Before doing anything else, please specify your base currency eg Euros, Dollars etc.
When you first start MoneyBox, it will display for you an empty Bank account called Current Account. Unless you later change the options, MoneyBox will always start up by displaying this Bank account.
(Before putting "pen to paper", I suggest you browse through Account Names, Account Structure and Bank Accounts)
Now take out the last statement you received from your Bank.
Click the Opening Balance button 
and enter the date and amount of the balance appearing at the top of your Bank statement.
Next click the Add Item button 
and add all the amounts appearing on the statement.
When adding items you will find a number of helpful features:
| You can press F1 to get the context sensitive Help for each individual dialog. |
| As you add transactions that the system will fill in other fields in the dialog as you type the description if the description is the same as one you have already entered. This feature is called EasyFill It will save you a lot of time in entering your transactions. |
| The input dialog stays on the screen after you click OK. This is to save you having to repeat the process of clicking the Add Item button for every item. When you want to stop entering items, just click the Cancel button, and you will see all the items you have just added appearing in your Bank account. |
Now add all receipts and payments made since this last statement.
Now double-click each of the items that you entered from your Bank statement including the amount you entered as the Opening Balance. If your Bank statement has a sequence number, that number should be used for ticking off each item. Otherwise mark your Bank statement as number 1 and use 1 as the number for ticking off each item.
As you double-click each item, the statement number will appear at the left of the reconciled line.
In the toolbar, now click the Statement button. Just this once you will have to enter the statement number and whether or not the balance is in credit. From hereon the system will calculate these automatically.
The resulting statement window should now show exactly the same information as the Bank statement, including opening and closing balances.
Now click the Unreconciled items tab. You will now see all the items not yet included in a Bank statement starting with the closing balance of the statement you have just reconciled.
You may need to use Change Item 
or Delete Item 
to correct any items that are incorrectly entered.
You have now started. Keep going. I now have several years worth of financial records which not only have kept me straight financially, but also serve as a very accurate diary of past events!
As a second exercise, select 'Close all except Account Names List' from the Window menu drop down list.
Next click the Search button 
in the toolbar to find the Bank account called Current A/c.
Click the Change Name button 
and change the account name to that of your own bank account.
Next click the Review A/c button 
- or double-click the highlighted line of the Account Names List that now shows your Bank account.
The Details tab in the account window is highlighted, and you can see all the items in the bank account.
Clicking Statement buttons in the toolbar will show you the items in any statement you have reconciled.
Clicking the Unreconciled items tab will show you the items not yet ticked off against any statement, or the items
All accounts in the Account Names List can be accessed in the same way. You can see all the account items for any detail account by clicking the Details button in the account summary window. Only Bank and Charge (Credit Card) accounts have the Reconcile and Statement facility. You can however create as many Bank and Charge accounts as you like - well, up to a maximum of 300!
You will also find that you can access accounts directly from any line of a report, and also from the Select Account... item in the Window menu.
Use Help (F1) facility any time you are not sure of how to proceed.
While you are learning to use MoneyBox, try using the Always on Top facility of Help. (In the Help Window click the Options menu item and then click Keep Help on Top. This means that the Help Window does not disappear when you click outside its Window). When you don't need to read the Help contents, just click in the Help Window title area and, holding the button down, drag the window right down until only its title is showing at the bottom of the screen. Any time you need to read the Help Window, just drag it into view again. Hit F1 again to refresh the contents if necessary.
You may also want to learn the Bookmark and Paper Clip facilities of Help in order to refer quickly to specific topics, and to add your own notes to the MoneyBox Help text where relevant.