Sensitivity and Risk Analysis have been redesigned and improved in many ways. Assumptions ineligible for selection in either process are now grayed rather than causing an error dialog when the run is processed. Default values are now more reasonable. Assumption Text is now shown, rather than the assumption values. Risk Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis now show Assumption Text in the results and Printed Reports rather than Assumption Values. In short, two of the most unique and most valuable functions in planEASe have gotten immensely better.
All planEASe forms and dialogs have been revised for a more appropriate appearance conforming with Windows95 standards. We emain compatible with Windows 3.1 with this version, but this is probably the last 16 bit version of the software.
We have introduced a new model - Installment Sale Analysis (RSA) - which ships with planEASe at no added cost. This model, accessed from File/New Model, allows you to advise sellers contemplating carrying back paper on a sale as to the immediate and future tax consequences of installment sales, including Mortgage over Basis, Assumed Loans, Wrapped Loans, Cost Recovery Recapture, and other wonders invented by our friends at the IRS. Graphs and reports are included, but you may find the application of Sensitivity, Risk and Detail Analysis capabilities to this situation to be the hidden goody.
Due to the increasing use of the Limited Liability Corporation format for Group Investments, two additional partnership models (RPR, corresponding to RPI, and RPF, corresponding to RPM) are now available, using titles of Group Member (instead of Limited Partner) and Group Sponsor (instead of General Partner). Other than the change of names, the RPI and RPR models are identical, as are the RPM and RPF models.
We have added Participating Loans. Next to the Loan Amount on Loan Pages you will see a new p button (like the existing c calculator button). Pressing the p button allows you to enter the participation type, start date, percentage, any excluded basis, annual minimum and maximum, and any participation at sale. Even more interesting, the IRR Before Debt, Before Tax and Lender Yield are constantly displayed and updated instantly as you enter and change the participation terms, so it is incredibly easy to change the terms to get a particular specified Lender Yield. The new Lender Yield measure is also available in Sensitivity and Risk Analysis, and the Lender Yield Cash Flows may be imported into Utilities/Cash Flow Analysis for a neat report to the lender.
Several Users have reported difficulties with too small fonts when printing the APOD. PlanEASe sizes the print font to fit the available space on the printed page. Thus, widening the margins (top and bottom), printing to legal size paper, or eliminating one or more Measures (like Gross Income Multiple) with the Edit/Delete Row option will help. Likewise, you can set the Revenues ListBox to Total, and explain your Revenues with the RentRoll and/or Lease Analysis Reports. Now we have added the capability to eliminate printing either the top two grids (Titles and Investment) or the Measures Grid, or both. These options are found in the Print Options when you request Print/Print... in the APOD Report.
A new Annual Statements Report has been added to the Reporting Extension. This report is a blend of the Income Statements information with the APOD format, showing for each year (or month if you are in Monthly Mode with the Monthly Extension) the results for the chosen year/month. We've added this report for the many of you who have asked for an APOD for the first (or other) year rather than the current "snapshot at acquisition". For those with the Graphics Extension, Charts corresponding to the current APOD Pie Charts are also available.
A new Print/Ratios dialog has been added to the Income Statements Reports and the New Annual Statements Reports. This allows you to eliminate particular ratios permanently. If you've been using Edit/Delete Row to get rid of the Accounting ROR on every Income Statement, this one's for you...
The Copies specification in the Print Options and Graph Options dialog now works with all printers.
A new Starting Page Number option has been added to all Print Options dialogs. If set to zero, Page Numbering is deactivated. Any other number causes all report pages to be numbered starting with that number. The default is the next page number in order, so setting this to one at the start of your session and leaving it alone will cause all your reports to be page numbered consecutively in the order you produce them.
A Page Footer Style choice has been added to the Page Setup dialog, allowing you to choose between 12 variations of Date, Page Number and Filename formats in printing the footer.
