TorSoft CashBook Manager

Long ago, folk would enter their bank dealings into a cashbook - a register of ins on one page and outs on the opposite page. Apart from being a sure-fire way of getting wrist ache, this only served to prove you'd neatly recorded everything you'd done in a book. To see anything useful, you'd have to sit down with a calculator and add up the columns.

Now, of course, we're in a computer wonderland where columns are added up for you and accounting software can do everything bar make the tea. But along with all this functionality comes a price and, if your accounting software does a lot, it's invariably complicated; often far more complicated than you need. TorSoft has decided to simplify things a little with CashBook Manager, but it may have gone too far.

CashBook Manager consists of three modules in its basic form: Company, Accounts and Money. The Company module takes the name, address and contact details of your business, along with your VAT registration number and financial year dates. You can also set a few preferences here, such as the currency symbol and date format. It's also possible to set up several VAT codes, with each code offering a percentage and description. Another useful option is to password protect the entire package.

Once you have your details installed, the next job is to create the three types of 'accounts' CashBook Manager needs to operate. First up are the Money accounts - these are the bank and cash accounts through which all your dealings are passed. You can then set up the Income and Expense accounts that will analyse all your transactions. These are given an account number for sorting purposes, plus you can decide whether to track VAT and whether each account is a detail or total account. Total accounts simply add up those that went before in the number range - so far so simple.

The last module is where you'll spend most of your time, as this is where you enter the transactions. CashBook Manager simply calls the menu options Spend Money, Receive Money and Transfer Money; and as you might expect, these do exactly what they say. The data entry forms are a bit complicated in concept: you choose a Money account to affect and, although the page is shown as a lined register of entries, you have to click the New button to start the process - you can't type onto the screen directly.

This brings up another screen for the 'line', which in itself can contain several other lines. This is what is often termed 'splits'. Basically, you can analyse the one amount coming out of your bank across several different expense accounts at this point - say, if you bought several types of item with the one cheque. You can cater for VAT here as well, and the software can either calculate the net from the gross, or vice versa.

Recording income through the Receipts section works in an identical fashion, and the Transfer option asks for both outgoing and incoming banks and the amount to transfer. Neatly it shows the balance now and after transfer - handy if you want to see the effect of your actions.

The result of all this activity is the CashBook Journal, a screen of transactions either from the perspective of the money accounts, or by the income and expense accounts affected. No totals here, though, just a list of what you've done so far.

Finally, you have the option of reconciling your money accounts, which basically means the act of comparing what's on your paper bank statement with what's on the computer. To achieve this, CashBook Manager offers a form showing all your ins and outs as yet unreconciled, along with an opening balance and a calculated reconciled balance. This balance goes up and down as you select items for reconciliation and, once amounts are reconciled, they disappear from the screen.