Well, hello there! Welcome to your personal budgeting assistant, PennyWise. After this guide, you will understand how to use PennyWise, and spend every penny wisely. 🤑

Introduction

PennyWise is a desktop application that empowers students with the ability to make informed financial decisions, by providing a graphical analysis of their financial activities. It provides a clean Graphical User Interface (GUI) for easy comprehension of expenditure and savings. Interested? Head over to Quick Start to get started. Enjoy!

Info: Already done with the set-up? Jump straight to the features section to see what features are available!

Table of Contents

• Purpose of Guide
• How to use this User Guide
  • Information Box
  • Tip Box
  • Danger Box
  • Formatting
• Quick Start
• Before Using PennyWise
  • What is an Entry
  • Familiarising yourself with the interface
• Understanding the command formats
  • Categorising your expenses and income
  • Guidelines on organising your expenses and income
• Features
  • Adding entries:
    • Add an expense entry to the expenditure list
    • Add an income entry to the income list
  • Editing entries:
    • Edits expenditure with specified fields
    • Edits income with specified fields
  • Deleting entries:
    • Delete an expense from the expenditure list
    • Delete an income from the income list
  • Summary of entries:
    • Summary of all entries in the currently shown list
    • Summary of all entries in the specified month
  • View entries by category
  • View entries by month
  • Command summary table
  • Clearing all entries
  • Exiting the program
  • Saving the data
  • Editing the data file
• FAQ
• Command summary

Purpose of Guide

This guide aims to teach those new to PennyWise how to navigate and utilise the application. It also acts as a refresher for any experienced or returning users, allowing you to make the most out of PennyWise.

How to use this User Guide

These are some icons you may see throughout our user guide.

Information Box

Info: This provides some additional information that you are recommended to know.

Tip Box

Danger Box

Formatting

• Highlights are used to denote commands or output from the application.

Definitions

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Quick Start

If you are unfamiliar with using command prompt, head to this link to learn more.

1. Ensure you have Java 11 or above installed in your Computer. You can check whether Java 11 is installed by following the instructions below:
   1. Open your terminal / command prompt window in your computer.
   2. Run the following command: java -version
   3. If Java 11 is not installed, please download Java 11 from Oracle. For Mac users, you may use the Azul build of OpenJDK 11 (JDK FX) version.
2. Download the latest pennywise.jar application file.
3. Copy the file to the folder you want to use as the home folder for PennyWise.
4. Double-click the file to start the app. You should see a user interface similar to what is shown below in a few seconds.
   • The application contains some sample data that provides some examples on how you can use the application.

   

5. Type the command in the command box and press Enter to execute it. e.g. typing help and pressing Enter will open the help window.
   Some example commands you can try:

   • addt/i d/Tution Teaching a/45.00 da/13-10-2022 c/Salary: Adds an income entry with the description Tuition Teaching to the PennyWise application.

   • delete3 t/e: Deletes the 3rd entry shown in the expenditure list.

   • viewt/e: View a Pie Chart of all expenses.

   • viewt/e mo/2022-08: View a Line Graph of all expenses on August 2022.

   • clear: Deletes all entries.

   • exit : Exits the app.

6. Congrats! You are now ready to get started on supercharging your financial management flow!

For Mac users When you first open up the application, you may encounter a warning that the application is from an unidentified developer. To resolve this issue, please open up the “System Preferences” application in Mac and select “Security & Privacy”. Then, allow the system to use PennyWise by clicking on the “Open Anyway” button as shown below.

Info: Curious about the various commands? Refer to the Features below to find out more about each command.

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Before Using PennyWise

What is an Entry

Think of PennyWise as a helpful personal budgeting assistant. Whenever you spend or earn money, all you need to do is tell PennyWise and PennyWise will log it and save it! An Entry is what PennyWise terms as a particular expenditure or income logged into the application. PennyWise defines an expenditure and income as things that you spend money on, and things that make you money respectively! Not only that, PennyWise will help you analyse your data, so you can easily get an overview of your overall expenditure or income.

