Introduction

planEASe is aimed at the Commercial/Investment Real Estate Professional. This software system enables you to project and analyze the cash flows and tax benefits of an investment in virtually any type of real estate, including development and properties with existing leases such as Shopping Centers and Office Buildings. The primary concepts guiding the development of planEASe are:

Forecasting Flexibility You will find that there are very few limits as to what can be done with this system within its stated purpose. For instance, you are not limited (practically) in the number of years you forecast, or the complexity of the financing, revenues, or expenses you can forecast with planEASe. A simple apartment investment requires few assumptions, and can typically be accomplished very quickly. A complicated office building with many existing leases typically has many revenue assumptions, and requires more time to project. The beauty of the system is that it can handle both situations, as well as many others. You have an investment in your software, both in the purchase price, and more importantly, in the time you invest in learning to operate it. The flexibility of planEASe assures you that you will not have to buy and learn multiple products to satisfy your need to analyze real estate investments.

Advanced Analytical Techniques The spectacular Sensitivity and Risk Analysis capabilities of planEASe allow you to easily investigate the effect of changes in your assumptions and produce graphs which show these effects simply and concisely.

Ease of Use planEASe users are real estate professionals, not computer professionals. We recognize this, and have designed this system to be free of computerese. We also have attempted to make system operation as easy and fast as possible, both through the extensive planEASe Help System that guides you at every step of operating the software, more than 300 content-sensitive Movies available immediately from the Menu Bar, and a Windows interface fully compliant with industry standards. If you know Commercial/Investment Real Estate and you are comfortable with Windows, you will feel right at home immediately.

Computational Speed The mathematics of Discounted Cash Flow Theory (Internal Rates of Return, Net Present Values, et cetera) take time to perform, even on a computer. However, planEASe is fully compiled software honed to a fine computational edge since 1981. This means it operates incredibly quickly, unlike other products which require a copy of some other language or product such as BASIC or Excel to operate. This is one of several reasons why Risk Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis are impractical with other software.

Reporting Flexibility You may print your reports and graphs in many formats and variations. The ProForma Income Statement, for instance, can be prepared in more than 6,000 variations, depending on your particular needs. Any report text (or number) can be edited before printing, and all reports and/or graphs can be exported to the Windows Clipboard with three mouse clicks for pasting into virtually any Windows word processor, spreadsheet, publishing or presentation software. This means you can complete your analysis with planEASe and then easily make it into a spreadsheet from which you can produce graphs of your own design, write special format reports, make any language changes you want, and so on.

Provide for System Growth planEASe is designed to be modular. This means you can add different capabilities to the system, and the resulting software continues to operate as “one-piece”. For instance, if you are concerned with forecasting Limited Partnerships or LLCs, you might want to add our Partnership / LLC Models to your planEASe. This addition then becomes part of your software, and whenever you want to forecast a partnership or LLC, you would simply ask for the “RP” model rather than the “RU” model. Another example of this modularity is our optional Monthly Extension which allows your Basic, Lease and Detail Analysis reports (and the Income and Annual Statements) to be prepared on a monthly or quarterly basis rather than the standard and usual annual basis. In addition, the Monthly Extension allows you to enter Unit Sales analyses (this was added in Version 10). As with the Partnership / LLC Models, the Monthly Extension becomes a part of your planEASe, and whenever you want, you may switch between monthly, quarterly and annual computations and reports with one mouse click. Yet another example of this modularity is the optional Graphics Extension which adds presentation quality graphic displays and printed output to all the analytical functions of planEASe. You’ll see many examples of the graphs available with the Graphics Extension throughout this manual. You may want to add this extension to planEASe if you use our software to prepare presentations for your clients, investors or lenders. Versions 11 and 12 added the Reimbursements Dialog and Market Profiles Dialog to planEASe, facilitating depth analysis of Office and Retail properties. Version 18 added the Portfolio Extension.

This manual is organized in several parts:

System Operation (the first page of the Table of Contents) describes the operation of the software, telling you how to get around in planEASe and perform analysis and reporting.

Model Documentation (the second page of the Table of Contents) describes the meaning of the assumption values and the resulting analysis. planEASe is shipped with the “RU” models described in the Real Estate Investment Analysis section, where you will find the discussion of the meaning of the assumptions and analysis reports. The many other analysis capabilities of planEASe are detailed here as well.

How Do I Do describes many things that you will want to do with planEASe, and in most cases gives you example assumptions to accomplish these purposes. If you can’t think how to do something, this is the first place to look. This same information is available within planEASe on the Help/How Do I Do Menu Option.

Discounted Cash Flow Theory (in the Appendix) not only describes this theory, but also gives you a detailed explanation of the calculations performed by planEASe, and explains why the results you get in an analysis may be different from (and more accurate than) similar calculations performed by spreadsheets and other real estate analysis software.

Glossary of Terms (in the Appendix) gives you a listing of the terminology unique to planEASe. See this section whenever we puzzle you with names like Continuation Page or Multiple Page Type.

Index (together with the Table of Contents) gives you the reference for using this manual in the best way. PlanEASe is shipped with many “tutorials” which are the best way to learn how to use the software to do the kind of analysis you need. But when you are stumped as to how to do something broader than the analysis, referencing the Index or Table of Contents in this Manual should answer the concern.