Save vs Save and compute
Saving inputs versus running the engines, and why results drop.
Reviewed
What this is for
Two buttons because they do two jobs. Save writes the pairing you have typed and stops there. Save and compute writes it and then runs the tariff engine twice a year for the analysis period, storing the cash flow. A twenty-five-year model is fifty bill runs; doing that behind every keystroke would make the screen unusable. The same reason Generate wiring is an explicit action.
Saving drops any stored result. A cash flow left standing beside changed inputs is a number nobody can tell is stale.
Steps
- Open Financials, choose a model. Save and Save and compute sit together on the head, in that order. Save is off while the form matches the record, and the head says Unsaved changes when it does not.
- Save writes and stops. The stored answer, if there was one, is gone. The list goes back to DRAFT.
- Save and compute stays disabled until the pairing is ready. Not ready to compute names what is missing, above every tab so the reason is not trapped on Setup: typically no design, no completed simulation, the site names no tariff, or no consumption profile chosen. The tariff line names the project's grid connection. A missing profile is chosen on Setup, with Edit consumption beside it.
- When it can run, it saves first and then writes the six strip figures, the two bills and the cash flow in one go. While it runs the button reads Computing and cannot be pressed again. The list then says READY.
- Changing the design or the run after that is worse than a draft: the numbers are still there, they look current, and they are not. The Stale notice travels with a Re-compute button. Save is what you press when you moved the inputs; stale is when the thing underneath moved.
Tips and common mistakes
- Do not quote a figure off a model you have Saved and not computed. Save is a write, not a run.
- Do not hunt for why the primary is grey. The notice above the tabs is the list.
- Clone copies the inputs, not a stored cash flow. Compute the clone.
- A financial model may point at an older run than the matrix cell. Those are different lists. Change which run, then press Save and compute.