Checkbook Activity

 

Welcome to your first large project for the year.  This project will begin this week and will go on until Christmas break. We will then determine if this activity is useful and whether we should continue to year end.  You will be broken into groups of 4-5 students.   This is your team for the duration of the project. You will create an online checkbook, and record transactions in this checkbook in the coming weeks and months.

 

Task 1. Each of you will receive a copy of the below template in Microsoft

Excel. There are no formulas in this spreadsheet. You must create these formulas to enable this spreadsheet to work

Samples:  Category                                 Sub Category

                  Automobile                             Gasoline

                  Automobile                             Repairs

                  Bills                                         Cable

                  Bills                                         Phone

                  Leisure                                   Movies

                  Leisure                                   Food

 

Task 2. Each week, you will receive a list of transactions to enter into your checkbook. You will assign the appropriate category and sub-category for the transaction, and enter appropriately.

 

           

Date

Payee

Category

Sub-Category

a

Debit

Credit

Balance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Task 3: Each month, you will receive a ‘bank statement’ from me that shows the transactions that have ‘cleared’ your account.  You must then perform checkbook reconciliation each month, the end result being a balanced check book.

 

Task 4: Each month, you will create a report of where your money went the prior month, and from the start of the project.  Here is where you can be creative. You can use graphs and show percentages. This is also where your categories come in really handy. The link below is a chart that will help reconcile your transactions. http://www.entfederal.com/docs/reconciliation.pdf   Be sure to mark off you cleared accounts in your checkbook!

 

Task 5: At project completion, you will perform tasks 3 & 4 as in prior months. Additionally, you will be given a budget for certain categories.  You will write an analysis of how your spending went in relation to the budget, and where adjustments need to be made.

           

Task 6: View demo of software that does all of this for you:

Intuit Quicken: http://www.intuit.com/quicken2004/demos/deluxe/quicktour.html

Microsoft Money:http://www.microsoft.com/money/info/tour/moneytour.html

 

Evaluation:  Here is how your grade for this project will be determined:

Weekly Transaction and group work            20%

Individual Monthly reconciliation                 20%   (5% each month)

Individual Monthly reporting                        20%   (5% each month)

Project End Budget analysis report              40%

 

Conclusion:  After seeing the demos for Microsoft Money and Quicken, and maybe even checking out what your parents use at home, you can get a great appreciation for the project that you completed and the ‘nuts and bolts’ behind this costly software.  Not too difficult? Too Hard?  Let’s discuss in class what our feelings are about this project and whether we should do it again in the second half of the year.