Spb Finance Help

Spb Finance Application
Accounts View
Register View
Budgets View
Reports View

About...
About Accounts
About Transactions
About Categories
About Classes
About Payees
About Memorized Transactions
About Scheduled Transactions
About Budgets
About Currencies
About Reports
About Password Protection
About Calculator
About Clear Database Feature
About Today Plug-In
About Integration with Spb Pocket Plus
About Backup/Restore
About Import/Export
About Program Options
About Program Menu

Spb Finance Money Edition Specific Topics
What's Special In Spb Finance Money Edition?
Synchronization For the First Time
Synchronization Options
Password protected Money file

Spb Finance Quick Edition Specific Topics
What's Special In Spb Finance Quick Edition?

Spb Finance Entry Specific Topics
Using Spb Finance Entry

Account View

The Account view displays the financial state of all your accounts, their names, and balances.

Select Type (top-left menu):
You can choose to view only accounts of one type. To do so, tap this drop-down menu and select a desired type. Select 'All accounts' to view the whole list. If you select 'Hide Closed' the list will not include your hidden accounts.

Sort By (top-right menu):
You can sort the accounts by name, type or account balance in ascending or descending order. To sort the accounts in the list, tap this combo box and select the required type and sort order from the drop-down menu.

For Spb Finance Money Edition: accounts created in your Spb Finance application and yet not synchronized with Money installed on your desktop computer are shown bold.

You can quickly open the Register view for any account in the list. Tap the desired account record to view the list of transactions for this account. This action can also be performed from the context menu. To do so, tap-and-hold on the account and then select View transactions.

To get to the account details dialog, tap-and-hold on the desired account and then select Details... from the context menu. In the details dialog you can change the account name, type, currency and edit a short description.

To delete an account, tap-and-hold on its name and select Delete.

In this dialog:
Current Balance: the current balance of all your accounts.
Ending Balance: the balance of all your accounts after all the recorded transactions take effect.

To create a new account, select New from the main menu or select New Account from the context menu.

To quickly associate a new transaction with an existing account, just select New Transaction from this account context menu.

You can update the account balance if by some reason it is not equal the real amount of money. Just select Update Balance from the account context menu and follow the instructions.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Register View

The Register view displays information on all transactions for a certain account or for all accounts.

Select account (top-left menu):
To view the list of transactions for a certain account, tap this drop-down menu and select an account. Select 'All accounts' to view the list of transactions associated with all accounts. If you select the Hide Closed manu item, you won't be shown the accounts marked as closed.

Sort by (top-right menu):
You can sort the transaction by date, payee, 'cleared' status, money amount or category in ascending or descending order. To sort the transactions in the list, tap this drop-down menu and select the sorting mode and order.

From this very menu you can also choose to show only unreconciled transactions or all transactions at once.

For Spb Finance Money Edition: transactions created in your Spb Finance application and yet not synchronized with Money are shown bold.

You can switch between short and detailed views of the Register view.
In the short view you can see only date, amount and one additional field of each transaction. You can select what additional field of a transaction (Ref, Payee, Category/Class, or Memo) you want to display.
In the detailed view you can see the date, reference number, payee name, amount, category/class, and 'cleared' status of any transaction all at once.
The short mode saves the screen area and allows users to see more transactions on the screen.

• To switch between the short and detail modes, go to Menu -> View and select One Line for the short mode and Two Lines for the detailed mode.
• To specify a transaction field to be displayed in the short mode, go to Menu -> View -> Show Field and select a desired field, which can be one of Ref (reference number), Payee, Category and Memo.

To get the detailed information on any transaction, tap it and you will get to the Edit Transaction dialog. This dialog can also be called by making tap-and-hold on a desired transaction and selecting Edit... from the context menu.

To delete a transaction, tap-and-hold on it and select Delete from the context menu. For Spb Finance Money Edition: you can delete only transactions created within Spb Finance application and not synchronized with Money.

You can configure the Register view to show how the balance of your account is changed by each recorded transaction — the 'Running balance' mode. You can switch this mode on and off by marking the Menu -> View -> Running Balance menu item.

In this view the Ending Balance is a balance of a currently chosen account (or all accounts, if selected) calculated after all recorded transactions take effect.

To quickly copy or move a transaction from one account to another, tap-and-hold on it ans select the desired context menu item.

You can also see the Find Similar By... context menu item. By using this menu item you will be able to list transactions with the same attribute (category, class, payee, amount, date or color) as of the selected one.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Budgets View

The Budgets view displays all your budgets. Budgets allow you to plan your expenses. You may allocate a certain money amount for a certain period of time.

You may specify the time period, for which the information on every budget is shown. To do so, you may either change the From and To dates or select one of the standard time periods (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping the little icon at the top right corner . As you change the time period, all the budget money amounts shown in this view will be re-calculated.

Actual: money already spent (received) during the fixed time period for every budget in this view.

Remain: money yet allowed to be spent (received) during the specified time period. Red negative numbers in the Remain field notify you either about the limit exceeding (for expense categories) or about not yet received money (for income categories).

Balance (the bottom line): the sums of money amounts in both columns.

Budgets marked with an asterisk (*) are associated with categories with subcategories.

To create a new budget, tap New in the menu. The new budget wizard will guide you through the creation process. Hint: you may create more than one budget for each category.

To delete a budget, tap-and-hold on it and select Delete from the context menu.

To edit a budget, tap-and-hold on it and select Edit... from the context menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports View

This view offers you the set of predefined reports that help you to visualize your transactions. Reports may be shown as graph, bar or pie charts as well as tables depending on a particular report. See report descriptions below to learn about different reports:

Reports: Net Worth
Reports: Account Balances
Reports: Profit & Loss
Reports: Spending by Category
Reports: Spending by Class
Reports: Spending by Payee
Reports: Income & Expense
Reports: Transaction Report

The context menu of any report name consists of:

• View...: select to view the corresponding report.
• Customize...: select to configure the report settings, such as accounts, categories, classes, payees this report is applied to and other settings.
• New report: you can use this menu item to create a copy of a desired report. Later you can reconfigure it.
• Rename: select to provide the new name and description for the report (applicable only for user-created reports).
• Delete: select to delete the previously created report copy (you cannot delete the original program reports).

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Category View

This view displays the list of all existing transaction categories and their types. Categories are predefined descriptions of transactions covering practically all possible cases.

The category view can be opened by selecting Menu -> View -> Categories... from the menu of any main tab of the program (Accounts, Register, Budgets, or Reports).

Each category type value can be one of Expense or Income.

Some spacious categories may be split into subcategories, for example an Auto category is split into Fuel, Insurance, Registration and Service subcategories.

To quickly add a subcategory, tap-and-hold on a desired category and select Add Subcategory... from the context menu.

In the list of categories you may find those called Transfer to/from... with a name of one of your accounts. These categories exist for describing money transfer between your accounts.

For Spb Finance Money Edition: categories created in Spb Finance application and not yet synchronized with Money are in bold format and can be edited.

You can narrow down the list of available categories to display by selecting a category type from the Show drop-down menu (top-left corner). You can select one of All, Expense, Income, and Transfers. You may also enable or disable subcategories showing from the same menu (the Include Subcategories menu item).

To create a new category, tap New in the menu. You will get to the category adding dialog.

To edit a category, tap its name in the list. You will get to the category editing dialog.

To delete a category, select Delete from this category context menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Class View

This view displays the list of all existing transaction classes and their descriptions. Classes are an alternative way to classify transactions.

