NAME

       dtaus - Converter for DTAUS files

DESCRIPTION

       The  dtaus(1)  program  reads and writes German DTAUS files.  DTAUS is an semi-acronym for
       DatenTrägerAUStausch.  It is used by German credit institutes in order to implement  money
       exchanges  between  accounts  and  credit  institutes.   These  files  are  always  called
       DTAUS0.TXT.

       Since they are shipped in a weird ascii format that is not quite readable and writable for
       human beings a special control format was invented.  The dtaus(1) program reads and writes
       such a control file and generates a proper DTAUS file if requested or decodes one.

CONTROL FILE

       The control file implements a very simple format which was invented only for use with  the
       dtaus(1) program.  Like with many *nix configuration files empty lines and those beginning
       with a hash mark (``#'') are ignored.  The remaining file is  splitted  into  three  major
       parts: one BEGIN record (representing the A record), several regular records (representing
       C records) and one optional END record (representing the E record), which is ignored  when
       the control file is read but is extracted from the bank file if one is decoded.

       Here's a short sample for a control file:

         BEGIN {
           Art   type
           Name  Martin Schulze
           Konto 123545
           BLZ   2004002
           Ausfuehrung 23.12.2001
           Euro
         }

         {
           Transaktion transaction
           Name   Martha Schulze
           Konto  98832
           BLZ    2004003
           Betrag 20.00
           Zweck  Gebühr Wohnheimnetz
           Text   Anschluß u. 11+12.97
         }

         ...

       Please  note  that  several field names are used in both the BEGIN and the regular record.
       When used in the BEGIN record they denote your name and your bank account.  When used in a
       regular record they are affiliated with your customers data.

       You may use up to 15 fields entitled as Text.  They will be recorded one by one and stored
       into additional data records using the same order.  This way  you  could  add  a  detailed
       description  of  the  type of money transfer if you like.  The contents of the field Zweck
       are most probably what the customer will see on their bank statements.

       The field Ausfuehrung is optional and denotes the day when the entire  transaction  should
       be  processed.   The  date  has  to be given as DD.MM.YYYY and will be translated into the
       resulting bank file literally.  It may not be younger than the creation date of  the  file
       which  will  automatically  be  inserted by dtaus(1).  The processing date also may not be
       more than 15 years later than the creation date.

   Explanation of type
       One of the following:

       LK     Lastschrift Kundenseitig

       GK     Gutschrift Kundenseitig

       LB     Lastschrift Bankseitig

       GB     Gutschrift Bankseitig

   Explanation of transaction
       One of the following:

       Einzug Bankeinzug

       Gutschrift
              Überweisung

       Vermögen [JJJJ]
              Vermögenswirksame Leistung mit Sparzulage.  Als Argument kann  das  Jahr  angegeben
              werden,  für  das  diese Leistung gilt.  Wenn es weggelassen, wird, verwendet dtaus
              das aktuelle Jahr.  Vom Jahr wird nur die letzte Ziffer  verwendet,  es  muß  daher
              auch nicht vollständig angegeben werden.

       Vermoegen [JJJJ]
              Wie Vermögen, jedoch ohne Umlaut.

       E-Cash Lastschrift aus Verfügung im elecctronic Cash-System

       E-Cash-A
              Lastschrift aus Verfügung im elecctronic Cash-System mit ausländischer Karte.

       You  may only use one of these for the entire file.  You are not allowed to switch between
       Einzug and Gutschrift within the same file.   If  you  require  the  credit  institute  to
       process both types, you'll have to provide two separate diskettes.

   Support for Euro
       From  January  1st  2002  the currency in many European countries, Germany is among these,
       changes to Euro.  Hence, money transfer changes from  DM  (formerly  known  as  ``Deutsche
       Mark'')  to  Euro.  The format specification of DTAUS was meant for DM but was modified in
       2001 to support Euro as well.  The current version of dtaus(1) supports  both  currencies.
       It  defaults  to using Euro, however.  To switch to DM, simply add the keyword DM (or Euro
       respectively if this version was compiled without Euro support as default)  to  the  BEGIN
       record.   If  no  currency  keyword  is  given,  the  compiled in decides (upstream source
       defaults to Euro).

   Character Encoding
       German Umlauts are converted into two 7-bit characters on the fly so  you  don't  need  to
       care about them.  Since the DTAUS0.TXT file only uses uppercase letters every text is also
       converted to uppercase.

       Except for the way records are delimited the format should be self explanatory.

SEE ALSO

       dtaus(1).

       DTAUS files use a special but simple and publically documented format.  It is included  in
       the distribution of dtaus(1) as dtaus.txt.

                                         17 November 2001                                DTAUS(5)