Release Notes - Feastudy for PC

Notes on Upgrading to Feastudy 11

Please note: If your subscription to our Feastudy Maintenance and Support Service for Feastudy for PC has expired, you will not be able to upgrade from Feastudy 10 to Feastudy 11 and use the latter program in licensed mode. Please contact us if you wish to discuss this.

We strongly suggest that you only use the following instructions for installing Feastudy 11 as an Upgrade if your subscription to our Feastudy Maintenance and Support Service for Feastudy for PC is current.

If Feastudy 10 is currently installed on your PC, then undertake the following steps:

1. Click on the above Download Feastudy 11.5 for PC button to download the new Feastudy 11 installer and then save the installer file, Feastudy11Setup.exe, to the folder of your choice.
2. When it is downloaded, close all other programs that are open at that point; then left double-click on the Feastudy11Setup.exe file in File Explorer or Windows Explorer or My Computer to begin the program installation process.

If Feastudy 10 is NOT currently installed on your PC, then undertake the two steps mentioned immediately above and then put Feastudy 11 into licensed mode by copying and pasting your Activation Key into the Activation Key field of the Licensing Information window of the program and then clicking the Activate button.

Notes on Updating Feastudy 11

If you have already installed and activated Feastudy 11 in licensed mode, then click on the Download Feastudy 11.5 button below to download the new Feastudy 11.5 installer and then save the file, Feastudy11Setup.exe, to the folder of your choice. When it is downloaded, close all other programs that are open at that point; then left double-click on the file in File Explorer or Windows Explorer or My Computer to begin the program installation process.

(You do not need to uninstall the older version of Feastudy 11 if you choose again the same location for Update 11.5's installation. In such a case, Update 11.5 will be installed over your current program installation.)

v11.5 - released 23/08/2023

Just one significant change has been made to Feastudy 11 (for PC) in Update 11.5 and it is an enhancement which provides a new database of suggested 2023-2024 scales for Stamp Duty on Transfer and Mortgage, Council Rates, Water & Sewer Rates and Land Tax for each Australian capital city, based on data obtained by Devfeas Pty Ltd for these charges from the relevant authorities in August 2023.

v11.4 - released 11/07/2023

There is one bug fix that has been made to Feastudy 11 (for PC) in Update 11.4 and it is described as follows:

In the previous version of Feastudy Professional (Update 11.3), a bug was inadvertently introduced into the program that causes exports to CSV file for the portrait and landscape versions of the Categorised Cashflow report and the Itemised Costs Cashflow report to incorrectly NOT display the first (labels/descriptions) column of these reports. This bug has been fixed in Update 11.4 so that, whenever either or both of the said two reports are exported to a CSV file, the said labels/descriptions are correctly displayed in the resultant export file.

v11.3 - released 14/06/2023

The three significant enhancements and one bug fix that have been made to Feastudy 11 (for PC) in Update 11.3 are described as follows:

• (1) In the Professional version of Feastudy, feasibility study reports can now be exported to Microsoft Word DOCX files, in addition to being able to be exported to CSV files, with the body text of these exported reports having a similar setting out to that which is used to display them on-screen when they are selected for display from the program’s Reports menu


• (2) In the Professional and Lite versions of Feastudy, two new metrics have been enabled to appear under certain conditions. One metric is the “Total Development Cost per Dwelling/Allotment”, and the other metric is the “Development Sales Income per Dwelling/Allotment”, for “Residential” and “Subdivision” developments. These metrics are reported in the Categorised P&L, the Itemised P&L, and the Valuer’s Style P&L reports for a Development file if a (legal) positive integer is entered in the “Number of Dwellings/Allotments to be Developed” field of the Other Settings window for the file.


• (3) When a Feastudy user switches from using two or more monitors to using one monitor for using the program, Feastudy automatically adjusts for the change in the number of monitors. (In earlier versions of Feastudy, the program could become usable without the use of the "Reset windows positions" function via the use of the small Feastudy icon in Windows’ System Tray.)