The class view can be opened by selecting Menu -> View -> Classes... from the menu of any main tab of the program (Accounts, Register, Budgets, or Reports).

For Spb Finance Money Edition: classes created in Spb Finance application and not yet synchronized with Money are in bold format and can be edited.

To create a new class, tap New in the menu.

To delete a class, tap-and-hold on it and select Delete from the context menu.

To edit a class, just tap on it. When editing or creating a class you should only provide its name and (optionally) the description. Unlike categories, there are no subclasses for classes.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Currency View

You may create several currencies, in which your money is counted. You may switch between them, update exchange rates and see all your expense and income, as well as generate reports in different currencies.

The currency view can be opened by selecting Menu -> View -> Currencies... from the menu of any main tab of the program (Accounts, Register, Budgets, or Reports).

To add a new currency, tap New in the menu.

To edit the existing currency settings, just tap it in the list.

To delete an existing currency, select Delete from its context menu (open the context menu by making tap-and-hold).

You can select one and only one Home Currency. To do so, tap-and-hold on a currency name and select Make Home Currency from the context menu. The home currency is used for specifying other currency rates and as a default one for creating new accounts.

You may not worry about the evolution of currency rates. As you provide a new currency rate, the previous value is memorized and all transactions that were entered before this change, will be calculated according to the currency history.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Payee View

A payee is the second participant of any transaction. In the payee view you can see the list of all your payees.

The payee view can be opened by selecting Menu -> View -> Payees... from the menu of any main tab of the program (Accounts, Register, Budgets, or Reports).

To add a new payee, tap New in the menu.

To edit an existing payee, just tap it in the list. If you edit the payee name it will automatically be changed in all transactions accosiated with this payee.

To delete an existing payee, select Delete from its context menu (open the context menu by making tap-and-hold).

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Memorized Transaction View

The memorized transaction view represents the list of the last added transactions for each payee. Memorized transactions save time of entering data of a new transaction. If you create a new transaction and provide a certain payee that has already been specified in one of the previous entries, all the data saved in the corresponding memorized transaction entry be provided automatically for this new transaction. Then it's up to you to accept or change the offered details. Even the split information is stored in memorized transactions.

The memorized transaction view can be opened by selecting Menu -> View -> Memorized Transactions... from the menu of any main tab of the program (Accounts, Register, Budgets, or Reports).

For Spb Finance Money Edition: memorized transactions created in Spb Finance application and not yet synchronized with Money are in bold format and can be deleted or edited.

Each memorized transaction in this list contains a payee name, category, and money amount. You cannot add a new memorized transaction to this list because such entries are created automatically when you create a new transaction.

To delete a memorized transaction, tap-and-hold on its name in the list and select Delete from the pop-up menu.

You can edit any memorized transaction for further usage. To do so, tap its name and you will get to the editing dialog.

You can lock memorized transactions. If you lock a memorized transaction, then any time you enter a new transaction and provide a payee name assigned to this locked memorized transaction, all the transaction data fields will be automatically filled with data kept in this very memorized transaction (not those of a previously created transaction with this payee name!). To make it short, a locked memorized transaction is never re-written.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Scheduled Transaction View

This view contains all scheduled transactions. Scheduled transactions are created for continuous self-adding. You may create templates for transactions that will be automatically created in certain periods of time. For example, if you have a constantly repeating transaction (e.g. every week you get salary according to your contract). So, instead of adding such a transaction every week, you just create a new scheduled transaction, where you provide all the standard transaction data, such as account, payee, and payment, etc and then specify the behavior of this transaction, that is, set it to create a new income transaction every week.

The scheduled transaction view can be opened by selecting Menu -> View -> Scheduled Transactions... from the menu of any main tab of the program (Accounts, Register, Budgets, or Reports).

To edit a transaction in this list, tap its name.

To create and configure a new scheduled transaction, tap New in the menu.

When you see a red-colored scheduled transaction, that means that there exists at least one generated transaction not yet entered into the registry view. Tap-and-hold on such a red scheduled transaction and select one of the following actions:

• Enter All: all the suspended generated transactions will be entered into the register view.
• Enter Next: the next generated transaction after the previously entered one will be entered.
• Skip Next: the next generated transaction after the previously entered one will be skipped.

To delete a scheduled transaction tap-and-hold on it and select Delete from the context menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

History Rate View

In this dialog you can see the evolution of the rate for the selected currency.

Select New from the menu to provide a new currency rate

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Transaction Dialog

This dialog contains all information about a chosen transaction. For Spb Finance Money Edition: this information is read-only for transactions synchronized with Money and available for editing only for those created in Spb Finance and not yet synchronized with Money.

General details:

• Account: an account this transaction belongs to. You can select any existing account from the drop-down list.
• Clr: this field marks the "unreconciled", "reconciled" and "cleared" transactions.
  • Unreconciled (empty): the transaction has not cleared the bank, or been reconciled,
  • Cleared (c): money have been debited from or credited to your bank account, but you have not completed reconciling your account for this time period. When you balance your account, you mark transactions as Cleared as you match them to your bank statement. When you finish reconciling, all Cleared items are marked as Reconciled.
  • Reconciled (R): the transaction in your Spb Finance account matches one on your bank statement, and your account has been balanced.
• Ref: usually this field contains the check number, otherwise it can contain any other information you like. You can select one of the predefined values of the Ref field from the drop-down menu.
  • <blank>: provide a custom value.
  • ATM, Debit, Print: just the reserved words (valuable for Microsoft Money).
  • Next check: this parameter is like a transaction counter for an account. When you add a new transaction and set the Ref value as Next check, then this number increases by one.
• Date: the date when this transaction took place or is going to take place in future.
• Payee: the second participant of the transaction. You either pay money to or receive it from the payee. Payee can stand for a bank that transfers pension to your grandmother, a restaurant that receives money for your lunch, or an exchange office, etc.
• Type (Payment, Deposit): this parameter can take one of two values: Payment for your expenses or Deposit for your receipts.
• Amount: amount of the payment. Note: this can also be a negative number.
• Currency: provide the currency of the payment.
• Category: the category of the transaction, which can be selected from the drop-down list. Otherwise, tap New to create a new category, that will be added to the list. If you split a transaction then you see '-split-' instead of a category name.
• Class: the class this transaction belongs to. Classes are an alternative way to classify transactions. Select a previously created class or add a new one by tapping New.

Memo details:

• Memo: you can enter any additional information about a transaction in this field, e.g. My first car.
• Original amount: let's say, the account of the currently edited transaction is maintained in currency X. And you want to enter this transaction in currency Y. You may specify the money amount paid or received in currency Y and mention this currency in the General tab. Afterwards, the money amount will be recalculated automatically according to the currency rates and the currency in the General tab will be substituted with the default account currency. However, this field in the Memo tab will keep information about the original payment (money amount and currency).
• Highlight color: the color you select here will be the color of this transaction background in the list.

• Schedule this transaction: select this check box if you want this transaction to repeat every specified period of time. If you select this check box, then you should also customize the following parameters:
• Occurs: specify the period of time between two generated transactions. This can be either a predefined value (e.g. every Thursday) or you can select Edit pattern... to set more accurate data. Read more about Scheduled Patterns
• Enter automatically: if you select this check box, the subsequently generated transactions will be added without prompting you.
• Remind me: if you select this check box, then any time a new generated transaction appears, you will receive a notification and will be able to admit or dismiss it.

