Electronic Financial Worksheets
Frequently Asked Questions

COMPATIBILITY QUESTIONS:

Q: Will the Worksheets work on my Mac?
A: Although we love Macs (a lot), this release of the Worksheets will not run on a Macintosh. The Worksheets contain custom programming that will work only on a PC running Windows 98 or later. If you try to run the Worksheets on a Mac, you'll receive an error message and the Worksheets will not open.

One work-around is to use a "PC simulator" on your Mac, such as Virtual PC from Microsoft. Virtual PC will allow you to run a fully-functioning version of Windows (and most Windows software, including the Windows version of Excel) on your Macintosh.

Q: Will the Worksheets work in any program other than Excel?
A: No. Although there are other spreadsheet programs on the market that can read some Excel files, our Electronic Financial Worksheets contain custom programming that will not run correctly in other spreadsheet software. Please make sure you have Excel 97 or later running on Windows 98 or later.

Q: When I opened the Worksheets, I received a cryptic error message—what the heck does it mean?
A: This is typically due to one of two problems:

1. You are not running the Worksheets on a "supported system configuration." In other words, you're not using a PC with Windows 98 or later and Microsoft Excel 97 or later, OR
2. You do not have "Macros Enabled" in Excel. See the "Macros.txt" file that came with your Worksheets for more information.

INSTALLATION QUESTIONS:

Q: I have not purchased a "download" product before...what does this mean?
A: In short, you'll be able to load the Worksheets onto your computer from our servers immediately—no waiting for a CD-ROM in the mail! To purchase, simply add the product to your "shopping cart" here on our website, complete your purchase with a VISA or MasterCard, and follow the simple instructions for downloading the Worksheets onto your PC. If you have any difficulties, you are always welcome to contact us at support@planningshop.com

Q: Is this safe? I'm worried about entering my credit card information on the Internet.
A: Yes, this is safe. We use a "secure server" for transferring all your information to us—everything you enter into our forms is encrypted so that even if a hacker were tracking your information as it travelled over the Internet (highly unlikely, by the way), they would see a bunch of garbled, meaningless gibberish. For added security, we do not keep credit card numbers on file after your order has been processed.

Q: Could my computer catch a virus from downloading the Worksheets?
A: Not at all likely. Our Worksheets are virus-free and are stored on a protected, publicly-inaccessible area on our webserver. Our server runs the latest, strongest virus protection and anti-hacking software in the industry. By the way, the single most common way to catch and spread a computer virus these days is via email—so be vigilant about deleting all that unwanted spam!

Q: What if I need to re-install the Worksheets at a later date, after I've downloaded them?
A: We highly recommend that you make a back-up copy of the Worksheets Installer as soon as you have downloaded it. You can do this by copying the Installer to a CD-ROM, floppy disk, Zip disk, or other storage device. That way, if you ever need to "start fresh" with a brand new copy of the worksheets, you'll have one quickly available.

Q: Is there a way I can purchase the Worksheets on CD-ROM?
A: Yes—the Worksheets are included on CD-ROM as part of the Deluxe Binder Edition of The Successful Business Plan. You can learn more about the Deluxe Binder Edition here. At this time, we do not provide a CD-ROM version of the product separately.

USAGE QUESTIONS:

Q. I have the 4th Edition of The Successful Business Plan by Rhonda Abrams. Some of the financial worksheets shown in the book are not included in the Electronic Financial Worksheets 2.0. Why not?
A. In response to many users' feedback, we made some changes in version 2.0 of the Worksheets. We've added several new sheets which aren't included in the book, including a Capital Expenditures worksheet, an Inventory Worksheet, and a Capital Investment Worksheet. In doing so, we've taken the functionality that existed in the old Technology Budget and Startup Budget worksheets and have folded them into the new Capital Expenditures worksheet. With this change, you can now depreciate your technology and startup expenditures across your pro forma statements and the expenditures will be automatically reflected in your Cash Flow and Balance Sheets for you. We think you will find this a much simpler and more powerful method for reflecting your technology and startup expenditures.

