## Money Manager Ex User Manual

1. Introduction
2. Recommendations
3. Working towards better Financial Health
4. Money Manager Ex Concepts
5. Using Money Manager Ex

1. Creating a database
2. Creating new accounts
3. Editing Account Information
4. Creating new transactions
5. Editing and updating transactions
6. Reconciling & Balancing Transactions
7. Flagging transactions for followup
8. Working with Payees
9. Working with Categories
10. Importing

- From CSV Files
- From QIF Files
- From Money Manager.NET CSV Files
- From Freeform CSV files (Universal CSV Importer)
- Tips for creating CSV Files

11. Exporting

- To CSV Files

12. Stock Investments
13. Assets
14. Repeating Transactions
15. Budgeting
16. Reports
17. Transaction Filter
18. Printing
19. Money Manager Options

6. Frequently Asked Questions

### Introduction

Money Manager Exª is a free, easy-to-use personal finance software to manage your money. It primarily helps organize one's finances and keeps track of where, when and how the money goes and comes.

Think of Money Manager Ex (MMEX) as a computer checkbook which enables you to balance your accounts, organize, manage and generate reports for your finances.

It is also a great way to keep abreast of your financial worth.

The primary goal of MMEX is to simplify the process of tracking financial information without making it complex like some of the popular personal finance software packages.

The purpose of this manual is to give you some basic instructions for using MMEX. This insturction manual will evolve as the program evolves. So check the help system with each update and see what's new and how to better utilize MMEX.

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### Recommendations

- Always backup your .mmb database file regularly
- If upgrading to a new version of MMEX, make sure you backup your .mmb database file before doing so

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### Working towards better Financial Health

Becoming organized financially requires some amount of discipline. Financial management becomes complicated because there is no clear understanding of cash flow or an idea of income against expenses. Debt is usually what results when expenses exceed income.
The first step towards better financial organization is keeping good records. Only when there is recognition of the expenses being made on a day to day basis will there be an understanding on how to cut back.

Did you realize you spent 600$ in buying DVD movies last year? How many times did you watch them? Do you think now that the 600$ would have been better spent on the unexpected maintenance on the auto that came up yesterday? Of course there is no right or wrong answer to how you should spend your money. After all, it is you who earned that money and the right to spend it whichever way you see fit. But you can always make your money work harder for you. You want better "bang for your buck/lira/pound".
Here's where personal finance software comes in. They help you slice/dice the financial data to give you better insight into what is going on. Always remember the software can only be as good as the data it has to process. Garbage In Garbage Out. But if you have started thinking of even using a Personal finance software you are well on your way to making every dollar count.

Read on how to work with Money Manager Ex.

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### Money Manager Ex Concepts

Money Manager Ex models the real financial world through concepts of transactions. A transactionis an financial event where money/services are exchanged. Such transactions could be making a payment towards a loan, buying a car, eating out at a restaurant and so on. Each transaction is associated with an account and a category.

An account is a record of what you either own or owe. For example, your checking account is a record of cash on deposit in the bank that is available for writing checks or for making ATM withdrawals or for making debit transactions using a debit card. A credit card account is a record of the money you owe to a credit card company for the use of the credit card. All transactions either increase or decrease the balance in one or more accounts.

A category is a record of where the money comes from or goes to. For example, salary is an income category for recording the money you earn from your job. Dining is an expense category you might use to record the cost of eating out. Categories make it possible to track how you earn and spend money.

To make MMEX work effectively, it is important to record all transactions made by you into the appropriate accounts. Even if you do not have the habit of carefully entering transactions, you should enter transactions when you get your monthly statement from your credit card company or bank.

Once you enter your transactions, MMEX can help provide some useful information to you. For example, it will tell you what the current balance on your accounts are. It will provide information on how much you are spending versus how much you are earning. All this knowledge would help you make better decisions.

To begin working with Money Manager, you should start by creating a new database file. All the transactions you record with MMEX are stored in a database file (file with an extension of .mmb) on your hard disk. This file contains all the components- accounts, categories, transactions that make up your financial status.

Although it is possible to create more than one MMEX data file, it isn't usually necessary. One file can hold all your transactions and accounts. There is no limit to the number of accounts or transactions that you can have in your database file. The only time it might make sense to have more than one database file is if you use MMEX to organize your personal finance and the finances of the small business firm you have. Or if you share the computer with another person and your maintain separate financial records from them.