Split details:
You can split the transaction payment into several logical parts. For example, you are editing a transaction that describes buying a car. You may want to provide more detailed information about where your money went. You may specify such details as car price, insurance, registration and fueling payments. Thus you can split a big transaction into several small ones. To split a transaction, select Split from the main menu.

• Split fields: here you can see the split fields of your transaction. Enter as many split fields as you want. For each one you may provide the field category and/or subcategory (in our example this can be Auto:Insurance and the part of the payment for this category. You can scroll the list of split fields by tapping the scroll arrows. To add a new split field, just tap on a free row.
• Category/Description/Class/Amount Fill in these fields by tapping them and providing the corresponding data.
• Split Total: the current sum of split fields payments.
• Remainder: unaccounted part of the total amount. Actually, this is the difference between the Split Total and the Transaction Total, which can be a negative number.
• Transaction Total: the value you provided as the transaction payment amount.
• Adjust: tap this menu item to adjust the amount of payment.
  • Subtract from first: the reminder will be subtracted from the very first split.
  • Distribute: the reminder will be subtracted from all existing splits (equal amount from each).
  • Update sum the total payment will be increased by the remainder.
  In any of these cases the total payment becomes equal to the sum of all split field payments and the remainder becomes equal to 0.
• Cancel: tap this menu item to stop splitting and quit the dialog.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Memorized Transaction Dialog

Editing memorized transactions is similar to editing simple transactions. You should provide data for Payee, Payment, Currency, Category, Class, Split and Memo fields.

For Spb Finance Money Edition: memorized transactions synchronized from Money cannot be edited in Spb Finance.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Account Details Dialog

The Account Details dialog displays additional information on a selected account. To open this dialog, go to the Accounts view of the main window and tap-and-hold on a desired account. Then select Details... from the pop-up menu.

General details:

• Name: the name or alias of your account.
• Description: short description of your account (e.g. My grandmother's pension fund).
• Type: your account type (e.g. Bank, Cash, Credit Card etc).
• Currency: the currency assigned to this account. You can quickly create a new currency. by tapping New.
• Account is closed: if you do not plan to use the account any more, you can mark it as closed. You can also choose to show or hide the closed account in the Accounts view.

• Transactions: the number of transactions recorded for this account.
• Current Balance: the current balance of your account (future transactions are not taken into account).
• Ending Balance: the balance of this account calculated after all recorded transactions take place.
• Last check #: the check number of the last transaction entered for this account (if you specified the value of the Ref field for that transaction as the Next check).
• Opening Balance: the initial money amount this account had been started with.
• Opening Balance (Money Edition only): this is the balance of all transactions previously synchronized with desktop Money and not existing in Spb Finance application any more.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Budget Dialog

The Edit Budget dialog allows you to view and customize your existing budgets.

For Spb Finance Money Edition: budgets obtained after synchronization with Money cannot be edited in Spb Finance.

• Set budget limits for: here you may specify the budget duration, which is the time unit the budget is planned for. This can be a repeating period of time (Every Month, Every Quarter), the current period of time (Current Month, Current Quarter, Current Year), or a set of equal time intervals (Months, Quarters).
• Amount: After you specified the time interval (intervals) you should provide the amount of money you plan (or allow yourself) to spend for this period of time. The amount of money you specified will be re-calculated if you select another time period.
• If you specified a set of equal time intervals (e.g. Quarters), you can provide different money amount for every single time interval.

Example: you intend to plan your expenses for a Dining category. You would like to spend no more than $400 a month in restaurants.

1. Go to the Budgets tab.
2. Tap New to create a new budget.
Select Dining as the observed category for the new budget. Tap Next.
3. In the next dialog select Every Month as the budget period of time.
4. Enter 400 in the Amount field. Tap Finish.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Account Dialog

The New Account Setup dialog is activated when you tap New in the Accounts view. At the first step you will be proposed to specify the account type. Select one of Cash, Bank, Credit Card, Asset, or Liability. Tap Next.

In the next dialog specify the name of the account (e.g. My cash euros). Provide a short description (optional). Tap Next.

In the next dialog specify the currency assigned to this account. You may select one of the existing currencies or create a new one by tapping New. Tap Next to proceed.

In the next dialog specify the initial amount of money (the opening balance) being on the account on the corresponding date (provide this date below). By default the current date is set as the date of account opening. Tap Finish.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Transaction Dialog

This dialog contains all information about a chosen transaction. To open this dialog, open the Register view and select New from the menu. Now you can provide the following transaction details:

General details:

• Account: an account this transaction belongs to. You can select any existing account from the drop-down list.
• Clr: this field marks the "unreconciled", "reconciled" and "cleared" transactions.
  • Unreconciled (empty): the transaction has not cleared the bank, or been reconciled,
  • Cleared (c): money that has been debited from or credited to your bank account, but you have not completed reconciling your account for this time period. When you balance your account, you mark transactions as Cleared as you match them to your bank statement. When you finish reconciling, all Cleared items are marked as Reconciled.
  • Reconciled (R): the transaction in your Spb Finance account matches one on your bank statement, and your account has been balanced.
• Ref: usually this field contains the check number, otherwise it can contain any other information you like. You can select one of the predefined values of the Ref field from the drop-down menu.
  • <blank>: provide a custom value.
  • ATM, Debit, Print: just the reserved words (valuable for Microsoft Money).
  • Next check: this parameter is like a transaction counter for an account. When you add a new transaction and set the Ref value as Next check, then this number increases by one.
• Date: the date when this transaction took place or is going to take place.
• Payee: the second participant of the transaction. You either pay money to or receive it from the payee. Payee can stand for a bank that transfers pension to your grandmother, a restaurant that receives money for your lunch, or an exchange office, etc.
• Type (Payment, Deposit): this parameter can take one of two values: Payment for your expenses or Deposit for your receipts.
• Amount: the amount of payment. Note: this can also be a negative number.
• Currency: provide the currency of the payment.
• Category: the category of the transaction, which can be selected from the drop-down list. Otherwise, tap New to create a new category, that will be added to the list. If you split a transaction then you see '-split-' instead of a category name.
• Class: the class this transaction belongs to. Classes are an alternative way to classify transactions. Select a previously created class or add a new one by tapping New.

Memo details:

• Memo: you can enter any additional information about a transaction in this field, e.g. My first car.
• Original amount: let's say, the account of the currently edited transaction is maintained in currency X. And you want to set this transaction in currency Y. You may specify the money amount paid or received in currency Y and mention this currency in the General tab. Afterwards, the money amount will be recalculated automatically according to the currency rates and the currency in the General tab will be substituted with the default account currency. However, this field in the Memo tab will keep information about the original payment (money amount and currency).
• Highlight color: the color you select here will be the color of this transaction background in the list.

• Schedule this transaction: select this check box if you want this transaction to repeat every specified period of time. If you select this check box, then you should also customize the following parameters:
• Occurs: specify the period of time between two generated transactions. This can be either a predefined value (e.g. every Thursday) or you can select Edit pattern... to set more accurate data. Scheduled Patterns
• Enter automatically: if you select this check box, the subsequently generated transactions will be added without prompting you.
• Remind me: if you select this check box, then any time a new generated transaction appears, you will receive a notification and will be able to admit or dismiss it.

Split details:
You can split the transaction payment into several logical parts. For example, you are editing a transaction that describes buying a car. You may want to provide more detailed information about where your money went. You may specify such details as the car price, insurance, registration and fueling prices. Thus you can split a big transaction into several small ones. To split a transaction, select Split from the main menu.

