Financial Calculators for Accountants, CPAs & Auditors

Accountants are frequently called upon by their clients to do financial calculations and analysis. SolveIT! has been helping accountants with these tasks for over twenty years. With the recent release of v6.0, SolveIT! now has over 40 calculators. The calculators are designed to do everything from the very simple, such as calculate a regular loan payment or a present value to prepare sophisticated cash flow schedules with changing amounts, rates and dates. Since SolveIT! also includes C-Value!, you can also audit any cash flow or use its loan servicing abilities to verify interest charges and validate the balances due on any loan.

Before we get to how accountants and CPAs use SolveIT! and what calculators they generally find most beneficial, let's answer one question...

Why SolveIT!?

After all, why buy a program for nearly $100 that is essentially a collection of calculators when there are many free calculators to pick from on the web — including our free online calculators?

Fair question. There are several reasons for buying SolveIT!. Those reasons can be classified into two groups:

1. In general, programs that run on Microsoft Windows™ have benefits that online programs simply do not have; and
2. Specifically, SolveIT!'s calculators are capable of performing calculations that free calculators do not do.

Let's briefly elaborate on these. With respect to our Windows calculators vs. online calculators, normally when you run a schedule using an online calculator you can't save it for future review or edits. This can be a critical short coming for an auditor. Auditors usually need to be able to show their work. SolveIT! lets you save all of your work to individual, industry standard XML files. These files are accessible by other programs and browsers.

Of course, if there are technical problems with a web site or your connection, then you can lose access to a calculator you had become familiar with and had been depending upon using. Then you are stuck searching for another one with the features you need and validating the results.

Let's talk about presentation. We all know that printouts or reports are not as professional looking from a browser as they are from a dedicated desktop program. With SolveIT! you can customize the printing and include personal details, both about your client and you. The customized reports give you a nice opportunity to keep your name in front of a client.

If you use a web calculator when you are preparing a schedule or analysis for a client, there is usually no easy way to send the client the results. All of our windows based calculators have a "Copy" feature that allows you to quickly copy/paste any calculation or schedule into an email or business report. Additionally, schedules can be saved to industry standard PDF files that can easily be distributed.

Another thing to consider is that many web sites have only a half dozen calculators, maybe a dozen. Rarely do they have more than that. SolveIT! has over 40 calculators and each calculator is capable of solving for many different unknowns. Its shear size is an advantage to you. Because of the number of calculators included with SolveIT!, you are more likely to find the calculator that you need, when you need it. Furthermore, you'll already know how to use it and what to expect because you'll have likely used it or a similar one before. Ask yourself, what is your time worth? Even if it take you only 10 minutes to find a calculator online (after trying a few sites to get what you need), what's that 10 minutes worth? No doubt if you do that a few times, you've paid for SolveIT!.

Now, maybe you don't care about the advantages Windows programs offer over online programs. That's fine, but that's only half the story. Your clients call on you because you are a professional. Let's face it, your clients can also use any of the online calculators that are found around the web. But what happens when they've reached the limits of what the online calculators are capable of doing? They are going to be calling you.

What are some of these limits?

That's easy, online calculators typically do not allow you to adjust cash flows, increase, decrease or skip payment, deposit, withdrawal, invested or returned amounts. We have calculators that let you do that, and do it as of any date — not just as of a scheduled date. What about interest rates? Same thing. Our windows calculators will let you adjust a rate as of any date. What about interest calculations? Do you need daily compounding interest? What about simple interest? Or maybe continuous compounding? With SolveIT!, you can pick from any of over a dozen compounding frequencies. Maybe you need interest calculated on a 360 day year or a 364 or 365 day year? Again, that's not a problem for SolveIT! or our other programs. We think you'll find that the biggest benefit our calculators give you, is flexibility. After creating software calculators for the past 25 years, there are few, if any, financial calculations that our calculators can't handle.

The point is, if you are a professional, then you should have access to and use professional tools. Wouldn't you agree?

SolveIT! is just such a tool. But as marketers like to say, "Don't take our word for it. Evaluate our claims for yourself." You can download a free, fully functioning 21-day trial version of SolveIT! or any of our other programs. We do not even require any personal information from you — not even your email address — for you to take advantage of our evaluation offer. You will not be called, You will not be emailed. We won't even know who you are — that is until you place your order.

What SolveIT! Calculators Do Accountants Find Useful?

Let's start off by saying it's a given that SolveIT! is able to calculate PV, FV, NPV, IRR, loan amounts, payment amounts, terms, interest rates, required investment amounts to reach a goal. These are pretty standard financial calculations, and by themselves, they would not be a big deal. (Even though the way we have implemented these calculations gives you more flexibility than 90% of the calculators out there.) Where SolveIT! shines is in its analytical abilities. Let us just point out some of the calculators that accountants typically find useful:

• Goal Planning Adviser: Many financial goals don't require a singular future amount but rather they call for a future cash flow. Maybe a business wants to finance some or part of a planned future expansion with cash? Or maybe a client wants to plan for retirement or a child's future education. The question is, how is that cash flow goal achieved? Use the goal planner and solve for any unknown.
• C-Value, The Cash Value Calculator: This is the auditor's primary tool. Create schedules with cash flows on any date. Validate interest earned or paid. Do "what-ifs" and create custom schedules.
• Lease vs. Buy Calculator: Is it more beneficial to lease or to purchase? This calculator makes a thorough analysis including taking into account the impact of property and income taxes.
• Debt Reduction Adviser: This calculator creates plans to reduce or eliminate personal or corporate debt. The calculator analyzes an unlimited number of debts and suggest various scenarios for reducing them using one of four debt reduction methods. It's not just as simple as paying off the highest interest rate debt first or the largest amount.
• MACRS Depreciation Calculator: Yes, we know all accountants have tax preparation software that will prepare depreciation schedules. However, accountants and CPAs seem to appreciate this calculator when they want a quick depreciation schedule.
• Refinance Adviser: Answers the question is it beneficial to refinance a loan?
• Rental Property Cash Flow Analysis: Do you have clients that purchase rental property? If so, you can prepare for them a rental income cash flow analysis. Use this to see if a prospective property will be profitable. Takes into account various occupancy rates, user determined inflation rate, taxes, and many more variables.

Naturally click on the above links for additional details and screen shots, and remember, the above are only a few of the more than 40 calculators that are included in SolveIT!.

Don't forget, you can download a free, fully functioning 21-day trial version of SolveIT! or anyone of our other programs. And as we mentioned, we do not even require any personal information from you — not even your email address.