Fund a worthwhile experience, account for the work, and show your assumptions.
Offline companion to the Second edition, revision 2.2 (September 30, 2026) workbook by Robert W. Linn. Discover the history, choose a twenty-year purpose, then price the property and lodge. Educational planning tool; not financial, tax, legal, engineering, or insurance advice.
Save downloads a data file. Confirm that it reached your device. Calculations and saved data stay on this device; only research links go online. A browser recovery copy is kept when storage is available; it is not a backup. Avoid private hardship names or circumstances in this plan.
Use the oldest reliable adopted amounts. First-year total is joining fees plus dues actually payable that first year; record included or prorated dues accurately. The yearly 3% scenario keeps decimals and rounds only the final display.
Use matching periods and definitions. Gold and silver measure a commodity relationship, not general inflation or the dues your lodge needs. CPI, earnings, and hours answer different questions.
Use the property owner's budget or actual lease terms to establish rent. This optional helper allocates three property plans. It never transfers amounts to the lodge automatically. Enter annual dollars; enter a checked zero where none applies.
Every viable plan fully funds required, urgent, safety, and contractual work. The Half-funded scenario is a temporary shortfall against full maintenance and replacement targets, not a permanent funding standard.
Floor includes operating costs plus due-now work, debt, and required cushion. Half-funded adds half of the additional maintenance and replacement targets. Fully funded adds all of them. If other tenants' payments are deducted above, allocate only the remaining need; count each receipt once. Enter 100% only if this lodge accepts all of that remainder.
Tax classification, income rules, and reserve custody depend on the actual entity; obtain qualified advice. See workbook pages 13–17. For direct owner-occupancy, carry the building requirement into W1 as a building line, not rent. Use a separate W5 for the temple cash forecast.
Start from zero: justify the coming year using actual records. Essentials includes agreed rent, Grand Lodge charges, local obligations, and the basic member experience. Vitality adds the lodge cushion and agreed regular programs; Freedom adds chosen fuller activities. Keep temple expenses out of W1 when already covered by rent. Each plan is cumulative. No aggregate base-total entry is needed. Include absorbed card/portal fees under administration; recheck the allowance at your proposed rate.
V = verified; E = explained estimate; U = unknown. Blank is not zero. Use a unique cost ID across every level. Keep temple and lodge accounts distinct. Use net rental income only when the related costs are excluded here.
Enter annual income available for this plan. Prepaid / life or perpetual distributions go here, not into full-rate member billings. Leave the list empty only if there is no such income.
Categories must not overlap. The tool subtracts full remissions, prepaid / life or perpetual members, and other full exemptions from the roster exactly once. Partial-rate cases require a separate expected-dollar schedule. This calculator supports a single full rate.
Estimate COLLECT from receipts belonging to comparable bills measured at the same cutoff. For a three-year pooled history, divide total matched receipts by total comparable billed dollars, then multiply by 100; do not average annual percentages. Explain any different forecast in the assumptions.
Verify Grand Lodge per capita and required assessments for members who do not pay local dues. Include those obligations once in the cost list.
Rates displayed to cents are estimates. Check the proposed rate backward; rounding down can leave a shortfall. A zero funding gap does not override applicable minimum-dues rules.
Starting cash excludes money committed elsewhere. Enter all 12 months if using this check. This schedule runs January through December; for a different fiscal-year order, use a separately labeled W5. Outflows include amounts set aside for reserves once; the forecast tracks available operating cash.
Annual funding and cash received inside these twelve months can differ. Already-received dues belong in starting cash only to the extent still available. These adjustments reconcile receipts; they never change your dues requirement or add money automatically to starting cash.
Explain each item and any advance cash already spent in your assumptions. Zero means no timing adjustment. Next-year dues received now need their own commitment in the following plan.
| Month | Receipts | Out / set aside |
|---|
If no one accepts the work, simplify the plan. Do not include private member circumstances.
For temple assets, include the contribution in T1 replacement saving. For lodge-owned assets, enter it on one appropriate W1 cost line. Keep the same contribution out of both schedules. This helper never adds it automatically. Zero years means an immediate funding gap.
Enter the completed current plan as the starting point. These inputs remain separate from W1–W7 so you can explore alternatives. Every rate is an assumption; future CPI and membership are unknown.
These are future-year dollars and annual balances, not a cash account forecast. A complete capital plan must separately follow purchases and reserve balances. A cost already funded through rent remains outside the lodge's own costs. The future model adjusts the whole starting bill; separately test local-portion rules below.
Use this to check the arithmetic of a proposed clause. Confirm with the responsible authority whether automatic application, the chosen index, and the billing structure are permitted. See pages 36–40 and rule verification on page 49.
This simple test does not implement caps, carry-forward rules, retroactive changes, minimum-dues exceptions, or missing-index contingencies. Check those in the actual approved clause. CPI should be a precisely named series and period, not an unspecified news headline.
BLS consumer prices · Historical CPI · Census earnings · Historical gold
See workbook pages 51–52 for methods and the full source list. Keep the JSON file, final report, adopted clause, and explanation with the G2 decision packet. Source links require internet access; calculations do not.