• Split fields: here you can see the split fields of your transaction. Enter as many split fields as you want. For each one you may provide the field category and/or subcategory (in our example this can be Auto: Insurance and the part of the payment for this category. You can scroll the list of split fields by tapping the corresponding scroll arrows. To add a new split field, just tap on a free row.
• Category/Description/Class/Amount: fill in these fields by tapping them and providing the corresponding data.
• Split Total: the current sum of split fields payments.
• Remainder: unaccounted part of the total amount. Actually, this is the difference between the Split Total and the Transaction Total, which can be a negative number.
• Transaction Total: the value you provided as the transaction payment amount.
• Adjust: tap this menu item to adjust the amount of payment.
  • Subtract from first: the reminder will be subtracted from the very first split.
  • Distribute: the reminder will be subtracted from all existing splits (equal amount from each).
  • Update sum the total payment will be increased by the remainder.
  In any of these cases the total payment becomes equal to the sum of all split field payments and the remainder becomes equal to 0.
• Cancel: tap this menu item to stop splitting and quit the dialog.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Budget Dialog

The New Budget dialog allows you to create and configure a new budget for better management of your finances. This dialog can be opened from the Budgets tab by selecting New from the menu.

In this dialog:

• Select an existing category to to be observed by the new budget. To quickly create a new category, tap New.
• If you want the subcategories of the selected category to be taken into account by the budget, mark the corresponding check box.
• Tap Next

At the next step you can provide the following details:

• Set budget limits for: here you may specify the budget duration, which is the time unit the budget is planned for. This can be a repeating period of time (Every Month, Every Quarter), the current period of time (Current Month, Current Quarter, Current Year), or a set of equal time intervals (Months, Quarters).
• Amount: After you specified the time interval (intervals) you should provide the amount of money you plan (or allow yourself) to spend for this period of time. The amount of money you specified will be re-calculated if you select another time period.
• If you specified a set of equal time intervals (e.g. Quarters), you can provide different money amount for every single time interval.
• Tap Finish

For Spb Finance Money Edition: budgets created in Spb Finance are not transferred to Money during synchronization.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Category Dialog

In this dialog you can provide the following category details:

• Name: the name of the category, e.g. Clothes, Food, Taxi, etc.
• Description: you may optionally provide extra information about a category.
• Income or Expense: provide the type of the category.
• Subcategory of: if selected, then the category you create will be a part of some other one. Subcategories are created for providing more detailed information about your transactions. For example, you may create several subcategories of the auto category and call them fuel, parking, repairs, etc. The subcategory is always of the same type as the parent category (Income or Expense).

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Category Dialog

In this dialog you can provide or change the following category details:

• Name: the name of the category, e.g. Clothes, Food, Taxi, etc.
• Description: you may optionally provide extra information about a category.
• Income or Expense: provide the type of the category.
• Subcategory of: if selected, then the category you create will be a part of some other one. Subcategories are created for providing more detailed information about your transactions. For example, you may create several subcategories of the auto category and call them fuel, parking, repairs, etc. The subcategory is always of the same type as the parent category (Income or Expense).

For Spb Finance Money Edition: you can edit only categories that have been created in Spb Finance application and not synchronized with Money. Once they are synchronized you can edit or delete them only in Money.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Class Dialog

In this dialog you can provide the following class details:

• Name: the name of the class, 'My first trip to France'
• Description: you may optionally provide extra information about a class.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Class Dialog

In this dialog you can provide or change the following class details:

• Name: the name of the class, 'My first trip to France'
• Description: you may optionally provide extra information about a class.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Payee Dialog

In this dialog you can provide the new payee name.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Currency Dialog

In this dialog you can provide the following currency details:

• Currency Name: the name of the new currency. You may select a real currency from the list or create your own.
• Currency symbol: specify the symbol or a symbol combination to indicate the currency. If you selected an existing world currency from the list above in this field its real abbreviation will appear, you can change it though.
• Now you can specify the rate. You are proposed to set the rate of this new currency to the default one, which is called Home currency. You can enter the rate in any field (e.g. AFA per $ or $ per AFA), the second field will be recalculated automatically.
• Rate History: tap this button if you want to view the history of this currency rate to the home currency.
• Tap ok to finish. If you want to set this (or any other) currency as a home one, tap-and-hold on a currency name in the currency view and select Make Home Currency from the pop-up menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Currency Dialog

In this dialog you can provide or change the following currency details:

• Currency Name: the name of the new currency. You may select a real currency from the list or create your own.
• Currency symbol: specify the symbol or a symbol combination to indicate the currency. If you selected an existing world currency from the list above in this field its real abbreviation will appear, you can change it though.
• If the edited currency is not the Home one, you can specify the rate. You are proposed to set the rate of this new currency to the home one. You can enter the rate in any field (e.g. AFA per $ or $ per AFA), the second field will be recalculated automatically.
• Rate History: tap this button if you want to view the history of this currency rate to the home currency.
• Tap ok to finish. If you want to set this (or any other) currency as a home one, tap-and-hold on a currency name in the currency view and select Make Home Currency from the pop-up menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

New Rate Dialog

In this dialog you can provide the new rate for the selected currency. You can specify either the direct or that reverse currency rate. You should also provide the date of the new rate changing.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Update Balance Dialog

Sometimes the real money amount does not match the one mentioned in your Spb Finance application. You might have forgot to add a transaction, or there was any other reason that caused this dismatch. Spb Finance proposes to make a separate transaction just to update such a balance. This transaction will cover the difference between the real money amount and the one mentioned in Spb Finance. In this dialog you can provide the following detailes of the balance updating transaction:

• Account: specify the account you intend to update.
• As of date: provide the date of the update.
• New balance: provide the real money amount left on this account.
• Category: select a category similarly to adding an ordinary transaction.
• Class: select a class similarly to adding an ordinary transaction.
• Reconcile all transactions: if you select this check box, then all the existing transactions for this account will be marked as reconciled.
• Highlight color: provide the color that will be the background for this balance updating transaction.
• Difference: this field shows the difference between the previous account balance and the new one.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

About Accounts

Accounts in Spb Finance correspond to your real existing money accounts in your daily life. These can be bank accounts, credit card accounts, assets, or just your cash money. Accounts may be maintained in different currencies. Every transaction is assigned to a certain account.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Accounts View
About Transactions

About Transactions

A transaction is any operation with any of your account that implies money transfer. Buying a car, paying bills, drawing salary, foreign currency exchange — these are examples of transactions. The whole set of transactions for one single account is called the register.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Register View
About Accounts
About Categories

About Categories

Your transactions can be divided by different categories. This essentially improves your transactions handling. "Food", "Auto", "Gas", "Salary" - these are good examples of transaction categories. Categories may have subcategories.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Category View
About Transactions
About Classes

About Classes

Classes are an alternative way to classify transactions. They do not correlate with categories, but allow you to combine different transactions by other reasons that categories. Class samples: "My first trip to France", "Jessica's transactions", "John's transactions", etc. Unlike categories there are no subclasses for classes.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Class View
About Categories
About Payees

About Payees

A payee is the second participant of any transaction. You either pay money to or receive it from the payee. Payee can stand for a bank that transfers pension to your grandmother, a restaurant that receives money for your lunch, or an exchange office, etc.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Payee View
About Classes
About Memorized Transactions