However, in order to do this, PennyWise will need some data from you! Whenever you log an entry, whether expenditures or incomes, you need to tell PennyWise the following:

• Type: whether it is an expenditure or income
• Description: what is this particular entry about
• Amount: what was the amount associated with this particular entry
• Date: when was this entry logged in PennyWise
• Category: how this entry is classified

Info: In PennyWise, there is an upper limit of $1 000 000 for amounts.

Familiarising yourself with the interface

Let’s get acquainted with the application with the help of the following diagram!

When you first open up the application, this is the default view, which shows the list of expenditures:

Component	Explanation
	Where you view your entry lists (Expenditure or Income) This can be filtered by the view command
	Where you view your entries in a graphical overview (Pie Chart or Line Graph) This can be modified by the view command
	Where you enter your commands to use PennyWise
	Where you see the output of your commands from PennyWise

Understanding the command formats

All commands follow this format except: delete, clear, exit and help.

    command | entry identifier | input | [optional inputs]

For example, given the command add t/e d/Lunch a/15.60 da/15-08-2022 c/Food, let us deconstruct the command format step-by-step!

• Letters followed by a forward slash is called an identifier and will be used to specify a specific parameter
  e.g. t/ refers to the entry type parameter.

• PennyWise will always take the LAST OCCURRENCE of a command identifier should there be more than 1 of the same command identifier in a given command.
  e.g. PennyWise will add the following Income with the description: “October Allowance” upon running the following command.

  add t/i d/Monthly Allowance a/200.00 da/01-10-2022 c/Allowance
  d/Oct Allowance d/October Allowance
  

  You should expect to see this output:

    New entry added: October Allowance; Date: 01-10-2022; Amount: 200.00;
    Tag: Allowance
  

• PennyWise will IGNORE any extra words or characters present after the following commands:

  summary (except summary [mo/MONTH]), help, clear and exit. e.g. summary abcdefg will be interpreted as summary and help 123456 will also be interpreted as help.

• Words in UPPER_CASE are the parameters that you must supply
  e.g. In delete INDEX_OF_ENTRY t/ENTRY_TYPE, INDEX_OF_ENTRY is a parameter which can be used as delete 10 t/e.

• Items in square brackets are optional.
  e.g. view t/ENTRY_TYPE [MONTH] can be used as view t/e mo/2022-05 or as view t/e.

• ALL identifiers are case-sensitive. e.g. d/Lunch as a descriptor for “Lunch” is accepted by PennyWise, however D/Lunch would not be accepted.

Caution: Adding identifiers that are not used in the command will result in an error.

Categorising your expenses and income

For ALL entries, categories are COMPULSORY and every entry can only contain one category. The following table lists the Expenditure and Income entries categories. The category names are case-insensitive. E.g. Food is same as food.

For example, an expense entry can be tagged with Food, but not Salary.

Guidelines on organising your expenses and income

For ALL entries, 2 entries are considered duplicates IF both entries have exactly the same: description, date amount and category.

Info: Having multiple duplicate entries will make it difficult for you to track your expenses later on, and could clutter the list. Having them differentiated will make it easier for you to recall what you spent your money on!

If you want to log similar entries, you can simply use the edit command to alter the original entry’s specifications.

For example, when executing the following add commands one after another, PennyWise will recognise (2), which is the second Teh Beng added as a duplicate entry.

    
        1. add t/e d/Teh Beng a/1.50 da/22-10-2022 c/food
        2. add t/e d/teh beng a/1.50 da/22-10-2022 c/Food
    

To add similar entries, vary the description/amount/date/category to let PennyWise know they are not duplicates!

    
        1. add t/e d/Teh Beng 11am a/1.50 da/22-10-2022 c/Food
        2. add t/e d/Teh Beng 4pm a/1.50 da/22-10-2022 c/Food
    

OR we could even edit the original entry directly to reflect 2 cups of Teh Beng consumed.

