Frequently Asked Questions

1. When was your company registered, how many organisations are using LOAN PERFORMER?

CRYSTAL CLEAR SOFTWARE LTD. was registered in March 1998 as a Limited Company in Kampala, Uganda. We launched version 4.0 of LOAN PERFORMER in September 1998, version 5.0 in August 1999 and version 6.0 in October 2002. Since September 1998 there are about 40 other micro-finance institutions in Uganda that have decided to work with LOAN PERFORMER as well as about 70 others abroad.

2. What is your marketing policy?

Our company is committed to make LOAN PERFORMER the number 1 in micro-finance. We want our product to be the best on the market. We are convinced that it is a good product but we also know that we can always improve on it. Therefore we make our product available for potential customers. Our sales policy is open: you can try it out before you buy it. We stimulate you to test the program and inform us about modifications you want or any bugs you find. The more bugs you find, the better. We take care that they will be repaired, free of charge.

We also want our price to be competitive for small NGO's. Our clients must be able to tailor the product to their specific needs. If this is not possible, CRYSTAL CLEAR SOFTWARE LTD. is willing to modify/add features on request without compromising other users of the program. The costs of modifications will be born by the specific client, but the modifications will benefit all other users. We don't want customers to just buy our product. We want them to enter into a long lasting and fruitful relationship with us. We believe that a software product - any software product - is never finished. Besides the discovery of new bugs, customers develop additional information requirements and want additional features. Therefore we want our software to grow with the information needs of our clients. We produce at least 2 free updates per year. And for our clients we provide free 24-hour support by phone/fax/email.

3. What is the maximum number of clients, loan accounts?

LOAN PERFORMER can be installed in branches of an organisation. It uses 2 characters to define a branch. So it supports up to 676 branches per institution. Each branch can have 99,999 individual clients, 99,999 groups and 99,999 businesses. The number of savings accounts is limited to 999,999 accounts per branch, the number of loan accounts has a maximum of 999,999 individual loans per branch and 999,999 group loans per branch.

4. In what languages is LOAN PERFORMER available?

Currently in English, French and Spanish. If the user wants, (s-)he can translate one language column and produce other Loan Performer language versions. We know for instance that this has been done for Bulgarian and Papiamento. A Russian version will be available soon. The help files have been translated into French, Spanish and Russian and are available from this site (see the Download page).

5. How many user-definable fields does LOAN PERFORMER have?

There are 3 user-definable fields for individual clients, 1 for group members and 3 for loans. One category can be used to define the kind of client: e.g. resident, refugee, other. Another category to define e.g. rural, urban. One loan category can be used for e.g. subsidized, non-subsidized loans. Another to define the use of the loan e.g. commercial, agricultural, consumptive loans. And a third whether this is a loan to a new, starting company or to an existing, matured company. It's all up to the user. Within each category you can enter up to 999 alternative choices.

6. What is the maximum loan amount? How many decimal places does LOAN PERFORMER use?

You can define to use 0, 1 or 2 decimals in LOAN PERFORMER. The maximum loan amount is 12 digits wide with 2 decimals: 999,999,999,999.99. The maximum amount that you can book into the General Ledger is the same.

7. Can disbursements and repayments be entered in cash and by cheque?

Yes, both and you can disburse to the client's savings account or to his/her bank account. Repayments can also be paid in cash, by cheque, from the savings account of the client or booked directly from your client's bank account.

8. What are the different instalment periods?

These are Daily, Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Half-Monthly, Four-Weekly, Monthly, 2-Monthly, Quarterly, Four-Monthly, Semi-Annual and Annual.

9. What are the different interest calculation methods?

These are Flat Rate, Declining Balance Amortization and Declining Balance Discounted. Interest can also be deducted at disbursement.

10. What is the basis for accounting: Cash or Accrual?

LOAN PERFORMER uses Cash Basis. Interest is only booked when received. However you can book interest due (or past due) yourself, if you want it to be visible on the accounts. You can run the reports to find out the amounts and post them into the general ledger.

11. When is the General Ledger updated?

The General Ledger is immediately updated after the entry of any transaction. Loan Performer does not work with batches that have to be processed. Corrections won't delete the last postings but will inverse the original transactions.

12. We don't handle savings ourselves. Can we prevent it from being booked?

Yes, you can indicate that your clients save externally. This is a parameter in the configuration of the program. Now you can enter your client's savings without these entries being booked to your General Ledger.

