FC Savings Plugin

A Free Calculator for WordPress Websites and Blogs

Updated March 2023 v1.5.4

  Original Size  
Use these shortcodes in the page's content editor for above result:
[fcsavingsplugin sc_size="medium" sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Optionally Include Your Blog's Name" sc_hide_resize="No" sc_save_amt="1200.0" sc_n_months="240" sc_rate="5.5"]

This plugin is also available for download at WordPress.org

This plugin answers the question, "What will be the final value of my savings assuming I make regular deposits for X months?". It creates a savings schedule and annual and cumulative charts. Your site visitors can select their own currency and date convention which is ideal if the host site attracts visitors from around the globe. The website or blog owner can select from four predefined sizes or modify a CSS file to customize both size and colors. The calculator is based on and uses the code from the very popular Savings Calculator.

While not an obvious use for this calculator, but nonetheless a good one, for those who blog about parenting you can put this calculator on your site and suggest that parents use the calculator to teach their children about saving which also has a side benefit of being a nice, short, indoor, parent and child activity for some cold or rainy Sunday afternoon.

Rebranding with your site's brand name is supported and encouraged.

The plugin may be

  1. used in a post or page's content area via a shortcode; or
  2. used in a sidebar widget area; or
  3. called from any template file.

Installation

  1. Either
    1. upload the fc-savings-calculator folder with all its files to the /wp-content/plugins/; or
    2. unzip the plugin's zip file in the /wp-content/plugins/  folder.
  2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins Installed Plugins menu in WordPress

Upgrading: If you've translated the plugin from English to another language, please backup your work prior to upgrading the plugin.

Usage

There are 3 mutually exclusive ways you can deploy the calculator to an individual page (though you can use all three methods on different pages within a site):

  1. Add the shortcode [fcsavingsplugin] in the content area of your page or post and configure shortcode parameters.
  2. Add the following code to your template where you want the calculator to appear.
    • <?php show_fcsavings_plugin(); ?>
  3. If you are using widgets, just add the plugin to the sidebar through the Appearance Widgets menu in WordPress. Be sure to click Save.

Shortcode parameters

  • sc_size= "tiny" | "small" | "medium" | "large"
  • sc_custom_style= "No" | "Yes"
  • sc_add_link= "Yes" | "No"
  • sc_brand_name=
  • sc_hide_resize= "No" | "Yes"
  • sc_save_amt=
  • sc_n_months=
  • sc_rate=
  • sc_currency=
  • sc_date_mask=

Shortcode Examples:

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Copy and paste to page's or post's content area.

First example includes all options.

[fcsavingsplugin sc_size="large" sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="No" sc_brand_name="" sc_hide_resize="No" sc_save_amt="1200.0" sc_n_months="120" sc_rate="3.5" sc_currency="83" sc_date_mask="2"]
[fcsavingsplugin sc_size="small" sc_custom_style="Yes" sc_hide_resize="Yes" sc_currency="83" sc_date_mask="2"]
[fcsavingsplugin sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Friendly Neighborhood Bank" sc_hide_resize="Yes" sc_save_amt="500.0" sc_n_months="24" sc_rate="5.5"]

Optional array parameter passed to
show_fcsavings_plugin()

This can be copied and pasted to a template part.

Valid values for options are the same as the shortcode above.

<?php show_fcsavings_plugin(array( 'op_size' => "medium", 'op_custom_style' => "No", 'op_add_link' => "Yes", 'op_brand_name' => "My Blog's'", 'op_hide_resize' => "No", 'op_save_amt' => "1000", 'op_n_months' => "48", 'op_rate' => "5.5", 'op_currency' => "999", 'op_date_mask' => "999")); ?>
Notes:
  1. If you want to add your brand to the calculator, the add link option must be set to "Yes".
  2. When branding, your brand name will be added before "Savings Calculator".
  3. If custom style is set to "Yes", the plugin will load fin-calc-widgets-custom.css located in the plugin's CSS folder. If you set the option to "Yes" without making any changes, the calculator will change to a horrendous red which indicates the custom css is being used.
  4. The plugin is built and tested on HTML5/CSS3 pages.
  5. max-width: large: 440px, medium: 340px, small: 290px, tiny: 150px
  6. New: Website developers can set a default currency sign and preferred date format by setting <op /sc>_currency and <op /sc>_date_mask respectively. Set one or both to an integer value. For the list of integers to support 90 plus currency symbols and 6 date format options, see the file currency_and_date_conventions.txt in the plugin's root folder. (example: India, Indian Rupee: ₹1,23,45,678.99 = 83)
Enhanced Internationalization

New: Support for over 90 currency signs (using appropriate nummber formatting conventions) and 6 date formats (mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy, yyyy.mm.dd etc.). If neither the website developer or the user makes a selection, the calculator will read the browser's default currency and date options and automatically use them. Without doing anything, a website visitor from Japan visiting a website hosted in France will initially see a floating yen sign. The website developer can easily override this default behavior by setting either shortcodes or function options. The user (if the website designer keeps the feature enabled) can override both and select a currency and date format.

To summarize, the plugin determines what currency symbol (and date format) to use by applying the following rules:
  1. If a website allows a user to select a symbol, and the user makes a selection, the plugin uses the visitor's choice first.
  2. Otherwise, if a user has not made a selection, and the website owner has set a default currency (i.e., currency does not equal 999), the calculator uses the website's selection.
  3. Otherwise, the calculator plugin will attempt to read the browser's currency default and pick a currency symbol.
  4. Otherwise, the plugin defaults to using the '$' symbol.
Language Translations

New in v1.5, support for 14 languages in addition to English. The plugin also includes a translation template file (.POT) in the "languages" folder. Using a POT/PO file editor, website owners can translate this plugin to any language supported by WordPress.

