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Amortization Plus Overview
Amortization
Plus, or A+ for short, is a tool to help create and maintain loan amortization,
annuity, and lump-sum distribution schedules for clients and companies that you
can setup in the program. You can calculate interest rates, terms, payments,
payouts, and print schedules for the life of a loan or annuity. In addition, you
can make balloon payments, change terms, withdraw lump-sums, or change any other
facet of a loan or annuity. In addition to printing schedules, you can also
graph and chart loan and annuity information and even print a 5-year loan
analysis schedule to include for financial statement reporting. Set up as many
companies as you like and for each company set up as many loans and annuities
for them.
Features
The
following are some of the most significant features you will find in
Amortization Plus:
-
Create and maintain an unlimited
number of companies
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For each company or client
create an unlimited number of loan and annuity schedules
-
Calculate interest rates,
terms, payment amounts, payouts, principal amounts, and future value amounts
for loans and annuities
-
Make balloon payments,
lump-sum distributions, or change terms of any loan or annuity
-
Print loan and annuity
schedules including a 5-Year loan analysis for financial statement reporting
-
Graph the terms of any loan
or annuity
-
Help and Tutorials to guide
you through the creation of clients and entering loan and annuity data
Amortization
Plus will become indispensable as you begin to utilize the many customizable
features for your clients. You can quickly enter loan information to get a
payment or interest rate on the fly using the "Quick Schedule" option, and then
save the results for any client already setup in A+. From there, you can print
loan amortization schedules, annuity schedules, and even graph the results. Once
you see how easy and intuitive Amortization Plus
Support
A+
includes phone and email support. Updates are provided via download until
the next major release. Major releases are scheduled annually to add new
features and options. A tutorial is provided to get you up and running
quickly.
If you have
specific questions about a feature or need additional information, we encourage
you to call us at 402.861.8800 or email us at
info@proware-cpa.com.
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Creating a New Client File
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To create a new company data file in Amortization
Plus (or AP for short), click the “Client Maintenance” button on
the toolbar at the Main Menu or simply select the “Clients”
option from the File Menu. The “Clients” screen displays a list
of the companies that currently exist for AP with a series of
buttons along the bottom of the screen that allow many options
for client maintenance for AP. Click the “Add” button to add a
new company.
When you click the “Add” button, AP opens the
“Details” page where you can enter the details for your client.
Much of this information can be filled-in or changed at a later
date. For our example, we will simply set up a sample company.
The client number for our company is 0101 and the name of the
company is XYZ Company, Inc. If necessary, you can always delete
this company when you are through running this tutorial. In
addition to basic details about the company that you can fill
in, there is another tabbed page that consists of “Notes” which
you can attach for the company you are creating. Notes can be
added for any company and appended at any time. For this
tutorial we will not be adding any notes at this time. After
entering the information for our company, we click “Save” to
save the new company.
Once we click “Save” to save the new company, we
can either click “Select” to select the new company or we can
click on the “List View” tab to see a complete listing of the
companies we have available for selection in AP. To select a
client from the “List View” screen, highlight the one you want
to work on by clicking the “Select” button at the bottom of the
screen or simply double-click on the company to select it. At
this point, we are now ready to enter loan information in order
to create amortization schedules for our client.
An alternative to creating a new client by
filling out the information in the “Details” page, you will note
that there is also an “Import” button which will automatically
import client information from other Pro-Ware programs such as
“Accountant’s Helper”, “Client Communiqué’” or “Ratios Plus”.
Once the Import wizard starts, we simply select the data folder
which contains data files from any of the 3 programs previously
mentioned to import client data files.
In addition to
creating, editing, and importing client files, the Client
Maintenance screen is also useful for deleting client files no
longer needed or print a report listing all clients you
currently have listed in Amortization Plus.
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Backing Up and Restoring Files
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To Backup a company data file in Amortization
Plus (or AP for short), click the File Menu to drop the File
Menu down and then click “Options” and then “Backup/Restore” to
enter the Backup/Restore wizard. Note, you can also click the
toolbar button for the Backup/Restore to start the
Backup/Restore wizard.
On the first screen of the wizard, we will make
the choice of whether to Backup or Restore data files. Initially
we want to make a backup of our files, so we select the “Backup
Data Files” option and click “Next”. Now we select the
appropriate backup option. In AP there are 2 types of backups we
can make. The first is a traditional backup which will compress
our data files and archive them in case we need to restore these
client files at a later date due to a hard drive crash,
accidental file deletion, etc.
