New HP 10BII User’s Primer

The Hewlett Packard 10BII is a very easy to use financial calculator, which will serve you well in all finance courses. This guide gives you step-by-step keystroke solutions to common financial calculations, plus handy examples of most other machine functions and operations. Before we get started, we need to set up the calculator.

Setup 1

The 10BII comes from the factory set to assume monthly compounding, but its better to set it to assume annual compounding and then make manual adjustments when you enter numbers. Why do we need to do this? The compounding assumption is hidden from view and people tend to forget to set it to the correct assumption. Also most accounting and finance textbook problems generally use 1 period / year. So we need to set this to once per year.

• Turn on the calculator

• Press 1 (once per year)

• Then the [Shift] key (yellow) and [P / Yr] (the shift PMT key).

To check that it has taken, press [Shift] and then the [C ALL] key and you should see 1 P_Yr on the screen for about 2 seconds.

Setup 2

Another common issue which sometimes occurs is that the calculator will accidentally get set to “Begin” mode. You will need to have your calculator set to “End” mode. If your calculator does accidentally get shifted into “Begin” mode, the calculator’s display will say BEGIN below the numerals in the display. If it does not read anything, the calculator is in “End” mode.

• Press the [Shift] key and then the [BEG / END] key to toggle between these 2 modes.

Setup 3

One other important adjustment, by default the calculator displays only two decimal places. This is prefect of most financial calculation. It is probably better to set this to five decimal places.

• Press the [Shift] key and then the [DISP] key

• And then the [5], which corresponds to the number of digits you would like to see displayed.

Alternatively, you could set this default to floating decimal mode. In this mode, the calculator will show its internal calculator’s precision, where all the digits after the decimal point is displayed.

• Press the [Shift] key and then the [DISP] key

• And the press the [.] key.

Ok, the calculator is ready to go.