13. How much training is needed to work with LOAN PERFORMER?

LOAN PERFORMER is very user-friendly. The menu-structure is very logic so that you can easily find something. LOAN PERFORMER has an on-line help feature with "Where-to-Start?" and an "Index". In general people, who are familiar with computers and micro-finance, can find their way easily in the program. In general we take 4 days to lead you through the program and 2 day to get you off and running on your own data.

14. How many standard reports come with LOAN PERFORMER?

There are more than 150 reports that come with LOAN PERFORMER. All reports are printed on A4 paper size. The reporting feature is one of the strong points of LOAN PERFORMER. All reports have print variables like flexible date or periods, a specific loan fund or all loan funds, a specific credit officer or all officers, only individual loans, only group loans or all loans, a specific branch or all branches, one specific geographical area or all, etc.

All reports have the company logo, the name of the officer who printed the report, as well as the date and time that the report was printed. Reports can be printed to file in DBF, XLS or PDF format so that branches could easily send their reports by email to head office. For PDF files, you need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view or print these files. The Reader is freeware and doesn't cost you anything. If you want to be able to modify the reports, you need Adobe Acrobat, which is not free.

15. What is the data format?

All data is saved in DBF files. LOAN PERFORMER is created with Visual Foxpro 5.0.

16. Do we need Visual Foxpro 5.0?

No you don't. However, if you can afford the extra costs (about 500 dollar) and are willing to invest in building database knowledge in your organisation, we recommend to buy it. The advantage is that your IT person will be able to correct entries of your data-personnel, recover databases that have gone corrupt and do repairs that otherwise might have taken a much longer time. If you have Visual Foxpro, you can also create your own reports and build additional features around the database.

17. Can we add our own menu items to LOAN PERFORMER?

Yes you can, if you have LOAN PERFORMER version 5.16 or higher and Visual Foxpro 5.0A. Below are the steps to do this:

Step 1. Create a file hello.prg in Visual Foxpro 5.0A with the following line:
WAIT WINDOW "Hello there…"
Compile it and save this file in the LPF directory.

Step 2. Add a new record in glpfdata.dbf with:
Recid = 900 (use numbers from 900 upwards, numbers below 900 are reserved for CRYSTAL CLEAR SOFTWARE LTD.)
IdBar = 1
Pad = ''
Submenu = ''
Popup = 'Clients'
Bar = 19 (this is the last bar on the 'Clients' menu)
Prompt = '\<Get Message'
Key = ''
Guest = T (all users get access to this menu item)
Cashier = T
SavOff = T
CredOff = T
Account = T
Manager = T
Message = 'This is to get a message'
Do = 'Hello' (the name of the file to be called)

Step 3. (Re-)Start LOAN PERFORMER, choose 'Clients' and click on the last menu item. You'll get a window in the right corner of your screen saying 'Hello there…'.

18. Can we import data?

Yes, you can import savings transactions, loan repayments and general ledger transactions from DBF, XLS and TXT files.

19. Is LOAN PERFORMER protected against corrupted databases?

Yes, each time LOAN PERFORMER is started, the validity of the database is checked. If there are any errors - because of power failures or otherwise - LOAN PERFORMER tries to correct them first. If it succeeds, you may continue, otherwise it will tell you to restore a backup first.

20. How many licenses do we need? We have 5 branches.

Whether your administration is centralised or de-centralised, you need 5 licenses, one for each branch. If you want you can buy a computer for every branch, install LOAN PERFORMER there and have somebody trained at the branch. You can also keep your administration on one computer at Head Office. For every branch you will keep a separate folder (with a license file), you install LOAN PERFORMER once and you can switch between the branches by changing the datapath default setting. You don't have to quit LOAN PERFORMER to do this.

21. Can you advise us on the organisation of the data-entry?

Should every officer use LOAN PERFORMER?
It depends on how many officers you have. If this is 4 or more, you had better appoint someone specifically for data-entry and reporting work. All credit officers hand over their data to the data-entry clerk. This person keys it into LOAN PERFORMER and produces the reports for the specified persons at the specified intervals. This way each person will become better in his own job: the credit officer who now has more time to go into the field and do follow-ups and the data-entry clerk who will know the LOAN PERFORMER program more in all it's details and knows which data has been updated and what is still to be done.

22. Could you give us a standard reporting schedule?

Though there is no standard reporting schedule that fits all organisations,
you could start with the following page (click here).