About Password Protection

Spb Finance allows you to protect your financial data with a password. Data protection in Spb Finance is based on encryption by the powerful AES algorithm (Rijndael). If you wish you may protect your data so that the password will be asked any time you attempt to open the program. to enable password-protection, go to Menu -> Password and follow the instructions.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
About Reports
About Calculator

About Memorized Transactions

Memorized transactions save time of entering data of a new transaction. If you create a new transaction and provide a certain payee that has already been specified in one of the previous entries, all the data saved in the corresponding memorized transaction entry be provided automatically for this new transaction. Then it's up to you to accept or change the offered details. Even the split information is stored in memorized transactions.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Memorized Transaction View
About Payees
About Scheduled Transactions

About Scheduled Transactions

Scheduled transactions are created for continuous self-adding. You may create templates for transactions that will be automatically created in certain periods of time. For example, if you have a constantly repeating transaction (e.g. every week you get salary according to your contract). So, instead of adding such a transaction every week manually, you just create a new scheduled transaction, where you provide all the standard transaction data, such as account, payee, and payment, etc. and then specify the schedule behavior of this transaction, that is, set it to generate a new income transaction every week.

Spb Finance provides you with a very useful notifying feature. When a new transaction is generated you get a notifying message.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Scheduled Transactions View
About Memorized Transactions
About Budgets

About Budgets

Budgets allow you to plan your expenses. You may allocate a certain money amount for a certain period of time and try not to exceed this amount.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Budgets View
About Scheduled Transactions
About Currencies

About Reports

Spb Finance provides you with a powerful report section. You can build different charts and tables. You may watch your net worth evolution by months, compare your profit and loss, income and expense, build pie charts that visualize your spending by category, class, and payee, etc. You can also build custom reports.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Reports View
About Budgets
About Password Protection

About Calculator

Spb Finance allows you to call the standard Pocket PC calculator. To run the calculator, select Menu -> Tools -> Calculator from the main menu.

Quitting the calculator is not very simple if you have an old Pocket PC. If you don't see the Smart Minimize button in the corner of the screen you may open the keypad and tap Ctrl+Q.

Opening the calculator is especially useful because you can copy the number into clipboard and then paste it in the program.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
About Reports
About Clear Database Feature

About Clear Database Feature

Standard Edition only!

If you wish to clear the database select Menu -> Tools -> Clear Database from the main menu. In this case all data history along with all accounts, transactions, and currencies, etc., will be cleared.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
About Calculator
About Today Plug-In

About Today Plug-In

Spb Finance provides you with a nice Today plug-in. The plug-in has tabs and can display your accounts, scheduled transactions, and budgets. It's up to you what particular items will be present on your Today screen. The plug-in allows you to get fast access to Spb Finance application. For example, if you have a certain account on your Today screen, tapping on it will open the register view for that account.

Spb Finance Today plug-in is compatible with Spb Pocket Plus and can be represented in a form of a separate tab, which allows you to save the screen real estate.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Today Options
About Clear Database Feature
About Integration with Spb Pocket Plus

About Integration with Spb Pocket Plus

Spb Finance can be integrated into Spb Pocket Plus. Spb Pocket Plus is the most powerful Today plug-in with tabs, one of the most popular Pocket PC applications. If you have Pocket Plus installed on your Pocket PC you can configure Spb Finance to appear in form of a separate tab of the Pocket Plus Today plug-in, which will provide best screen configuration.

To add Spb Finance into Spb Pocket Plus Today plug-in:

• Open Spb Pocket Plus options by tapping on


• Select the Today Plug-In feature and tap on the Feature Options button.
• You will see the list of Pocket Plus Today plug-in tab names. Tap on Add and select Spb Finance from the item list.

The integration is available for Spb Pocket Plus version 2.5 and higher.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Today Options
About Today Plug-In
About Backup/Restore

About Backup/Restore

Spb Finance allows you to backup your data and restore it when needed.

If you want to backup your finance data, select Menu -> Tools -> Backup... from the main menu. Provide a name and destination of the backup file. All your data entries will be exported in a .fbak file. Later on you can restore such a file to Spb Finance.

As you backup your finance data, all accounts, transactions, memorized transactions, scheduled transactions, categories (and subcategories), classes, budgets, currencies, currency rates, and report settings will be saved in this file.

If, accidentally, you lost your Spb Finance data, you may restore it from one of the previously saved backup files. To do so, select Tools -> Restore... from the main menu. You will be proposed to search through memory for an .fbak file (files). Specify a folder to look for files in. When you have the list of .fbak files you may sort them by Name, Folder, Date, Size, Type, and Location. Select a file you want to restore (probably, the most recent one) and tap its name to restore data.

What's the difference between export and backup? Normally, backup is used for safety reasons. When one worries about keeping his data safe even after a crash, he creates a backup copy. As to data export, this feature is used to provide integration between Spb Finance and other financial managers such as Quicken, MS Money, and other. The .fbak format, which is used for creating backup copies of Spb Finance data, is richer than .QIF file format, because it also provides currency, budget, and report settings support.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
About Integration with Spb Pocket Plus
About Import/Export

About Import/Export

There is a special .QIF file format that allows you to save a lot of different information on transactions, accounts, memorized transactions, categories and classes in a file. Later on such files can be imported to or exported from the Spb Finance application. Currencies are not kept in files of such format.

Import from a QIF file:
If you want to import a QIF file to your Spb Finance, select: Menu -> Tools -> Import -> QIF... You will be proposed to search through the memory for a .QIF file (files). Specify a folder to look for files in. When you have the list of .QIF files you may sort them by Name, Folder, Date, Size, Type, and Location. Select a file you want to import and tap its name.

Import from a Money for Pocket PC file:
If you want to import financial data from Microsoft Money for Pocket PC to your Spb Finance, select in the main menu: Menu -> Tools -> Import -> Money for PPC. Spb Finance will search for financial data created by Microsoft Money for Pocket PC application (if only it exists on your device). Then Spb Finance will import this data.

As you import a file:

• Transactions: all transactions from the imported file will be added to the list of transactions.
• Categories: all categories from the imported file that were not found in the application will be added.
• Classes: all classes from the imported file that were not found in the application will be added.
• Memorized transaction: all memorized transactions from the imported file that were not found in the application will be added.
• Accounts: all accounts from the imported file that were not found in the application will be added.

If you want to export a file with all data entries described above, select from the main menu: Menu -> Tools -> Export -> desired file format. Provide the file name and destination. All your financial data entries will be exported into this file. Later on you can import such a file to Spb Finance or other financial managers such as Quicken, MS Money, and some more.

What's the difference between export and backup? Normally, backup is used for safety reasons. When one worries about keeping his data safe even after a crash, he creates a backup copy. As to data export, this feature is used to provide integration between Spb Finance and other financial managers such as Quicken, MS Money, and other. .fbak format used for creating backup copies of Spb Finance data is richer than .QIF file format, because it also provides currency and budget support.

Spb Finance Money Edition provides synchronization for much more convenient cooperation with Money. It doesn't require creating and transferring .QIF files, it is performed automatically. Nevertheless you may find the import/export procedure useful for other purposes, such as using .QIF files in other applications, saving your data, etc.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
About Backup/Restore
About Program Options

About Program Options

Follow the links below to get to the help topics for all program option dialogs.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
General Options
Today Options
Font Options

About Import/Export
About Program Menu

About Program Menu

Spb Finance 2.0 proposes you two different menu styles. The new menu style implemented specially for Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC devices suggests two menus for any command bar. Alternatively, you may switch to the old menu style, which was implemented for the 1.x versions of Spb Finance. This help material describes the new menu mode. However, if you prefer the old menu, you will easily find all habitual menu commands without any additional explanation.

