How do I use Numbers to develop personal finance and budget spreadsheets?

Question

I recently purchased an IMac and would appreciate advice on how best to use IWork (Numbers) to set up a personal budget and finance spreadsheet program. Please bear in mind that I am not a computer expert and only have average understanding of spreadsheets.
By way of background, I have poor eyesight and use a screen resolution of 1344 x 840.
I currently use Quicken for Mac 2007 for my personal finance and budget. The problem is that fonts are far too small for me to see clearly and cannot be changed.
Hence my interest in using IWork (Numbers).
My budget and finance requirements are reasonably straightforward
1. create income and expenditure categories and sub-categories
2. Create 3 accounts (cheque, savings, credit) in which I can manually record debit and credit transactions by description, category and sub-category
3. Create annual budgets with specified monthly amounts for categories and sub-categories
4. Compare actual income and expenditure for categories and sub-categories (for all accounts) against budget each month and for year to date.
I am confident most of my requirements can be met by using the Checking Register and Budget Templates in IWork (Numbers).
However, I don’t know how to link and further develop these two Templates to enable me to use the same categories and sub-categories for all accounts and budget.
I also want to be able to compare actual income and expenditure for categories and sub-categories (for all accounts) against budget each month and for year to date (ie. point 4 above).
I should be grateful if someone with a better knowledge than I have of IWork (Numbers) and spreadsheets could steer me in the right direction.
With thanks in anticipation.

Answer 1

ww,
You can begin your orientation by reading the Numbers 09 User Guide, available for download free of charge from the Numbers Help menu. This will give you a lot of insight into how spreadsheets can be used and how to build them.
Then download the, also free, iWork Formulas and Functions User Guide and page through it to see what's there. It would be about as interesting as reading a dictionary to read it straight through, but it's good to get to know what functions are available.
I find that using the iMac's full resolution and wearing strong reading glasses is better than using reduced resolution. If that's not enough, you can go to System Preferences, Universal Access, Zoom. There are different zoom behaviors that you can choose from depending on your personal preference. Some users here have expressed a dislike for the zoom feature, but I suspect that if they needed it really badly, they would come to appreciate it.
Regarding the finance spreadsheet development, it's a big job. You are off on the right foot because you already have formulated a clear picture of what you want the final result to look like, or perhaps nearly so. My first tip is to take advantage of the Numbers ability to use many separate tables per sheet. Then it is easy to rearrange your sections if you don't like the look of your first efforts.
Make a dummy layout, with notes and/or fictitious values in cells where you eventually want links or complicated formulas. I suggest that you not consider using the Categories feature of Numbers Tables. The feature is limiting and at some point will stop you dead in your tracks and you will have to go back and start over with that particular element of your design.
Then, seek help here on one technical hurdle at a time. You can study the way the Check Register and Budget templates work by clicking on the interesting cells and looking at the expressions that appear in the formula bar.
Good luck,
Jerry