Comp-u-Share

ZX Computing

CONTROLLING YOUR CASH A useful selection of business aids for the home and office, including a personal banking system and programs for VAT and book-keeping. INCOME TAX Micromega, the personal computer division of Quantec Systems and Software Ltd., produces a number of serious applications programs for ZX computers, including COMP-U-TAX to work out income tax on the ZX81, and COMP-U-SHARE, a portfolio management program. Speaking for Quantec, Mr R E Cooke-Hurle said he believed his company was one of the few professional software companies producing 'serious' software for personal computers. The company's other activities include complex commercial software for multiuser installations, and communications software for example, they are engaged at present on a project for a leading multinational company to link up to 200 geographically dispersed locations, each equipped with a micro into an integrated network all able to intercommunicate. Mr Cooke-Hurle said: "Our first personal computer product was COMP-U-TAX, which was distributed through W H Smith in considerable volumes. It is perhaps worth recording that the project started off as an 'I wonder if this could be done on a ZX81' type of approach, and it was all done on borrowed equipment." COMP-U-TAX calculates and checks your income tax bill, has 1981/82 allowances and tax rates built in, and is applicable to UK personal tax payers. The program allows for incomes up to £99999 (so I guess it could cope with yours), will allow for a marital status change during the year, and allows for calculations of a wife's earned income election. The product comes with a well-produced 24 page manual. Micromega are at [redacted].

Sinclair User

John Gilbert

EASY WAYS OF MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS John Gilbert looks at some examples in the growing library of business software. The variety of business software on the market for both ZX computers seems to be almost endless, as well as being confusing. It is difficult for a beginner to decide which program is best for certain applications without becoming too involved with the technicalities of the business world. Business programs should teach the user who is also a beginner, as well as being an aid for the hardened businessman. Hilderbay, run by Mike Salem, produces programs to cover a diverse area of business applications which can be used in the home and at work. Salem stresses that the programs were made as simple as possible to use. One program which would be useful to anybody interested in buying a house, taking a loan, or working-out VAT, is Financial Pack 1. The cassette has three programs on it - Loan, Mortgage and VAT. Mortgage deals with bank and building society. It has two main uses. The first is seeing the effect of small changes in the mortgage rate on payments before deciding to take the mortgage. Second, it is possible to discover how much has to be paid in interest at the end of the month. The program will calculate either the term or the instalment of the mortgage, depending on what information is available at the time. The loan program will compute any of the terms involved in loan repayment - principal, interest, number of instalments - depending on the other factors available. With VAT you may enter prices with or without VAT. The program will display price, VAT totals, and VAT rate. Financial Pack 1 costs £5. Another program from Hilderbay is Budget. The program will help the user to keep track of expenses incurred during the year. It is possible to keep expenses under 50 headings. Information on each item of expenditure can be entered but only the monthly running totals are kept. The program will produce a bar chart of expenditure, budget plan, or difference between the budget plan and expenditure to date. The amount spent can be compared to the budget plan for the month. The program with data can be saved on tape in the usual way. Budget costs £5. Finally from Hilderbay there is Payroll. The program will keep a record of employees and their pay for a small company. Payments can be entered on a weekly or monthly basis. After entering all the employee data and altering anything which needs to be changed, the program will calculate the present payroll. The program includes a security routine which allows only a person who knows the correct code name to enter the program. Investment on the stock market is becoming more and more popular. Micromega has produced a program which will keep track of the user's portfolio of stock and share investments. It is called Comp-U-Share. It monitors the most important factors measuring investment performance. Once the relevant data is entered, it is possible to obtain reports on percentage gain and loss, price-earnings ratio, percentage nett gain or loss, and totals. Records of shares can be indexed with numbers. When initiating a report it is possible to obtain an analysis of only those records which you desire by entering the relevant index numbers. The program stores data files separately so that the user does not have to waste time storing both program and variables every time the program is used. It is also possible to verify the data stored on the tape in the same way as with the Spectrum. The program costs £9.95. Micromega also produces a program to help with income tax. It may not decrease the amount paid but it can make the business of filling-in a tax form simpler. The program will run on both the 1K and 16K versions of the ZX-81. The 1K version is loaded in stages. The Income Tax package is a mock-up of a tax form and a user guide which takes you through the business of filling-in a form with your tax data step by step. The program has been checked by chartered accountants and can be used for the tax year ending April 5, 1982. Income Tax costs £9.95 and there will be a 15 percent discount for updates. Hestcrest provides a program called Accounts which will be of use to anyone preparing accounts from incomplete records. The program is menu-driven and when a client's income and expenses have been entered satisfactorily a profit-and-loss account and balance sheet can be displayed. It costs £17.50. Vu-Calc and Vu-File are two programs which were commissioned by Sinclair Research and produced by Psion. They are easy to use, extremely flexible, and convenient for displaying expenditure at the press of a button. The programs are part of a group of software cassettes sold by W H Smith alongside the ZX-81. Vu-Calc can be used to display such items as income, expenditure and tax in a table displayed on the TV screen. It will also perform calculations on the data displayed from formulae entered to the table. Vu-File can be used to store information such as club membership records, populations around the world, and time-tables. On the other side of the cassette is an example program which has in-store information on every country in the world. Vu-File and Vu-Calc are available for £7.95. All the programs mentioned are for use only on the ZX-81, except those from Hilderbay which are also available for the Spectrum. Almost every business application has been covered during the last year and the quality of it is very high - surprisingly high for such a small machine as the ZX-81. It has been proved that the small system many people thought was of no use for serious applications is far more versatile than they imagined. Hilderbay, [redacted]. Micromega, [redacted]. Hestacrest, [redacted]. Sinclair Research, [redacted].