The supported languages are:

  • da : Danish : Dansk
  • nl : Dutch : Nederlandse
  • fi : Finnish : Suomalainen
  • fr : French : Français
  • de : German : Deutsch
  • hu : Hungarian : Magyar
  • it : Italian : Italiano
  • lt : Lithuanian : Lietuvių
  • pl : Polish : Polski
  • pt : Portuguese : Português
  • ro : Romanian : Românesc
  • ru : Russian : Русский
  • es : Spanish : Español
  • sv : Swedish : Svenska

Notes: (1) The plugin depends on the site's "Site Language" setting to display to your visitors the correct language. The files in the language folder can be renamed if needed. For example, if you want the plug to display in Portuguese the .MO and .JSON files include assume your site's language setting is Portuguese (Portugal) which is local pt_PT. But if your site is in Brazil, you'll need to rename the plugin's language files to use pt_BR. (2) At this time, these translations were computer generated. A fluent speaker can edit the included .PO file and regenerate the .MO file to update the tranlation. (3) If you are willing to allow me to include your edits with the plugin, I'll regenerate the .MO, and if needed the .JSON files for you.

I am making the other calculators available free-of-charge to bloggers who are able to help with translation. See this page for details.

Screenshots

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savings calculator plugin
Two of the predefined screen sizes showing relative difference between "large" and "tiny".
printable savings schedule
Example schedule with detailed header.
savings results in charts
Creates three charts for visualization.

26 Comments on “Savings Plugin”

Join the conversation. Tell me what you think.
  • Ben says:

    Hello, the plugin looks really nice! I would like to use it on my website <a href="https://www.dein-geld-anlegen.de/&quot; target="_blank"<www.dein-geld-anlegen.de but I have problems to run it with WP 5.6 and Neve Theme by Themeisle. It is streched very long and not working. Will there be an update soon?
    Also in the last pie chart / percentage the color of Total Deposit seems to be switched. In the first both charts its green, and only here it is red. I think thats a bit confusing.

    • Karl says:

      Hi Ben, sorry I missed this. The page you linked to does not seem to have the calculator on it. So I can’t say what the issue is. It does work with WordPress 5.6, so there must be an incompatibility between the theme and the plugin. I do plan to have a small update out early next week. If we can figure out the problem, I’ll try to have the fix in the update.

  • Winggirl Media says:

    Hi. CAn you include a slider option for this awesome calculator?

    • Karl says:

      Glad you like the plugin. The next release is going to include translation files. Then after that, I might explore the possibility of having a slider. But it will be a while.

  • Zafiq says:

    Very great plugin here!

    I would like to ask if we can adjust the monthly compounded interest to annually compounded interest?

    • Karl says:

      The plugin download includes all the JavaScript source code. Your website developer can make the required modifications.

      I’m not able to document that details though. That’s too much of a time commitment for me at this point.

  • Olufemi Paul says:

    I like the plugin but I can’t seem to set things up from the backend. The plugin is installed but nothing like settings for custom options. I had like to change currency to NGN (#), interest rate & number of period. How do I go about this as plugin setting not showing. Thanks

    • Karl says:

      What method did you use to install it?

      • Olufemi Paul says:

        I searched through WordPress plugins for finance and I found this. I installed and activated it

        • Karl says:

          Sorry, but that’s not what I’m asking. Here are the docs:

          There are three mutually exclusive ways you can deploy the calculator to an individual page (though you can use all three methods on different pages within a site):

          • Add the shortcode [fcsavingsplugin] in the content area of your page or post and configure shortode parameters.
          • Add the following code to your template where you want the calculator to appear.
          • If you are using widgets, just add the plugin to the sidebar through the Appearance Widgets menu in WordPress. Be sure to click Save.

          Please read the documentation, and then if you have questions about something ask a more specific question for clearification.

  • Olufemi Paul says:

    [fcsavingsplugin sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Lighters Finance" sc_hide_resize="No" sc_save_amt="500.0" sc_n_months="3" sc_rate="3"]

    This not displaying currency which I had like NGN (#)

  • Olufemi Paul says:

    [fcsavingsplugin sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Lighters Finance" sc_hide_resize="No" sc_save_amt="500.0" sc_n_months="3" sc_rate="3"]

    This not showing currency which I had like NGN(#). THANKS

    • Karl says:

      I don’t see a shortcode for the currency. You’ll need to add:

      sc_currency=”104″

      I’m assuming you’re in Nigeria.

      If not, the currency symbols are documented in the file “currency_and_date_conventions.txt” located in the plugin’s directory.

      For example:

      Nigeria, Naira: ₦12,345,678.99 = 104

      I didn’t lookup “NGN” and I’m only going from memory. Sorry if I’m wrong. But you should be able to get it from here.

      • Olufemi Paul says:

        Thanks for the support, I have added sc_currency=”104″ as suggested but the currency showing something like empty box instead of currency symbol. Is there a way to fix this?

        • Karl says:

          The symbol may not be included in the font being loaded. Can you give me the URL to the page so I can check?

        • Karl says:

          Also, if you click on the “$ : mm/dd/yyyy” a window opens and there’s a list of currencies. Can you set using this method (this gives your visitors the ability to set currency).

          If you do set it this way, you will need to delete the cookie the calculator puts on your computer when you test the shortcode method. Visitors can always override what the developer enters as a shortcode.

  • Olufemi Paul says:

    [fcsavingsplugin sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Lighters Finance" sc_hide_resize="No" sc_save_amt="500.0" sc_n_months="3" sc_rate="2"]

    This not displaying currency, I had like NGN(#) in display

Comments, suggestions & questions welcomed...