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CUFFS-88

CUFFS-88 financial modeling language is the result of unusual teamwork between financial modeling experts and world-renowned computer scientists, who have created by far the most flexible, powerful, elegant, and "intelligent" corporate financial modeling and planning tool available. 

Some of the many concepts already built into CUFFS-88 are:

bulletcalendar dates
bulletfiscal years
bulletleads and lags
bulletcorporate trees
bulletconsolidation and allocations
bulletcurrency translation
bulletinterest rates
bulletlevel vs. flow
bulletdebit vs. credit
and the intelligence for making everything work together. This built-in intelligence not only saves you much time and drudgery, but it also helps you insure accurate results, free from common errors in the financial logic.

Key Benefits

bulletFlexible Database
bulletMix of Procedural and Non-Procedural Methods
bulletAccounting Intelligence
bulletAdvanced Model Solver
bulletMultiple goal-seeking
bulletMulti-Dimensional Reporting
bulletApplication Programming Language
bulletModern User Interface
 
Flexible Database Model just one business entity or an entire corporate organization tree: the CUFFS-88 tree-structured database keeps your subsidiaries, divisions, products, regions, etc., completely organized, yet easy to change as needed.  The database organization provides the basis for automatic consolidation, downwards allocation, currency translation, budget vs. actual, what-if scenarios, and n-dimensional reporting. And, unlike any other modeling tool, each entity can have its own model, data, currency, results, and time periodicity.
Mixes Procedural and Non-Procedural Methods  Model each computation with the method best suited for it:

Balance sheets and income statements are most naturally and easily represented "non-procedurally", by the set of account names, listed in any desired order, each having a plain English formula that specifies a financial condition the model must obey:

assets (asset) = debt + equity
interest (expense) = rate * debt
taxes (expense) = if income > 0 then 43% * income else 0

Models written non-procedurally make common sense, convey meaning, and are completely self-documenting.  Further, automatic detection and solution of simultaneous equations require an overall non-procedural approach.

But not all computations can be expressed non-procedurally: The only reasonable way to model some complex tax payments is to simply copy into a computer program the step by step calculation procedure, straight from the governmental tax regulations. This second modeling style is called procedural.

A unique CUFFS-88 technical breakthrough allows you to mix these two standard ways of writing models, even within simultaneous equations, and it is the only modeling tool that handles that correctly.

Accounting Intelligence The attributes "asset", "contra asset", "expense", etc. can be used to tell CUFFS-88 whether an item is a debit or credit, level or flow. The system can use this information to provide automatic verification of accounting logic.

Totaling across time periods, as for quarterly and yearly totals in a report for a monthly model, and computing "gain or loss" due to inflation accounting and currency translations, all become fully automatic and error free.

Advanced Model Solver CUFFS-88's universal equation solver is so powerful that it can handle even simultaneous, non-linear equations that an engineer might use.  Why so powerful?  Tax laws, debt convenants, and the like are non-linear. And realistic financial models almost necessarily contain complications such as these:
bulletitems defined circularly
widgets = 8 * bananas
bananas = widgets - 10

bulletmaximizations
sales growth rate
= MAXIMIZES net income = MAXIMIZES net income
bulletmultiple goal-seeking
sales
= SUCH THAT net income = 8% * equity
funds gap = SUCH THAT assets = liabilities and equity
= SUCH THAT net income = 8% * equity
funds gap = SUCH THAT assets = liabilities and equity
bulletuser-defined procedural logic that, to maintain debit-credit balance sets values for several accounts at once as in an accounting transaction:
cash, short term debt, long term debt = my distrib function(gap)
Surprisingly, even examples as simple as the circular definitions above require a powerful equation solver, something just not found in any other modeling tool.
Multiple Goal-Seeking In other modeling tools, goal-seeking works from commands outside the model and limit you to only one goal at a time.  In CUFFS-88, goals are specified as SUCH THAT equations inside the model, so there is no such limit:

Sales Growth Rate = SUCH THAT total assets = total debt + net worth

Interest Rate
(scalar) = (scalar) = SUCH THAT final net income = 8600

Note that it finds different results for Sales Growth Rate in each time period, but only a single Interest Rate. The equation solver handles both types in the same model, even when inside simultaneous equations.

Multi-Dimensional Reporting The most informative reports are those in which you can compare, side by side, results from different runs, entities, or time periods.  With CUFFS-88 you can specify that results from any criss-cross combination of parent and child entities, accounts, and calendar dates be arranged any way you want in rows, columns, and pages. By adding formulas to the report description, you can compute new aggregated time periods, derive new entities from existing ones, or transform the results by some expression. No other modeling tool offers so much flexibility and ease of specification.   Reports and models are specified independently of each other, so you can create as many reports as you want from a single model's results.
Application Programming Language Provided within CUFFS-88 is a full Pascal-like language, for creating your own new functions and commands that may even be called from within model equations. As their input parameters or returned results, they can use any CUFFS-88 item: dates, strings, arrays, lists (of mixed items), and even other functions and commands. And they can be "recursive", so you can create your own special consolidation and allocation schemes that use the database structure.

This language is so powerful that many of the built-in CUFFS-88 commands and financial, statistical, and mathematical functions are written in CUFFS-88 itself. So, if CUFFS-88 doesn't already provide some unusual feature, you can quickly and easily add it yourself.

These new functions and commands you create can prompt the user for inputs, respond to "help" responses with your own meaningful answers , and appear in the "help" menus along with those that came with CUFFS-88.

Modern User Interface CUFFS-88 provides on-line tutorials, menus, prompts, context-sensitive HELP, and error messages that are understandable without a manual.   There is, in addition, a comprehensive manual with a wealth of practical examples.   CUFFS-88 is available for SUN and other UNIX workstations.  A Windows NT version will soon be available.

Please contact Cuffs Planning & Models for further information.

 

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Cuffs-88® is a trademark of Cuffs Planning & Models, Ltd.,   copyright ©2001  For information on software or consulting,   educational use of software, or web site comments, contact info@cuffs88.com  .  Cuffs Planning & Models, Ltd. is a New York company founded in 1972.