Introduction
Welcome to JXCirrus
Finance...
What is JXCirrus Finance
It is a simple home budgeting application. It helps you:
- Keep track of where you are spending your money.
- Check what balance you should have in your accounts.
Why?
So... Why JXCirrus Finance?
Isn't this exactly what a spreadsheet does?
Well - That is how JXCirrus Finance started... I (the author) was
using a
spreadsheet to keep track of everything. It was fine, more or
less, but there
were some problems (and you may have run into them).
- Sometimes you accidentally change a value that you didn't mean
to, and suddenly nothing adds up anymore.
- It was actually pretty slow to enter the data. You were
entering the same information for each transaction, but having
to jump all over the place to different areas of the spreadsheet
to type it in.
- Some transactions are always the same, but you still have to
type in everything.
- The spreadsheet ended up getting pretty big and slow.
So, JXCirrus Finance was created to solve these problems...
Basics
JXCirrus Finance really only deals with 3 different things:
- Accounts: These could be bank accounts, but could also be the
cash you have in your wallet or under your mattress. See Managing Accounts...
- Budgets: This is a way of grouping all of the things you are
spending (or earning) - Such as Food, Bills, Car, Salary
(income). See Managing Budgets...
- Transactions: These are the core of the system - Each time you
spend something, you create a transaction.
There are 4 different types of transactions:
- Expense - This is where you spend some money on something. An
expense will take money OUT of an Account, and it will take
money OUT of a Budget.
- Income - This is where you earn some money. Income puts money
INTO an Account, and puts money INTO a Budget.
- Account Transfer - This is where you move some money from one
account to another. It will take money OUT of one account and
put it INTO another.
- Budget Transfer - This is where you move some money from one
budget to another. It will take money OUT of one Budget and put
it INTO another.
That is it... Those 4 types of transactions are all you need to
keep track
of your money.
For an example of how this works, see Entering Transactions.
Features
Well, that isn't absolutely all. JXCirrus Finance does have some
useful
features:
- A form designed to quickly enter transactions with as few
keystrokes as possible - The "What" and "Where" can be
auto-completed based on previous transactions. The "Amount" and
Accounts/Budgets are auto filled where possible. See Entering Transactions.
- Report on your spending with different budgets Daily, Weekly,
Monthly or Annuals - See Reporting.
- Compare your records in JXCirrus Finance with your bank
statements, and lock off transactions once everything tallies.
See Balancing Accounts.
- Bulk-correct data where you have mis-entered information - See
Managing Data.
- Search for transactions - See Search.