Q. I don't need all the rows that are available on some of the worksheets, and I'd like to delete them so my financials look nice when I print. How can I remove rows without compromising the calculations the program performs for me?
A. Removing rows from any of the worksheets can, indeed, cause problems on other worksheets, because data is passed back and forth "behind the scenes." You never know if one of the rows you are deleting will affect data calculations elsewhere. However, one trick you can try is to "hide" rows that you don't need. Hidden rows are still available to the program, but are not visible to users or on printouts. Here's how to hide a row:

1. Unprotect the worksheet on which the row you want to hide appears. Go to Excel's Tools menu, select the "protection" item, and select "Unprotect Sheet."
2. Make sure that you have zeroed out any numbers that appear in the rows you are hiding—remember, the program will still draw on data in hidden rows.
3. Select any cell in the row you want to hide. If you want to hide a stack of rows, draw your cursor down a column, selecting multiple rows.
4. Go to Excel's "Format" menu, select "Row," then select "Hide." The rows will disappear.

To unhide rows, do the following:

1. On the worksheet where you want to unhide rows, use your mouse to select both the visible row above and the visible row below where the hidden rows live.
2. Go to Excel's "Format" menu, select "Row," then select "Unhide." The rows will reappear.

Q. There are "#####" showing up in some of my worksheet cells instead of numbers. What do I do?
A. The "###" signs appear in a cell when the number that should be there is too long to fit within the cell. We have set the cells to comfortably hold seven digits (enough for most of our customers, but not so large that the worksheets won't print on standard size paper). If you have ambitious plans and require more digits, here's what to do:

1. Unprotect the worksheet on which the "####" appears. Go to Excel's Tools menu, select the "protection" item, and select "Unprotect Sheet."
2. Activate the column headers. Go to the Tools menu and select the "Options..." item. Click on the "View" tab. Put a check mark next to the "Row & column headers" item. Click "Okay."
3. Now, to widen a column, place your mouse pointer at the top of the worksheets, within the column headers row (the row with the "A," "B," "C," etc.). Move your mouse between two columns, click and drag to the right. You'll increase the size of the column.
4. Repeat this process for any other columns on the worksheet you wish to expand.
5. Reprotect the worksheet using the "protection" item in the Tools menu. Do not enter a password.

Q. There are "#NUM!" errors showing up in some of my worksheet cells instead of numbers. What do I do?

A. This indicates that a calculation error is occurring somewhere in the worksheets. The most likely cause is that on the Capital Expenditures or Capital Investments worksheets you have entered a date that is prior to the start date of your company, as entered on the "Setup & Assumptions" worksheet. If you go back and change the date on either of these two worksheets to fall after your company's startup date, the #NUM! errors should disappear.

In other cases, the error can occur if data of the wrong type has been entered into a cell. For instance, if you have entered alphabetic letters into a cell that is designed to accept only digits, a #NUM! error will occur in all the other cells that depend on that number for calculations. To fix this error, check your entries to make sure that you have entered valid data.

Q. My Worksheets seem slow—every time I enter a number, it takes a moment for the program to respond. How can I make it go faster?

A. The Worksheets are set up to "recalculate" after a change is made to any cell. This means that as soon as you make a change, all the other dependent numbers on that worksheet and all other worksheets are updated to reflect the change you just made. Because every number you enter will affect other numbers elsewhere in the program, this recalculation can take a moment or two, depending on your computer's processor speed.

But there is a solution! You can turn off this "auto-recalculation" feature, and you'll find that entering data is nice and fast. The downside? All the other numbers in the program won't automatically update when you make a change—if you want to see how your changes have affected everything else, you'll need to tell Excel to recalculate by pressing the F9 button on your keyboard.

Here's how to turn off auto-recalculation:

1. Go to Excel's Tool menu and select "options."
2. Click on the "Calculation" tab
3. Select "manual" as the calculation option
4. Click "Okay" to save your change

Remember to press F9 on your keyboard to update your worksheets after you've entered your data.

If you have any further questions about the Electronic Financial Worksheets, just send an email to support@planningshop.com.

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