Commercial Narrative Report Software

[Scott Lanz]

Dennis,

For a comparable database you may want to check out Datacomp. I have been using this program for years and it has worked very well.

They have added a nice template wizard to assist in dropping fields from the database into excel/word for a customized template.

As far as an Income/DCF/Units (Subdivision) templates, I use the @value program and Reportbuilder 2.0 along with about 50+ of my personal templates and templates from numerous other appraisers. They are all part of my arsenal.

The software programs have a template you can use out of the box, however, these programs are designed more to build your own templates.

Once built and with a good user, there is no comparison in regards to compiling a report in terms of speed and appearance than a strong report builder package.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Where I run into a brick wall is the Income Analysis/DCF- I'd like to do it on spreadsheet rather than the HP12c, but I think I'd just as soon purchase the program vs. trying to design my own. It would also be nice to have a comps data base that one could use for a standard presentation in the reports.

WordPerfect is the only word processer that allows you to create mini-spreadsheets that calculate and even inputs formulas. I have a land grid and cost grid built in and simply carry it over. You can get it quite complex...too complex becomes a little unhandy. But I have worked with this from day one, starting with WP 5.1 DOS

The advantages of WordPerfect are the calcluating tables, the reveal codes is plain and understandable, and the Template and keyboard merge features as well as creating "hot keys" for repetitive functions.

My quarrel with things like @value is that it creates a fat report, unnecessarily with way too much white space and wretched tables that are arcane in design. SO if you are going to have to reformat all that, why not simply do it yourself?

I would agree if I was stuck to a Microsoft product, it would have to be Excel over Word. Word will do some rudimentary calculations, but nothing complex.

As for comps, I research them once & save them as simple files. My write ups are a 1-3 page summary of the comparable including a picture embedded in the write up.

After I fill my report out, I run the grammer and spell checker. One common mistake is this this one...you don't always catch those while typing.

The most difficulty for most people imho is that they have trouble understanding formatting and how to adjust formatting. I prefer that all paragraph formatting is removed and I do that part myself. Unfortunately cut and paste from Word carries their stupid format even when pasting correctly on font.

 

[Couch Potato]

WordPerfect is the only word processer that allows you to create mini-spreadsheets that calculate and even inputs formulas. I have a land grid and cost grid built in and simply carry it over. You can get it quite complex...too complex becomes a little unhandy. But I have worked with this from day one, starting with WP 5.1 DOS

Not a true statement Terrel. Pages does that too, and Word can mimic the feature with an embedded Excel spreadsheet.

 

[hastalavista]

Guys-

Thanks for the additional feedback- I appreciate it!
I'll post when I've finally made a decision.


Jason- I pm'd you; thanks! :new_smile-l: