***************************************************************** -> This file introduces YOUR-PLAN, explains how to get started etc. It should be read by all first-time users. -> The file has been supplied as an integral part of YOUR-PLAN. This is a personal financial planning software package developed as a shareware package for use on a 'try-before-you-buy' basis by Invest-Tech Limited. For contact details, see end of this file. -> To print this file, type "PRINT README.TXT" (Press CTRL+BREAK to quit now) ***************************************************************** WELCOME ======= YOUR-PLAN (r2.1) is an easy-to-use software package for preparing a personal/household budget and cashflow projections for six months ahead. It enables you to project your income and expenditure and to forecast monthly cashflows and end-month bank and credit card balances. Use YOUR-PLAN to plan ahead and save money !!!!!!!! YOUR-PLAN is a fully operational and useful package and not 'disabled' in any way. We have offered it as shareware to encourage users to register and to purchase our other financial planning software products for preparing financial projections for the home and businesses. YOUR-PLAN is NOT free software. It has been supplied on a "try- before-you-buy" basis. If you continue to use YOUR-PLAN after a 30-day trial period, you must register with the author, Invest-Tech. In return for registering, you will be licensed to use YOUR-PLAN on a single computer indefinitely and you will automatically receive (at no extra cost) a copy of the latest release of PERS-PLAN, a more powerful and comprehensive personal financial planner with its spiral-bound 90-page manual incorporating tutorial exercises etc. You also gain access to full support etc. for both products. You can also upgrade and register directly with Invest-Tech via our World Wide Web (WWW) site on the Internet using a credit card and its special built-in forms. See bottom of file for details of its location. Our Web site, called PlanWare, contains downloadable versions of *ALL* our financial planners for businesses and the home. It also offers useful advice in the form of text files on such topics as business planning, cashflow forecasting etc. as well as lots of other interesting stuff. YOUR-PLAN is fully protected by copyright. However, it may be copied in its entirety and without modification for FREE distribution to friends and, subject to the conditions set out in the VENDINFO.DIZ file, by shareware libraries etc. Good luck with YOUR-PLAN. Brian Flanagan, Invest-Tech Limited ***************************************************************** FILE CONTENTS/INDEX =================== This file (README.TXT) covers the following topics in separate sections below: A - Details of supplied files, how to copy them etc. B - General introduction YOUR-PLAN and related matters C - Guidance on how to run YOUR-PLAN D - Explanation of shareware E - User Licence Agreement F - Software revisions ***************************************************************** The supplied file VENDINFO.DIZ also contains important information. It can be accessed by entering READ_ME.BAT at the DOS prompt. ****************************************************************** A - SUPPLIED FILES ================== See VENDINFO.DIZ for details. Before starting to use YOUR-PLAN, we recommend that you review this entire file either on-screen or, preferably, after printing it. It includes brief instructions for loading YOUR-PLAN which should enable you to start using the package. Another supplied text file (MANUAL.TXT), explains, in much more detail, how to load and use YOUR-PLAN. Because YOUR-PLAN is very intuitive and contains very extensive 'on-line' help, you may only need to refer to this file on an occasional basis. However, you may wish to print it at this stage in order to have it readily accessible for future reference, or if you get "stuck", or need detailed guidance on a specific issue. We have also included with YOUR-PLAN a text file (MONEY.TXT) which contains dozens of famous (and not so well-known) quotations on the subject of "money". If you feel depressed about your personal finances after using YOUR-PLAN, you should have a look at MONEY.TXT. It MIGHT cheer you up !! We welcome further quotations for inclusion in the next release of YOUR-PLAN. More seriously, have a look at Section 6.5 within the manual text file (MANUAL.TXT) for some basic ideas on utilising the output from YOUR-PLAN to improve your financial planning and/or position. Other text files of note are as follows: REGISTER Details and Form for registration ENTERASS Detailed guidance on entering assumptions. ***************************************************************** B - GENERAL INTRODUCTION ======================== YOUR-PLAN is an easy-to-use software package for preparing a personal budget and cashflow projections for six months ahead. It can be used to improve the management of your finances by forecasting your income and expenditure. The resulting budget can then be used to improve your financial planning & control and, ultimately, to save yourself money. For a more detailed and formal description of YOUR-PLAN, you should refer to the text file called VENDINFO.DIZ. Based on your estimates and assumptions, YOUR-PLAN compiles a detailed and summary budget for up to a six months ahead. It also produces reports analysing the budget and detailing all your underlying assumptions on income and expenditure. YOUR-PLAN incorporates facilities for graphing key results; overwriting assumptions by actuals; undertaking 'what-if' analysis; and rolling-forward assumptions and projections one month at a time. YOUR-PLAN is very suitable for users with limited or no prior experience of computers as well as for more experienced computer users who do not wish to go to the very considerable trouble, or to waste valuable time, developing their own planning system on a spreadsheet. Bear in mind that YOUR-PLAN involved hundreds of hours of development and years of "know-how". To run YOUR-PLAN you need the following system: * Industry-standard PC with DOS 3.30 or higher and a hard disk, or dual 3.5" or 5.25" drives. * Conventional memory of 640k. * VGA, GCA, mono, Hercules or LCD display (or equivalent). A printer (dot-matrix, ink-jet or laser) is desirable. You can run YOUR-PLAN as a DOS program within Windows (use the supplied icon called YOURPLAN.ICO). YOUR-PLAN complements the very many personal financial packages currently available in the market. Most of these are basically household accounts systems with only very limited budgeting facilities. To our best knowledge, very few of them have any dynamic planning capabilities, similar to YOUR-PLAN's. To produce any form of projections with most of these systems, you must first keep historic accounts. For many people, this is a pain in the ...... Most of us are much more interested in projecting our income/expenditure and making ends meet in the FUTURE, rather than in learning about the past ("water under the bridge", "closing the stable door after the horse has bolted" and that sort of thing). Historic data is NOT required to use YOUR-PLAN. However, if you do happen to keep household accounts (either manual or computer-based), past data on income and expenditure patterns etc. should help you make more accurate projections for the future. Features -------- YOUR-PLAN's features include the following: * Seven categories of income (salary for one wage earner, reimbursed work expenses, dividends, rent etc.). * Facilities for handling salary deductions based on absolute amounts and simple percentages as well as different percentages related to bands and thresholds (as for PAYE income tax) specified by the user. YOUR-PLAN is not restricted to any particular tax system or currency. Basic information on current tax bands and rates for the UK and Ireland is contained in a supplied file (TAX.TXT). * Sixteen main expenditure groups (household, car, accommodation etc.) incorporating twenty-eight subgroups which can be defined by a user. * Facilities for planning credit card expenditure and payments and for calculating interest on any outstanding balances. * Current and deposit accounts with facilities for calculating interest on the basis of specified interest rates, handling accrued interest and specifying interest payment dates. Help ---- YOUR-PLAN is entirely menu-driven and incorporates very comprehensive context-sensitive help facilities. These include extensive menu prompts, error trapping, on-line Help Pages, pop-up Hint & Guidance Windows, annotated variable descriptions and "drill-down" values. A very comprehensive manual is supplied as an accompanying text file (MANUAL.TXT). Specification ------------- Number of reports 7 (13)* Number of graphed variables 18 (18)* Approximate maximum number of user assumptions 530 (950)* Approximate total number of built-in formulae 870 (1,600)* * Numbers for PERS-PLAN given in parenthesis Registration ------------ The idea behind shareware is to allow a user to evaluate a software package at minimal cost - "try-before-you-buy". YOUR-PLAN is NOT FREE software. If you decide that you would like to retain and continue to use YOUR-PLAN after a 30-day trial period, you must register with Invest-Tech, the author and copyright holder. See VENDINFO.DIZ for further details. In return for registering, a user is licensed to continue using YOUR-PLAN on