    
        1. edit 1 t/e d/2 Teh Beng 11am a/3.00 da/22-10-2022 c/Food
    

Info: Descriptions are case-insensitive as well! PennyWise will interpret Teh Beng as the same as teh beng.

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Features

Adding entries

Perhaps you just bought a cup of coffee, or a paycheck comes in. Add these entries to PennyWise to keep track of them.

Format: add t/ENTRY_TYPE d/DESCRIPTION a/AMOUNT da/DATE c/CATEGORY
Adds an entry to the specified list.

Add an expense entry to the expenditure list

• Example: add t/e d/Lunch a/15.60 da/10-10-2022 c/Food
  • Here, we record our $15.60 Lunch expenses on 10th October 2022, and tag the entry under Food.
• Expected: New entry added: Lunch; Date: 10-10-2022; Amount: 15.60; Tag: Food

Add an income entry to the income list

• Example: add t/i d/Tuition a/40.00 da/10-10-2022 c/Salary
  • Here, we record our $40.00 income from Tuition on 10th October 2022 and tag the entry under Salary.
• Expected: New entry added: Tuition; Date: 10-10-2022; Amount: 40.00; Tag: Salary

Can’t see the entry you just added?: If you did a view by month command before adding new entries, and you cannot find the entry you just added in the List Display, don’t worry! This is because List Display is still filtered by the month specified. If the entry you just added does not fall within the month, it will not be shown. Simply use the view by category command to get the entire entry list, and you will find your newly added entry! Refer to the sections on view command to find out more.

Editing entries

Whoops! You made an error in your previous entry. Fret not, you can easily edit it.

Format: edit INDEX_OF_ENTRY t/ENTRY_TYPE [d/EDITED_DESCRIPTION a/EDITED_AMOUNT da/EDITED_DATE c/EDITED_CATEGORY]
Edits an entry, where at least 1 of the optional fields description/amount/date/category must be present.

Edits expenditure with specified fields

• Example: edit 1 t/e d/Chicken Soup
  • The expenditure at the 1st position will have its description edited from Chicken Rice to Chicken Soup.
• Expected: Edited Entry: Chicken Soup; Date: 20-01-2022; Amount: 20.00; Tag: Food

Edits income with specified fields

• Example: edit 2 t/i a/150.00 da/22-10-2022
  • The income at the 2nd position will have its amount and date edited.
• Expected: Edited Entry: Monthly Allowance; Date: 02-01-2022; Amount: 150.00; Tag: Allowance

Deleting entries

You were going to watch the latest Kungfu Panda movie, but your friend bailed on you 😔. Or you were going to sell your old textbooks only to find the buyer cancelled his order. You already logged the entry, so now you need to delete it.

Format: delete INDEX_OF_ENTRY t/ENTRY_TYPE
Deletes an entry from the specified list.

Delete an expense from the expenditure list

• Example: delete 2 t/e deletes the 2nd item on the expenditure list.
  • Here, we want to delete the Kungfu Panda Movie expenditure entry, which is the 2nd entry in the expenditure list.
• Expected: Deleted Entry: Kungfu Panda Movie; Date: 18-02-2022; Amount: 15.00; Tag: Entertainment

Delete an income from the income list

• Example: delete 2 t/i deletes the 2nd item on the income list.
  • Here, we want to delete the SpaceX Stocks income entry, which is the 2nd entry in the income list.
• Expected: Deleted Entry: Allowance; Date: 12-09-2022; Amount: 100.00 Tag: Allowance

Summary of entries

It’s been a long month with its ups and down. You wonder how your finances did this month. Use the summary command to find out!

Format: summary [mo/MONTH]
To summarise the entries in PennyWise, we compute 3 simple statistics to let you have a quick overview of your expenditure and income.