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### Creating a Database

To create a new database file, on the Menu, Select File->New Database. This will prompt you to specify the location of the .mmb file. Once you select the location a new database is created. You can now see the database name on the title bar which helps remind you which database file is open.

Tips:

1) Remember to make backups of your .mmb.
2) The .mmb file is not encrypted. That means anyone else having the proper know how can actually open the file and read the contents. So make sure that if you are storing any sensitive financial information it is properly guarded.

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### Creating new accounts

Right after you create a new database file, the first thing to do is to create a new account. Currently, MMEX supports two types of accounts. One type of account is those that support three kinds of transactions, withdrawal, deposit and transfers. This account is termed a "Checking" account. These kinds of accounts cover common bank accounts, checking accounts, savings accounts, cash accounts and credit card accounts. The other type of account is a "Investment" account. This is a type of account which allows you to track stocks and other investments you may own.
To properly setup accounts, you should have balance information for the the accounts you want to add to MMEX. You can get this information from your most recent bank, investment and credit card statements.

To create a new account, on the Menu, Select Accounts->New Account. This will bring up the create account dialog window. You can create a new account by filling in the details.
The required fields are the name of the account and the currency you want to use. The recommendation is to name your accounts uniquely and in relation to the real world account. Say for example you have an account with CitiBank, you could name your account "CitiBank".
The only type of account that is currently supported is checking accounts.

To track additional information about this account, optionally you can enter your account details such as Account Number, Held At, Website, Contact info and Access Info. You can enter additional notes about the account in the notes field.

Most accounts have some kind of balance in them, for example say in a credit card account, you have a current balance of 2304.67$, you could put that value in the initial balance field. Going forward you only need to add transactions beyond that date when you had the balance.
Accounts have status associated with them which could "Open" or "Closed". Closed accounts are just that. They are no longer active. Setting this status is just a way to de clutter your view so that you do not have to see the closed accounts in your tree view navigation pane.
In addition you can set the currency that is associated with your account. MMEX comes with a default set of currencies which you can add to correspond to your countries currency settings.

You also can mark accounts as a 'Favorite Account'. This again is used to change the accounts that are visible in the navigation bar.

The other type of account that MMEX supports is an "Investment" Account. These accounts are store information on financial institutions where you hold any type of stock/bonds/mutual funds investments.

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### Editing Account Information

Once you have created an account, you can edit any of the account information fields by selecting the account name in the navigation pane and then right click to bring up the popup menu. Select "Edit Account" to bring up the account information dialog. Edit the information and then click "OK" to save the account information.

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### Creating new Transactions

Once you have created a new account, one can start entering transactions. Select the account you want to enter transactions into by left clicking the account in the navigation tree. This opens the register of transactions associated with this account. To create a new transaction, click the "New" button to open up the transaction dialog. Enter the details associated with this transactions. Select by selecting type of transaction from "Withdrawal", "Deposit" or "Transfer". Then select the payee, category, the transaction date, number, any notes and then the transaction amount. Press "OK" button to save the transaction.
Here are some notes on the fields associated with the transaction dialog.
Transaction Types:

- Withdrawal transaction type: is one where one makes an expense.
- Deposit transaction type: is an income transaction.
- Transfer transaction type: is one where a withdrawal is made from one account and is deposited into another account.

Payee: Payee is to whom the money goes or comes from.

- Clicking the payee button opens up the payee dialog. You can select the payee from that dialog or create a new payee.

Category: Category selects the kind of expense/income for the transaction.

- Clicking the category button opens up the category dialog. You can select the category from the dialog or create a new category.

Transaction Number: is a field to enter any kind of number associated with the transaction like check number.
Transaction Status: Select from "Unreconciled", "Reconciled", "Void", "Flag for Followup" status options. This marks the transaction into various states.

- Unreconciled: When you enter a transaction, it initially is in the state of "Unreconciled". Which means the transaction has not been reconciled with your bank/credit card company's balance.
- Reconciled: Once the transaction is checked and verified with a credit card company's balance information, it can be marked as reconciled.
- Void: If you entered a transaction that later became invalid or you canceled the transaction, instead of deleting the transaction you can also mark it as void so you have a record of the transaction.
- Flag For Followup: This status marks transactions as needing more action. For example, you receive a balance statement from the financial institution and you notice that the transaction amount is different between what you recorded and what is in the statement. You can mark it as flag for follow up so that you can followup with the financial instituton.

