What's New in Profit Plan v2000
Financial Software for the Business
Professional
In April of 2000, we completed our new fully "32-bit" edition of Profit Plan and said good bye to Windows 3.1 forever. The result was Profit Plan 2000. While similar in basic feature set to Profit Plan v3.0+ the new underlying architecture produced a 30% to 40% increase in performance with Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT40. (A similar performance increase was noted with Windows 2000, although we found that operating system much slower loading than the others).
To review updates added prior to those listed here, select Upgrades Thru Profit Plan v2.3. For a list of enhancements and features added in our October 2000 release, select What's New in Profit Plan v2000 SE. Or select What's New in Profit Plan v2001 to review new features added in the Profit Plan v2001 edition.
Profit Plan Power Boosts from Profit Plan v2.30 through Profit Plan v2000 ...
In addition to the substantial performance advantage achieved in Profit Plan v2000, all of the enhancements listed below were added after release of Profit Plan v2.3.
A. Complete Financial Model Built From
Imported QuickBooks Accounting Data.
Print a QuickBooks Detailed P&L and Itemized Balance Sheet report to disk. Then export the Chart of Accounts via the QuickBooks File menu. Now import the chart, followed by the two reports into Profit Plan and voila! In just a short time you have a full financial planning and analysis model for the company, complete with default forecasts, available in Monthly, Quarterly, Semiannual and Annual views.
B. Import Financial Data From Other
Accounting Package or Scanned
Documents.
Currently, a chart
of accounts can only be imported from
QuickBooks. However it may now be possible for
non-QuickBooks users to also import financial statement data from
other accounting packages by using our tab or comma delimited
import file techniques. What is needed is a text file containing
the financial data in rows and columns that match those in the
Profit Plan Assumptions sheet in which it is to be stored. Once
created, it can be read into Profit Plan as demonstrated in the
Profit Plan Tutorial.
To create this text file may be relatively simple if you create
your Profit Plan chart of accounts to mirror your financial
statements. Then, simply scanning your financial statements into
text files or printing them to disk will generate the necessary
data. You can next use Notepad or another text editor to remove
any extraneous data from the files such as titles, column
headings and account names. Finally, import the data directly
into the Assumptions sheet to produce the equivalent of Windows
"paste" results!
C. Exporting Financial Plans to Accounting
or Presentation Packages is Possible.
If you can't use copy/paste to move plans from Profit Plan into some other presentation package that you really have to feed, try the new export features. This will produce standard comma or tab delimited disk file copies of whatever data you first highlight within Profit Plan. The result will be importable into most products, either directly, or with some judicious edits.
D. Industry Standards Data Importable From
RMA Annual Statement Studies CD.
Robert Morris Associates provides Annual Statement Studies (industry data) on CD-ROM. The data can be extracted and imported directly into a Profit Plan company model.
E. Linking Now Works Between ANY Strategic
or Tactical Plan Views.
Now links are allowed between any and all of the four planning Views, rather than just Annual and Monthly. Use for Quarterly rollups, Semi-annual projections, etc.
F. Account Cross-link Errors are Now
Automatically Detected.
Any single account must have exactly one "source" view that generates its basic value for use by all other planning horizons. Otherwise the value in each horizon (view) becomes dependent upon the values in all the other views. This endless circular logic is now automatically detected and presented to you for easy resolution.
G. Both Historical and Forecast Portions
of Plan Views Can Be Linked.
Enter historical data in any plan view and automatically feed it to any other Assumptions sheet view without data entry. Monthly to Quarterly, Semi-Annual or Annual is great. Or even enter Annual Historical and "spread" it to Monthly, to see how your history would have looked if the Seasonal Profile you enter had controlled the past.
H. Multiple Planning Years Can Now Be
Linked Between Plan Views.
Earlier editions restricted links to one full forecast year plus interim months. Now all forecast data can be linked. (Like a 2.5 year Monthly budget into the 5-year plan).
I. Test a Uniform Profile Against Your
Current Seasonal Business Patterns.
A new Apply Uniform Profile (test) checkbox allows you to quickly switch between a "seasonal" and uniform profile. This affects spreads of Annual data (or any higher level forecast linked to more a more detailed horizon) to evaluate the impact of seasonality on cash flows. Should you even try to smooth out seasonal variations? What is the impact?
J. New "Equity" Account Types
for Year-To-Date Net Income and Retained
Earnings.
Use new Retained Earnings (Prior Year) account types with either Retained Earnings (Year-To-Date) or Net Income (Year-To-Date) to more easily match those equity reporting styles.
K. New "Other Paid In Capital"
Account Types for Special Purposes.
If reporting year-to-date Net Income in the balance sheet, use Other Paid In Capital to also carry matching cumulative dividends and distributions in the Equity section. This sums into the Paid In Capital - Total account and allows tracking of cumulative effects of distributions on equity while displaying "retained earnings" as cumulative net profit.
