Personal Financial Calculators – Tools to manage your Finances more easily!

It’s all in the numbers! Be it your income, savings, expenses or investments. We all have to deal with the numbers and analyze them to make key financial or investment decisions.

If you would like to know – the Future Value of your periodic SIP investments at an assumed growth rate,  the present value of your Life Insurance Policy maturity amount , whether you are saving enough for your Kid’s higher education goal or total interest amount paid on your home loan etc., all these key decisions can be taken based on some number crunching only.

All these calculations can be done easily using “Functions” options in Microsoft Excel. You just need to key in the variables of your investment/expenses in the function. These variables can be your investment amount, tenure of investment, rate of interest, loan amount, loan tenure etc.,

You may also try different scenarios by changing the variables and analyze the impact on your investment.

I have highlighted the use of MS-Excel Functions in some of my articles;

• How to calculate the Future Value of your Investments using MS-Excel?
• Calculate Home Loan EMI payments, total principal repayment/ interest amount
• What is Time Value of Money?

Besides MS-Excel, there is one more option which can make your number-crunching exercise very easy, they are PERSONAL FINANCIAL CALCULATORS.  These calculators are accurate, fast and give you reliable answers.

What are Personal Financial Calculators?

A financial calculator is a device used to calculate not only basic mathematics, but financial matters as well. While all calculators can do the basic functions, these personal financial calculators make your life easier as there is no need to plug in financial formulas. The information is already pre-loaded into the calculator.

These calculators can vary in features, but most them contain certain common and basic functions. Most of these financial calculators have the options to execute calculations related to Compound interest, Bonds, Loan Amortization, Depreciation, Break-Even point, Cash-Flow Analysis etc.,

Below are some of the popular models of hand-held Personal Financial Calculators;

• Casio FC-200v Financial Consultant
• Casio FC-100V Financial Calculator
• Texas Instruments BA II Plus Financial Calculator
• HP 12C Financial Calculator.
• Sharp EL 738C Financial Calculator and so on..

The Prices of these financial calculators range between Rs 2,000 and Rs 4,000. There are many more models of financial calculators with advanced features. These are available for sale on all leading e-commerce portals like e-Bay, Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc.,

I have been using Casio FC-200V for the last 6 years. I use this calculator for both personal and professional purposes. Below are some of the key functions that can be executed using this financial calculator;

• A – To calculate Simple Interest (Variables : tenure, interest rate & principal amount)
• B – To calculate  Compound Interest (Variables : tenure, interest rate, present value/investment, periodic payments & future value)
• C – Cash Flow Analysis function to calculate NPV (Net Present Value) or IRR (Internal Rate of Return).
• D – Amortization calculations (EMI, total principal amount paid, total interest paid till date etc., can be calculated)
• E – Standard Calculator functions.
• F – Statistical calculations
• G – Interest rate conversion (Normal rate to Effective rate based on frequency of compounding)
• H – Cost, Selling price or Margin calculations
• I – Day or Date calculations
• J – Calculations related to Depreciation
• K – Bond Calculation
• L – Break Even Point Calculations

The User’ guide provided by Casio is very comprehensive and the financial functions are explained in a detailed way. Most of them are self-explanatory.

These Personal Financial Calculators are useful for everyone. Students who are pursuing CFA/CFP/Actuarial courses and professionals who are in the advisory/insurance/lending businesses can find these calculators very beneficial.

(Featured Image courtesy of atibodyphoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net, Casio Product Manual and ebay) (Post published on : 05-July-2016) (Kindly note that ReLakhs.com is not associated with any of the Product providers mentioned in this post.)