Let's get started. The first thing you would want to do is set up your accounts. These would be things such as your checking account, savings account, credit cards, etc. On the Accounts screen, select "New Account" from the menu. The first example is setting up a bank account. Remember, when entering numbers, use a positive number for the money that you have or are receiving. Use a negative number for money that you owe or are paying out. Here, you can see that our checking account has a positive opening balance of $6000 and the account minimum balance is $1000. |  |
| In this next example, we are creating an account for a credit card. We currently owe $475.52 on this card, so we use a negative number to reflect that current balance. Also, the credit limit for this card is $2000. Which means we can only owe up to $2000, so here we also specify it as a negative number. |  |
| Now that we have some accounts set up, we can move on to setting up the categories. |  |
Categories are used to identify what your transactions are for (e.g. Is it food-related? Is it a household expense like the electric bill?). This comes into play when you are tracking budgets and expenses. If this is not a concern, you can probably skip past this. To create categories, the easiest way is to let the system generate a pre-defined set for you. Choose "Add Defaults" from the menu and a complete set will be created. You still have the option to delete any categories that you don't want and add your own. |  |
| To create your own categories, choose "New Category" from the menu. You have the option to make it a subcategory if so desired. |  |
This is an example of some of the default categories that are generated via "Add Defaults". |  |
To continue with the budget and expense configuration, let's set up some Budgets. Budgets let you set goals and track your expenses against those goals. From the Budgets screen, you can get an instant snapshot of how much money you have spent in each area. To create a budget, choose "New Budget" from the menu. Specify a Name and Target Limit. Also specify a date range that you will be tracking (i.e. all your expenses within that time period). The last thing you need to do is identify the relevant categories. For example, if you have a Food budget, then you would check all the categories related to Food. |  |
In this example, you can see a number of budgets that have been defined and the categories that they include. The number in the middle shows your target amount for the budget. The number to the far right is the amount that you have spent in each category and for each budget so far. |  |
When you hit the "Calculate" button, the numbers are pulled from your transactions and your Budgets view is updated. In this sample screenshot, we can see the amount of money spent on each category thus far. Additionally, we can see the percentage breakdown within a budget. For example, in the Food budget, 84% of the money spent in that area has gone to buying Groceries while 16% was spent eating out. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. To get to this point, you will have needed to record some transactions. |  |
| You create transactions to record your income and expenses. For example, when you receive your paycheck and deposit it into your bank account, you would record a new transaction with a positive number. *New in 2.0* Note the highlighted sign button next to the amount field. Press the wheel to toggle this between plus and minus. |  |
| When you create a transaction for paying a bill, you would record that transaction as a negative number. Note the minus sign next to the amount field. By default, this is negative so you just need to enter the amount without a negative sign. Also, for each transaction, you can specify a category. This is only required if you have created budgets and are tracking your expenses. |  |
| Transactions are displayed per Account, and your current Account Balance is displayed at the bottom. |  |
| There are several other useful Transaction features. If you need to move money between accounts, you can use the Balance Transfer feature. What this will do is create two transactions in one easy step. |  |
| Specify the account you are transferring money out of and the account you are transferring money into. This will create a negative transaction from the first account and a positive transaction for the second account. |  |
| If you have recorded future transactions, you may want to check what your balance is as of today. For example, you may have recorded the paycheck you are expecting next week, but have not received the money yet. To see your current balance, use the "Balance As Of..." feature. |  |
| By specifying a date and hitting the "Calculate" button, you can instantly determine what your account balance is as of the date specified. At the same time, you have the ability to see your balance with all the transactions applied at the far bottom right. |  |
| One other useful function to note is the "Roll Up" feature. The Sidekick has a limited amount of on-board memory. So it is advisable to delete your older transactions periodically. This also helps avoid potential performance issues. But to manually delete a bunch of transactions may become quite cumbersome. Also, it will cause your account balance to be incorrect. |  |
| Using the "Roll Up" function, you can tell the system to roll up all the transactions older than a certain date into a single transaction. All the transactions in the range will be deleted and a single transaction will be created with the total of all the individual transactions. This allows you to quickly remove old transactions while maintaining an accurate account total. |  |
| *New in 2.0* Going back to the Budgets view, here is an example of a budget that tracks an assortment of categories. We can see that the general "Household" category makes up a large percentage of the budget. You can get more detailed information on what was spent in this category by highlighting the category and click the wheel (or choose View Details... from the menu). |  |
| *New in 2.0* This will bring up a dialog that provides you a detailed list of all the individual transactions that are contributing to this category in your budget. You can then see exactly what your expenses were and better understand what is impacting your budgets. |  |
*New in 2.0* There will inevitably be a set of common transactions that you will re-enter frequently. For example, bills that you pay on a monthly basis. Or your daily espresso fix from Starbucks. To avoid having to constantly rekey in the same information for these transactions, use the Quick Entries feature in MoneyClip 2.0. In the Quick Entries view, you can set up a list of quick entry transactions. This list can then be accessed over in the Transactions view to allow you to create these transactions with a simple wheel click. |  |
| *New in 2.0* When you create a Quick Entry, you are only required to put the transaction description, the amount (either income or expense) and assign it a category. Note that you do not indicate a specific account. This way, when you reference the Quick Entry list over in the Transactions view, you can use the Quick Entry to create a transaction for any of your accounts. |  |
*New in 2.0* Another exciting feature is the Recurring Transactions. Maintained along with the other "Quick Entries", you can build a list of Recurring Transactions by checking the checkbox and filling in the remaining fields. Once a Recurring Transaction is set up, the system will AUTOMATICALLY generate the transactions for you based on the frequency that you specify. For transactions such as your paycheck or monthly bills, the system can generate them for you automatically and you will never need to manually enter those transactions again! |  |
| *New in 2.0* After you have set up your Quick Entries, go back to the Transactions view. Select "Quick Entry List" from the menu and it will bring up a list of all the Quick Entries you have created. You can then simply scroll through this list and select the item you want to create a transaction for. It's that easy. |  |
Password protection is an optional feature of MoneyClip. You should never record sensitive information such as bank account or credit card account numbers in the application. There is no reason to record this type of information and will put you at risk. However, if you have concerns about prying eyes seeing your account balances, MoneyClip allows you to password-protect the application. Choose between using the combination lock password or a regular text password. |  |
Then choose a hint question, type in your answer and specify the hint. If you forget your password, you can request the hint to help remind you of your password. IMPORTANT: There is no way for the system to recover your password for you. Make sure to take the necessary steps to remember your password if you are going to use one. |  |
MoneyClip Guide