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### Editing and updating transactions

To edit an existing transaction, simply select the transaction and then click the edit button. You can also alternatively double-click the selected transaction to open the transaction dialog. Another alternative way is to press enter on the selection to open the transaction dialog. Make the changes and click ok to save the changes.

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### Reconciling and Balancing Transactions

Transactions that are entered into MMEX are considered unreconciled. This means that they have not been verified with the statement from the financial institution. Once the statement comes or by viewing an online bank statement a transaction can be considered reconciled if the details of the transaction match that from the financial institution. Then the transaction can be marked as reconciled. By marking these transactions you can keep track whether the transactions you are entering match the actual transactions. In MMEX, reconciled and unreconciled transactions are shown by different icons.

Tip:To mark a transaction as reconciled, just select the transaction and hit the 'r' or 'R' key. To mark a transaction as unreconciled, just select the transaction and hit the 'u' or 'U' key.

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### Flagging transactions for followup

Some transactions might have some issues that you want to follow up on. Mark these as with status of flag for followup. This is indicated in MMEX with a different icon.

Tip:

- To mark a transaction as requiring followup, just select the transaction and hit the 'f or 'F' key.

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### Working with Payees

Payees indicate real world entities to whom payments/expenses are made or from whom deposits are received. You can manage Payees in MMEX by opening the Menu, Tools -> Organize Payees. Once the payee dialog opens you can add new payees, by typing the name into the text box and pressing the Add button. You can also select the payee in the list and edit the name or delete the payee. Note that you cannot delete payees which are being used by any transactions. Delete the transaction and or ensure no transactions use this payee and then you can delete the payee.

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### Working with Categories

Categories indicate where the money is going or coming from. You can manage Categories in MMEX by opening the Menu, Tools -> Organize Categories. Once the category dialog opens, you can add new categories and subcategories, by typing the name into the text box and pressing the Add button. You can also select the category/subcategory in the list and edit the name or delete it. Note that you cannot delete categories which are being used by any transactions. Delete the transaction and or ensure no transactions use this category and then you can delete the categories.

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### Importing From CSV Files

MMEX can import from a wide variety of formats. One of them is a fixed format CSV file. This file format exactly matches the CSV format that MMEX can export. So it can be useful to move data from one .mmb database file to another .mmb database file. To easily see the format of the CSV file, you can try exporting an account to a CSV file and then analysing the format created.
The general format is as follows:
Date - Date of the transaction (Displayed in the format specified in Options->DateFormat)
Payee - To whom the transaction was made. In the case of a transfer transaction, this indicates the name of the account from which the transfer was made or to the account the transfer was made.
Transaction Type - This can either be "Withdrawal" or "Deposit"
Amount - The transaction amount as a positive value
Category - The category of the transaction
SubCategory - The subcategory of the transaction if any (otherwise blank)
Notes - Transaction Notes
Note that the transactions from a CSV file can only be imported into a single MMEX account.

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### Importing From QIF Files

Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) is an open specification for reading and writing financial data to media (i.e. files). A QIF file typically has the following structure:
!Type:type identifier string
[single character line code]Literal String Data
...
^
[single character line code]Literal String Data
...
^
Each record ends with a ^ (caret).
See example QIF transaction
!Type:Bank Header
D6/ 1/94 Date
T-1,000.00 Amount
N1005 number
PBank Of Mortgage Payee
^ End of transaction
QIF is older than Open Financial Exchange (OFX). The inability to reconcile imported transactions against the current account information is one of the primary shortcomings of QIF. It is commonly supported by financial institutions to supply downloadable information to account holders.
MMEX can import transactions from specific types of QIF formats into an account.
The types are the following: (You can find the type of QIF by opening in a text editor)
!Type:Bank Bank account transactions
!Type:Cash Cash account transactions
!Type:CCard Credit card account transactions
Important Note (1): The date format option has to match that of the date format in the QIF file, otherwise, date parsing by MMEX will fail and will result in transactions having incorrect dates.
Important Note (2): After importing from QIF, all transactions will have a "Follow Flag" as it its status. You can mark all transactions with this flag using the bulk status setting commands using the right click menu in the account view.

