Prepare to Use

Before using this software, you may want to know some background of this software roughly. WidenHome is an attempt made by the author, to apply scientific principles of accounting to the management of personal finances, many friends have proposed very good suggestions, now we are making progress and improving it. The users of WidenHome are becoming an ordered and active community, if you have any questions, need any help, or have any suggestions, you are welcome to join our community, discuss with everyone, you will get ardent answers certainly. Also you can contact the author directly at any time, the author will reply you quickly when he is free.

The core of WidenHome is based on principles of accounting. However, if you don't know the knowledge of accounting, it doesn't matter, WidenHome provides popular user interfaces, which make you get started easily. For more information, please refer to "About WidenHome" and "Online Tutorials".

WidenHome is a small and purely portable application, you can download the installation file or archive file very conveniently, and then install it easily. If you haven't downloaded the software, please go to the download page to get it.

Create Account Book

Creating account book is the first step of using WidenHome. An account book is used to store financial data generated by all kinds of economic activities for an independent economic entity, according to the financial data, the software will analyze and arrange it automatically, and then generate professional financial reports. Every account book is a separate file, which you can put in any other folders.

When starting WidenHome, the "Open Account Book" dialog will be launched at first.

Click the "New Account Book..." button, there will be a "New Account Book" dialog launched as the following picture:

Input information in this "New Account Book" dialog, you can choose an arbitrary file location for the new account book, and please set the currency of this account book correctly at the same time. After that, open the account book file that was just created in the "Open Account Book" dialog, and enter the main user interface of WidenHome.

Set Subject Structure

Subject structure is a very important concept in WidenHome, it is also very flexible. We can define different subject groups, in each group, we can create subjects with arbitrary levels. A good subject structure can reflect financial situation more accurately. The software provides a default subject structure, including five groups - asset, liability, owner's equity, income, and expense. We just need to do a little adjustment, for example, arranging our bank related subjects, income subjects, and then we can start to keep accounts. To adjust subject structure, please select "Basic Data" -> "Subject Management" from the navigation menus on the left side of the main user interface, and then adjust subject structure in the subject management page.

Start to Keep Accounts

After finishing subject structure setting, you can start to keep accounts. In the navigator, which is on the left side of the main user interface, we can see there are several menu items under "Journals" menu, by selecting these menu items we can keep accounts according to different types of journals.

• Cash/Bank: Record "Cash and Bank" related journals, include "Withdraw", "Deposit", "Cash Transfer", "Bank Transfer".
• Income/Expense: Record "Income/Expense" related journals, include "Record Expense", "Record Income", "Prepay Expense", "Receive in Advance".
• Debt: Record "Debt" related journals, include "Borrow" and "Repay".
• Creditor's Right: Record "Creditor's Right" related journals, include "Lend" and "Receive".
• Professional Mode: In professional mode, we can use double entry method to keep accounts, and this is for the users who know accounting. We can record any journals here, and it is very flexible.

Note: If you have created new subjects, you need to set it simply in "Selector Mapping", then use them in popular user interfaces.

Read Financial Reports

By reading all kinds of financial reports, you can understand your current financial situation very clearly, and make rational and scientific decisions. In the navigator, which is on the left side of the main user interface, we can see there are several menu items under "Analysis" menu, by selecting these menu items we can read different financial reports.

• Journal Report: Query the information of all journals.
• General Ledger: Query general ledger for subjects.
• Balance Sheet: Query balance sheet for a specific time.
• Balance Sheet Contrast: Query the contrast of balance sheet between two different time points.
• Income Statement: Query income statement for a specific month.
• Income Statement Contrast: Query the contrast of income statement for multiple months.

Now, you can use WidenHome formally. If you want to know more detailed information, or you want to use advanced features, please read the Online Tutorials. Keep in mind, if you have any questions, please feel free to communicate with us, we are everywhere. ^_^