Pine Grove Software (718) 793-4622 Solve-It! (tm) Ver. 2.1 Welcome to the new version of Solve-It! Solve-It! has been available as user supported software since Dec. 1985. (Before that, there was Finance I and Finance II, an early predecessor to Solve-It!, which was released in Dec. 1984.) This new version of Solve-It! has many enhancements over earlier versions. But before we get into the details of what they are, let us take a few moments to describe what it is that Solve-It! does. If you are NOT new to the program, you may skip right to the section in this document called "New With Version 2.1". Whatever your uses for Solve-It! are, WE STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT YOU DOWNLOAD THE NEWEST VERSION OF THE PROGRAM, since it is updated to stay current with the new tax law, as well as fix many minor bugs and two semi major ones. There have also been many enhancements to the routines that provides more information as well as makes the program MUCH MUCH slicker to operate. Our advertisements read that "there has never been a program like it..." and we think that you will agree. We are not trying to boast when we make such a claim either. Solve-It! is unique. And just what makes it so? It is not that it performs herculean tasks at the press of a key. It is not a programming break through, for it does not utilize any new technology. And it does not solve any problems that hundreds of programs have not been asked to solve before on countless number of computers. So then, how is Solve-It! different? What makes it so unique that we can make such a claim? The answer lies in the program's simplicity and memory residency feature. Up until now, if you used a micro computer and you were in a data base, word processor or whatever, and you needed answers to some basic business questions, simple statistical problems, or questions about ordered arrangement, you could not readily get the answers to your questions. You would have to leave one application and load up another. Well not any more. Solve-It! is a memory resident program (it is always available like that famous program ,SIDEKICK, by Borland) so that the touch of a key will give you the answers that you need when you need them. (This version no longer has to be memory resident.) Solve-It! is not fancy. It does not try to dazzle. It is utilitarian. It is above all, practical. So simple is Solve-It! to use that it does not have an on line context sensitive help system. In fact, you probably will not even need the instructions that are included. The bulk of the instructions describe what the routines do and not how to use them. So if you know what EOQ is, you do not need us telling you about it. Thus, the documentation is really, for the most part, necessary only to familiarize yourself with those routines that may not be clear to you. From time to time we will give you some pointers about how to get more from the program, but if you are the type who likes to do, then by all means, go do! Solve-It! does not perform PhD mathematics. It can not help you project the future of interest rates. It can not tell you which is the best tax strategy. What it will tell you is how long a 500,000 investment will last if you withdrawal $6,000 a month with a prevailing interest rate of 9.32. Or Please share SolveIt! (tm) with others Page 1 Pine Grove Software (718) 793-4622 conversely, it will tell you how much you have to sock away each month, quarter or whatever to have $750,000 at some time in the future using any interest rate that you want to assume. There are literally hundreds of situations that beg for Solve-It!. As a matter of fact, Solve-It!, for some professionals, will be reason enough to buy a computer. Solve-It! will make it practical for many to get rid of financial tables. No more searching for a reference book to get a piece of data. With Solve-It!, you will have the answers to many common problems at your finger tips and you won't have to spend hours or days learning how to use the program. So, if you need to know and you need to know now, then you will find that Solve-It! is ready for you. The Routines of Solve-It! ** Substantial improvement over earlier version. Or new feature added. Or bug correction. Future Value of a Deposit: You provide the value of the initial deposit, the years invested, the number of compounding periods at any interest rate and the routine will tell you how much it will be worth at maturity. Future Value of a Series As above but routine assumes that there will be a series of regular deposits over the period of the investment. Payment Required for Future Sum You pick a future value, the interest rate, the compounding periods and for how long, and this routine will tell you how much each payment will have to be. Payments match compounding periods. Present Value & Time to Double A 10 year 13.45% bond matures in 1992. What is it worth today? Present Value of a Series As above but assumes a future series of payments. Present Value, Uneven Cash Flow As above but assumes uneven cash flow. Interest Rate Earned You invested $137,675 in some swamp land. You sold it 3.5 years later to a developer for a cool $500,000. What was the rate of return on your investment? Equivalent Interest Rate The bank offers you in 1988 6.9% compounded daily while the broker offers you 7.15% compounded quarterly. Just exactly is the best deal. ** Withdrawal of Funds You inherited 2.5 million. If you invested it at 7.5% And you wanted a monthly income of say, $34,500. How long would your inheritance last you? (Corrects bug that assumed that there were 12 withdrawals per year in answer.) ** Straight-Line Depreciation Please share SolveIt! (tm) with others Page 2 Pine Grove Software (718) 793-4622 New for Solve-It!. Takes into account the 1986 tax law and allows you to pick from among Half-Year, Quarterly, or Mid-Month conventions. Shows actual amount allowed for depreciation each year. You pick value, length of depreciation and salvage value. ** Declining-Balance Depreciation As above but using this method. However, automatically switches to Straight-Line method when mandated by new tax law. Sum-of-Years-Digits Depreciation A third type of depreciation. Not provided for under new tax law. ** Return on Daily Investment You