The other option in backing up files is to copy
data files to a different location. This option (similar to the
“Save As…” option in Excel or Word) is useful if you want to
copy a client file to your laptop’s local drive, an external
hard drive, thumb drive, or Zip drive to work on at home or at
the client’s location. For our first backup, we choose the “Zip
Files” option to create a compressed backup and click “Next” to
continue.
On the next screen we are asked to provide a
location for the backup file. To do this, click on the ellipses
(or 3 dots) to the right of the backup location. From here we
can navigate to the folder where we want to create our backup or
create a new folder in which to store our backup file. For this
tutorial, we are going to create an “AP_Backup” folder on our
local C drive to store our backed up AP files. Once we have the
correct location (in this case we choose our C drive) we then
click the button “Create New Folder” to create a folder called “AP_Backup”.
After selecting the folder, click “OK” and we will see our
folder displayed as the location where our backup files will be
stored. Note the 2 additional options you have if you choose a
removable drive in which to store your backups. You can either
erase the contents or format your removable drive through this
wizard. However, if you are selecting these options, proceed
with caution because either of these options will completely
erase the contents of your drive prior to making the backup
file. Once we have the correct location, we click “Next” to
proceed. On this screen we either accept the default name which
AP has given us or change it to something more meaningful. In
this case, we accept the default name that AP has given us and
click “Next” to proceed. On the final screen of the Backup
wizard, we are shown a summary of the backup options which
identifies the location and name of our backup file. If this is
correct, we click “Finish” to complete the backup or click
“Back” to change the name or location. Once we click “Finish”
the backup file is created and a message is shown telling us
that the backup file was created. Click “OK” to return to AP’s
main menu.
To demonstrate copying a file, we choose the
Backup/Restore wizard button once again, make sure the “Backup”
option is selected and click “Next” to proceed. This time we
select the “Copy files to another location” option and click
“Next” to proceed. We will use the previous folder which we have
just created to copy our data files. So we first click the
ellipses button to the right of the location shown and then
click the local C drive and the “AP_Backup” folder we just
created. Once we have the correct location, we click “Next” to
proceed. If the location shown where our files will be copied is
correct, we click “Finish” to complete the copy process. Upon
completion, we can then click “OK” to return to our main menu
once again.
To restore a data file using the Backup/Restore
wizard, we click the button for the “Backup/Restore” wizard,
click the “Restore” option and then click “Next” to proceed. On
the next screen, we are given 2 options. We can either restore a
previously backed up, zipped file or we can choose to copy a
previously copied file to our current default data folder. In
this example, we are going to restore the backup file we created
in the first part of this tutorial. So we make sure the “ZIPPED
File” option is selected and click “Next” to proceed. Now we
click the ellipses to find our backup file and navigate to the
location. Once the correct location is identified, we can then
select the zipped file. We will select the one we created and
then click “OK” and then “Next” to proceed. If the location and
zipped file are correct, we can click “Finish”. Click “OK” after
the restore is complete to return to the main menu.
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Configuration Wizard
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This
video will take you through the various settings that can be
changed using the Configuration Wizard in Amortization Plus (or
AP for short). To access the Configuration Wizard, select it
from the File Menu.
On the first screen of the wizard, we are shown
some system settings that can be changed. We could change the
size of screens which is defaulted to 100%. If you would like to
make the screen sizes larger for easier reading or smaller to
take up less space, you can change the default to something less
than or greater than 100%. If you are running a comfortable
resolution however, 100% will probably serve as the best choice.
Additionally, you can change the default data location. If the
location shown is not where you want your data files, you can
change the location by clicking the ellipses and navigating to
another location. Once you are finished, your settings are
automatically saved. In addition, you can change the behavior of
AP when printing reports. AP will automatically return to either
the report specification screen or the main menu after printing
reports and will allow you to change your printer every time you
print a report or print to your default printer without
prompting you first. Change these options only if you do not
want the default behavior of AP.
To select other configuration options, click on
the appropriate item on the left of the screen. The first are
system settings which we have already looked at and the next
option will change the program’s behavior regarding amortization
schedules. On this screen we can change what type of information
gets printed on our amortization schedules including the way we
would like AP to print subtotals. We can also select the type of
rounding to use the number of days for AP to use when making
it’s calculations. The Time Value of Money (or TVM), for short)
also allows you to change the number of days in the year used
when making TVM calculations. Clicking the “Backup” option
allows you to change your default backup and restore locations.
Finally, the “Email Configuration” option allows
you to input up to 3 different email addresses from which to
send correspondence from AP. Enter a description of the location
and then click the ellipses to the right of the SMTP address and
enter the appropriate information here. It is not necessary to
enter your SMTP address and you can have your network
administrator enter it a later time if you do not know the
specifics of your email address at this time.
