QHacc accepts a few command line arguments. These are:
-f | This arg must be followed by a QHACC_HOME setting. Using this switch will override whatever value is currently stored in the QHACC_HOME environment variable, if any. |
-w | show warranty information |
--cron | see Scheduled Transactions below |
--archive | see Archiving below |
--restore | see Archiving below |
--balances | display account names, balances, and number of transactions |
--help | show these options |
If you are not using a mouse, the Account Chooser is navigable with the up and
down arrows. Pressing the spacebar will open the account.
In both cases, the selected account will be printed in bold font and a colored
highlight bar will illuminate the account in the Chooser.
The popup menu available in the Account Chooser allows you to reconcile, edit,
add, or delete an account. It is not necessary to open an account in order to
use these functions. (i.e., You can be viewing your checking account, and
open your savings account for reconciling.) Please be careful when using this
liberty to make sure you don't delete the wrong account. If you are not using
a mouse, these functions are available from the Account menubar.
The Transaction Display window has two different popups, depending on what is
currently highlighted. When a transaction is highlighted, the popup will allow
you to edit the current transaction, or add a new one, reconcile a single
transaction, or memorize one. Please see the section below
for more details on memorizing transactions. If the "<new>" transaction
is highlighted, the popup will allow you to insert either a new or memorized
transaction, or change the system preferences.
The Transaction Display will always remain sorted based on date. This could
change in the future.
Interface Layout
The QHacc window consists of just two main parts: the Account Chooser
and the Transaction Display. The Account Chooser is on the left side
of the screen, and displays all your accounts and their balances.
The Account Chooser
The Account Chooser is the navigator and maintenance hub for accounts. Clicking
on an account will open that account, and display all its transactions in the
Transaction Display. Double-clicking on an account will bring up the Account
Edit Dialog box. More about that later.
The Transaction Display
The Transaction Display displays all the transactions in the opened account.
Clicking on a transaction will open it for editing. Alternately, you can click
on the "<new>" transaction to insert a totally new transaction.
Alternately alternately, you can use the keyboard to navigate the Transaction
Display. Using the up and down arrows will select transactions. As with the
Account Chooser, pressing the spacebar will open the transaction for editing.
ASSET |
LIABILITY |
EQUITY |
EXPENSE |
REVENUE |
You can get more information about how to use these accounts in the Accounting Primer.
Double-Entry transactions are just like single-entry transactions, except that
each transaction must be part of two accounts. Double-Entry transactions are
generally split between an income and expense account, though this rule is not
a requirement. In any event, when you specify double entry bookkeeping, the
Transaction Dialog will get one more field--the double entry account field.
Split Transactions are a special type of transaction where one transaction has
many different double-entry pairs. The most common use of this type of
transaction is probably for entering your paycheck, I think. Your employer
generally pays you one sum, but also pays taxes on your behalf, or splits your
paycheck between several different accounts, like a checking and savings
account. All these splits can be entered into a different account, but still
only take up one transaction in your "job" account, for example. Is that clear?
In order to change a regular double-entry transaction into a good old-fashioned
split transaction, one just needs to push the "+" button on the Transaction
Dialog. This will append another split entry area to the dialog, and you can go
merrily on your way. If, on the other hand, you have a split transaction that
you would like to make into a double-entry transaction, set it's sum to "0.00"
or just leave the appropriate sum field blank. When the dialog closes, extra
transactions will be removed.
To remove a transaction from the "memorized" list, delete the transaction that
you originally memorized.
QHacc supports cutting and pasting transactions as well. The mechanism is
exactly the same as for memorized transactions, but the only one transaction
can be pasted at a time. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-P are the cut and paste shortcuts,
respectively.
The reconcile window is a fully-capable Transaction Display. That is,
transactions can be added, removed, or edited just as they can be in the main
Transaction Display. Both displays will remain synchronized while the reconcile
window is open. Any transactions added while the reconcile window is open will
automatically be marked as reconciled, regardless of which display is used to
enter it. The reconcile window is modeless, so several accounts be reconciled
at once.
An account cannot be deleted while it is being reconciled.
The opposite of --archive is --restore. It must be followed by the directory
from which to read the archive files.
Transaction Operations
QHacc has a number of different types of transactions. They all work in the
same way, so using them is easy. All transactions have five main fields:
Normal Transactions
If you use single-entry bookkeeping, most of the transactions you will
probably enter into QHacc will be classified as normal transactions. They
contain only the fields listed above. As described above, clicking on the
"<new>" part of the Transaction Display is the usual way to enter a new
transaction. An opened transaction can be saved by hitting the enter key. The
changes can be discarded by pressing esc.
Split/Double-Entry Transactions
Split and Double-Entry transactions are handled the same way in QHacc. In order
to use this transaction type, you must specify double entry bookkeeping from
the Preferences Dialog.
Memorized Transactions
Memorized Transactions are a feature of QHacc aimed at reducing the number of
times you must enter the same transaction. If you have a transaction that you
enter into an account regularly (or just often), you can memorize it. From
the transaction popup, select "memorize." Then, you can re-enter the same
transaction as often as you like by selecting it from the "memorized" part of
the popup. Everytime you enter a memorized transaction, the new one will be
identical to the old one, except that the date will be that day. This feature
works for normal, double-entry, and split transactions, so use it 'til your
heart's content.
Scheduled Transactions
Scheduled Transactions are slightly different from the other types because
there is no facility for creating them while QHacc is running. Scheduled
transactions aren't really scheduled by QHacc. They can be entered by creating
a file in a particular format (see Scheduler),
and running QHacc from cron with the --cron argument and the filename. The
--cron mode starts a command-line version of QHacc and enters a single
transaction before saving everything and exiting. In this mode, errors are
written to standard error, but nothing else is written to the screen.
Presently, only adding transactions is supported in --cron mode.
Reconciling
Reconciling is one of the most important functions of any accounting program.
It is the way to compare your balance to your bank's balance. In QHacc, you
can open a reconcile window by right-clicking "reconcile" from either the
Account Chooser popup or the Account pulldown. The reconcile window allows you
to enter the starting and ending balances for reconciling, as well as the
cut-off date for transactions. When opening the window, the current date and
current balance of the account are pre-entered in their respective fields.
Changing the date will recalculate the expected balance, but this can also be
user-specified. The reconcile window has a Transaction Display as well, but
selecting a transaction will simply mark it as reconciled, and not open it for
editing.
Archiving
QHacc provides a method for clearing out old transactions from accounts. The
mode is similar to the --cron mode (above). This mode can
be entered from by specifying --archive on the command-line. The --archive
argument must be followed by the date of the last transaction to prune.
The date string must conform to the format specified in the Prefs Dialog. That
is, if you normally use the European format and '-' as the separator, and you
are currently in the QHACC_HOME directory, the command:
"qhacc --archive 29-02-2000" would archive all transactions before
1 March, 2000. All pruned transactions are kept in the QHACC_HOME directory,
and suffixed with ".archived." It may be beneficial to move or rename these
files since they are not time-stamped. The next archiving will erase the
previous archives. In this mode, just like --cron mode, errors are written to
standard error, but nothing else is written to the screen.