Converting Accounts Pages from VAP : Manual Changes

Suppressing Unused Pages

The VAP Contents Page listed all possible pages and then suppressed those that did not apply. A typical formula to suppress the page references was:

=If (Pagestart,9)=f0 Then rs::`zero` Else `nonzero` Endif

This tests on the starting page number of the ninth page in the index. If it is zero then the page reference is not shown on the Contents page.

This approach does not work in AP; page numbering commands such as Pagestart,9 (or Pagestart,page9bi) cannot be used as part of an If-condition. The nearest equivalent is:

=IF(AP("PageTitleN,page9bi"),"nonzero",AP("rs")&"zero")

The PageTitleN command returns 1 if the Page condition is true to print the page and 0 if it is false. So if the user changes the page condition, there is no need to amend the Contents page. But if the page is forced to be included or excluded (using right-click > Include In Print or Exclude From Print) then the Contents page needs to be made local and amended manually.

Multiple Versions of a Single Page

Where the user has multiple versions of an accounts page, it may be necessary to change the Contents page to use a standard Format Code that can be used for all versions, as recommended when discussing the Alternative Formats Collection above.

Estate Information Page

Two changes are required to the Specific and Pecuniary Legacies:

• The LegacyRange commands that show the values of the legacies are converted with style Body Text A which makes them left justified. The style needs to be changed to Curr Yr 2dp No. This is a fault.
• In VAP, the figures have a pound sign. There is no style for this in AP; so a pound sign should be added as header above each set of values.

Suppressing unused columns

This Beneficiaries’ Income Account has columns for up to 5 beneficiaries. If the trust has fewer beneficiaries, unused columns are automatically suppressed and the account description column is made correspondingly wider.

The VAP commands that do this use the #total command a lot, but the conversion into AP converts them automatically into SUM() commands. However a change also needs to be made to another formula and this requires a manual change. At the top of each beneficiary column is a formula to determine whether the column should print or not:

=(Nz,a,8100..813Z>f0)

This is converted to:

=AP(“(Nz,a,8100..813Z>f0)”)

However while the VAP formula returns 0 or 1, the AP formula returns FALSE or TRUE. A subsequent command, that tries to add up how many printing columns there are, returns 0 as a result. To fix this the user needs to manually change formulae such as :

=AP(“(Nz,a,8100..813Z>f0)”)

To:

=IF(AP("Nz,a,8100..813Z"),1,0)

Listing the Beneficiary names

The command used to print the beneficiary names is more complex than in VAP. In VAP, beneficiary 3’s name was printed using:

=#be3,#1 #2

In AP, we use 

=AP("DirRange,#dr13 #dr11 #dr12,IsBeneficiaryAdd3")

We use a DirRange command as it honours the Officer’s name override field (#dr13). 

Headings over 2 cells

The CCH investment schedule shows two columns for Additions, Quantity and Cost. Above these two column headings is the word Additions as shown below.

However, in the CCH page, the word Additions is entered in the cell over Quantity and has been moved to the right by adding leading spaces. This method does not work in AP. So after conversion:

• The two cells above Quantity and Cost should be merged (select both cells, right-click, Merge)
• The heading Addition should be added without leading spaces

Date Formatting

• In VAP, dates could be picked up as =#cd12 for last year and =#cd10 for this year, but in AP this means that dates are formatted with a leading zero, e.g. 05 April 2016. To avoid this, dates need explicit formatting of 'd mmmm yyyy', e.g. =AP("#cd12'd mmmm yyyy'").