When in any of the Project tabs, the Projects menu will become available, ready for you to add, delete, duplicate, or rename a Project or rearrange the order of the Projects tabs by first clicking on any Projects tab and then selecting Projects | Add, Delete, Duplicate, Rearrange, or Rename Project from the menu. All of the required functionalities such as input assumptions, adding or reducing the number of rows, selecting discount rate type, or copying the grid are available within each Project tab.
The input assumptions you enter in these Project tabs are localized and used only within each tab. When setting up your model in the Project tab (Level 2), proceed from left to right of the Level 3 subtabs. Required input assumptions are shown as input boxes (e.g., seen as white input boxes in Figure 3.1) and computed results are shown as data grids. Finally, if your model is large, you can click on the View Full Grid for a pop-up view of the entire model.
Revenues, expenses, capital investments, starting and ending years for the cash flow model, discount rate, and tax rates can be entered here. Below are some tips on using this tab:
- Enter all the required inputs, and if certain cells are irrelevant, enter zeros. You can also select some data from Excel and right-click on any cell and paste the data for the entire row or multiple rows and columns. You can also right-click and select Paste Absolute Values or Paste with Signed Reversed if required (e.g., these are valuable if your Excel data uses negative values to represent expenses whereas PEAT requires positive values as expenses).
- You can increase or decrease the number of rows for each category as required.
- The DCF Starting Year input is the discounting base year, where all cash flows will be present valued to this year. Make sure to complete the starting and ending years correctly prior to entering or pasting any data into the grid. Changing starting or ending years after all the analysis is done may invalidate some of the results.
- The main categories are in boldface, and the input boxes under the categories are for you to enter in the line item name/label.
- Remember to scroll down the user interface to continue entering additional required critical inputs (e.g., Capital Expenditures).
- You can either apply a constant tax % rate to compute taxes or use your own custom inputs.
- You can click on Copy Grid to copy the results into the Windows clipboard in order to paste into another software application such as Microsoft Excel or Word.
- You can also click on the View Full Grid to see the entire model as a pop-up screen. This facilitates viewing of a large model and reduces the need for scrolling horizontally and vertically. It also helps when you are attempting to take a screenshot of the entire model.