Quentin Pain

Quentin Pain is the creator of the UK's best-selling home accounting software, Home Accountz. Pain is a member of the British Computer Society, the Institute of Analysts and Programmers, and the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers.

Articles From Quentin Pain

5 results
5 results
Home Accountz For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016

Home Accountz allows you to create and customize budgets, and then use those budgets to track your spending. Through Home Accountz, you can also view the balances of all your accounts to get a better sense of where your money is — and where it goes!

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Setting Up a Budget in Home Accountz

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

In Home Accountz, you can set up your budget by using the eaZy button so that it reflects the details of the account you’re budgeting for. Follow these steps to set up your budget: Open Home Accountz, and then choose Accounts→Accounts, Balances & Budgeting. Click the Budgeting tab in the centre of the Accounts, Balances & Budgeting panel that appears. From the drop-down list above the table, select the budget you want to set up. Open your Accounts list in the left panel. In this panel, you can see the accounts for which you want to set budgets. If you want to set an annual budget for any account or account group, enter the total for the year in the Total column. The following figure shows that 20,000 has been entered against the Income group. You can also set amounts for individual months if you want to set finer budgets. You might want to specify monthly amounts for holidays, for example. Enter any specific information that you want in the table. You can add more detail whenever you like. The values in the Total column show you how your budget is balancing — for example, if you’re budgeting more for expenditure than you’re getting in income, you can see whether it’s balancing out.

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Creating a Budget in Home Accountz

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Home Accountz helps you budget your money by providing the eaZy button. You can set up an account through the eaZy button so that you can manage your money and stay out of debt. Follow these steps to create a budget: Open Home Accountz, and then choose Accounts→Accounts, Balances & Budgeting. Click the Budgeting tab in the center of the screen. Click the green plus sign (+) button just above the Budgeting table. The Create a New Budget dialog box appears (as shown in the following figure). Enter a suitable name for the budget in the Budget Name text box. Typically, you want to enter the year for which you’re creating the budget. Enter the date on which the budget will start using the Start Date date picker. For example, if you wanted the budget to run from January 1 to December 31, 2013, enter 1.1.2013. Click the Create button to create the budget.

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Viewing Account Balances in Home Accountz

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Home Accountz lets you see every balance in your accounts and how the balances came about. You can view these balances from a big picture point of view or right down to specific balances on individual accounts on specific days. To see a general view of your accounts and check out their balances, follow these steps: Open Home Accountz. Choose Accounts→Accounts, Balances & Budgeting. The Accounts, Balances & Budgeting panel appears. Select any account group in the left panel. To see individual balances, select the Balances tab to the right of the left panel. To see the total transaction balance in a bar graph, click the Transactions tab, which appears below the Balances tab. The following figure shows the Transactions tab for the Expenses folder. Note: If you click on an individual account, you will see the actual transactions that make up the balance.

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Tracking Your Budget in Home Accountz

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Home Accountz allows you to create budgets for your accounts and track the progress of those budgets through the eaZy button panel. Using this feature on a regular basis should help you manage your money and stay out of debt. Follow these steps to see how your budget is doing: Open Home Accountz, and then choose Accounts→Accounts, Balances & Budgeting. Click the Overview tab in the center of the Accounts, Balances & Budgeting panel that appears. The first three columns below the Period heading show a specific month. (Optional) Change the month displayed in the Period columns by selecting the month from the drop-down list above the table. The information that appears should help see whether you’re on budget or need to make some changes to get there. The columns below the Period, Year to Date, and Full Year headings tell you important information about your budget versus actual spending as they relate to each of those time periods (see the following figure): Actual or Forecast: The first column shows Actual or Forecast figures, depending on the current date and the period selected. Periods in the past display actual balances. Periods in the future display forecast balances, as shown in the following figure. Budget: The second column shows the budget for the period. Diff: The third column shows the difference. That is, whether you’ve spent more or less than your budget. The Full Year section of the table shows everything for the whole budget, regardless of the period selected, so it gives you a good overview of your complete budget.

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