one computer without any time limit. In addition, a user automatically receives (at no extra cost) a fully-operational copy of a much more powerful and comprehensive version of YOUR-PLAN, called PERS-PLAN, with its 90-page spiral-bound printed manual (incorporating tutorial exercises etc.). You also gain access to full support for both products. Further details about PERS-PLAN are given below and within YOUR-PLAN itself. (Practically all registrants immediately switch over from YOUR-PLAN to PERS-PLAN as soon as they receive the latter). See the REGISTER.TXT file for further details and a Registration Form. YOUR-PLAN contains a built-in Registration Form. Alternatively you can use the Registration Form contained in the REGISTER.TXT file. PERS-PLAN --------- PERS-PLAN, the version of YOUR-PLAN which is automatically supplied (at no extra cost) to all users on registering, includes many additional features and facilities: * Covers a 12-month period with separate full-year reports * Handles incomes, salary deductions etc. for one or two wage-earners * Special graph printing utility * Much more extensive range of expenditure assumptions * More function keys to facilitate data entry etc. * Different printer set-ups can be used for monthly and full-year reports. It is supplied with a 90-page spiral-bound manual. Invest-Tech Limited ------------------- We are management consultants specialising in financial and business planning software. Formed in 1983, Invest-Tech is a Registered Practice within the Institute of Management Consultants in Ireland and the UK. Our banker is Bank of Ireland, O'Connell Bridge, Dublin 1, and our auditors are Deloitte & Touche, Dublin. In addition to YOUR-PLAN and PERS-PLAN, our range of financial planning software includes the following commercial products: BANK-PLAN: 12-month cashflow planner for micro- and small- businesses. Runs 'stand-alone' and with similar general structure to PERS-PLAN. Handles debtors, VAT, creditors, expense payments etc. Price: 50 pounds (sterling or Irish) excluding VAT (US$70). These is a shareware version of BANK-PLAN. Look for a file called BANKP*.ZIP. CASH-PLAN: 4-week + 11-month cashflow planner for small/medium sized businesses, subsidiaries of large companies and corporate cash planning. Runs 'stand-alone' and with similar general structure to PERS-PLAN. More powerful version of BANK-PLAN with additional features and facilities. Price: 95 pounds (sterling or Irish) excluding VAT (US$150). EASI-PLAN: A range of comprehensive and fully-integrated financial planners (P&Ls, cashflows, balance sheets, ratios etc.) covering 12-months plus 8 quarters. To our best knowledge, no other package even remotely offers the same range of features or facilities for business and financial planning. Runs 'stand-alone' with similar general structure to PERS-PLAN. A "MICRO" version for new and very small businesses (with annual sales of up to 250,000 pounds). Price: 45 pounds (sterling or Irish) excluding VAT (US$70). A "LITE" version for new and small businesses (with annual sales of up to 2 million pounds). Price: 75 pounds (sterling or Irish) excluding VAT (US$120). A "PRO" version for larger businesses and/or professional advisers. Price: 145 pounds (sterling or Irish) excluding VAT (US$230). These are shareware versions of EASI-PLAN Micro, Lite and Pro. Look for files called EASI*.ZIP. FIN-PLAN: Wide range of comprehensive and fully-integrated financial planners (P&Ls, cashflows, balance sheets, ratios etc.) covering 12-months plus 8/16 quarters. Versions are available to run on Lotus 1-2-3 (any release for DOS or Windows). Extensive menus with numerous features and facilities. Easily expanded by user. Price: 95 pounds (sterling or Irish) excluding VAT (US$150). Comprehensive descriptions, specifications and 'demos' are available for each of the foregoing products. ****************************************************************** C - HOW TO RUN YOUR-PLAN ======================== Refer to Section 3 of the MANUAL.TXT text file for more detailed instructions if you run into any problems. The following guidelines assume that you have already installed (i.e. copied, unzipped, unarchived, uncompressed etc.) the complete set of YOUR-PLAN files onto a hard disk. a) Get into the sub-directory where you have installed all YOUR-PLAN's files. For example, if the sub-directory YOUR was used, type "CD YOUR" and press RETURN at the DOS prompt. b) Type "GO" to access an introductory menu system. If your PC uses a very old type of display, do not select this option choose c) or d) instead. or c) For guidance on the syntax for loading YOUR-PLAN etc. type "YP". or d) Type "YP MASTER" to directly load YOUR-PLAN with specimen