Arrears Calculators are all free to use here at The DeadBeat Spreadsheet.  There are 3 to choose from.

The DeadBeat Spreadsheet is a perfect example of Cloud computing.

According to Wikipedia

“Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network (typically the Internet). Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage resources without requiring cloud users to know the location and other details of the computing infrastructure. End users access cloud based applications through a web browser or a light weight desktop or mobile app while the business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location. Cloud application providers strive to give the same or better service and performance as if the software programs were installed locally on end-user computers.”

The DeadBeatSpreadsheet provides free accounting tools to help visitors determine past due child support, alimony, and other delinquent court ordered payables.   As a server-side application, all the user has to do is log into the system and enter their own specific information, press the “Calculate” button and a tabulated report is created which then can be downloaded, printed, or emailed in a printable document format.

This is not difficult. You can do it.

To get started you will have to most likely do a little, or a lot of preparation. This is not going to be a great big giant hard thing to do. I will be a lot of very easy things to do. Don’t loose site of that, a lot of little easy things, no big hard things. I promise. Before you click on that compile button you will need to get prepared. You will need to feed the beast some information. You need to make a list of all the information you need. I will start this list for you point by point, item by item and by the end of this process I will have Xplained to you why you need each item. Item Number,…..
1.  Your Divorce Decree. A lot of the information you need to create your own personalized spreadsheet, can be taken right off the decree.

2. Date of Divorce Decree. You need the date because it’s a matter of record. A few things like this will really make your spreadsheet look legitimate. Which it will be.

3.  Name of Judge

4.  County and State. Different states have rules about how much interest can be charged on unpaid alimony or child support. Twelve per cent is the max in most states, but you need to know for sure what the law says in your state. It can be looked up easily.In the decree, it will state Xactly when the alimony and or child support, or both are ordered to start, and when they are ordered to stop. (They have stop and start dates.) Pretty easy with alimony as it is usually ordered for a finite number of months or years. Child support, on the other hand, may be more difficult to compute, especially if there are a number of children involved and thusly they will have differing birthdays and turn 19 on different months and years. But don’t worry, you can do it. 

We are about 99% completed with the development work for all 3 calculators of the Deadbeat Spreadsheet. All Calculators are working.  Check out the Tutorial!  Let us know what you think.

 I’m not a lawyer or a Judge and I don’t/can’t give legal advice.   I’m not an accountant  so I don’t/can’t give anybody any financial advice either.  All I can do is tell you about this website/blog, The DeadBeat  SpreadSheet.     I know a little about spreadsheets.

I recognized right from the first days of creating this thing that I would run into people who were kind of on the edge of anger, sanity, hopelessness, despair, and in some cases, starvation, addiction, eviction, tragic illness, and just plain old exhaustion.  I know because I’ve been there.  I’m DeadBeat1.

People assume that this web-blog is a place where angry Ex-wives can start the process of conveying to their Ex-husbands, a more detailed understanding about their financial responsibility to pay court ordered child support or alimony payments.   That assumption would be accurate.   But a calculator is, by nature, a double edged sword.  I mean by that, financial information, derived from a toy like this, can cut both ways.   Almost all disputes contain built-in bias. Calculators can only be as accurate as the information loaded into them.  One Ex might forget something that the other Ex remembers with crystalline clarity, and even be able to produce a canceled check to back up the memory.

Imagine, it is very likely, certainly possible, that both Ex’s could be using this calculator at the exact same time, and because of their different memories and understanding of their payments or their receivables, come up with differing amount totals which could even add further dispute in a more formal arena sometime in the future.  It could happen that way.

I can picture all this.  If you are using this calculator with a sense of anticipation that you might be sharing this information with a second or third party some time in the future, you need to be able to picture all this yourself.  People tend to get together in front of Judges and opposing attorneys, as only a last resort, or as the formal last step of an agreement.   Both sides usually bring with them their own set of informational work products and research. The DeadBeat Spreadsheet may be part of those packages, illuminated from both sides of the table, or at least it might be an initial step toward the end process to where a couple of minds ultimately meet and agree.

