[TRIP EXPENSE PLANNER] (c) 1990 A.W.Francis Readme.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. This program does not plan or give trip routes etc., but does reasonably accurately project the cost of almost any trip - particularly if the information entered is correct. 2. The 3 programs (Setup,Update, and Trip) must reside on the same disk in the same directory. The setup program will setup subdirectories in the case of floppy drives and a main and sub- directory for the hard drive (c:) and copy all programs to that directory automatically. A hard drive is recommended as file access and program run time are greatly improved 3. The program allows choices of up to 3 cars, other forms of transportation (ie: trains,airlines,rental cars, etc.) and ex- penses for tickets for museums, amusement parks and the like. 4. It will keep a record of hotel arrival dates and the ex- penses related to that, including state room tax rates (automati- cally computed from 2 letter state abbreviation you will enter). It will compute the daily rate with the number of days of your stay as well. It also computes kennel costs if you have pets that will need to be boarded. a.) For some states the room tax rate is an average, since in those states the rate varies from town to town. However, in most cases it will be accurate or to within 1%. 5. It takes into account daily costs for shopping or miscella- neous or tip expenses, plus allows you to choose how many days you will buy breakfast, lunch and dinner while travelling. a.) Generally breakfast and lunch should be about $5 - $7 per person, while dinner can range $15-$20. You set these choices yourself and it will depend on the area you are travelling and what you would normally spend for such meals. b.) The program automatically adds 5% of the main item totals to the cost of the trip for unexpected or unknown expenses that almost always come up. It has proven to be a reasonably accurate amount, however the amount can be changed from with the correction program. 6. SETUP must be run before the actual program the first time only ! Do not run SETUP again, unless it is on a new system. The variables set up by SETUP can be changed from the program menu - selection #4 (which runs UPDATE). 7. Once SETUP has been run, just type TRIP from the prompt and you are on your way. 8. A comparison program [ACTUAL.EXE], that will accept the actual costs of a trip and compare to those of the projected costs - also allowing for automatic update of the basic trip variables (ie: meal costs, gas prices,etc.)is now available as well and is included in the zip file. 9. The program will supply a printout - allowing you to take the projected information with you. It shows hotels with costs and arrival dates, deposits made and more. 10. If you discover any problems or bugs that I have not as yet discovered, please let me know. 11. When entering dollar amounts, only enter the amount, not the '$' dollar sign. The decimal point is optional if there are no cents to be recorded. -------------------------- A.W.Francis Compuserve 72436,357 ----------------end-of-author's-documentation--------------- Software Library Information: This disk copy provided as a service of Public (software) Library We are not the authors of this program, nor are we associated with the author in any way other than as a distributor of the program in accordance with the author's terms of distribution. Please direct shareware payments and specific questions about this program to the author of the program, whose name appears elsewhere in this documentation. If you have trouble getting in touch with the author, we will do whatever we can to help you with your questions. All programs have been tested and do run. To report problems, please use the form that is in the file PROBLEM.DOC on many of our disks or in other written for- mat with screen printouts, if possible. PsL cannot debug pro- programs over the telephone, though we can answer questions. Disks in the PsL are updated monthly, so if you did not get this disk directly from the PsL, you should be aware that the files in this set may no longer be the current versions. Also, if you got this disk from another vendor and are having prob- lems, be aware that some files may have become corrupted or lost by that vendor. Get a current, working disk from PsL. For a copy of the latest monthly software library newsletter and a list of the 2,000+ disks in the library, call or write Public (software) Library P.O.Box 35705 - F Houston, TX 77235-5705 1-800-2424-PSL MC/Visa/AmEx/Discover Outside of U.S. or in Texas or for general information, Call 1-713-524-6394 PsL also has an outstanding catalog for the Macintosh.