The command format is provided below:

Summary of all entries in the currently shown list

• Example: summary

• Expected:

       Total Expenditure: $154.49
       Total Income: $250.00
       Total Balance: $95.51
    

Summary of all entries in the specified month

• Examples: summary mo/2022-10

• Expected:

          Financials Summarized
          Total Expenditure: $4.20
          Total Income: $250.00
          Total Balance: $245.80
    

• Provides a financial summary recorded by the user in a month. The month refers to the month that is displayed to the user.
• The MONTH field is optional, if no month is specified, the application displays the summary for all entries.

View entries by category

You’ve always been a foodie, but how much of your total expenditure is spent on food?

You have multiple income streams, but which helped you earn the most money? View your entries in a pie chart to find out.

Format: view t/ENTRY_TYPE

1. View a Pie Chart of all expenditures by categories
   • Examples: view t/e
   • Expected: Show graphically all expenditure by category and a Pie Chart on the right of the application.

   

2. View a Pie Chart of all incomes by categories
   • Examples: view t/i
   • Expected: Show graphically all income by category and a Pie Chart on the right of the application

View entries by month

You went on a shopping spree today. Find out how today’s expenditure compared to the rest of the month.

Or, were you tipped for your exceptional service as a part-time server today? Find out how today’s income weighs up to the rest of the month.

Format: view t/ENTRY_TYPE mo/MONTH

1. View a Line Graph of all expenditures in a specified month
   • Examples: view t/e mo/2022-01 where we specify the month to be January 2022.
   • Expected: Show graphically all expenditure by month and a Line Graph on the right of the application. The List Display will also be filtered to show only expenditures in Jan 2022.

   

2. View a Line Graph of all incomes in a specified month
   • Examples: view t/i mo/2022-01
   • Expected: Show graphically all income by month and a Line Graph on the right of the application The List Display will also be filtered to show only income in Jan 2022.

Caution: Note that if you manually switch between the income list display and expenditure list display, all filters (if any) will be cleared and a pie chart will be drawn. Manual toggling is equivalent to typing the command view t/e or view t/i.

Command summary table

You forgot the command formats and do not have internet to access the online user guide. You just need to refresh your memory on the available command and command formats.

Format: help
Opens up the command summary table

Clearing all entries

You’re giving your laptop to your younger brother and already backed up your PennyWise data. Clear all your entries so your brother doesn’t see what you spent on.

Format: clear
Clears all entries in PennyWise.

Caution: Danger zone! This command is irreversible, it is not possible to retrieve entries that are cleared.

Exiting the program

You’re done logging your expenses and income for the day. Let’s exit the application.

Format: exit
Exits the program.

Saving the data

PennyWise data are saved in the hard disk automatically after any command that changes the data. There is no need to save manually.

Editing the data file

PennyWise data are saved as a file [JAR file location]/data/pennywise.json. Advanced users with knowledge of JSON file format are welcomed to update data directly by editing that data file.

Caution: If your changes to the data file violate the format, PennyWise will discard all data and start with an empty data file at the next run.

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FAQ

Q: Can I use PennyWise without internet?
A: Absolutely! In fact, PennyWise is meant to be used as an offline application. This means that your personal data will be even more secure as well!

Q: How do I transfer my data to another Computer?
A: Install the app in the other computer and overwrite the empty data file it creates with the file that contains the data of your previous PennyWise home folder.

Q: Why is my edit and delete command invalid? I am sure I included all the required parameters.
A: Make sure that your INDEX_OF_ENTRY is the first parameter after the command word.

Q: I want to have a Medical category to log my expenses. Is there anyway I can do it?
A: The categories for income and expenses entries are fixed. However, we are exploring the possibilities of user added categories so do look out for our software updates! For now, kindly categorise them under Others.

Q: Why are there missing dates on my Line Graph?
A: PennyWise automatically removes certain elements to ensure you can still get an overview of your finances! If you want to view all the dates, enlarge your application!

Q: I prefer a date format like 4 Apr 2022. Why can’t I pick the date format I want to use ?
A: Unfortunately PennyWise currently only accepts one type of format which is 04-04-2022. However, we are exploring the possibilities of allowing more types of date formats without compromising on quality and user experience so do look out for our future software updates!

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Command summary

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