USER GUIDE

INDEX

LOGGING IN/OUT

A login page will be presented if 1. The user has never logged in before 2. If the session has been closed (i.e. quit browser or log out) 3. From an incorrect password, it returns again to the login 4. After a sign-up.

SEM uses cookies to track a user's session. Quiting the browser, or hitting "logoff" will terminate that session. No timeout exists at present.

DEFAULT VIEW

When SEM first opens, it will present the expenses for the 1st day of the current month to the end of the present day. This is meant to reduce too long a list and helps view items on a month by month basis.

You can return to this default view any time by hitting the "view exp" link in the side bar.

The same with viewing your income, it will default the 1st to the current by hitting "view inc".

Numerous constraints can be placed upon the view of either the expenses or income. See "Sorting and Calculations" for details.

Looking at your sidebar, the current mode (or page) will be highlighted in white text.

ADDING AN EXPENSE or INCOME ITEM

To add an expense or income, simply hit either the "add exp" or "add inc" link respectively (in the side bar). You will be presented with a form that asks you for the amount, category, date, and a description of the transaction.

Amount: don't forget to add a trailing dot figures after the decimal. Even if no cents are involved, use ".00" in this feild. This is the only complusory feild your must enter in for adding and income or expense.

Category: Uses your set of categories to build a form list, along with defaults that cannot be altered. This list will change depending on whether you are adding an expense, or income, item. Only one at a time can be entered at present.

Date: Choose date. Past and future dates can be entered. Be careful not to enter an invalid date "31/2/02". Doing so may skew your date.

Comment: Not essential, but helpful for remembering details of a purchase.

MODIFYING / DELETING AN EXPENSE or INCOME

Modifying is much like adding a new entry, except that when you wish to edit the item in question, click on the link in the view that says "edit", and a panel should appears with all the values present, ready to change. Just press submit and the new details will over-write the old.

To delete an item, click in the "delete" link next to the "edit" button. Be warned, this gives no warning, it deletes the record straight away.

SORTING AND CALCULATIONS

The sort bar:

to Calc: Cat:

Limit by keyword/s (in descriptions):

The sort bar is used to limit/open the view on your records, and calcuate the total of what you can see. It can be limited by a date period, categorey, or both. Alongside this, the default calcuation is to divide the total by the number of items in view. Other calcuation can determine the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly average, for the set period and category you determine.

1/7/2002 to 19/7/2002
Items: 8
Total: $546.00
Average: $68.25 ($546.00 / 8 items)

The above shows the time period, total items, cash total, and averages.

Date sorting: To view your records between two dates, set the sort bar's two date feilds to the period you wish to look at. Click the "show" button to view items falling on and within those two dates.

Category sorting: You can further limit the view by selecting just one category, or all of them at once. If you want to view all your telephone costs, this is possible by choosing "telephone" in your category menu.

Calculating averages: SEM calculates the item average by default, but other averages such as day, week, month, and year can also be determined. For example; if your wanted to know the weekly average you spend on food in a given period, this is possible by setting the time period, categorey, and calc menu to give the desired figure.

Searching descriptions: (** changed **) enter keywords into the the search box to return item descriptions containing that/those word/s. To take full advantage of this remember to add descriptions when you add an item to your expenses or income database. Entries will be ignored if they contain words with the "-" prefix. To ignore "red", use "-red", to exclude every entry with the text "red" in it. The search uses OR & NOT modifiers. Searching for "red blue" return all entries with red OR blue in their descriptions, a description does not require both, only one or either.

Note: the monthly average is calculated by the average number of seconds in a month, not the actual seconds in a certain time period (365.25 / 12). Later versions may fix this, but its a stop-gap solution for now.

Sorting Order: you can change the order view of entered items by clicking on "DATE" in the view window.

MODIFYING YOUR PREFENCES (options)

The "options" link in the side bar takes you to the options page, where you can add or remove items from both your expenses and income categorey. You can have the same categorey label in both expenses and income.

When adding a categorey, please avoid spaces or funny characters, "-" and "_" are permited, but most other characters such as "#$^*(..." are not. One to three new categories can be added at once. I'll allow more if enough people protest, but three seems fine for now.

When deleting categories, please remember that all items under that category will be set to "unfiled".

Categories can now be transfered to another. If you want all "fluffy_dice" items put into a generic "car" category, this is now possible before deleting the erronous "fluffy_dice" categorey.

Your password can also be changed in the options menu.