need help with program

[krisl100]

I am currently learning C++ on my own, I bought various books, now I found some excercises that I am trying to do, here is one of them:

Write a program to calculate a salesperson's net pay for a month & print a budget report based on given allocations. Our salespeople receive a base salary of $900.00 per month. Once their sales total reaches $200.00 they also receive a 6% commission. But only on the amount of sales above the $200.00 mark. For example: for a sales total of $1200.00 they would receive $60.00 commission; 6% of $1000.00. Their gross pay would be $960.00 (base salary of $900.00 + commission of $60.00.) Note that if the $200.00 level is not reached, the commission is $0.00, not negative.

From their gross pay, they must deduct 18% for taxes & other fees before allocating the remainder to their budget, as shown below.

INPUT: Prompt for first name & last name & monthly sales total

PROCESS: gross pay = base salary + commission
net pay = gross pay - deductions (18% of gross pay)

Allocate the remainder as follows:

Housing = 30% of net pay
Food & Clothing = 15% of net pay
Entertainment = 50% of net pay
Miscellaneous = 5% of net pay

So, that is what I am trying to do, I have gotten some ways here is my code so far:

#include "string"
#include "iostream"
#include "conio.h"
using namespace std;


int main()
{
	string fname, lname;

	const double base = 900.00;

	double sales, pay, com;

	cout << "Enter your fist name: ";
	cin >> fname;
	cout << "Enter your last name: ";
	cin >> lname;
	cout << "Enter your monthly sales total: ";
	cin >> sales;
	

	com = 0.06 * 1000.0;
	
	if (sales > 200.00)
		pay = base + com;
        
        
	else 


		
	
	cout << "base\n "  << base << endl;
	cout << "sales\n " << sales << endl;
	cout << "commission\n " << com << endl;
	cout << "pay\n " << pay << endl;

	getch();
	
	
	
	return 0;
}

I am having trouble with the clculations, & getting the percentage of commission to work properly. Any help would be great.

[redhead]

Originally Posted by krisl100

#include "string"
#include "iostream"
#include "conio.h"

What is this part for?? You are trying to use system provided includes, so you need to address them as such ie

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

And why are you including conio.h ?? I see no part of your code in need of that, unless you're on a windows box, and you feel strongly attached to getch() there are ways to come around a halt in your program, without calling a system specific function.

Next thing is, you have declared the first name and last name of type strings, and you use the std::cin class representation of reading into string types, I would suggest to use the std::string::getline() in case someone decides to enter a <space> in their input.

If you were to move the com calculation inside your

if (sales > 200.00)

then you would be in better shape, and not have to refere to your hardcoded $1000.00 value, as I suspect this shoudl be the actual sale value..
For your description of it, the if() part would be more suited to look somethign like:

...
double sales, pay, com(0.0);
...
if(sales > 200)
  com = (sales - 200.00) * 0.06;
pay = base + com;
...

you see, in your declaring of the com variable you already assing it the least possible value, ie $0.00, so you only have to calculate it, if the sales is above your $200.00 limit.
When you want to calculate your net pay you can use the simple percentage rules, to calculate it like:

...
double net;
...
net = pay*0.82; /* gross pay - 18% */
...

And from there on, I belive it should be fairly easy to calculate the housing, food & clothing, entertainment, and miscellaneous..

Have fun with it, and try not to get cought up in a simple problem, think of it as learning a different language, if you dont quite know the words for what you're going to say, find others that eventualy will describe the same thing, and hopefully provide a solution which gives teh same result as expected.