Finally when you
are finished changing your configuration settings, click
“Finish” to automatically save these settings and return you to
AP’s main menu.
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Creating an Amortization Schedule
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This video will take you through the steps
necessary to create a client amortization schedule in
Amortization Plus (or AP, for short).
To create a client amortization schedule, click
the Client Amortization option on the main menu and then click
Amortization or click the Amortization button on the toolbar.
Upon clicking this option we notice that a grid is displayed.
Here we can see all of the schedules currently set up for the
client we are using. Since there are none set up yet we click
the “Add” button to create a new one. For this loan we want to
calculate the amount of the monthly payment on a $150,000,
30-year loan at 6.5%.
Once we click “Add”, the details tab appears and
we can then enter the pertinent information for the loan. The
first item to add is a loan number and description for the loan.
Here, we enter “101” as the loan number and “Building Loan #101”
as the description for the loan. The loan we are adding is a
standard 30-year fixed rate building loan. We select 09/01/2007
as the start date of the loan and the payment frequency which
will be monthly. Next, we enter the first payment due date,
which will be on 10/01/2007. The interest rate for the loan is
6.5%, so we enter that information in the box labeled interest
rate. Now we enter 360 as the number of monthly payments we are
making and finally we enter $150,000 as the principal amount.
Next, we click “Save” to save this loan and then we can see that
the payment amount will be $948.10. Once saved, we can then
print an amortization schedule showing the schedule of payments
to be made, and the amount of the payment allocated to principal
and interest.
To view or print a report of this loan
information, we close this screen by clicking “Cancel” and then
we select “Amortization Reports” from the Reports Menu. We then
select the appropriate loan (in this case Loan #101) and then
select the loan we want to print an amortization schedule for by
clicking the appropriate checkbox next to the loan. We can print
an amortization listing, a detailed view of the report, or an
Amortization schedule. In this case, we want to view just the
loan details so we select that report and then click “Preview”
to see what our report will look like. From there we can click
on the printer icon to print the report to our printer.
In addition to
entering the basic loan information, you can enter additional
information about the loan such as a balloon payment or
refinancing information. To enter a one-time balloon payment of
$20,000 and see its impact on our monthly payment, select the
Amortization Schedules button on the toolbar. With the #101 loan
selected, click on the “Payment Adjustments” tab. The adjustment
we would like to make is a $20,000 balloon payment which will
take effect on 01/01/2008. Once this information is entered,
click “Save” to save the balloon payment information and AP
recalculates the various facets of the loan. To see these
changes, click the “Details” tab of the loan. Here, you will see
that our number of payments has changed to 254 from the original
360.
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Creating an Ordinary Annuity
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This video will take you through the steps
necessary to create an ordinary annuity schedule for a client in
Amortization Plus (or AP, for short).
To create an ordinary annuity schedule for a
client, click the Client Schedules option on the main menu and
then click the “Annuity – Time Value of Money” option or Time
Value of Money calculations button on the toolbar. Upon clicking
this option we notice that a grid is displayed. Here we can see
all of the time value of money schedules currently set up for
our client. Since there are none set up yet we click the “Add”
button to create a new one. For this annuity we want to
calculate the payoff amount of an ordinary annuity with $10,000
down and $100 per month payments for 2 years. The interest rate
for the annuity is 4.5%.
Once we click “Add”, the details tab appears and
we can then enter the pertinent information for the annuity. The
first item to add is the annuity number and description for the
annuity. Here, we enter “201” as the annuity number and “First
Federal Annuity #201” as the description for our annuity. Since
this annuity is an ordinary annuity, we make sure that
“Ordinary” is selected. This annuity is an accumulation type
annuity so we select “Accumulation” as the type of annuity. We
also want to know the future value of this annuity, so we make
sure that “Future Value” is selected. The annuity we are adding
is a 2 year annuity with a $10,000 down payment and $100 per
month payment at 4.5%. We select 09/01/2007 as the start date of
the annuity and the payment interval which is monthly. In the
Deposit Amount field we enter $10,000, the payment is $100, the
interest rate is 4.5% and the number of payments is 24. Next, we
click “Save” to save the annuity information and then we can see
the future value of this annuity which is $13,446.30.