The new planEASe/TitlePages is a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) WSIWYG word processor incorporated into planEASe to enable you to process and print documents that use the same Page Setup as your planEASe Reports and Graphs. Thus you may produce planEASe documents, reports and graphs bearing consecutive page numbers with the same appearance so that the entire presentation package appears to have been produced by the same software (as indeed it has been). TitlePages allows you to read and write files in several formats, incorporate graphics in your documents (perhaps pictures of the property, maps, planEASe graphs, logos, et cetera), insert true Tables, et cetera. While there are some major weaknesses in this first issue (lack of a spell checker/thesaurus, for instance), it constitutes a truly major enhancement with considerable potential for growth in future versions.
In response to several requests, a new choice in File/Preferences, Use Effective Income for Percentages, allows you to change the basis for calculation of Percentages in the Common Size Statement, the Annual Statements, and the APOD. By default, these percentages are expressed as a percent of the Gross Income. If you check this option, the percentages are expressed as a percent of the Effective Income (ie: after subtraction of vacancies).
We have implemented a timed backup routine. Hopefully, you'll never notice it, but if planEASe terminates abnormally (power failure, untrapped error, windows crash, etc), the next time you start it, it will load and use the Assumption Set you were working on at the time of the crash. The backup occurs about every 5 minutes if you have changed an assumption value, so the most work you can lose is the last 5 minutes.
Comparing Sensitivity Analyses has gotten a lot easier. In response to many requests, we have added a Print/Compare Menu option to Sensitivity Analysis. Set up your Sensitivity Analysis normally, then request Print/Compare (instead of Run) to enter the names of the Assumption Sets you want to compare (like LBLEASE and LBBUY). As many as you want, and you can save the comparison specification so you only enter the names once (for re-runs). Press Run, and presto, the Sensitivity Analysis is run for all the Assumption Sets, with the results displayed instantly in both a comparison grid and graph. This makes Lease/Buy and Sale/Leaseback Comparison Graphs too easy to be believed.
When we published the Installment Sale Analysis with version 7, we said the IRS had not published guidance as to how to implement the dual-rate capital gain structure implemented in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. In February 1999, the IRS published Proposed Regulation 1.453-12 governing reporting of Installment Sales of Depreciable Realty, implementing the dual-rate treatment of Capital Gain under the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. This Proposed Regulation requires that the Cost Recovery Recapture portion of the gain (taxed at 25%) be paid first, before the remainder of the gain (taxed at 20%). An alternative treatment, preferred by the industry and taxpayers, is that both elements of the gain be paid ratably during the Sale Period. In version 7.02 the Installment Sale Analysis provides you with the choice of using the Proposed Regulation (the default, named Recapture Paid First ) or the fair treatment (named Recapture Paid Prorata) which may eventually prevail. The choice is implemented in the new Tax Payment Treatment field on the Tax Assumptions Page of the RSA Model Series. Use this field to compare the effect of this proposed regulation, and choose either (or both) treatments to counsel your clients. In the example Installment Sale Analysis, the wrapped loan was included in the determination of Excess Mortgage over Basis. Since that time, we have discovered that this treatment was challenged in Tax Court and the IRS acquiesced in the case. This makes the use of wrapped loans a tax-advantaged financing for cases involving possible Mortgage over Basis. The change in treatment is effective for 7.02 and following.
Since the 1997 Tax Law change, we have used the ordinary income tax rate when accounting for Capital Losses, since they are indeed taxable at that rate. In a practical sense, however, since losses offset gains first, and there is an annual $3,000 limit on net losses, the typical result of a loss is to eliminate taxes on other gains (and therefore at the 20% Capital Gain Rate). While planning a Capital Loss is very rare, it does happen, and in 7.02 we have implemented this by showing the tax savings on a loss at the Capital Gain Rate. Thanks to Deb Perr for her help here.