To change the menu look, go to the Customize tab of the options dialog.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
About Program Options

About Currencies

Any account is maintained in a specific currency. You can create a lot of foreign currencies. One currency is always assigned the main one and is called Home Currency. All the other currency rates are dependant on the Home Currency. Currencies are always automatically recalculated in accordance with the currency rates (for example for chart building). Spb Finance also memorizes the currency rate history.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Currency View
About Budgets
About Reports

Copying Or Moving a Transaction To Another Account

Select an account, where the transaction will be copied or moved.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

About Scheduled Transaction Reminding

When it happens that a scheduled transaction is generated, you may receive a corresponding notification. It is customized while setting the scheduled transaction behavior if it requires reminding. If yes, then you will see a reminding note, from which you can either dismiss it or open the scheduled transaction view of Spb Finance and enter or skip the newly generated transactions.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Using Spb Finance Entry

The main idea of Spb Finance Entry is to provide you with a small fast tool for entering your financial data on the go. It's no secret that Spb Finance is a powerful feature-rich application that provides you with a full set of commands and operations with your finances and satisfying all your needs. But sometimes you do not need all power of this application with its reports and budgets, etc. For example, when you get out from a cafe or a shop or a gas station all you need is to enter a new typical transaction. In most cases you would prefer this to be a two-three tap process.

Spb Finance Entry is just what you need for these purposes. This application does not even require stylus. It opens instantly and is ready for data input. A new transaction can be entered by two-three fingertips. Moreover, you can map this program to any hardware button to open it by one button press.

Spb Finance Entry will not cancel using the main program — Spb Finance. But it will perfectly replace it when necessary.

Now as to using this tool. It is supposed that you will not enter any new data, such as new accounts, categories, classes, or payees. This tool works only with existing titles. That means that if you only start using Spb Finance and have very few created items you would better work with Spb Finance and use Spb Finance Entry only for the most frequent transactions that don't require entering new accounts, payees, etc. The more established data you provide, the more often you will use Spb Finance Entry and the easier will be new transaction entering.

When the program is launched you are shown the only program dialog (excluding option dialogs). As said above, you can use your fingers to enter data in this dialog.

The dialog has 6 transaction details to customize.

• Payee
• Amount
• Category
• Class
• Account
• Date

Payee field: here you can select one of your existing payees. Only payees with non-empty list of transactions will be shown here, because all data is taken from memorized transaction. You can select a payee from the list using the SmartPhone-like button panel, i. e. by entering the first characters of the desired payee. For example, if you want to find the 'Garage' payee, you should tap the [4ghi] button. You will see the list of all entries starting with '4', 'g', 'h', and 'i'. If the list is still big enough, tap the [2abc] button (because the second character of 'Garage' is 'a'). The list will narrow down to all titles starting with different combinations of the first character from '4', 'g', 'h', 'i' and the second character from '1', 'a', 'b', 'c'. To delete the last character, tap on . You can keep narrowing this list down until you find the desired title. Tap on it to select. When you have a payee selected, all other fields will be filled with data taken from the memorized transaction that corresponds to the selected payee.

IMPORTANT: the payee choosing window is always open when you launch Spb Finance Entry! After some experience in using Spb Finance Entry you will get accustomed and understand that this feature is very handy because the first thing you will usually do first is selecting a payee.

Amount field: here you are supposed to provide the transaction money amount. Tap the number buttons and do not forget to mention whether this is a payment (red "P button active, red numbers) or a deposit (black "D" button active, black numbers). The payment/deposit attribute is changed by tapping on the P/D button. For your convenience the calculator is included for making simple calculations before entering the final money amount. When you tap the "=" button the calculator automatically closes (although this behavior can be changed in program options).

Account field: the existing account is selected using the SmartPhone-like alphabet panel quite as in the payee data field.

Category field: the existing account is selected using the SmartPhone-like alphabet panel quite as in the payee data field. All categories and subcategories are all listed here, and every subcategory has the name of its nearest parent category.

Class field: the existing class is selected using the SmartPhone-like alphabet panel quite as in the payee data field.

Date field: when you tap the date field, you will be shown a little calendar where you can select the date of the transaction. By default the current date is selected.

When you are finished with all transaction details, tap on the Submit button to finish the process of transaction adding. After that the program closes automatically (although this behavior can be changed in program options).

To go to the program options, tap on .

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Spb Finance Entry Options. Skins.

Here's the list of all Spb Finance Entry skins on your device. Select a desired skin and tap ok to finish.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Spb Finance Entry Options. General.

Close Spb Finance Entry after transaction entering: provide the desired behavior of the program. If this check box is selected, then Spb Finance Entry will be closed right after you finish entering the transaction by tapping on Submit

Close calc when equals button pressed: provide the desired behavior of the built-in program calculator. If this check box is selected then the calculator will closed right after you press the "=" button.

Save password: if you don't want to enter the password for your Spb Finance data file every time you enter Spb Finance Entry you can mark this check box.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Net Worth

Net Worth reports show the evolution of your net worth, i.e. the total balance of all your accounts allotted by months. These reports are represented with line charts , bar charts or tables . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the time interval, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping the little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a chart representing the evolution of your overall balance (balances).

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Report Rename Dialog

Please provide a name and description for your custom report. You can rename only reports created by yourself.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Customizing Report Categories

Here is the list of all existing categories with subcategories. For your convenience, the type of each category (Income, Expense, Transfer) are also mentioned. Check those, for which you would like to build the chart.

To check all categories, select Check -> Check All in the menu. To uncheck all categories, select Check -> Uncheck All in the menu.

You may also wish to temporary disable splitting into subcategories and build a chart for the whole category (e.g. you may wish to find out how much money you spent for your car not mentioning such details as payment for car insurance, gas, repairs, etc). To do so, uncheck the Use subcategories check box. All the subcategories data will be summarized.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Customizing Report Classes

Here is the list of all existing transaction classes. Check those, for which you would like to build the chart.

To check all classes, select Check All from the Check menu. To uncheck all classes, select Uncheck All from the same menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Customizing Report Details

Here you can configure some additional report details.

Name (for custom reports only): provide a custom name for the report you created.

Description (for custom reports only): provide a custom description for the report you created.

Currency: provide the currency your reports are built in. The home currency is used by default. When home currency is changed the reports that had used the home currency change their currency as well.

Include scheduled transactions: If you keep this check box selected then all the scheduled transactions that happened or will happen during the report period will be included to the report.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

What's Special In Spb Finance Quick Edition?

Quicken installed on your desktop computer becomes the main financial application, while Spb Finance installed on your Pocket PC becomes an auxiliary application, though keeping all the functionality of a reliable financial application.

You can create new accounts, categories, classes, memorized transactions both in Quicken and Spb Finance, but since these entries are synchronized, you are able to edit them ONLY in Quicken. For your convenience, unsynchronized entries are shown in bold in Spb Finance.

Budgets created in Quicken are transferred to Spb Finance and synchronized, while those created in Spb Finance are NOT.

You may create and edit transactions on your Pocket PC until they are synchronized with Quicken. After that, if you wish, say, delete a transaction, then you can do it only from Quicken with subsequent synchronization. For your convenience, unsynchronized transactions are shown in bold.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

What's Special In Spb Finance Money Edition?