To view or print a report of this annuity
information, we close this screen by clicking “Cancel” and then
we select “Annuity Reports” from the Reports Menu. We then
select the appropriate annuity (in this case First Federal
Annuity #201) and then select the annuity we want to print an
annuity schedule for by clicking the appropriate checkbox next
to the annuity. We can print an annuity listing, a detailed view
of the annuity, or an annuity schedule. In this case, we want to
view just the annuity details so we select that report and then
click “Preview” to see what our report will look like. From
there we can click on the printer icon to print the report to
our printer.
In addition to
entering the basic loan information, we could also enter
additional information about the annuity, such as a note
indicating that the interest rate is a variable rate. To enter
this information, click the Client Annuity Calculations button,
select the #201 annuity and then select the “Notes” tab to enter
this additional information for the annuity.
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Creating a Lump-Sum Deposit
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This video will take you through the steps
necessary to determine the interest on a lump-sum deposit and
create an accompanying schedule for a client in Amortization
Plus (or AP, for short).
To determine the future value of a lump sum
deposit and create an accompanying schedule for a client, click
the Client Schedules option on the main menu and then click the
“Lump Sum – Time Value of Money” option or click the Client Lump
Sum Calculations button on the toolbar. Upon clicking this
option we notice that a grid is displayed. Here we can see all
of the Lump Sum Future Value schedules currently set up for our
client. Since there are none yet set up in AP, we click the
“Add” button to create a new one. For this lump sum deposit we
want to calculate the interest rate of a lump sum deposit of a
$10,000 CD that will be worth $10,780 and has a 2-year maturity
date and the interest rate is compounded quarterly.
Once we click “Add”, the details tab appears and
we can then enter the pertinent information for our lump sum
deposit. The first item to add is the lump sum deposit number
and description. Here, we enter “301” as the lump sum deposit
number and “Credit Union CD #301” as the description. Since this
lump sum deposit is a CD and we know what it will be worth at
the end of its 2-year maturity date, we want to know what the
interest rate is so we mark the option to calculate the interest
rate. We know that the interest is compounded quarterly, so we
drop that menu down and select “Quarterly” as the compounding.
The lump sum deposit we are adding has a 2 year maturity and
cost $10,000 and will be worth $10,780 at the end of the 2-year
period. We select 09/01/2007 as the start date and 09/01/2009 as
the date of maturity for this CD. In the Deposit Amount field we
enter $10,000 and in the “Future Value” field we enter %10,780.
Next, we click “Save” to save this loan and we can see that our
interest rate has been calculated at 3.773%. Once saved, AP
automatically calculates the variable we were looking for which
was the interest rate of this CD.
To view or print a report of this lump sum
deposit information, we close this screen by clicking “Cancel”
and then we select “Lump Sum Deposit Reports” from the Reports
Menu. We then select the appropriate lump sum deposit (in this
case the Credit Union CD #301) and then select the lump sum
deposit we want to print a schedule for by clicking the
appropriate checkbox next to the lump sum deposit. Similar to
the annuities and amortization schedules, we can print a lump
sum deposit listing, a detailed view of the lump sum deposit, or
a lump sum deposit schedule. In this case, we want to print a
schedule of the lump sum deposit so we select that report and
then click “Preview” to see what our report will look like. From
there we can click on the printer icon to print the report to
our printer.
In addition to
entering the basic lump sum deposit information, we could also
enter additional information about the CD, such as a note
indicating that upon maturity this CD can be rolled over for
another 2 years. To enter this information, click the Client
Lump Sum Calculations button, select the #301 CD and then select
the “Notes” tab to enter this additional information for this
CD.
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Creating a Quick Amortization
Schedule
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This video will take you through the steps
necessary to create a quick amortization schedule for a client
and optionally saving those calculations in Amortization Plus
(or AP, for short).
To create a quick amortization schedule for a
client, click the “Quick Schedules” option on the main menu and
then click the “Amortization” option or click the Quick
Amortization Schedule button on the toolbar. Upon clicking this
option we notice that a details page is displayed where we can
fill-in several components that make up a loan and determine
based on that information any variable we are searching for. We
can then save that information and add it to the list of
amortization schedules we have already created or simply delete
it from the system.
In this case, we simply need to know what our
monthly payment will be on a 5-year car loan at 6.5%, financing
$32,000. First, we click “Edit” to edit the information shown.
We can ignore the loan number and description fields since this
is just a quick loan. Note that these items can later be
filled-in if you want to save this loan information permanently
for the client. We want to calculate a payment amount so we make
sure that option is selected. Next, we enter the start date of
the loan as 10/01/2007 and the payment frequency will be
monthly, so we select the “Monthly” option from the frequency
drop-down menu. The first payment is due on 11/01/2007, so we
enter that date as the date of the first payment. Our interest
rate will be 6.5%, so we enter 6.5 in the interest rate field.