L. New "Contra-Income/Expense"
Types Reverse Signs for Other
Income/Expense.
Some charts carry Expenses as positive values in the Other Income section (after operating income). Conversely, Other Income occasionally appears as negatives. Account types are now provided to handle all perspectives. Now use an account type with the appropriate (+) or (-) to match the source financials providing the input, if you wish.
M. Changed "% Interest (Avg.
Period)" Assumption Type from Ending
Period.
Reminder: Default interest calculations since V2.02 use the average outstanding balances between periods when calculating interest. Prior editions used the ending balances. If updating from earlier versions, check your interest calculations if not generated via the Loan Module. You should always review and replace the initial default interest guestimates using information you know since Profit Plan can only estimate the default interest rate from historical financials. Use the Loan Module, if relevant.
N. New "% Other Account (Next
Period)" Assumption Type Added.
For convenience within the Assumption Designer, use this assumption type to refer to any portion of the value of any other account's next period (like next month).
O. New "Set Specific Range of
Dates" Feature on Assumption
Designer.
From within the Assumption Designer this option allows you to change either the From or To date while maintaining the date at the other end of the range. Prior editions immediately collapsed the range to the single date selected. Switching from this new Range of Dates time selection option to a Specific Period allows immediate movement to either end of the prior date range simply by clicking either date with the mouse.
P. Assumption Designer is Sizable,
Smaller, and Uses Time Horizon Drop-down
List
To provide more viewing area, the Designer was reworked to use a Time Horizon drop-down list. Also dragging any edge reduced the overall size. (A Restore Form option is also on its menu, to undo your squeezing.)
Q. New Conventional Loan "What
if" Games Provided With Automatic
Calculations.
Now any three of the four terms of a conventional loan (amount, rate, periods, payment) can be entered in the Loan Module with the fourth recalculated. The effects of various "years" (360 day vs 365 day) and or simply monthly compounding are considered also.
R. New "Asset Loans" Handle
Investments Via the Loan Module.
Loans the company makes, whether to owners, banks (via money market accounts, CD's, etc.) or otherwise can be computed in the Loan Module and optionally linked to investments (asset) and Interest Income accounts on the Assumptions sheet.
S. Right-click Opens Pop-Up Formatting
Plus Action Window.
In the past, right-clicking activated the Graphic Analyzer, Edit Account Window, or the Assumption Designer. Now it opens a pop-up menu that contains these functions (where relevant), and also provides convenient access to the entire Format menu. A combined left-right click (both buttons at once) now replaces the old right-click function.
T. Delete Key Copies to Windows Clipboard
and Retains Cell Formatting.
The Delete key now clears values and copies them directly to the Windows Clipboard, while leaving colors and formatting unchanged. So press Ctrl-V to immediately "undo" a deletion if in error. (Use Clear from the Edit menu to clear formatting, should you wish.)
U. Adjusting Fiscal Month Automated in
Setup Fiscal Horizons.
Changing the month of the Annual Historical Starting Date now provides the option of resetting the fiscal year ending month for all Views automatically. (Shifting dates is also more clearly documented in the Adjust Horizon Dates section of on-line Help.)
V. New Automatic Subtotal Underlines Can
be Applied to Ease Cosmetics.
An Automatic Summary and Subtotal Underlines window provides a variety of underline options for subtotals and other summary accounts, plus double underlines for grand totals. Apply these automatically to all Assumptions sheets and related reports at once.
W. Zero Suppression (Hide All Accounts
With Only Zero Values in Selected
Ranges.)
Compress your reports and/or Assumptions sheets for ease of viewing and development by suppressing all lines without numeric values. For maximum efficiency, optional compression of account section heading lines is also provided.
X. Edit Account Window is
Movable.
For your convenience the Edit Account Window can be moved aside with your mouse.
Y. New Custom Titles Option Allows
Permanent Edits to Report Titles.
Optionally override the standard report title areas with your own titles, notes and edits. Flag them as custom (i.e. "permanent") or restore to standard with a click of the mouse.
Z. Date Oriented Report Column Heading
Labels Are Selectable and Editable.
Now you can use new drop-down Historical and Forecast Period label lists to override the default "Historical" and "Forecast" horizon labels on time oriented reports and sheets. Or add your own to these lists. For example, Historical horizon periods can be labeled "Audited", "Compiled", "Reviewed", etc. Forecast periods can be labeled "Planned", "Projection", "Estimated" and more. Select or edit these labels from the Set Up Fiscal Horizons form available from the main View menu.
AA. Line Numbers in Chart of Accounts
Enhanced Again.
Accounts marked as "hidden" are automatically skipped in line numbering sequences.
AB. Status Bar Displays Open Padlock While
Assumptions Sheet Locks Are Disabled
Now a glance to check for an unlocked padlock at the right of the status panel (below the main window tabs) conveniently determines the current sheet's protection status, should you need to directly edit an area that is normally protected with cell locks.
