Step-by-Step Tutorials

For the Ultimate Financial Calculator

The below tutorials will step you through the indicated calculation. I recommend that you right click on a link and select Open in New Window so you can have the calculator available to do the steps as you read.

Twenty-Five Tutorials
For the Ultimate Financial Calculator™ (UFC)

  1. Calculate Payment
    • loan or mortgage periodic payment calculation
    • also an introduction to this calculator
    • Now has a YouTube video tutorial
  1. Investment Cash Flow
    • calculating final value
  2. Calculate Income From An Investment
    • How to calculate income you can expect from an investment
  3. Adjustable Rate Mortgage or Loan Calculator
    • ARM with interest rate changes on any date you desire
  4. Calculate a Loan's Term
    • How to solve for an unknown number of payments
  5. Calculate Loan Amount
    • How much can I borrow?
  6. Balloon Payment Calculation
    • Calculate the balloon amount
  7. Balloon Loan Calculation
    • Calculate the periodic payment required to result in a specified balloon
  8. Random Extra Principal Payment
    • How to prepay principal on any date
  1. Loan with Series of Extra Principal Payments
    • How to calculate loan or mortgage with extra payments
  2. Construction Loan Calculator
    • Generally a short term loan with multiple borrows
    • Now has a YouTube video tutorial
  3. Monthly Skipped Payments
    • Loan or mortgage with scheduled skipped payments
  4. Odd Length First Period
    • Interest payment options for initial period
  5. Interest-Only Loan
    • Initial series of interest-only payments
  6. Biweekly Mortgage Payments
    • Pay 1/2 the monthly payment every other week to reduce the total interest paid
  7. U.S. Rule
    • No interest charged on interest — separate tracking of interest balance
  8. How much do I have to save or invest?
    • State your goal - calculate periodic investment amount needed to reach goal
  9. Paying for College
    • You may have longer than you think
    • Multiple investments with multiple, overlapping withdrawals
    • Demonstrates solving for unknown in complex cash flow
  1. Future Value Calculation
    • How to set up simple or complex cash flows to calculate FV
  2. Present Value Calculation
    • How to discount a simple or complex cash flow to find its PV
  3. Calculate PV of Fixed Principal + Interest Loan
    • Calculate PV of the declining payment amount
    • Demonstrates the cash flow analytics of this calculator
  4. Calculate Rate of Return (ROR) on an Annuity
    • How to set up an annualized ROR calculation
  5. Calculate Time It Takes to Reach Investment Goal
    • Not available - planned.
  6. Calculate ROI for X Days
    • Exact day return on investment calculation
  7. Calculate Loan Balance — Loan Payoff Calculation
    • Enter payments for any amount on date made — audit balance due
    • Calculate the penny perfect pay off amount
    • Track loan status for owner or seller financing deals.
    • Now has a YouTube video tutorial

23 Comments on “Tutorials”

Join the conversation. Tell me what you think.
  • Hi, this is a great site & tool. Thank you very much for making this available. Can you please let me know if there is a way to set the amortization term?

  • Thank you Karl. This worked out fantastic! Appreciate your calculators & quick assistance

  • is there an option for missed payments that increments the new interest and principal amounts automatically

    or a way to input the actual payment amount received each month?

    my issue is we have 8 missed payments due to me and need to see the new schedule

  • Mike Cleveland says:

    Greetings, is there a way to see monthly balance of savings, starting with $10,000.00 and earning 20% per year for 3 years with monthly compounding?

    Thank you.

  • I love your calculator and I have been using it for a while but today when I clicked “schedule” it did not respond for some reason 🙁
    Can you look at it please because your calculator is the best on the web!

    • I’m glad you like the calculator, and I’m sorry you are now having a problem.

      Unfortunately, I don’t experience the same thing. That is, I’m able to see the schedule. Can you please try it from this page?.

      Also, perhaps you can close your browser and try again? Or try a different browser?

      If you still have a problem, please save your inputs to a file and send me the file. (Email address is on the "Contact" page.) I’ll take a look. Perhaps there’s a bug and your particular settings are impacted by it.

  • Terry Erwin says:

    I am trying to print a report and each time I try to go to Amortization to export to Excel, I get a message that the dates are out of order, do I want to sort the cash flows?- the dates are NOT out of order but it won’t allow me to go further unless I agree to do it. When I click yes, to sort that, on the amortization it has entered Loan Amount over and over, pretty much every other line. I have to go back and delete those lines. I am sure there is something simple I am missing, can you please help me? I love this program, just can’t find what I need to groom my reports like I need.

    • I’m lost. Where do you see "Export to Excel"?

      The way you print a schedule is click on the "Schedule" button. You can then either "Skip the title page" or "Continue" after you have provided the details you want for the title page.

      The schedule will open in a window. There, at the bottom of the window, you should see a "Print" button.

      If this is not working for you, please let me know more details. What device (desktop/mobile) and browser are you using? Can you send me your inputs in a saved file?

      I would appreciate it if this works for you that you let me know where the confusion was. I want to clarify it for others. Thanks.

    • Also, I need to check, but I think you might be getting the date out of order message if you’ve entered a row with a number of payments cause an overlap in dates with the next row.

      For example, say row 2 has 12 monthly payments starting January 1, 2023.

      Then if you enter in row 3, an extra payment with a date of say June 1, 2023, then I think the calculator might see these as out of order. You can enter 5 payments, then 1 extra payment followed by 7 payments.

      However, to fix the out of order issue, please try clicking on the "Expand" button and then the "Collapse" button. I think that will fix the problem.

      Again, please let me know.

  • djmorris52 says:

    I have input my data into the ultimate financial calculator page. I see no option to print. The tutorial shows an option under “schedule” but when I click schedule, the screen does not change. When I use the save as…option, my download prints a page that begins “This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it.” What am I missing?

    • If you click on the "Schedule" button, another window does not open? You should see a window that asks you for details that can be included on a title page to the printed report.

      If you don’t see that window, do you see any sort of instructional message or error message below the calculator? If so, what does it say?

  • shermanterry765@gmail.com says:

    I signed up for the wrong program. how do I change it?

    • Please purchase a subscription to UFC, and I’ll refund in full the cost of today’s SolveIT! subscription.

  • I completed a Payment Schedule and it worked exactly as it should have and is very professional…my problem is that I can’t seem to “save” the schedule. What am I doing wrong?

    • I’m glad you are able to calculate the schedule you need.

      I’m not sure why you can’t save the inputs.

      Are you clicking on the "File" button and then "Save as…"?

      Then the file that is created, you can drag and drop to the box below the calculator when you want to resume later.

      Please let me know.

  • I’m new at this. I just signed up as a subscriber. I’m looking to do an amortization schedule, which I’ve always done for free before. Now it seems I’m limited to “The Ultimate Fiancial Calculator.” How do I use this to do an amortization schedule? Thanks.

    • Tutorial #1 introduces users to creating an amortization schedule using the UFC.

      But, you are not limited to the UFC, per se. You are limited to only the UFC because that’s what you subscribed to.

      Perhaps you are use to using this amortization schedule? If so, in that case, you would have to subscribe to SolveIT! or the SolveIT! bundle if you also want to use the UFC.

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