• (4) In the previous version of Feastudy (Update 11.2), a bug causes both the Start Date and End Date for a Construction Cost item in a Development feasibility file to be reported as occurring one month later in the printed Inputs report for the file, e.g., an entered End Date of 11/2023 for such an item is reported as “Dec 2023” in the printed version of the Inputs report in Update 11.2. This bug has been fixed in Update 11.3 so that the Start Dates and End Dates entered for all Construction Cost items for a file are correctly reported in the printed Inputs report.

v11.2 - released 17/08/2022

The most significant changes that have been made to Feastudy 11 (for PC) in Update 11.2 are described as follows:

• (1) An enhancement has been made to Feastudy 11 (for PC) in Update 11.2 and it is a new database of suggested 2022-2023 scales for Stamp Duty on Transfer and Mortgage, Council Rates, Water & Sewer Rates and Land Tax for each Australian capital city, based on data obtained by Devfeas Pty Ltd for these charges from the relevant authorities in August 2022.


• (2) A bug in Update 11.0 and 11.1, that has been fixed in Update 11.2, relates to the miscalculation of Margin on Development Cost (MDC) metrics in each of the Variations reports for a Development file when that file has zero Equity actually injected into it. Instead of reporting various correct MDC metrics in the MDC column of each of the Variations reports for such a file, Update 11.1 incorrectly reports “>2,000%” for these rows when the correct MDC is under 2,000%. Likewise, if the Development file has zero Equity actually injected and the relevant scenario makes a loss, Feastudy incorrectly reports “<-2,000%” when the loss is smaller than -2,000%. Update 11.2 contains a fix for this bug, so that the correct MDC is reported in the MDC columns of the Variations reports.


• (3) A bug in Update 11.1, for which there is a fix in Update 11.2, concerns the "Percentage Linked to Construction Cost Item(s)" option that is available for specifying the method of payment for a Consultant Cost item in Development files. Specifically, in update 11.1.13, no matter what percentage is entered for the "Percentage Linked to Construction Cost(s) Item(s)" option or what Construction Cost item(s) to which a Consultant Cost item is linked, the calculation to the right of the Percent field in the relevant Consultant Cost window is always displayed as "$0 (GST-inclusive)" for the said option. Fortunately, this bug does not affect any other program calculations or reports, and a fix for the bug is contained in Update 11.2 so that the correct monetary value is displayed to the right of the said Percent field for all relevant Development scenarios.


• (4) A bug in Updates 11.0 and 11.1, that has been fixed in Update 11.2, relates to previewing the Consolidated Cashflow report for Consolidated Development files. In certain rare circumstances, where a consolidation contains an overflow of digits to the right of the decimal point for figures that are calculated for the "Value based on Sell-On Value" method of calculating Loan to Value Ratios (LVRs) in the said report, the program “crashes”. The fix in Update 11.2 for this bug ensures that the program does not crash for such circumstances.

v11.1 - released 07/07/2022

The most significant changes that have been made to Feastudy 11 (for PC) in Update 11.1 are described as follows:

• (1) Feastudy 11.1 now displays, as a default, quick links to data entry windows in all of its on-screen reports, except for the on-screen Variations reports, for Development, Investment and Develop-and-Hold Investment feasibility files. (In previous versions of Feastudy for PC, these links are only available for the P&L reports of Development files.) When one of these links is clicked, the program opens either: (a) the data entry window that contains details of the data set that is entered in the file for the relevant category of cost or income, or (b) a set of various buttons, which are linked to a number of data entry windows. If you do not want these links/buttons to appear while viewing on-screen reports, you can open the app’s Options window and enter an uncheck in the “Show Links to Data Windows in Reports” check box.


• (2) A new 'Customised Monthly' option is available for specifying the payment method that is to be used for a Consultant Cost item in Development files. This new feature works in a very similar fashion to the way the Customised Monthly option operates for Construction Cost items in a Development file. Each Consultant Cost item or Construction Cost item can have monthly user-customised amounts for the period defined by the Start Date and End Date that are entered for the item, provided that that period in no longer than 36 months.


• (3) There is a new option in the Print or Export Reports and Graphs window for printing the Itemised Cost Cashflow report for Development files in landscape mode. Previously, this report could only be printed in portrait mode.

v11.0 - released 15/11/2021

Two significant changes have been made in the upgrade Feastudy 11.0 (for PC) and these are described as follows:

• (1) Feastudy 11 has been developed and tested to assure compatibility with Microsoft’s Windows 11 operating system, and hence is the supported version of Feastudy for people using Windows 11. Even though Feastudy 11 is backwardly compatible with Windows 10, Feastudy 11.0 is the basis for any new updates of Feastudy for PC, especially for making such updates compatible with Windows 11, which was released on 5 October 2021.


