PocketMoney™ by Hardy Macia is "the" financial organizer for your Newton. It's ease of use and intuitive interface make it a most powerful option to tracking your expenses. PocketMoney is set up into several levels, all of which can be customized. Rather that always writing something like Date, Withdrawal, Category, Amount, Blah, Blah Blah, you are given diamond menus (click once on the diamond and a whole menu appears). You are now only two taps away from everything. Don't like what's in the menus? Tap on Edit and add to the menu, it's that simple. Personally, when I make an entry, I like to make it fast. This is where my beef comes in. I have to wait approximately 4 seconds after launching before I can enter in my debit or credit. This feels like an eternity. This is where my bouquet comes in. Add a quick little button like QuickMoney™ to the picture and we have sheer bliss. As soon as you tap the icon you are presented with a condensed PocketMoney page that comes up and goes away faster than you say your name ten times fast. Choose your transaction type: Deposit, Withdrawal, or Transfer. Write the amount, and it gets filed away till you have time to wait 4 seconds to clear it. But wait! There are other little utilities you can add to PocketMoney to make it easier. By installing NotifyAssist.pkg - (by Bill Kearney) you can set up repeating transactions in your calendar or in a To Do list. Then, using the Newtons Assist button, PocketMoney will add the repeating transaction for you. The way it can work for you is to write a simple script command (to pay a monthly bill for example) and schedule it with an alarm reminder. A typical script could be:
depositChecking\salary\Apple_Computer\1500\base_pay
What this script will do is automatically open PocketMoney and deposit $1500.00 to your checking account. The categories recorded could be "salary" from your employer "Apple Computer" and place the note in the deposit slip labeled "base pay". This is an incredible feature that once set up will reduce the time it takes to record payments, deposits, withdrawals, or transfers. I use it for monthly payments on everything including my utilities. When the electric bill comes in, just go to the day the bill is due (usually on the same day of the month, as a repeating date) and change the amount payable from the previous month. Not only does this keep your balances accurate, it's a great reminder to pay your bills on time. If you pay your bills by phone, you can wait till the alarm comes up, hit the Assist button, and PocketMoney inserts the transaction into the program while you get on the phone and make the payment! If you use Quicken™ as your desktop financial program you can use the same categories in PocketMoney and using the Connection Kit import the data right into Quicken. With ScrollingDoPopup™ loaded into PocketMoney, you can have as many categories as you want. PocketMoney is a great program for the Newton that makes manual recording in checkbooks obsolete (don't forget to synchronize! ;-). Finances will always be up to date and accurate. You can have any sort of account you desire. If all your accounts are tracked using PocketMoney you can see your net worth at a glance. In addition, if you use Hardy's MPG (miles per gallon) app to track your automobile expenses there is no need for double entry, for with the tap of your pen, the item will be transferred to PocketMoney! In my opinion PocketMoney is as close to being a "killer" application as you can get for your Newton.
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(last modified : October 23, 1995)