Money installed on your desktop computer becomes the main financial application, while Spb Finance installed on your Pocket PC becomes an auxiliary application, though keeping all the functionality of a reliable financial application.

You can create new accounts, categories, classes, payees, currencies both in Money and Spb Finance, as well as edit and delete them. For your convenience, unsynchronized entries are shown in bold in Spb Finance.

Budgets, Memorized Transactions, Scheduled Transactions and some other special objects like Investment Accounts are not synchronized between Spb Finance and Money.

Synchronization is performed in several stages so it may take up to three or four steps to synchronize all objects completely.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
Synchronization Options
Synchronization For the First Time
Password protected Money file

Synchronization Options

Spb Finance Money Edition Options are available on a desktop PC.

• Open ActiveSync
• Choose Options
• Select Spb Finance Money Edition item
• Choose Settings

You can type in or browse for a Money data file you wish to synchronize with. Usually this file is called "My Money.mny" and stored in "My Documents" folder.

Advanced Options allow users to choose the synchronization delay. This period defines how often Spb Finance Money Edition will look for data changes.

In the Filter options you can set, which particular accoutns will be synchronized with the desktop.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
What's Special In Spb Finance Money Edition?
Synchronization For the First Time
Password protected Money file

Synchronization For the First Time

When you just installed Spb Finance on your Pocket PC and connected your device you will be prompted with Options to specify a Money data file. After that the first synchronization starts. You will be prompted to combine item on a desktop Pocket PC or replace items on the device.

The first synchronization may take quite a long time depending on the number of objects on your Pocket PC device and the desktop computer. Synchronization process may restart several times to complete.

The first synchronization also takes place in the following cases:

• A new partnership is created
• Synchronization options are changed to synchronize a new Money file
• Money file is renamed and synchronization options are changed

See Also
Spb Finance Help
What's Special In Spb Finance Money Edition?
Synchronization Options
Password protected Money file

Password protected Money file

Your Money data file may be protected with a password or an MSN Passport.

When synchronization starts you will be prompted to enter the password (or login name and password). There is a "Save password" check-box to avoid password entering every time.

Use the "Password" button on the Options page to manage your password settings.

See Also
Spb Finance Help
What's Special In Spb Finance Money Edition?
Synchronization Options
Synchronization For the First Time

Today Plug-in Appearance Options

In this dialog you can customize the appearance of Spb Finance Today Plug-in.

Use system default font on Today: if selected, the system default font will be used for all your data entries put on the Today screen. See the sample text at the bottom of this dialog.

Use custom font on Today: otherwise you can provide your own font settings. Specify the Font, Size and Use ClearType settings and see the result below.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Selecting Accounts For the Today Plug-in

In this dialog select accounts that you want to appear in Spb Finance Today plug-in. You can use the Select All and Clear All buttons.

You can also specify here, which balance will be shown along with the accounts. Select one of the running balance and the ending balance.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Scheduled Transactions For the Today Plug-in

Display not more than [N] scheduled transactions: specify the maximum number of scheduled transactions to be simultaneously displayed on the Today screen.

Display only due transactions: if selected, then the Today plug-in will show only those scheduled transactions that have already generated transactions expecting for adding to the Register.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Selecting Budgets For the Today Plug-in

Please, select budgets you want to appear in Spb Finance Today plug-in. You can use the Select All and Clear All buttons.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Info Data For the Today Plug-in

Show not synchronized items count: if selected, the number of items not-yet-synchronized with the desktop application will be shown.

Show last synchronization date and time: this option is self-explanatory.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Rate History Dialog

In this dialog you can see the whole history of a particular currency rate. The rates are sorted by dates in descending order. The actual rates are shown at the bottom of the dialog.

To provide a new rate, select New in the menu. You will be proposed to provide the new currency rate and date of initiation.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Enter Rate Dialog

In this dialog you can enter or edit a rate for one of your currencies. All rates are always specified referring to the home currency.

You are prompted to provide a rate in one of two fields. When you enter the rate in one field the reverse rate will be recalculated automatically. Below you can provide the exact date of this rate initiation.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Search

Provide a string to search among the transactions. The searching is performed by all available transaction details represented with string and texts: Account, Category, Class, Payee, Ref, Split Category, Split Class, Split Description, and Memo fields.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

General Options

• Automatically complete fields using previous entries: select to make the program automatically insert the memorized data into new transaction detail fields. Later when you edit a transaction you can only select a payee and Spb Finance will fill in the rest fields with memorized data concerning this payee.
• Choose data file location: select where to put the data file used by Spb Finance.
• Set Memo field: if selected, then the Memo field value is taken from the corresponding memorized transaction when creating a new transaction. If not selected, then the Memo field is not taken.
• Warn if no Category: if this check box is selected, then when you create a new transaction and do not mention the category, you will be warned.
• Show all currencies: if this check box is selected, then when you create a new transaction you will be able to select a currency from the list of all currencies existing in your program. Otherwise, you will be shown only currencies assigned to your accounts with ability to tap -more- to view all currencies.
• Use old style command bar (applicable only for Windows Mobile 5-based Pocket PC devices): if selected, you will see the old-style command bar with different menus and icons. This help material describes the program as it looks like with the new menu variant.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Today Options

• Enable Today Display: you can add some Spb Finance information on your Today screen. This information can include the balance of any number of your accounts, scheduled transactions and budgets. By adding the Spb Finance information to your Today screen you also provide a possibility to get fast access to your data
• Appearance: if you have selected the previous check box, you may also customize the appearance of Spb Finance Today plug-in. By tapping on this button you will be able to customize the plug-in fonts.
• Accounts: select to allow displaying your accounts balances on the Today screen. To specify what particular accounts will be shown, tap the Details button and select accounts in a separate dialog.
• Scheduled Transactions: select to allow displaying your scheduled transactions on the Today screen. To specify what particular schedule transactions will be shown, tap the Details button and select scheduled transactions in a separate dialog.
• Budgets: select to allow displaying your budgets on the Today screen. To specify the showing settings, tap the Details button and provide the details in a dialog that appears.
• Info: select to put some additional information regarding synchronization with the desktop application (for Spb Finance Money and Quick editions only). To specify the showing settings, tap the Details button and provide the details in a dialog that appears.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Font Options

• Use this font in lists: select the font face and size for the lists used in the program.
• Use ClearType: select to apply ClearType to the text font. See the sample text in the field below.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Export Dialog

In this dialog you can export your financial date to a file.

From and To fields: specify the time interval. Only items matching this time interval will be exported into the file. You can also select one of the standard time periods (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping the little icon at the top right corner .

Choose destination file: provide a file name and location where your data will be exported. Tap Browse to select a custom folder.

Choose items to be exported (not applicable for CSV format): select or deselect items to be included into the export file.

Advanced: tap to go to the advanced export details dialog. You will be proposed to specify the time format and select what particular accounts to include into the export file.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Export to QIF Dialog

In this dialog you can provide some advanced settings of exporting your financial data into a file.

Choose data format to be used: select a desired date format from the drop-down list. The -Locale Default- list item corresponds to the format currently specified in Regional Settings.