assumptions contained in a file called MASTER.ASS. To access any of YOUR-PLAN's text files, you can use the EDIT utility supplied with DOS or the NOTEPAD accessory supplied with Windows. Running YOUR-PLAN through Windows --------------------------------- To set up YOUR-PLAN to run within Windows, install it using the DOS commands etc. before you load Windows. Next, run the Windows Program Manager and proceed as follows: 1. Select the Applications Group which you want to contain YOUR-PLAN. 2. Select File and New options from the Program Manager's menu. 3. When the New Program Object box appears, select Program Item and OK. 4. When the Program Item Properties box appears, proceed as follows: - Type "YOUR-PLAN" as the Description. - Type "C:\YOUR\YP X" as the Command Line. Make sure you enter a single space between YP and X. This command assumes that YOUR-PLAN has been installed to the YOUR sub-directory on a hard disk called C. - Enter "C:\YOUR" as the Working Directory. - Select Change Icon and select OK when the Change Icon message box appears. - When the next Change Icon box appears, enter "C:\YOUR\YOURPLAN.ICO" as the File Name and select OK. - Once you return to the Program Item Properties box select OK twice to complete installation. To run YOUR-PLAN within Windows, double-click on its icon and wait while it loads. Press RETURN to ignore the 'File does not exist' message and then use the cursor keys and RETURN to select the desired *.ASS file in response to the instruction 'Enter Data File Name" which appears at the top of the screen. If more than five such data files exist, press the F3 Function Key to display them in a larger window. If using Windows, you can view any of YOUR-PLAN's text files using the Notepad accessory. ***** WATCH OUT **** If you try to display graphs when running YOUR-PLAN in a DOS Window (i.e. less than full screen) when running in Enhanced Mode, the graphs may not show and the display may lock. To unlock it, return to a full DOS screen by pressing ALT+RETURN. Always use a DOS full screen when displaying graphs. Using a LCD display ------------------- If you are running YOUR-PLAN on a portable PC with a LCD display, you will probably need to change YOUR-PLAN's video setting once it has loaded in order to clearly distinguish the rectangular cursor which appears when you are viewing reports on the screen. To do this, press I (for Initialise) at the Main Menu, V (for Video) and L (for LCD/B&W). The Manual explains how to make these changes permanent. **************************************************************** D - WHAT IS SHAREWARE ? ======================= "Shareware" is a method of software distribution designed to give users a chance to test a package before purchase at a very competitive price. Copyright rules apply to shareware and the authors retain all the rights except as indicated in their licence agreements. As you will see from YOUR-PLAN, shareware does not signify cheap (in the nasty sense) or poor quality software. ***************************************************************** E - USER LICENCE AGREEMENT ========================== See VENDINFO.DIZ. ***************************************************************** F - SOFTWARE REVISIONS ====================== V1.0 16-NOV-1992 ------------------ First shareware release of YOUR-PLAN. Based on PERS-PLAN, a more powerful and comprehensive planner which YOUR-PLAN users automatically receive on registering with Invest-Tech. V1.01 6-FEB-1993 ----------------- Minor changes to Help Pages & menu prompts. Improved display for Liquid Crystal Displays. V2.0 19-JUL-1993 ------------------ Addition of the following: Graph printing utility. "Roll-forward" facility. Pop-up Guidance and Hint Windows. "Drill-down" values. We have also added the ENTERASS.TXT and MONEY.TXT files. Extensive changes have been made to the layout and contents of the README.TXT and MANUAL.TXT files. V2.1 10-FEB-1994 ------------------ The batch file called GO.BAT was enhanced to include introductory screens and a menu system for new users. Minor changes to *.TXT files. ***************************************************************** YOUR-PLAN (c) Copyright Invest-Tech Limited 1992-95 All Rights Reserved Invest-Tech Limited 27 Ardmeen Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland Irish Tel: 01-283 4083 UK Tel: 01232-315454 (Call 9 to 9 weekdays and 10 to 6 weekends - GMT/BST) Fax: 278 2391 Fax codes: Irish:01- UK:00-353-1- Inter'l:+353-1- CompuServe: 100606,2665 Internet: brianf@iol.ie WWW Site URL: http://www.planware.ie/resource/planware ***************************************************************** To view this file page-by-page, type "TYPE README.TXT|MORE" *** End of README.TXT file ***