Submission/Update Information Form


Program Title:  Personal Budget Tools (PBT)

Detailed Program Description:

      The PBT introduces the concept of "club savings" for all your 
      periodic expenses.  With the PBT, it is now practical, easy, and 
      effective to handle all your expenses as though each of them has 
      its own Christmas/Vacation club savings plan.  The PBT's seven-page 
      analysis and plan, based on your own expenses, is both easy to 
      follow and effective. 

      This program offers more than a brief write-up can capture:  an 
      interactive tutorial, hypertext help, and six calculators make this 
      well-designed program into a swiss-army knife that you'll be able 
      to use right away.  And, the PBT asks so little of your time that 
      you will continue to use it long after the novelty wears off. 

      The only question is whether to put the PBT in the education, the 
      personal finance, or the business finance section.

Who is the intended user?

      The PBT's customers range from the retired to the individual 
      looking for a simple budget approach to proprietors of small 
      businesses that are trying to manage their cash flow.  The program 
      would also be well placed in the hands of social workers or 
      teachers who are trying to teach financial planning and management.

Improvements over older versions:

      The tutorial and four of the six calculators have been introduced 
      with recent versions.

Unique features of the program:

      The "clubs savings" budget approach is, to my knowledge, wholly 
      unique to the PBT.  Also, the tutorial that is available from the 
      drop-down help menu is seldom seen in shareware programs.  It makes 
      the PBT as much an educational program as it is a financial 
      program.

      The screen-sensitive hypertext help system is top-notch and, I 
      believe, well done.  Especially helpful are the screens of sample 
      expenses that accompany the expense entry screens.

      Finally, the six calculators are convenient for all and a virtual 
      necessity for those who haven't mastered a spreadsheet program.

Program's capacity or limitations

      The expense screens have a top limit of 100 expenses each -- 100 
      annual, 100 monthly, and 100 weekly.  With over 500 registrations, 
      I have yet to hear of this being a limitation.  Should it become a 
      limitation, I can easily increase the numbers -- but with a 
      corresponding increase in the program's size since I am not using 
      linked lists.

      The shareware version of the program is not at all limited.  
      Registrants receive the most current version of the program, 
      spreadsheet templates for some of the PBT's functions, and some 
      bonus shareware programs.

      I have not heard of a PC system on which the PBT will not run.

Does your program have special system requirements?

      No, it still runs in 256K.  People with just one floppy disk drive 
      will have a long-running installation with a lot of disk swapping, 
      but installation should be the last of their troubles.

How to start the program:

      Type PBT.

What is the registration fee?

      It varies depending upon what one orders.  The basic fee is $25.  
      See ORDER.FRM for the complete story.

Materials or services that come with registration:

      Registrants receive the most current version of the program, 
      spreadsheet templates for some of the PBT's functions, and some 
      bonus shareware programs.  They also become eligible to receive 
      low-priced upgrades and occasional special offers.

List of program files and one-line description of each file:

     PBT.EXE - Main program.
     PBT.OVR - Required overlay program.
     PBTHELP.HLP - The hypertext help file's text.
     GO.EXE  - Provides an orientation to the disk.
     ELITE.EXE - Sets a dot matrix printer to elite text.  Used if one
                 specifies an Epson printer by typing PRINTMAN E.