Choose accounts to be exported: only data for your accounts selected here will be exported.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Archive Old Transactions Dialog

You may wish to archive your old transactions, for example, for the previous year. The archive feature allows you to get rid of not important old transactions, essentially decrease the data file size, speed up the data handling, and make work with the important transactions more convenient. The archive feature takes all your transactions for each account and makes one single overall transaction out of them, which keeps the balance of this account. The archive function creates an archive transaction for any accounts if only it has transactions within the specified time interval.

IMPORTANT: the archive function is a one-way procedure. After the archiving you will not be able to restore your transactions unless you have a backup copy.

Prior to date: only transactions that took place before the date you specify here will be archived.

Category: the archive transaction will be referred to the category you select here. Tap New to quickly add a new category.

Class: the archive transaction will be referred to the class you select here. Tap New to quickly add a new class.

Highlight color: select the background color for the archive transaction.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Password Dialog

The password dialog allows you to protect your financial data with a password. Data protection in Spb Finance is based on encryption by the powerful AES algorithm (Rijndael).

In this dialog: in you want to protect your data with a password, mark the Protect with password check box and provide a password and confirm it in two fields below. Tap OK when finished.

The password will be required every time you open Spb Finance. Important: all Spb Finance data that you put on the Today screen (within Spb Finance Today plug-in) is obviously not protected.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Customizing Report Payees

Here is the list of all existing transaction payees. Check those, for which you would like to build the chart.

To check all payees, select Check All from the Check menu. To uncheck all payees, select Uncheck All from the same menu.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Scheduled Patterns

You can customize the pattern (even a very complicated one) of each scheduled transaction very accurately. To open the scheduled pattern dialog, go to the Edit transaction dialog, open the Schedule tab sheet and select Edit pattern... from the Occurs list.

Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly tabs: select a desired tab to narrow down the list of possible patterns.

• Daily:
  • Every [1,2,..,20] day(s): select this item if you wish the transaction to be generated every fixed number of days (beginning from today).
  • Every weekday: select this item if you want the transaction to be generated every weekday.
• Weekly:
  • Every [1,2,..20] week(s): select this item if you wish the transaction to be generated every fixed number of weeks (beginning from today).
  • [S, M, T, W, T, F, S]: select days of week, in which the transactions will be generated.
• Monthly:
  • Day: select a day of month in the first list and a number of months in a period. For example, if you set Day: 20 of every 4 month(s), then transactions will be generated on every twentieth day of every third month (e.g. Jan 20, May 20, Sep 20, Jan 20, and so on)
  • The [first, second,..., last] [Monday, Tuesday,..., Sunday] of every [1, 2,..., 18] month(s): an example gives the best perception of this option. It is stated in your rental contract that you shall pay your rent every 6 months, on the day of signing of your contract, e.g. it was the first Friday of January. In this case you should set The first Friday of every 6 months.
• Yearly:
  • Every [date]: select a date, so that the transaction will be generated once a year.
  • The [first, second,..., last] [Monday, Tuesday,...] of [Jan, Feb,...]: in this case the transaction will also be generated once a year, but not on a certain date but on a specific day of week of a specific month.

When you tap Next you can customize the following:

• The pattern starts: provide the exact date of this pattern execution start.
• The pattern [ends after N occurrences, ends on date, does not end]: select a desired pattern behavior. This option is clear enough.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Edit Payee Dialog

In this dialog you can provide or change the payee name.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Account Balances

Account balance reports display your account balance evolution for a chosen period of time. These reports are represented with line charts . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping the little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see the line charts representing the evolution of your account balance (balances). Different charts are differently colored (see legend).

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Profit & Loss

Profit & Loss reports visualize the evolution of your monthly profit and loss for a chosen period of time. These reports are represented with line charts , bar charts and tables . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping a little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a chart or a table representing the evolution of your account balance (balances). Different charts are differently colored (see legend).

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Spending by Category

Spending by Category reports represent the proportions of your money spent allotted by categories for a chosen period of time. These reports are represented with bar charts , pie charts and tables . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping a little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a diagram representing your income and expense by transaction category portions.
• Legend: the chart legend contains your categories represented with different colors. When you tap-and-hold on any category name in this legend and select View Transactions... you will see all transactions within this category for the specified period of time.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Spending by Class

Spending by Class reports represent the proportions of your money spent allotted by classes for a chosen period of time. These reports are represented with bar charts , pie charts and tables . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping a little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a diagram representing your income and expense by transaction class portions.
• Legend: the chart legend contains your classes represented with different colors. When you tap-and-hold on any class name in this legend and select View Transactions... you will see all transactions within this class for the specified period of time.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Spending by Payee

Spending by Class reports represent the proportions of your money spent allotted by different payees for a chosen period of time. These reports are represented with bar charts , pie charts and tables . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping a little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a diagram representing your income and expense by transaction payee portions.
• Legend: the chart legend contains your payees represented with different colors. When you tap-and-hold on any payee name in this legend and select View Transactions... you will see all transactions within this payee for the specified period of time.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Income & Expense

Income & Expense reports represent the proportions of your income and expense allotted by months. These reports are represented with line charts , bar charts and tables . The chart type can also be selected from the View menu.

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping a little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
  The report will be built for months from this period.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a diagram representing your income and expense for every month of the time interval.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Reports: Transaction Report

Transaction reports show all the transactions of a certain account (accounts) for a certain period of time. You can narrow down this list by customizing filters, e.g. you can ask for a list of transactions of a certain category only, which makes this report different from the Register View
These reports are represented with tables

For this kind of charts you can customize the following options:

• From and To fields: specify the interval of time, for which the chart is built. You can also select one of predefined standard time intervals (e.g. Last Year, Last Quarter, Current Month, etc.) by tapping a little icon at the top right corner. Select All Period to specify the time interval between the very first and the very last transaction.
  The report will be built for months from this period.
• Chart area: on the chart area you can see a diagram representing your income and expense for every month of the time interval.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Update Balance Dialog

Sometimes you may face a situation when your real money left on some of your accounts is not equal to the ending balance in your program. This means that some money went somewhere and you cannot remember where. For these purposes you can create a special compensating transaction that describes this money leakage.

In this dialog:

• Account: select an account to update the balance for.
• As of date: select a date of the new compensating transaction.
• New balance: provide the real money left on the account here.
• Category: select a category for the compensating transaction. It's recommended to create a special category for this kind of transactions. To quickly add a new transaction, tap New.
• Class: select a class for the compensating transaction. To quickly add a new transaction, tap New.

In this dialog you are also proposed to reconcile all transaction before the specified date. Mark the Reconcile all transaction if you wish.

Highlight color: select a color for the compensating transaction background.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Customizing Report Accounts

Here you find the list of all your accounts. Check those, for which you would like to build the chart.

To check all accounts select Check -> Check All in the menu. To uncheck all accounts, select Check -> Uncheck All in the menu. When customizing accounts for some report types, you may check Overall to monitor the overall data for all selected accounts.

See Also
Spb Finance Help

Foreign Currency Transfer

When you create a new transaction which implies money transfer from one account to another, and these two accounts are assigned different currencies, Spb Finance opens the Foreign Currency Transfer dialog for more accurate data input. Indeed, you may have exchanged your cash money to other currency by rate different from the one setup in your program (see Currency View). In this case you may wish to input the real amount of money you got, not the calculated one, or the real exchange rate.

In this dialog you may either specify the real amount of money you obtained after the transfer or provide the real exchange rate (from one currency to another or backwards). This exchange rate is provided for this transaction only, while the common rate fixed in the Currency view remains unchanged.

See Also
Spb Finance Help