Ramen
Getting Started Guide
Ramen will help you analyze your spending and provide easy-to-interpret graphs. First, you'll need to download OFX files from your financial institutions - the websites for your checking and credit card accounts. Look for a link named something like "Account download" and be sure to download the file compatible with the latest version of Microsoft Money. This will download an OFX file to your computer.
 | Hint: Sometimes the downloaded file will have a very nondescript name. It is recommended to immediately rename the file so that you'll know what account it corresponds to, and what date range it corresponds to (for example: myaccount_20090501.ofx). It is also recommended to save the file on your hard drive in a dedicated location so that you can reconstruct your Ramen project file (discussed below) from scratch if you ever have to. Over time you will continue to download OFX files periodically and it is recommended to keep them organized by keeping them in one place with descriptive filenames. |
Once you've downloaded one or more OFX files, it's time to import them into Ramen!
Select File > Import OFX...
and select the OFX file that you just downloaded. For this tutorial, we will use a set of sample OFX files provided in the Ramen program directory.
| | Hint: You can import multiple OFX files at once by selecting multiple files in this dialog window. |
If this is the first time you're importing an OFX for the account it represents, you will be asked to provide a friendly name. You can also change the name later.
After you have imported your OFX file(s), it's time to check out Ramen's five subwindows.
1. The account list
This subwindow simply contains a list of the accounts you are tracking. Ramen automatically calculates a "virtual account" for you at all times based on all other (real) accounts that you've imported transaction information for. The virtual account is a powerful feature of Ramen that will be discussed later.
For more information on the account list, click
here.
2. The name table
The raw data that you import, in the form of OFX files, contain transaction information including the names of merchants. However, these names are frequently mangled, so Ramen provides you a mechanism to map "unfriendly" names to "friendly" names of your choosing. As you assign friendly names, they will be shown in the name table. If you decide to rename a merchant again, or even if you decide to revert a friendly name to its original name, these changes are easy to make.
For more information on the name table, click
here.
3. The category tree
Ramen empowers you with a powerful yet easy-to-use method to sort different merchants into separate categories. This subwindow actually consists of two panels. On the left is the tree consisting of unsorted merchants. When you import an OFX file with merchants Ramen doesn't recognize, their names will show up here. The right panel contains the tree of sorted merchants. Your goal will be to always keep the left panel as empty as possible and to sort merchants into categories in the right panel. To do this, simply drag-and-drop nodes to reorganize the tree. You'll want to create new categories and subcategories, so right-click on the tree to do this. Ramen suggests two "super"-nodes for you already: Credits and Expenses, but you can organize the tree in the way that makes the most sense to you!
For more information on the category tree, click
here.
4. The report window
The report window is the most powerful feature of Ramen and is probably where you'll be spending most of your attention. Consisting of two panes, the left pane charts the balance of your accounts as a function of time. Drag out a selection region in this pane, and you'll see a pie chart appear in the right pane. The pie chart breaks down the total of your financial transactions for the selected period into the categories you defined with the category tree above. There are many, many options to make this data easier to interpret - for example, you can create a bar chart instead of a pie chart. In the figure above, we are displaying a "red" pie on top, representing all debits, and the "black" pie on bottom, representing credits.
For more information on the report window, click
here.
5. The register
Ramen provides you with a standard register that lists the transactions of your imported account(s).
For more information on the register, click
here.
What to do next
To get a good sampling of Ramen's power, after you have imported an OFX file or several, it is recommend to play with the report window by dragging selection regions in the left pane. Use the mouse to select a region, to drag a region, or to modify the boundaries of the region. You'll see the pie chart (on the right) dynamically update to reflect the data within the selected region.
| | Hint: Make sure you have an account selected (by clicking on an account in the account list window). If not, the pie chart won't know which account to display and you won't see anything. |
Once you create categories in the category tree (as described on the
category tree page), you'll want to play with the "More general" and "More specific" buttons:
These buttons tell the pie chart to walk the category tree up or down one level of specificity. For much more detail on what you can do with the report window, click
here.
The virtual account
If you import more than one account and the accounts sometimes pay each other, you'll want to use Ramen's virtual account feature. The virtual account is automatically calculated and you can select it in the account list like any other account. The virtual account concatenates the transactions from all of the other accounts in the project, but detects and then "cancels out" corresponding payments. That is, if you use your checking account to pay off your credit card account, the two transactions representing this payment will not be displayed in the virtual account. This makes interpreting the pie chart for the virtual account easier.
Save your project
Ramen treats your work session as a "project." When you are done, remember to save the project using the File menu. (If you close Ramen with unsaved changes, Ramen will ask if you want to save before closing.) If for whatever reason you'd like to work on a different project file, you can.
For more information
Thank you for using Ramen!