How to use these Excel-based financial planning spreadsheets.

Most of the money calculators on this site were written in Microsoft Excel ' 2000 (V 9.0 ). So they will work on most old computers, and all new ones.

This investment software will not run using MS Works.

If you have a Mac, are using QuattroPro, OpenSource, Lotus 123, or any other non-standard platform, and want to know if these financial tools will work - follow the directions in the red text on most all of the product pages for downloading the free non-functional demo programs.

If you can download, open, and look at a spreadsheet demo, then you'll be able to use these financial planner programs. All you'll be able to do is look at the demo spreadsheets, as the formulas are stripped out and they are password protected. How to use the demos.

Most of the money calculators will not download into PDAs, because they have password protection on the calculation sheets.

The Very Basics of Excel

Rows go left to right, and columns go up and down. The intersection of a row and column is called a cell. Cells are where you enter data or formulas. The current cell you're "on" is shown on the top left of your screen, under the menus.

When you open a new Workbook, it will go to the top left cell, and will display "A1." This is the cell in row #1 in column A.

When you open a spreadsheet, the whole spreadsheet is called a workbook. Each workbook/spreadsheet can have many sheets within the spreadsheet. Look at the bottom left and click on the sheets tab names to go to each sheet. If nothing is there, go to Tools, Options, and click Sheet Tabs.

All input areas, where you input data into the programs, are shaded green. Anything that is yellow on a non-presentation sheet is not an input cell, and you probably won't be able to input anything into it (depending on the program).

Passwords are not required for unprotecting presentation sheets. If you're inputting/typing in a cell, and the password protection dialog box comes up, go to Tools, Protection, Unprotect Sheet. If it unprotected, then a password wasn't needed. If it asks for a password, then you're stuck, because they are not given out to anyone for any reason. When you're done, re-protect the sheet. Protection is to prevent accidents from destroying formulas and to prevent copying/reverse engineering of the software.

If you don't like what shows or prints on the very bottom of the page, this is probably the Footer. These are not protected, and you can change them by going to View, Header and Footer.

If you're inputting data, and strange things keep happening before you finish typing something, you probably are battling "AutoComplete." This is where Excel takes the first character you type, and then tries to help you by remembering what you used last with the same first letter(s), then it completes it all for you. This is used when people are doing the same thing many times. Most of the time, this is just annoying. To turn it off, do this: Tools, Options, and then ensure that "Enable AutoComplete for cell values" is not checked.

Another tip is to use Excel's "Freeze Panes" function. This will freeze columns or rows, so you can scroll around and see other parts of the sheet, but still be able to see the titles, dates, and the main parts of the sheet. To turn this off, go to Window, Unfreeze Panes. To turn it on, first put your cursor on a cell where you want to see what's both above and to the left all the time when you scroll. Go to Window, Freeze Panes. Then scroll around to see what it did. More than likely you didn't get it right the first time, so you'll have to try again. Just try again.

The biggest tip of all is Excel's built-in "Goal Seek" function. With this, you can do any and all of the "what if" and "Goal Seeking" functions that any other financial planning software can do, plus dozens more that they can't do. An excerpt copied from the retirement software page:

You can use Excel's built-in "Goal Seek" function to do your "What-ifs," which is something that no other retirement planning software can do. For example, just click on cell B35 of the Assumptions and Additional Need sheet, then go to Tools, Goal Seek, Change the "To value:" field to zero, then click on the bottom field, then on any other input cell that will help make the retirement plan reach the goals better (like a rate of return input field of an asset sheet). Click OK, and Excel will automatically increase rate of return until the amount of more money needed shown in cell B35 goes to zero. Then you'll know what the rate of return you'd need to get to reach your retirement goals, assuming all other input stayed the same. With this feature, you can do all of the "What If?" and "Goal Seeking" functions that any other retirement software can do, plus dozens more that they can't do (because it's not written in MS Excel). You can use both any result cell with any input cell with Goal Seek. For example, if you wanted to Goal Seek to determine what the Social Security inflation rate needs to be to only fund retirement through the wife's age of 70, with $100,000 left over, you can do that. Just click on cell R38 on the Annual Summary Numbers sheet (see demo), open Goal Seek, input $100,000 into the middle field, go to the bottom field, click on cell E13 of the Summing & Input sheet, click OK, and Excel will increase the Social Security inflation rate in cell E13 until there is no more money needed to fund retirement at the wife's age 70, and $100,000 left over. You're going to get a crazy number like 75%, but you can do this, and any other crazy thing you can think of. You can use any of the dozens of input/result fields as the key variables in reaching your retirement goals.

To use these Excel-based money calculators, the user should be already proficient in:

· Knowing what sheet tabs are (the things at the bottom left of the workbook telling where stuff is) and moving around from sheet to sheet within the same workbook.

· Opening workbooks (spreadsheets).

· Saving workbooks with different names and folders (directories) using the Save As... command.

· Moving around from cell to cell.

· Knowing what a cell is, and how to locate and enter information into cells (press F5 and then enter the cell address to go directly to a certain cell).

· Knowing how to copy (*C) and paste (*V) data from one place to another.

· Changing the view magnification to make sheets look right on your monitor.

· Changing the size, inserting, deleting, hiding, and unhiding columns and rows.

· Tinkering with page setup margins, and row and column sizes, to format sheets to print right on your printer.

· And be able to deal with simple formulas, like =sum(b1:b10), and know that this will add the contents of all of the cells from B1 to B10.

Users should familiarize themselves with the basics of using Excel before purchasing these financial tools.