• (2) There is a set of fixes for IRR on Equity calculation bugs in each of the Profit & Loss reports for all file types of feasibility files, and in the Variations reports for Development files when the option “IRRoE for Development Variations” is checked in the Options window of the program, in Feastudy 10.3. The bugs concern those files where the overall IRRoE has an infinitely negative percentage. In such cases, a relevant IRRoE calculation either does not complete and is reported as a very low (but not infinite) value. The fixes for these bugs in Feastudy 11 make all of the relevant reports correctly show the result as “<-2,000%” for each relevant IRRoE calculation for a feasibility file.

v10.3 - released 30/08/2021

Two significant changes have been made to Feastudy 10 (for PC) in Update 10.3 and these are described as follows:

• (1) A significant enhancement has been made to Feastudy 10 (for PC) in Update 10.3 and it is a new database of suggested 2021-2022 scales for Stamp Duty on Transfer and Mortgage, Council Rates, Water & Sewer Rates and Land Tax for each Australian capital city, based on data obtained by Devfeas Pty Ltd for these charges from the relevant authorities in August 2021.


• (2) There is a set of fixes for IRR on Equity calculation bugs in the Joint Venture report of the Professional version of Feastudy 10.2. The bugs concern those cases where the IRRoE for the JV and/or Equity Partner and/or Debt Partner has/have an infinitely positive or infinitely negative percentage. In such cases, a relevant IRRoE calculation either does not complete and is reported as a very high or very low (but not infinite) value, or it is reported as zero. The fixes for these bugs in Update 10.3 make the JV report correctly show the result as “>2,000%” or “<-2,000%” for each relevant IRRoE calculation, as the case requires.

v10.2 - released 01/06/2021

Two significant changes have been made to Feastudy 10 (for PC) in Update 10.2 and these are described as follows:

• (1) A bug, which involves the “crashing” or exiting of the program, is caused in Feastudy 10.1.4.0 by some rare instances of the Line Fee’s End Date in a Development file being able to be changed so that that date is outside of the Development Dates range as entered in the Development Dates window for the file. This bug has been fixed in Update 10.2 so that the Line Fee’s End Date cannot be changed to be outside the Development Dates range.


• (2) The program has been enhanced with respect to the handling of Line Fee calculations for the purposes of the Construction Period Variations and Sell-On Period Variations reports when a Line Fee greater than zero is entered into a Development file. In Feastudy 10.1.4.0, these two Period Variations reports assume that both the Start Date and the End Date change together in ‘lock step’ for the purposes of calculating each of the “Rows Below” the Primary Scenario row in these reports. (The “Rows Below” in these two reports relate to various months of delays in the Sell-On Income being received relative to what is entered in the file’s Primary Scenario, which is the entered scenario for the file.) As Devfeas Pty Ltd believes that the reality is that a Line Fee’s Start Date does not change because the length of time the development takes to be constructed and/or sold off is increased, Update 10.2 of Feastudy assumes that, for the Rows Below in the said two reports, the Line Fee’s Start Date remains static but the Line Fee’s End Date is, relative to the Primary Scenario, made one month later for each month of delay in Sell-On Income receipts relative to the Primary Scenario.

v10.1 - released 16/09/2020

Just one significant change has been made to Feastudy 10 (for PC) in Update 10.1 and it is an enhancement which provides a new database of suggested 2020-2021 scales for Stamp Duty on Transfer and Mortgage, Council Rates, Water & Sewer Rates and Land Tax for each Australian capital city, based on data obtained by Devfeas Pty Ltd for these charges from the relevant authorities in August 2020.

v10.0 - released 30/07/2020

Feastudy 10 (for PC) is a major upgrade version of Feastudy for PC and the most significant enhancements in this upgrade are described as follows:

• (1) Details of a Line Fee can now be entered in the Primary Debt Funds tab of the Loans & Interest window of Feastudy 10 for the purpose of providing specific calculations about the Line Fees costs in the reports for Development files. The data that can be entered for the Line Fee consist of: the Maximum Limit of the Loan facility for Primary Debt Funds, the Line Fee as an annual percentage rate of the Maximum Limit of the Loan, and the Start and End Dates of the loan.


