Selecting Investment New Generic Cashflow from the Investment Analysis dialog box’s menu bar opens the Generic Cashflow dialog box displayed in Figure 53.34.

Figure 53.34 Generic Cashflow

The following items are displayed:

Name holds the name you assign to the generic cashflow. You can set the name here or within the Portfolio area of the Investment Analysis dialog box. This must be a valid SAS name.

Cashflow Specification holds date-amount pairs that correspond to deposits and withdrawals (or benefits and costs) for the cashflow. Each date is a SAS date. Right-clicking within the Cashflow Specification area reveals many helpful tools for managing date-amount pairs.

The Cashflow Chart fills with a graph representing the cashflow when the Cashflow Specification area is nonempty. The box to the right of the scroll bar controls the number of entries with which to fill the graph. If the number in this box is less than the total number of entries, you can use the scroll bar to view different segments of the cashflow. The left box below the scroll bar holds the frequency for drilling purposes.

OK returns you to the Investment Analysis dialog box. If this is a new generic cashflow specification, clicking OK appends the current cashflow specification to the portfolio. If this is an existing cashflow specification, clicking OK returns the altered cashflow specification to the portfolio.

Cancel returns you to the Investment Analysis dialog box. If this is a new cashflow specification, clicking Cancel discards the current cashflow specification. If this is an existing cashflow specification, clicking Cancel discards the current changes.