Some money calculators also assume the user has basic knowledge in TVM (Time Value of Money) concepts, and basic principles of investments (e.g., why you wouldn’t enter a municipal bond as producing taxable income into an IRA, etc.). There's short explanations of TVM parameters here.

Please try to find the answers to Windows, MS Office, Word, and Excel questions yourself before calling or e-mailing.

Generic Tips

Tips for saving financial planning client computer work are here. Basic personal computer tips are here.

Basic input concept for most all of these Excel spreadsheets: Input your data into the green-shaded cells of the input sheets (usually grouped in the middle of the workbook). This will populate the presentation sheets (usually grouped in the left of the workbook), where you look at the results.

Then you fix mistakes, repeat, format, print.

If a cell is not colored green, then it's not an input cell, so you won't be able to do anything with it, and you may end up damaging the spreadsheet.

Delete all of the sample input (everything in green-shaded cells) before inputting your data.

If you're an investing consumer (not a professional financial planner working with clients), then when you read "client, prospect, or they" just think "you." You would be both the advisor and the client (or spouse).

Since Y2K, Excel has had a hard time parsing years correctly. So if you input 6/30/07, Excel may think it's 6/30/1907. So instead, always input dates with the whole year types out, like this: 6/30/2007.

Read about financial planning software integration (sharing data between modules) here.

For Financial Professionals: How to E-mail Financial Plan Reports to Clients Without Sending Working Programs

You probably don't want to e-mail working programs (Excel spreadsheets) to your clients because then they won't need to hire you to do the work anymore, the files are too big, and that's not something we support.

There are several ways to e-mail finished reports to clients without sending the working programs.

· You can use a PDF file maker. Once you have a program that prints to a PDF file, it's as easy as selecting a printer when you click Print...

You basically choose to print to the PDF file maker program. So you'd print all of the presentation pages, and then save the PDF file name when closing. Then you e-mail the PDF file to the client. Then they open it with their PDF Reader, which most computer have when it's new.

So first you'll need to get a PDF file making program. The first thing people think about here is Adobe. The problem with that is Adobe is one of those corporations that think once you use their software, they own your computer. So it's going to take over your computer, put their files and folders in hundreds of places on your hard drive, it installs an automatic update program that's always going online to their website for updates (Updater5), and who knows what. We found it to be way too annoying deal with.

Plus, when we tried to download the free trial version of Adobe 7 in 2006 to evaluate it for purchase, it not only took over the computer, but it locked it up so bad that the reset button had to be pushed. So we do a little as possible with anything from Adobe anymore.

After much searching for a simple free PDF file maker, we used BroadGun PDF. It works with minimal annoyance, and didn't try to take over the computer.

Just be aware that when you search for free PDF makers, a lot of scam sites will say they have a free program; but their program won't work, will load Spyware onto your computer, then they'll be sending you spam, and who knows what else. The majority of sites will do everything they can, except allow you to download a program that actually works.

· The next method is to insert screen prints into a Word document.

In Excel, with the program up and ready to go, get the finished results to display on your monitor. Then press the Print Screen key. This copies what's on your monitor to the Windows Clipboard. Then you go to a new blank document in MS Word, and paste (Control V).

What's on your monitor pastes as an image into the Word doc.

Then go to Insert, Break, Page Break so the images don't pile up on one another, and repeat until all of the results are in one document,. Then you e-mail the document to the client.

This works great, but the image has what's on your monitor, which includes the frame of Excel. Try it and see.

· The next thing to do is to make a new spreadsheet and paste all of the results into it, then send that.

When you have the finished version of the the program all done, go to cell A!.

Then open up a new spreadsheet. Go to cell A1. Name it something relevant to the client, like Smith's Retirement Plan.

Then go back to the program, and the sheet with the results you want to send.

Press Control A, to select the whole sheet. Then press Control C to copy everything to the clipboard. Then go to the new workbook. Don't paste here! You'll need to use the Paste Special function. So either right click in the blank sheet and then choose Paste Special, then click on Values, then OK. Or go to the Edit menu and do the same.

Some times after you paste just the values, you'll also have to repeat the process, but this time choose Formats.

The point is that you want to Paste Special, Values only so just the results paste, and not the formulas. If you paste formulas, then they won't work on the client's computer (because the formulas will be referencing the program's spreadsheet, which is on your computer).

Just the results will paste, so then you can e-mail the spreadsheet.

· This next method strips all of the guts out of the program, so you can just send the results. It's similar to the method above, but some find it to be more work.

When you have your work done, save the spreadsheet. Now save it again using a different file name so you won't alter the working version.

Go to the results sheet(s) you want to send. Go to cell A1.

Press Control A, to select the whole sheet. Then press Control C to copy everything to the clipboard.

Use the Paste Special function. Right click in the sheet and then choose Paste Special, then click on Values, then OK. Or go to the Edit menu and do the same. This deleted all of the formulas and replaced them with just the results.

Do that for all of the result sheets you want to send.

Now right click on the sheet tabs one at a time, for all of the input, calculation, and result sheets you don't want to send. Click Delete. This will delete the whole sheet from the workbook.

If you did it right, then all of the working parts of the programs have been deleted, and the result sheets didn't change because they don't have any formulas that refer to the deleted sheets.

Save and e-mail.

Product Information

Fully Integrated Financial Planning Software

Menu of Retirement Planning Software

Asset Allocation Overview with Our Historical Returns

Asset Allocation Software

Asset Allocation Models with Our Historical Returns

Our Monthly Updated Mutual Fund Picks

Financial Plan Tools

Family Budgeting Calculator

Financial Planning Fact Finders

Investment Policy Statement Software

Bond Calculators