• (2) Data entry fields are available in Feastudy 10 for entering: (a) up to 36 months for Provisional Debt Advances in the Secondary Debt Funds tab of the Loans and Interest window (instead of the limit of 10 months in Feastudy 9 for this window) for Development files; and (b) up to 36 months of Lump Sum Instalments of Equity in the Joint Venture & Equity window for Development files and the Equity window for Investment files (instead of the limit of 10 months in Feastudy 9 for these windows).


• (3) The Consultant Cost, Other Cost and Other Income item windows in Feastudy 10, for Development or Investment files (as the cases apply), enable the entry of a ‘Quantity’ and a ‘Rate’ for an item for the purpose of the program computing the amount that is paid for these items (instead of the user having to use a separate and external method of arriving at the relevant amount for inputting into Feastudy in the relevant windows).


• (4) The currency symbol that is selected in Region settings for Windows 10 on a modern PC is now the currency symbol that appears in Feastudy 10’s data entry windows, reports and graphs. (In Feastudy 9 only the dollar currency symbol is available.)

v9.5 - released 06/04/2020

Only bug-fixes have been made to Feastudy 9 (for PC) in Update 9.5. We believe the most significant bugs that are fixed in this update relate to the program’s calculations, and these bugs and their fixes are described as follows:

• (1) Feastudy 9.4.0 overstates (miscalculates) the amount of GST Debits in Income for a Sell-On Income item, which has a value greater than zero, in the cashflow reports for a Development feasibility file when:


• (a) A check is entered for the question, “Is any Sell-On Income not Margin Scheme taxed?”, in the GST Settings window; and
• (b) The entry of a check for the question, “Does the Margin Scheme apply to this item?”, for that Sell-On Income item is then effectively countermanded by the entry of an uncheck for the question, “Does GST Apply to this item?”, for that item (i.e. without the question about the ‘Margin Scheme applying’ being manually unchecked by the user for that item).



In such a case, the subsequent ‘GST does not apply’ entry is ignored and the old-and-should-be-invalidated ‘ghosted’ entry, regarding ‘the Margin Scheme applying’ for the relevant Sell-On Income item, is used for the calculation of the GST Debit in Income for that item in the cashflow reports for the file. The Feastudy 9.5 update fixes this bug by automatically unchecking the question, “Does the Margin Scheme apply to this item?” for a Sell-On Income item when, in a relevant scenario, an uncheck is entered for the question, “Does GST Apply to this item?”

• (2) A calculation bug becomes activated in Feastudy 9.4.0 for Investment files and Develop & Hold Investment files when these three entries apply to them:


• (a) The GST Rate entered in the GST Settings window is both greater than zero and different from the default (Australian) rate of 10%,
• (b) GST applies to an Investment Sale Price (ISP) that is greater than zero, and
• (c) The Investment Sale Price is calculated using a CV escalation factor.



In such cases, Feastudy 9.4.0 does not use the correct formula for calculating the GST component of the ISP and the Pre-GST component of the ISP. The Feastudy 9.5 update fixes this bug by using the correct formula for GST.

• (3) The effect of entering a percentage in the Differential field for the Assessed Capital Value (ACV) in the Assessed Values for Rates & Taxes (AVR&T) window for a Development file in Feastudy 9.4.0 has no effect on calculations because the program (as intended) assumes that the ACV for a Development is the potentially escalated default or entered AUV plus, at the start of each financial year of the Development cashflow, the cumulative total of any Construction Costs and Consultant Costs to that point in time. The fix for this bug in Feastudy 9.5 is that, for Development files, the Differential field for the ACV in the AVR&T window has been deleted and no reporting of the Differential for the ACV occurs in the inputs reports.

v9.4 - released 17/10/2019

One significant bug-fix has been made to Feastudy 9 (for PC) in Update 9.4 and it concerns a correction to Feastudy 9’s data base of the default (suggested) 2019-2020 scale for Stamp Duty on Transfer for the capital city, “Sydney”. In Update 9.3, when the following is entered in the Development/Investment Identification window of a feasibility file:

