If you are considering a settlement offer or if you want to pay off a settlement, you want to find out how much it is worth today. To do this, you need to calculate the present value, because the lump sum of your settlement’s value is going to be worth less in the future than it is today. When you have a claim to see how much money you would accept or pay today, a simple present value calculation is the answer.

Occasionally a customer asks whether making half monthly payments instead of monthly payments will pay off their mortgage quicker.  The answer is no.   Let’s assume a 30-year loan. You will only save part of one month’s interest over the 30 years so it is probably not worth it and this is assuming that your bank will process your partial half month payments timely.

A lease rate factor is the regular lease payment as a percent of the total cost of the leased equipment. Stated another way, if you multiply the lease rate factor by the cost of the leased equipment, you will determine the regular payment amount. The lease rate factor is a simplistic way of getting the payments but it is not that simple.

Often, we have no activity on a loan or an investment but we want to know the amount of interest that is accruing or compounding. You can trigger the interest to appear by adding events such as a Payment or Invest for a $0 amount. This causes TValue to calculate the interest and, depending on the compute method, either add it to the principal if you are using Normal (compound interest) or to the accrued interest balance if you are using US Rule (simple interest).

In reviewing the 2017 Berkshire Performance summary, you would be amazed at the impact that compounding has over a number of years. In their report, they show three return calculations: the Berkshire per share “book value” which was a 19.1% compounded annual return, the Berkshire per share “market value” which was a 20.9% compounded annual return, and the S&P 500 compounded annual return of 9.9%. These were from August 31, 1964 to December 31, 2017.