Phasar 4.08 or Getting Your Life in Order

Introduction

Two months ago, I made the startling discovery that although employed full-time as a Radiologist, I was saving practically no money. I don't live extravagantly, owning neither a home nor an automobile. I pay bills as they come in and save the receipts I think I'll need in a shoe box. When I give to charity or buy medical textbooks, I write it in a notebook because I know that I'll need the information later for income tax purposes. I haven't found the time to balance my checkbook in three years. Is it any wonder that I don't have a clue about what's going on?

Where's it all going?

After thinking about the problem for a while, I realized that the reason that my Quantum hard drive is better organized than I am, is that I have computer programs that set it up and keep it that way. Maybe what I needed was some software to bring organization to my financial chaos. Literally under a pile of cobwebs, I found Phasar 4.06, Professional Home Accounting System and Register.

The first thing I did was to obtain the latest version of the program, which is now being supported by Psygnosis (1-617-731-3553). The cost of upgrading to the current 4.08 version from my 4.06 was only $25.00, a price that included the manual.

But, is it easy to use?

Using the program is simplicity itself and makes record keeping almost fun. I'm going to tell you how to use the basic elements of the program without getting into too much detail. One reason I prefer doing it this way is that you really have to be looking at the program to make sense out of specific instructions. A second reason is that everyone's finances are different and once you begin using the program you'll see how to make it fit your own situation.

The menu bar at the top has all your options. The first thing that you will want to do is go to the Setup option on the menu and list your expense items, accounts, and sources of income. Your Expense categories are what you spend your money on such as food, rent, clothes, car payments, etc. Your Accounts are your savings accounts, checking accounts, charge cards, savings bonds, etc. Your Income is your salary, etc. Don't worry about being complete. You can add new categories while you're entering transactions .

Before you go off and running, I do suggest that you look at the Change Limits option under the Setup menu. This lets you define the total number of entries you can have for monthly transactions, expense categories, etc. For example, I found that I needed 40 categories for expense items. You will also need to go to User Setup and tell the program about your printer.

Tell it to Phasar.

Phasar makes it easy to enter your finances. I did an entire year in one day.

The menu area you'll be visiting most frequently, especially early on, will be Transactions. When you select Enter New Transactions from the sub-menu list, you are presented with a split screen, the bottom half of which is the area you will use to enter your transactions. Let's do an example.

Suppose you are renewing your subscription to Amiga News (a shameless plug). You sent them a check for $15.00 but it hasn't cleared the bank yet. For Accounts, you will use your mouse to select your checking account from the upper screen. You will enter the date you sent the check. Phasar will remember this date for your next transaction. You will then tell Phasar if the transaction was "confirmed," i.e. if the cancelled check has come back from the bank, which in our example, it hasn't. You will next type in "Amiga News" as the Payee. Forever and ever, if you ever have any more financial dealings with "Amiga News," you will will find them by selecting the button marked Frequent the next time you come to Payee. You then select your expense category, which I decided should be Comp Mag (short for computer magazines). If you forgot to set up an appropriate category, Phasar allows you to do it now. You type in the check number, the amount you paid, and a comment, perhaps indicating it was a one year subscription. Now you are ready for your next entry.

Now the fun begins.

Once you've entered all your transactions, you can select View/Edit Transactions from the Transactions menu. You can now see on your computer screen or printer every time you went out on a date this year, who you went with, and how much you spent. You also have a record of every computer hardware and software purchase including when and where it was made.

You can go to the Reports menu and select View Cash-flow Summary to see the total amount you spent in each category and the percent of your expenditures it represents. If you find that your computer purchases are 75% of the total and that your food bill is 5%, you may wish to re-examine your lifestyle. This sub-menu also allows you to see your cash-flow summary, that is, your total income vs. your total expenses. This is a rather important number, I think you'll agree.

And that's not all!

Phasar actually has many more options. It can balance your checking account, print checks, help you set budgets, display graphs, analyze loans, figure out your net worth, and even do your taxes. It will help prevent you from double paying bills that continue to come months after they've been paid. It also keeps track of names, addresses, and special occasions.

Conclusion

I'm not the kind of person who thinks that keeping track of finances is a fun thing to do. Every year when I have to file taxes and I realize that another year has gone by without my knowing what happened to the money I earned, I realize that a certain amount of personal record keeping is necessary.

Phasar makes the process painless. It does this by remembering just about everything you type in your transaction entries so that when you want to enter a new transaction it is ready with the date, the next check number, a list of your expense categories, your payees, and so forth. So instead of doing a lot of typing, you wind up needing only a few mouse clicks and a couple of carriage returns. There is even a way to automatically enter fixed monthly expenses like rent or car payments. You can get as easy or as complicated as you want.

Phasar isn't a financial planning program as such. It's not really set up to follow stocks, bonds and that sort of thing. Although you'll probably need other programs for that, Phasar will provide you with the information that you will need as input.

You may be interested to know that there is a PC version of Phasar that is available through Psygnosis. They also have software that can convert your Amiga files into PC files. Unfortunately, according to Psygnosis, the PC files are not capable of being imported directly into programs like Managing your Money or Home Wealth Builder.

Final thoughts

Finding out about my finances was a sobering experience. Years of neglect had taken its toll. Phasar helped me get organized. I am glad that there are excellent financial packages like Phasar and wish that more business applications of its caliber were available for the Amiga.

March, 1993

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