In Lease Analysis Lease View, if you specified a holding period involving either a partial first or last year, the grand totals for the $/SqFt (RSF or USF) in the lower grid were misstated and did not agree with the (correct) values in the summary grid above. Thanks to Bob Sebastian for his help in isolating this problem. When the Investment Amount was negative (borrowing exceeds purchase price) the Income Statement produced negative Cash on Cash numbers, which is nonsense. Cash on Cash is now shown as "N/A" in such cases. Thanks to Bob Yale for the report. In the new Annual Reports, if you used the Calculator in your last Revenue Page and then requested an Annual Report, the total property sqft/unit value would be changed to the sqft/unit value in the last Revenue Page, thereby throwing off any calculations based on this value (such as expenses per sqft/unit or total gross income/ sqft/unit). Thanks to Leigh Johnstone and Ralph Spencer for the first reports, and particularly Ralph for forwarding the Assumption Set. Additionally, if you created Revenue Pages using the word "vacancy" or "vacant" in the page title and specified the (normal) preference of using Gross Income for percentages, the new Annual Report and the Common Size Statement total Gross Income did not equal 100%. Thanks to Barry Martin for the report and supplying the Assumption Set. Both bugs introduced in version 7.00 and fixed in 7.01. Due to Don Huddleston's suggestion, we have also added the Annual Report Title to the Print Options that you may edit. The new Page Numbering could not be turned off, once turned on, without exiting planEASe. Thanks to Matt Pear for the report. The Basic Analysis Vertical Report did not have page numbers when requested. Thanks to Del Partridge. Both bugs introduced in version 7.00 and fixed in 7.01 If you chose File/New Assumptions, entered assumptions, and chose Reports / Income Statements or Reports / Annual Statements before saving your assumptions, you would get a "Invalid Property Value" error and planEASe would abort. If you saved prior to accessing the reports, planEASe behaved normally. Reported by several users before we discovered what was happening, but finally reported (with a demonstration) by Jeff Englestadt. Introduced in 7.00 and fixed in 7.01 When using an Acquisition Date on or after 1/1/2000, revenues, expenses and loans beginning in the 1900's would not compute properly (a Y2K problem). Also, the text of the Sale Report would show a sale date in the 1900's. Many thanks to Tom Everett for the gracious report. With version 7.01, dates entered in planEASe are interpreted with a century turn of 70. That is, 1.69 is interpreted as 1 January 2069 and 1.70 is interpreted as 1 January 1970. The old century turn was 50. Continuation pages always follow the completion of the previous page, no matter the date. When choosing File/New Assumptions, if the current Assumption Set included TitlePages text, that text was carried forward to the new Assumption Set. Thanks to Ted Jackness for the report. Additionally, sometimes the clipboard would not clear the previous entry (thanks to Paul Vitulli), and the "Apply Changes to Titlepages" dialog would appear when no changes had been made. If you minimized planEASe while in the Reports/Titlepages function, the software would terminate with a "user defined error" message. All introduced in 7.00 and fixed in 7.01 The "Use Patterns" Graph Color Treatment did not work properly for graphs with only one variable (such as in Sensitivity and Risk) when the Column or Bar Graph Type was selected. The "Gray Scale" Color Treatment likewise malfunctioned, producing color output. Thanks to Paul Vitulli, again. Right Clicking the column header in the Rent Roll and the Lease Analysis Summary did not sort descending as in previous versions. Introduced in 7.00 and fixed in 7.01. When switching to a new model and canceling the switch before opening the Assumption Set in the new model, some reports in the Reports Menu could be improperly grayed and therefore unavailable, requiring restarting the software to correct the condition. Introduced in 7.00 and fixed in 7.01. In the new Installment Sale Analysis (the RSA Model), the Accumulation of Wealth measures were understated due to use of a Reinvestment Rate of 1/100 of that specified ... eg .09% when 9% was entered. Additionally, when importing the cash flows into the Cash Flow Analysis utility, an Invalid Property Value error would terminate operation. All introduced in 7.00 and fixed in 7.01. When switching between the new LLC and the old Partnership models, the page names for the general pages would not rename. For example, the Limited Partners' page would not rename to Members' (and vice versa). Introduced in 7.00 and fixed in 7.01.