═══ 1. Introduction ═══ Welcome to Loan Pro for OS/2! Loan Pro for OS/2 is a 32-bit Presentation Manager utility that can quickly calculate the monthly payment, interest, total price, and complete schedule of payments for mortgages, auto loans, student loans, or virtually anything where money is borrowed and paid back on a fixed rate of interest. Loan Pro also provides facilities to save the payment schedule to a text file, and can also directly print your loan. Additional header information may be added to the either the text file or the hard copy print out. Follow the step-by-step instructions to quickly learn how! Loan Pro is a new member of the Conversion Pro suite of OS/2 utilities, written by NEGC Software, Tacoma Washington. The Conversion Pro 1.6 utilities currently include Conversion Pro, a scientific and engineering units conversion application, a Temperature Converter, a button calculator, Time Pro time settings utility, a base converter, and now Loan Pro. If the Conversion Pro suite is not registered, Loan Pro will run in demonstration mode (no printing, and no payment schedule). ═══ 2. Using LoanPro ═══ Using Loan Pro is easy and intuitive! Loan Pro operates in two modes: the monthly payment mode, and the optional payment schedule mode. To quickly calculate a monthly payment on a certain principal, interest rate, and term, use the monthly payment mode. This mode allows the user to calculate an answer quickly and facilitates playing "what if..." -type scenarios by adjusting any of the three parameters. Step-by-step instructions to guide you through this process are also available. To also calculate a schedule of payments use the monthly payment mode. This mode increases the calculation time (especially for large terms), as the complete payment schedule is calculated for the parameters entered by the user. The schedule can be saved to a text file or printed directly to any printer installed and setup with OS/2. If generating a large amount of different loans or "what-if..." scenarios for the same loan, all runs can be appended to the same text file and viewed or printed at a later time. Note: Loan Pro is optimized for speed. However calculation time is greatly increased when large terms or spurious interest rates are specified. This could be annoying when using the schedule of payments, as the complete schedule could be very lengthy in some circumstances. Unless you truly wish output of this nature, avoid specifying terms over say, 60 years, or interest rates over say, 20%. These are extreme values anyway, and it is very unlikely in today's market that you would ever be financed at such terms. Most home mortgages are for either 30 or 15 years, while auto loans usually range from 36 to 60 months; interest rates in either case are usually well below 20% per annum. ═══ 3. Amortizing ═══ To amortize any loan, follow these Step-by-Step Instructions: 1. In the left-hand corner of the main window, enter the amount to be financed, the interest rate, and the length of the term. The term will allow either months or years to be entered by specifying your preference with the check button to the left of the term field. Terms up to either 999 months, or 400 years are allowed. 2. To quickly calculate a monthly payment, total interest paid, and the total cost of the financed item after payoff, push the "calculate" button located in the lower right of the main window below the fields. 3. To generate the optional schedule of payments, click the "compute payment schedule" checkbox. A window to hold the output will automatically drop down. 4. To save the payment schedule or to print a hard copy, choose "save data to file" under the File menu. A dialog will appear where you can specify the name of the text file to be saved or printed. Optional user data may be added to the saved file by filling out the appropriate fields or checkboxes. ═══ 4. The Payment Schedule ═══ Loan Pro optionally will calculate the complete schedule of payments for any loan. To generate the schedule, click the "compute payment schedule" checkbox. A window to hold the output will automatically drop down. The fields in the payment schedule include: +------+--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+ | Pay | Previous | Amount of | Applied to | Remaining | | No. | principal | interest | principal | principal | +------+--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+ | 1 | 10000.00 | 77.08 | 131.72 | 9868.28 | | 2 | 9868.28 | 76.07 | 132.73 | 9735.55 | | 3 | 9735.55 | 75.04 | 133.75 | 9601.80 | | 4 | 9601.80 | 74.01 | 134.79 | 9467.01 | etc. Pay No. - Payment number, Each payment represents a payment made at each month. Previous Principal - The