EZ13 data entry tips #2

See yesterday’s blog entry for information on how to copy a lease, create escalating rents, or create the full series of rents for level principal payments.

Date entry

While you can enter a date by typing it in with slashes, exactly as shown, there are other options.

• Click on the down arrow next to a date to display a calendar (on the calendar, click on the month or year to change them, or the left or right arrow to go back or forward a month).
• Click on one portion of the date (month, day, year) and press + or – to add or subtract one to that number (note: this cycles without affecting the rest of the date, so if you highlight the day on 1/31/2011 and press +, the date changes to 1/1/2011, not 2/1/2011).
• You can enter just the last two digits of the year; EZ13 guesses the century, based on the setting for your computer. By default, the window is 1930-2029. You can change it in the Regional Options of Control Panel. (Control Panel, Regional & Language Options, click on Customize, click on the Date tab, change the end date of the window.)
• You can use letters with the same meaning as Quicken/Quickbooks assigns to them:

Y, R - beginning or end of YeaR

M, H - beginning or end of MontH

T - Today

F - Forward one day

B - Back one day

All of these (except T) are cumulative: for instance, if you press Y when at the beginning of a year, the date moves to the beginning of the prior year.

F and B are different from Quicken, which uses + and - for the same purpose.

Help

Context-sensitive help is available throughout EZ13. If the cursor is in a field when you press F1, you get a description of the field and what to enter there. If a different window is displayed, information about that window is provided. Virtually the entire manual is found in the help screens.