pick the number of days in the year, the amount invested and at what interest rate as well as for how long. This will tell you how much you can make on $325,000 in over night money. Economic Ordering Quantity How many Flair pens should you buy at one time if it costs the firm $75 to process a purchase order, you use 8,250 a year and money can be invested at 8.75%? ** DOS, Sorted Directory Sort a directory any one of four ways, or change default directory, or see how much space is used by all of the files in one directory. Any time. From within any program. And as a nice little extra, our numbers are formated with commas (2,445,674). No need to stop and think about file size. See time, date, file size info on 44 files at one time. (Minor bug fixes as well.) Monthly Payment Calculation How much is a monthly payment on any loan, for any interest rate over any period of time. The new version 3.0 (free for registered SolveIt! users) will allow the user to pick the payment period. That is quarterly, bi-weekly, whatever. ** Loan/Mortgage Schedule Displays a loan amortization schedule. Improved display format over previous versions of SolveIt!. More and easier to read information. New version will allow display on a real time basis. That is if you want to see a loan table for a specific year, say 1991, then just enter 1991. You won't have to figure what payment January 1981 will be. Remaining Balance How much is left on any loan after X payment. Accelerated Payments You want to start to pay an extra $125 per month in the 5th year of your 25 year mortgage. When will the mortgage be paid off and how much interest will be saved? Balloon Payment What is the balloon payment due on a loan. Affordable House Price Just exactly how much can one spend on a house allowing for your own personnel budget. Please share SolveIt! (tm) with others Page 3 Pine Grove Software (718) 793-4622 Mortgage With Second What is the size of a second mortgage that one can take on. Rental Property Analysis Do you have a positive or negative cash flow. How much is it. ** Weighted Average You bought and sold various number of shares of a particular stock at various prices. What is the average price of the remaining shares. ** Break-Even Point Input all overhead costs and variable costs, establish a selling price and see how many units need to be sold to Break-Even. ** Gross Profit Margin of Series Input quantity, cost, and selling price for each item sold. Tallies all quantities and show gross profit. Perfect for a department that wants to check over all profit for many different items. Mean, Median & Mode Input up to a 1,000 pieces of numeric data. The rest is obvious. Range, Variance, Standard Deviation More info about the above data items. Standard Deviation From Mean And yet more info about the above data items. Finds SD for any value. Combinations How many? Suppose you need to form a committee limited to six people. However, believe it or not, you have 10 volunteers. This routine will tell you how many different committees could be formed. There is no repetition of elements and order is NOT a distinguishing feature. That is committee B,B cannot exist since that would be a committee of one. And A,B is the same as B,A. Permutation & Ordered Arrangement Permutations are similar to combinations, but values can be repeated and order is a distinguishing feature. How many employee ID numbers can be generated from the 10 digits if you have a number that is 5 digits long? Ordered arrangement is like permutation but values cannot be repeated. How many different flushes are there in a suit of cards? Save, Change or Get Data Files For the above data routines. Allows changing the value of a single element in a data file if a wrong value was entered or the value changed. ** Substantial improvement over earlier version. Or new feature added. or bug correction. ********************************************************************** New With Version 2.1 Install routine allows you to change default color. This fixes problem Please share SolveIt! (tm) with others Page 4 Pine Grove Software (718) 793-4622 that occurred on the AT&T 6300 and other mono systems with certain graphics cards. Now program can be run in either a memory resident or stand-alone mode. Change default load with the install routine. Set your own HotKey combination with install. now will allow you to exit to the main menu even in the middle of a routine. New, more reliable memory resident code. Variable number of days in year for Return on Daily Investment routine. Gross Profit Margin routine now allows quantity input. No longer assumes quantity of one. Break-Even allow input individual overhead (fixed) costs as well as individual variable costs. SolveIt! will calculate totals. Depreciation Schedules now allow for the standard Mid-Month, Quarterly or Half Year conventions. Also based upon new Tax Law. (Major improvement here.) Fixes date and time sort error in DOS directory display. All numbers (file size, free space, used space) formatted for easier reading. Command line parameters. Slvit I for install Slvit R for memory resident if default is stand-alone Slvit S for stand-alone mode if default is resident MUCH, MUCH slicker operation. All around better screen displays. More helpful error messages. Error messages in window. Better error trapping. ********************************************************************** User Supported Software (Not Public Domain Software): SolveIt! is not public domain software. It is user supported software. We request a $50 registration fee if you use our program. Feel free to share this program with others. But PLEASE do not copy the printed manual. Remember, you are our principal form of advertising. Upon registration you will be sent the printed manual for this version. And you will receive the next major update free. (We plan many many more enhancements with the next version. See other file for details.) Source code will be made available on an individual, negotiated basis. Custom modification, development and additions available from: Pine Grove Software Suite D-1 67-38 108th St. Forest Hills, N.Y. 11375 (718)-793-4622 (c) 1985, 1988 All rights reserved. SolveIt! is a registered trade mark. Please share SolveIt! (tm) with others Page 5