The number of payments we will make is 60 so we enter that in
the number of payments field and finally, we enter $32,000 as
the principal amount needed to finance. To see the monthly
payment amount we simply click “Save” and the amount of $626.12
is then calculated as the monthly payment.
Once our monthly
payment has been calculated we print an amortization schedule
for this loan by clicking “Print” or even chart the results
graphically by selecting the “Chart” option. Finally, if we
decide that we want to save this loan and add it to the
amortization schedules we have already created for this client,
we click the “Payment Adjustments” tab (or the middle tab) and
then click the “Create Client Loan” tab. This information is
then permanently saved and the loan can be edited to accommodate
any payment adjustments or additional notes we would like to
add. Also note that even though we created a quick amortization
schedule in this example, quick schedules can also be created in
the same manner for both annuities and lump sum deposits.
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Printing and Charting Reports
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This video will take you through the steps
necessary to print a client listing, a loan amortization
schedule, and a 5-year analysis report in Amortization Plus. In
addition, we will also learn how to chart the data from a loan
amortization schedule.
All of the reports in AP can be found under the
Reports Menu. The first report on the menu is a Client Listing
report. This report will print a list of all clients that are
currently setup in AP. To print this report, we click the Client
Listing option under the Reports Menu. You can also print this
listing for just selected clients by clicking the “Selected
Clients” option. When we select this option, we are shown a grid
that contains all clients currently entered in AP. From here, we
can select just those clients we want to print. In this case, we
click the “Mark All” button to mark all of the clients to be
printed. In addition, we want to see the entire detail of each
company set up in AP, so we set the Detail to “Yes” to show us
detail. We will be printing in portrait format, so we do not
check the “Landscape” option and finally, we have the option of
printing this report to file in a multitude of formats. We just
want to preview and print this report, so we click “Preview” to
see what the report looks like. Then, if the report looks
correct, we click the printer icon to print this report to the
printer.
To print a client amortization schedule, we
simply select the ”Amortization Report” option in the Reports
Menu. This option displays a screen with a listing of all loans
currently set up for the client. We can print an Amortization
Schedule Listing which will show us all of the loans we have set
up and what items have been calculated. We can also print the
details of any loans by selecting that option and finally we can
print an Amortization Schedule which will give us a complete
schedule of the loan payment information. The Amortization
Schedule is the report we want to preview, so we select that
option, make sure that the loan we want to display is selected,
and we click “Preview” to view the report on screen. We can
print this report to the printer by selecting the printer icon
or close the Preview screen by clicking on the “Close” (or Exit)
icon. Printing reports for annuities or lump-sum deposits works
much the same way in AP. Select the report to print, select the
annuities or deposits to print, and click “Print” or “Preview”.
The final report listed in the Reports Menu is
the 5-year Loan Analysis Report. This report gives you all of
the information necessary for financial statements. It breaks
down principal and interest for both the current and long-term
portion of the debt. It also lists a 5-year schedule that can be
included in the financial statements or working papers for a
client. Simply select the loan by placing a check to the left of
it and click “Print” or “Preview” to display the results.
In addition to
the reports found under the Reports Menu, you can also print a
report for any loan, annuity, or lump-sum deposit already
entered in AP by clicking the corresponding button on the
toolbar. For instance, we click the Client Amortization
Schedules button, highlight the loan we want to see and then
click the “Reports” button. We can see a listing of the payments
and even set a range of payments to display. Cancelling or
closing this report will take us back to our amortization
listing. Clicking the “Chart” button will display a graph
showing principal versus interest through the life of the loan.
We can change any aspects of the graph and Amortization Plus
will save our settings for any loan, annuity, or lump-sum
deposit for which we want to display a graph.
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Summary
The number of features
and flexibility of the Amortization Plus program may take some time to
discover. Perhaps one of our best features is that you do not need to be
familiar with any other program to take advantage of AP's power and convenience. The
basic features may be all you ever need, but you can take comfort in knowing
that when the need arises, chances are you’ll find a feature that will make
short work of the task.
We encourage you to
provide us with your feedback. There is an option in the Help menu that will
allow you to fax or email your comments to our support staff. Many of the new
features we add are a direct result of feedback from our users.
Finally, since support is
included with the cost of your software (and upgrades), help is never more than
an email or phone call away. We look forward to meeting your continuing needs.
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If you wish to ask specific questions or request additional
information, e-mail us at info@proware-cpa.com. |
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