BANAL version 0.03

Chapter 1: Introduction

BANAL stands for BK's Absolutely Not A Ledger (I wanted to call it ANAL but was voted down) and is currently geared towards providing essential book-keeping and invoicing functionality to small businesses.

Some key features of BANAL are:

This document describes the concepts underlying the implementation of BANAL as well as how to use the client and server programs to add, modify, list and generate information.

1.1: Getting Support

Currently, support is available through e-mail. Send questions, problems, bugs fixes or whatever to Matthew.Rice@ftlsol.com.

1.2: Concepts

Important concepts to understand with BANAL are:

1.3: System Requirements

There aren't many system requirements to use BANAL. They are:

1.4: Legalese

This software is currently copyrighted by FTL Solutions Inc. and we are including this notice because we know that someone will ask for one. So here it is:

BANAL Book-keeping Software

Copyright (c) 1997 FTL Solutions Inc.

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notices and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software and related documentation.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS-IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

IN NO EVENT SHALL FTL SOLUTIONS INC. BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER OR NOT ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF DAMAGE, AND ON ANY THEORY OF ABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

1.5: Future Plans

See the TODO file included with the BANAL distribution for specific items. Generally, we want to make this program more robust and useful. This will include new functionality and a GUI based on the same generalized information handling.

New functionality means more financial statements, exporting to accounting packages and contact management. A full blown ledger isn't even out of BANAL's scope (although we would rename it to TIDAL -- TIDAL Is Definitely A Ledger -- yeah, I am an idiot and I'm joking about the name change).

Feel free to make suggestions. Send your comments (good or bad) to Matthew.Rice@ftlsol.com