The following is a cumulative list of program "minor changes" that have been made since the program was first released in the Fall of 1999.  Most of these changes have been in place since March 2000.  (A separate list of program "new features" is also available on this web site.)

• Files created with the DOS version were sometimes not being saved after revision with the Windows version. This behavior would not occur if the DOS file, after revision, was re-saved to a folder (i.e. c:\program files/legal math) that was different from the folder from which it was opened (i.e. c:\math). (This was fixed in March, 2000.)
    

• If the program was set such that payments were to be applied "first to current", only the dollar amount was being applied. Thus, with a payment of $123.45, only the $123 would be applied "first to current". The 45 cents was being applied to interest, if any. This has been fixed. (This was fixed in March, 2000.)
    

• The program was not allowing "deletion" of transactions from the end of a list of transactions by "erasing" the dollar and date information. The original release of the program allowed deletion only by putting a check mark in the delete column. Erasure led to some strange difficulties due to presence of empty" entries. Use of the delete column is still the recommended method for deletion, but erasure of the transactions at the end of a list is now possible. ( This was fixed in March, 2000.)
    

• A beginning transaction (one with the earliest date), if not originally entered in Row 1, was being changed to the value of whatever transaction was originally entered in Row 1. This would occur when the transactions were sorted into dated order.  ( This was fixed in March, 2000.)
    

• A credit balance carried over from a prior month is now being applied to first to the "current month" when "apply first to current" is the chosen payment allocation method. ( This was fixed in March, 2000.)
     

• Some users were experiencing a mysterious loss of data after re-saving a lengthy data file.  As of January 5, 2001, several program changes have been made in an attempt to guard against this, however its exact cause remains unknown.  If you experience such an event, please contact the 'Home Office" at once.  In the meantime, if you have case data that has taken you a long time enter, make a backup.  Save it a second time under another name.
    

• Under some limited circumstances, some users were having difficulty deleting transactions.  The deleted value would re-appear with the date of the next transaction.  This was happening if one clicked on "Arrange by Date" rather than "Calculate" - and then only under some rather unusual circumstances. (This was fixed in March, 2001)
    

• The amortization schedule was revised in mid-2002 to print with a Times Roman rather than a Courier New font.  Several users then had difficulty getting the second and subsequent pages to print properly.  Some printers were printing with larger than intended line spacing that caused the schedule to overrun the page, leaving a few stray lines on a separate unnumbered page.  This has been fixed.
    

• The loan amortization schedule, under some circumstances, was not including the final year interest and final year payments in the Total Applied to Interest and Total Applied to Principal.
    

• The loan amortization schedule, under some circumstances, was not showing the final year interest and final year payments or the Total All Years Applied to Interest and Total All Years Applied to Principal at the end of the schedule.
    

• Some users had been experiencing difficulties related to the switch to Windows XP.  Those difficulties have all been resolved.  The most serious and most obvious was that the program would not install on a Windows XP system.  That was an easy fix.  The next most serious problem related to the program not liking the calendar that was displayed on several of the program's internal screen.  In order to resolve this issue, the calendar has been removed from the program.
    

• Several non-functional cosmetic changes have been made which you may or may not notice, depending on how you have set the "Settings" and depending on which portions of the program you have used.
   

• Totally new to Version 2004 is a feature that calculates the Annual Percentage Rate of a consumer loan.  This is the rate required by the Federal Truth-in-Lending Act.  This feature can account for an irregular first or last payment and an irregular first payment period. 
   

• Totally new, also, is the fact that Version 2004 is fully supported by this web site.  By that we mean that this web site can be used to obtain lost activation codes or passwords and it can be used obtain new codes for firm name changes.

In order to take advantage of these changes, you may want to purchase the latest version of the program.   If you have an existing license to use the Windows version of the Legal Math program, you can purchase an update for about half of what it would cost a new user to purchase the program.  To do so, click here to be taken to the screen where you can start the purchase process.

Return to the main Legal Math page

August 1, 2004