An Introduction to the Ideas Behind
The Wright Money Manager

The Wright Money Manager works differently from other personal finance programs.  This document is intended to help you understand just what The Wright Money Manager is trying to accomplish.  This program will help you manage all of the monetary resources and obligations you have in whatever form it is in.  And that is where it differs from other personal finance programs.  Rather than focusing exclusively on a checkbook, or a credit card, The Wright Money Manager allows you to work on your data from every "viewpoint" that your information encompasses.  (More on those "Viewpoints" later.)  This enables the program to help you comprehend what your money is doing on a very wide scale, and then focus down to the details that you deal with in your daily life.

The Wright Money Manager is NOT for everyone.  Some people just want to make sure that they don't bounce any checks.  While The Wright Money Manager can do that, it can do much, much more.  It is intended for the use of those who want to get the utmost benefit out of the monetary resources that they have.  While it does take some time and effort, those who are most concerned about their money don't want to take any more time than is absolutely necessary to manage it.  The Wright Money Manager does it's best to help out.  In order to reduce the burden, the philosophy is "if the computer can do it, let it!"  Keeping track of only your checkbook balance won't give you the background you need to make wise decisions.  Only a superficial glance at where the checks went will get in the way of reaching your financial goals.  And don't forget the biggest single problem facing our modern society: Credit Cards!

 

Perspective

Financial interactions are basically two people exchanging something of value that they have for something that another person has and they want more.  That means there are two things going on: 1) Each person gives up something of value and 2) Each person receives something they are more interested in than what they had before.  But a barter system can be quite confusing.  For example: "How many loaves of bread are equal to a new shirt?" can be difficult to determine.  Its easier to say "A loaf of bread costs $1 and a new shirt costs $20".  Using a nationally accepted currency made things a lot easier to understand than a barter system, but our modern society complicates things considerably.

Things aren't as simple as "food, shelter and clothing".  There are literally millions of products and services vying for our attention and money.  The use of credit probably muddies the waters more than any other facet of modern life.  Keeping a large amount of cash on hand is a very poor idea.  Few of us hold our monetary assets in one place any more.  Nobody has outstanding bills in just one place.

So, the tendency is to focus on one aspect of money and hope that the rest will "go away".  Unfortunately, they don't.  But it can be terribly time consuming to try to analyze everything that touches our finances.  Worse yet, it can be terribly confusing to follow all the twists and turns of modern finance.  Wouldn't it be nice if you could just give the checks, credit card receipts, etc. to someone else and have them worry about the rest?  That is what The Wright Money manager is here to do for you.

 

An Example

Probably more people try to use a spreadsheet to track their finances than any other tool, and those who don't at least understand spreadsheets, so let's use a spreadsheet example:

 

OK, pretty general, right.  We know how each transaction was paid and we have a balance forward for both the checkbook and the credit cards.  Now let's look at it in a little different way:

 

So, what's different? The PayType and Category columns have swapped.  But it still has the same information: it's just as valid a format as the first example.  Only the viewpoint has changed.  But it serves to illustrate that there are two viewpoints:  1) What did I buy and 2) How did I pay for it?  But that can be confusing.  Check out lines 9 , 19, 29 and 33 – some transactions want to be in both viewpoints.  You also have to duplicate the data to make sure that they show up in both the checking section and the credit card section.  And this is a simplified example!

 

However, if you want to know how much you spent for each category every month, you have got some work to do.  Let's sort by category:

 

The spreadsheet is all messed up - the formulas go out the window and you don't have any balances any more.  And now you have more work to do: you have to setup a sum formula for each category.  Remember those transactions where you paid your credit card bill with a check?  If you aren't careful, you might think that you spent twice as much as you really did because they are actually duplicates.  Current spreadsheets have tools that will help with these things, but not everyone knows how to use them.  And those that do just don't have the time to mess with them on a regular basis.  Don't you wish you could just "push a button" and have it all happen for you?  It Can!  That is what The Wright Money Manager is designed to do!