The links below correspond to screens in the software.
Living Expenses
On the Living Expenses screen, click each of the triangles on left to open sections of expenses.
At the top of the screen, there are links to click to show the screen for each party individually or for both parties.
For each party individually, you will see columns for weekly, monthly and annual.
For both parties, you will see a column only for monthly.
At each entry, will see a little box that follows the cursor around, that you may click.
If you click the box, a window will pop up, and you may enter the amount in any time period, and the software will convert it to the appropriate time period.
Also, in the pop-up, you have an opportunity to enter “unknown,” “to be determined” etc.
Schools, colleges, camps and other major expenses are a special kind of entry.
For these expenses, you enter the total expense, and the amount allocable to each party.
You may also enter several of these expenses, for different schools, colleges, and camps.
If you are doing cash flow projections, you would also enter a number of years that the expense will be paid.
If you click “more info,” you may specify whether the expense is an educational expense and for whom.
This specification may affect where the expense flows on the state financial affidavits.
Shared expenses are expenses for which an entire group of expenses will be allocated between the parties in a set percentage.
Typically these apply to children’s expenses, and typically they are divided 50/50.
Not every state has the opportunity to enter shared expenses, but if your state does, you will see a checkbox near the top of the screen labeled “display fields for shared expenses.”
If you check that box, you will see a new column on the screen for shared monthly expenses.
In that column, you enter the total expense in the “shared monthly expenses” box.
At the top of the screen, you will also enter the percent of shared expenses that each party will pay.
Then, the software will amount of calculate the amount of each shared expense that will be paid by each party.
For example, suppose day care, school uniforms, child’s doctor expenses, and child’s camp are going to be shared expenses.
For each of those expenses, you would enter the total amount in the Shared Monthly column.
Suppose that the shared percentage was 60% for Party A, and 40% for Party B.
Then, for each of those expenses, 60% of the expense total would be calculated as apportioned to Party A, and 40% would be calculated as apportioned to Party B.
At the bottom of the screen, you will see option to close all, open all, or turn auto close off and on.
“Close all” will close all of the groups, so you will see only the headings.
“Open all” will open all of the groups, so you may scroll down and see every expense.
“Turn auto close on” (or off) affects what happens when you click the triangle to open or close a group.
If auto close is on, then when you open one group, the other groups will close
If auto close is off, then when you open one group, the other groups will remain open.