principal that the current month's interest is calculated against. For the first payment, the previous principal is equal to the amount financed. Amount of interest - The amount of interest calculated for and to be paid for any monthly payment. Applied to principal - This is the amount of the monthly payment that is used in actually decreasing the principal left to pay. For large loans, this figure is usually comparatively small in the beginning. You can often adjust this figure by changing the length of the term. Remaining principal - This figure represents the amount of principal left over after the corresponding monthly payment is applied. This figure usually changes little in the beginning of a loan. Using a strategy such as making double payments early in a loan (if your lender allows it) can help knock this figure down fast. ═══ 5. Saving the Schedule ═══ The Payment schedule generated may be saved to a text file for later viewing or printing. The file dialog is accessed by choosing the "Print/Save" option under the File menu. A dialog will appear where you can specify the name of the text file to be saved. Optional user data may be added to the saved file by clicking the check box labeled "include optional data" and then filling out the appropriate fields or checkboxes. If processing a large amount of different loans, you can append each subsequent run to the same file simply by entering or leaving the same file name in the "file name" field. Note: Note that if the "Close" button is selected to exit the "save hardcopy" dialog, all entries made in any of the fields will be preserved for the next run of any one session. Choosing the "Cancel" button will not preserve any of the user data and all fields will be cleared. This is a convenient option when playing "what if..." scenario's with a potential automobile purchase. In this example, the item and seller may remain the same, while the lender, amount financed, monthly payment, etc. may change. ═══ 6. Printing the Schedule ═══ To print the data contained in the Schedule of payments, choose "Print/Save" selection under the File menu. The following dialog will appear: Choose the desired printer from the list (it will automatically highlight your default printer). You can change printer settings for the selected printer by pushing the "Settings" button. To add additional user data to the print job, click the "Add optional data" check box. Note: To preserve the optional user data for additional print jobs, choose the "Close" button when exiting this dialog. Otherwise choose "Cancel" to exit the dialog and clear all the data entered in the optional data fields. ═══ 7. Optional User Data ═══ Optional user data may be appended to any payment schedule that is saved or printed. To add the date the calculations were made, check the "Date" check box, to add the annual percentage rate, check the "APR" check box, to add the calculated monthly payment, check the "Payment" check box. The remaining fields require text to be entered by the user. Note: These options are automatically shown by clicking the "Add optional data" check box shown on the bottom of "Save hardcopy" dialog. ═══ 8. Product Information ═══ Loan Pro 1.0 is Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 by J. F. Kaminsky. Contact the author at the following company address: J. F. Kaminsky NEGC Software Co. 2522 North Proctor Street, Suite 135 Tacoma, WA 98406 Technical Support by e-mail: negcjfk@ibm.net Loan Pro is a member of the Conversion Pro utilities. Conversion Pro for OS/2 is now marketed exclusively by BMT Micro. The Conversion Pro Registration (License fee) is $19.95 (US). Registration can be easily accomplished by Contacting BMT Micro. Alternatively, payment by cheque or money order may be sent directly to NEGC at the above address. Thanks to all previous registrants of Conversion Pro! ═══ 9. Registration ═══ BMT Micro is now handling the marketing of Conversion Pro. To order Conversion Pro, contact BMT Micro at the following address: BMT Micro P.O. Box 15016 Wilmington, NC 28408 Phone orders: 1-800-414-4268 Fax orders: 1-800-346-1672 (24 hours/7 days) internet: http://www.bmtmicro.com BMT Micro accepts the following credit cards: o Visa o Mastercard o Discover o American Express o Diners Club o Carte Blanche Cashiers check, personal check and Eurochecks in DM are welcome. Please read the bmtorder.txt file located in the Conversion Pro application directory. For ordering and other questions, visit BMT Micro at the following sites: o Via AOL: bmtmicro o Via MSN: bmtmicro o Via Compuserve: 74031,307 o Via Prodigy: HNGP66D o World Wide Web: http://www.bmtmicro.com o telnet@bmtmicro.com o e-mail: orders@bmtmicro.com