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### Importing From MM.NET CSV Files

MMEX can also import from CSV files that are exported from the Money Manager.NET program. This is to primarily help users of that program migrate to using MMEX.
The general format is as follows:
Date - Date of the transaction (Displayed in the format specified in Options->DateFormat)
Payee - To whom the transaction was made. In the case of a transfer transaction, this indicates the name of the account from which the transfer was made or to the account the transfer was made.
Amount - The transaction amount. If it is positive, it is considered a deposit, if it is negative, it is a withdrawal.
Number - Transaction Number
Status - Transaction status
Category - The category of the transaction. This is actually a compound string of the type "Category:SubCategory"
Notes - Transaction Notes
Note that the transactions from a CSV file can only be imported into a single MMEX account.

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### Importing From Universal CSV Format

To alleviate the problem of users having to preformat their bank transaction CSV files into the fixed format MMEX requires, MMEX also allows users to import CSV files where the order of fields is completely freeform. To use this importer, select the account you want to import into and then select the order of fields in the CSV file by picking and choosing from the list of possible fields. MMEX will now import the CSV file using the format information specified by the user. MMEX can import from a wide variety of formats. One of them is a fixed format CSV file. This file format exactly matches the CSV format that MMEX can export. So it can be useful to move data from one .mmb database file to another .mmb database file. To easily see the format of the CSV file, you can try exporting an account to a CSV file and then analysing the format created.
The CSV field options are as follows:
Date - Date of the transaction (In the format specified in Options->DateFormat)
Payee - To whom the transaction was made. In the case of a transfer transaction, this indicates the name of the account from which the transfer was made or to the account the transfer was made.
Amount (+/-) - The transaction amount. If it is a positive value it is a deposit, negative value is a withdrawal.
Category - The category of the transaction
SubCategory - The subcategory of the transaction
Notes - Transaction Notes
Number - Transaction Number
Withdrawal - An +ive amount that is considered as a withdrawal. (Do not use if specifying Amount (+/-))
Deposit - An +ive amount that is considered as a deposit. (Do not use if specifying Amount (+/-))
Don't Care - Ignore this field
Note that the transactions from a CSV file can only be imported into a single MMEX account.
Important Note (1): The date format option has to match that of the date format in the QIF file, otherwise, date parsing by MMEX will fail and will result in transactions having incorrect dates.
Important Note (2): After importing from QIF, all transactions will have a "Follow Flag" as it its status. You can mark all transactions with this flag using the bulk status setting commands using the right click menu in the account view.

### Tips for creating CSV Files

- When creating your CSV file be sure that you remove the commas from your deposits and withdrawals. This can be done easily through a program such as Excel or OpenOffice Calc.

- Or you can change the delimiter to be used by MMEX by choosing Tools > Options and changing the "Import/Export Settings" in the "General" option settings.

- You do not need to include balance values in your CSV File.

- Note that the transactions from a CSV file can only be imported into a single MMEX account.

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### Exporting to CSV Files

MMEX can export to a fixed format CSV file. This file format exactly matches the CSV format that MMEX can import. So it can be useful to move data from one .mmb database file to another .mmb database file. To easily see the format of the CSV file, you can try exporting an account to a CSV file and then analysing the format created.
The general format is as follows:
Date - Date of the transaction (Displayed in the format specified in Options->DateFormat)
Payee - To whom the transaction was made. In the case of a transfer transaction, this indicates the name of the account from which the transfer was made or to the account the transfer was made.
Transaction Type - This can either be "Withdrawal" or "Deposit"
Amount - The transaction amount as a positive value
Category - The category of the transaction
SubCategory - The subcategory of the transaction if any (otherwise blank)
Notes - Transaction Notes
Note that the transactions from an account can be exported to a single CSV file.

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### Stock Investments

Using MMEX it is possible to track stocks/mutual funds investments.
- First create a new Investment account. To do this, select the new account option and in the 'Account Type' select 'Investment'.
- Then select the stocks option in the Tree view and click the "New Stock Investment" button. Fill in the details to add a new stock investment.

See more details.
To update the price of your stock holding, edit the saved stock investment and change the current stock price.

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### Repeating Transactions

MMEX allows you to put reminders for recurring transactions. Do this via the Repeating Transactions tree item. The upcoming reminders for bills or deposits in the upcoming 2 weeks is displayed in the home page.

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### Assets

MMEX allows you to track fixed assets like cars, houses, land and others. Each asset can have its value appreciate by a certain rate per year, depreciate by a certain rate per year, or not change in value. The total assets are added to your total financial worth.

