Before you enter account information into Z-FINANCE, you will probably want to define several budget categories first. This allows you to later analyze and graph your spending patterns. Z-FINANCE allows you to define up to 32 different budget categories. You can customize them any way you like to match your personal spending habits.

Budget Categories can be anything that describe why amounts are credited or debited from your account. Typical business budget categories might include travel, meals, parking, etc. Typical home categories could include rent/mortgage, groceries and utilities.

Tips on creating your own budgets

Each category is defined by two items: a description for that category, and an amount specifying how much money you would like to budget for that item each month. It is useful to bear in mind 2 things when defining your own categories:

1. Allow for items that you cannot put in any particular category. Do this by creating a 'Miscellaneous' or 'General' category.

2. Budget Categories apply to credits as well as debits from your account. Define at least one category for credits such as "Deposits" or "Paycheck."

The Budget Category Screen

How to define a budget category

1. From the main account screen, touch {Budget icon.}

2. A list of budget categories appears. Touch the first line, Category 1, then touch Edit.

3. Using your touch pen, swipe across the Description box to highlight the text.

4. Type in the name of the budget category you wish to create. (Example: "Meals")

5. Swipe across the Amount box to highlight the text.

6. Type in the amount you expect to spend each month on this category. (Example: if you plan to spend $100.00 per month on this category, enter "100.00.")

Amount editor is 'patched' to control the users editing. Unfortunately, you cannot there swipe and then type in a new amount. Perhaps its best to tell the user to touch this field, and then edit the amount as required, OR give me time to look at this problem and fix this.

7. Touch Done to store the category.

8. Repeat steps 3 to 7 until you have entered all of your budget categories.