This blog entry is to the people who find themselves where they have just gained knowledge about this thing called The DeadBeat Spreadsheet, but who haven’t yet figured out that the thing can be used by everybody, including them.  I have attempted to design the thing, figuring that if you were old enough to get married and divorced too, you might have enough sense to use this calculator.  Oh well, perhaps a bridge too far.

Let me know.

DeadBeat1

There are some ways you can try to use to pry some past-due Child Support Payments from

your Ex.  Exploring some of those ways is one of the things we want to do here at the

DBSS.  This first one is pretty much free, which is pretty good incentive for you to

check it out.    Regardless of cost, if you are new to this predicament, I might

suggest you begin your quest for information that you might be able to transform into

dollars, then into new diapers, or college tuition, over at The U.S Department of

Health and Human Services, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/.   They kind of lay out an umbrella

of organizations and some guidelines, such like, The Office of Child Support

Enforcement (OCSE) with its major stated goal being: “The nation’s Child Support

Enforcement Program (CSE) is a Federal/State/Tribal/local partnership to help families

by promoting family self-sufficiency and child well-being.”  After that they provide a

lay of the land so to speak the highlights I quote for you right here.

“All States and territories run a child support enforcement program, usually in the

human services department, department of revenue, or the State Attorney General’s

office, often with the help of prosecuting attorneys, district attorneys, other law

enforcement agencies and officials of family or domestic relations courts. Native

American Tribes, too, can operate culturally appropriate child support programs with

Federal funding. Families seeking government child support services must apply directly

through their State/local agency or one of the Tribes running the program. Services are

available to a parent with custody of a child whose other parent is living outside the

home. Services are available automatically for families receiving assistance under the

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Establishing Support Orders

States must have guidelines to determine how much a parent should pay for child

support. Child support orders can be established by a court or by an administrative

hearing process. Provisions for health insurance coverage must be included in the

support order.

Collecting Support

A parent can be required to pay child support by income withholding. Nationally, over

69 percent of child support is paid in this manner. Overdue child support can be

collected from:
• Federal and state income tax refunds
• liens placed on property
• sale of property.
When past-due child support is owed, the following may occur:
• Unpaid child support can be reported automatically to credit reporting bureaus.
• Drivers, professional, occupational and recreational licenses can be suspended

if the obligated parent is not paying required support.
• The U.S. State Department will deny a passport to someone who owes more than

$2,500 in back child support.
• Child support agencies have agreements with financial institutions to freeze

and seize accounts of those identified as owing back child support.
• In certain states and under certain circumstances, criminal actions can be

taken against chronic delinquent parents who owe large sums of child support.
This is their website http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/”

You might want to check it out for starters.  I got the link and the map you can use

later to check out how things work in these regards in the state where you live.   More

on that later.  Here’s the link to the map to the state agencies:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/extinf.html

Child Support Arrears Calculators Tip – Over a long course of time payment experience might be very good.   It’s not really necessary to record periods when there were no problems with payments.   Usually there is a pretty clear point in time where payments become erratic or cease all together.   For that reason this calculator and the report it creates is capable of presenting the individual user the option to produce a spreadsheet covering only the time period where payment habits changed or ended all together.  You do all that on the Input Page.   For Instance, if your Ex paid you perfectly for the first 5 years after the divorce, it’s not really necessary to list that experience.  Your complaint doesn’t need to show how well the Ex paid for so many years.   So, if you like, input data for just the time period where the payments stopped or became erratic up until the present month or the ending date of the court ordered stream, like the 18th birthday of the Child in question.

In order to activate any of the server-side calculators being created at this website, the user must register some brief contact information just as you would have to do in order to make a comment on any other blog.

Discover the DeadBeat Spreadsheet and at the same time help us in our developmental process.   We are attempting to make the process of data entry as painless and simple as possilbe for or users.  For starters just watch the instructional video on the main page.

Then please use this blog to make comments about your experience.