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### Transaction Filter

MMEX allows you to search for transactions that meet certain criteria. This can be done using the transaction filter option. The resulting list of transactions can be printed or saved as an HTML file.

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### Budgeting

MMEX allows you to setup a budget for a year and compare how you did versus your budget. To setup a budget click on the 'Budgeting' tree node and add a budget year. Once the year has been added, select the year and edit the amounts for each category. This becomes the budget for the year.
Using the reports under 'Budgeting' it is possible to compare how you spent the money versus your actual budget.

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### Reports

MMEX allows a variety of reports. Select the appropriate report under the Reports node in the navigation tree. Some reports require some user input, some do not. Once you view a report, you can print the report using the print options in the menu.

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### Printing

MMEX supports printing of all reports that can be viewed. The print options are available under the menu, File->Print.

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### Options

You can modify some runtime behavior of MMEX by changing the options in the Options Dialog.
General-&gtCurrency The base currency setting is used to display the total of all accounts.
General-&gtDate Format The date format setting is used to control how dates should be displayed and also how dates should be parsed when importing QIF, CSV files.
General-&gtCSV Limiter This is used as the delimiting character when parsing CSV files. This is useful to modify from the default ',' when dealing with currencies that use ',' to denote decimal points in amounts.
General-&gtLanguage This is the language used by the MMEX GUI. MMEX might require a restart before all GUI elements have the new language.
View Options->Account Visible This determines which accounts are seen in the Navigation tree.
View Options->Transactions Visible This determines which transactions are seen in the Account View.
Colors Allows the user to modify colors in MMEX to suit his/her style.
Others-> Backup Database MMEX will make a backup of the file before opening it. There will be only one backup made and it will be overwritten next time MMEX is opened. So if you want to keep a certain backup permanently, you need to do a manual backup.
Others-> Stock Quote Link For stock investments, given a URL, MMEX can show the page automatically when the webpage button is clicked. Specify the URL here. The default is for Google's finance.

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### Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I contribute?
2. What's the reason for the EX in the name of the software?
3. Is the .mmb file format proprietary?
4. Can MMEX run from a USB Key?
5. How do I know MMEX is not trying to steal my sensitive financial information?
6. How do I print account statements using MMEX?

### How can I contribute?

You can contribute by

- Reporting bugs
- Translating to your language
- Helping spread the word
- If you are a C++ expert, by helping extend MMEX developing code.
- If you are really very happy because you saved a lot of money by using MMEX, you can donate to the MMEX project.

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### What's the reason for the EX in the name of the software?

Originally I developed a personal finance software called Money Manager. It was written in .NET and more of a learning excercise than serious software development. It grew far beyond the original design. The software was frozen and work began on a new version which had a similar user interface and features, but written in C++.

Usually Microsoft names their second version of their improved software APIs with an Ex extension as in doSomething() and doSomethingEx(). So I just followed the model and tacked on a 'Ex' to the end.

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### Is my data safe? Is the .mmb format proprietary?

Yes, your data is completely safe. And, No, .mmb file is not proprietary. MMEX uses SQLite databases to store user data. That means that the .mmb file is a regular SQLite database. SQLite is one of the smallest, free relational database systems around and there are tons of tools to open and access sqlite databases. SQLiteSpy and SQLite Browser (http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/) are two such utilities. Once you open the database using these tools, you can do anything you want with the data.

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### Can MMEX run from a USB Key?

Yes, MMEX has been carefully written to avoid dependencies in the Windows registry etc. MMEX is completely self contained and to make it operate from a USB key is as simple as dropping the MMEX install folder into a USB key drive and running the mmex executable.

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### How do I know MMEX is not trying to steal my sensitive financial information?

Generally, with any closed source program, you have to depend upon the vendor's word regarding safety of the data. But with MMEX being open source, you can verify this claim yourself. Even if you are not a C++ expert, you can rest assured that anyone can access the source code at any time and verify the legitimacy of MMEX's intentions. MMEX does not connect to the internet unless you explicitly asked it do so (like checking for an update etc).

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### How do I print account statements using MMEX?

To print a statement with transactions from any arbitary set of criteria, use the transaction filter to select the transactions you want and then do a print from the menu.

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##### Madhan Kanagavel
Copyright ª 2005-2006 TheZeal Software. All rights reserved.