• (a) “Sydney” for the “Capital City” field; and
• (b) either “Commercial”, “Offices”, “Retail”, “Industrial”, “Special”, “Mixed” or “General” for the “Type of Development” or “Type of Investment” field as the case requires;

the fifth bracket for the “Up to and including” column of the Stamp Duty on Transfer scale for Sydney (as suggested by Devfeas Pty Ltd) is incorrectly given as $10,130,000 when it was intended to be $1,013,000. (The fix for this bug in Update 9.4 is that $1,013,000 is the default/suggested amount for the said fifth bracket.)

v9.3 - released 27/08/2019

Two significant enhancements have been made to Feastudy 9 (for PC) in Update 9.3. The enhancements are:

• (a) A new data base of suggested 2019-2020 scales for Stamp Duty on Transfer and Mortgage, Council Rates, Water & Sewer Rates and Land Tax for each Australian capital city, based on data obtained by Devfeas Pty Ltd for these charges from the relevant authorities in August 2019, is included in Feastudy 9.
• (b) The Valuer’s Style Profit & Loss report for Development files has been revised and upgraded as a result of feedback to Devfeas from valuers, who use Feastudy 9. In particular, the Residual Land Value or Land Purchase Price (depending on which case applies) is now displayed/printed as the ‘bottom line’ of the report.

v9.2 - released 21/06/2019

Only one significant bug fix (correction) has been made to Feastudy 9 (for PC) in Update 9.2. The bug concerns calculation errors in the program’s cashflow reports when:

• (a) the Development or Investment Reference Date (cashflow start date) for a feasibility file contains “06” for the “MM” part of the “MM/yyyy” date format;
• (b) ”Annual” cashflow intervals are selected for the file’s cashflow reports; and
• (c) “July” is entered as the “First Month of the Financial Year” for the file.

(The fix for this bug in Update 9.2 ensures that the program’s calculations for “Annual” cashflow reports are correct.)

v9.1 - released 29/10/2018

The only significant change made to Feastudy 9 (for PC) in Update 9.1 concerns one bug (error) fix. For certain development scenarios (data sets in files), selecting either the Construction Period Variations report or the Sell-On Period Variations report for display or print preview causes Feastudy 9.0 to crash, i.e. the program needs to be restarted to function again. (The fix for this bug in Update 9.1 ensures that the program does not crash when the said reports are selected for display or print preview for any scenarios.)

v9.0 - released 1/10/2018

The improvements made to Feastudy 9 (for PC) in the release version of the program include two significant enhancements and they are described as follows:

1. In accord with the Australian “GST at Settlement” laws enacted in 2018, Feastudy 9 assumes that, at the settlement of each purchase of a “new Residential property” from a GST-registered developer, the purchaser must remit to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) either: seven (7%) of the purchase price of that property if the Margin Scheme (MS) applies to the transaction; or all of the GST that applies to the purchase price of that property if the Full Taxation (FT) method of GST applies to the transaction. For the purposes of Feastudy 9: “new Residential property” is one or more new residential allotments; or one or more new residences; and “GST at Settlement” is only paid for a Sell-On Income item when a check is entered in the check box for the question, “Is this item for new Residential property?”, for that Sell-On Income item. In the case of MS-taxed Sell-On Income items for “new Residential property,” if 7% of the value of such items is too high or too low for the purposes of the overall amount of GST that needs to be remitted to the ATO for the MS-taxed Sell-On Income, the program makes appropriate credit or debit adjustments at the relevant Business Activity Statement intervals. (The 2018 Australian “GST at Settlement” laws do not actually require a change in the overall [net] amount of GST that should be paid for a development’s GST-taxed development sales but they do require a change in the timing of the payment of GST cashflows that are relevant to “new Residential property.”) For a Development file, Feastudy 9 assumes that, when “the MS is to be applied” and "no Sell-On Income is MS taxed” are entered in the GST Settings window, all Sell-On Income items for the file are for “new Residential property.”
2. A new data base of suggested 2018-2019 scales for Stamp Duty on Transfer and Mortgage, Council Rates, Water & Sewer Rates and Land Tax for each Australian capital city, based on data obtained by Devfeas Pty Ltd for these charges from the relevant authorities in September 2018, is included in Feastudy 9.