transaction will allow you to Edit it.  This saves you a LOT of time -- rather than having to delete a transaction and re-enter it, you can simply edit it.  Note that to make it as quick as possible, the new edited record is placed at the end of your list of transactions.  This is because inserting a record into the middle of the database would require shifting all the other records (and replacing the existing record where it is is not a good idea in case you enter a longer description of amount -- that would overwrite the next entry in the database!)  Whenever you have time available, click the Sort button to sort the transactions in your account by date again.
 
 
 
Switch to Edit mode by clicking the little bracketed text in the lower left of your screen, which is by default [del].  Clicking this will change it to [edit].   Then, clicking on a transaction will bring up each field of the transaction and you will be able to Edit it. 

 


Future Features for Money Mirror and Money Mirror Deluxe

Here is a list of some of the features that will be implemented in Money Mirror and Money Mirror deluxe in the near future.
 
Future Feature Money Mirror (freeware) Money Mirror Deluxe
Display number pad? (no = faster loading of transaction & deposit screens) yes yes
Default is [edit] or [del]?  no yes
A category field with a configurable drop-down list for selecting category. no yes
Expand the Sort feature (forwards and backwards, sort by date and category) no yes

Others:  Date buttons to support DD-MM-YY as well as MM-DD-YY.