The H&R Block Dollars and Sense National Challenge is an opportunity for DECA members to demonstrate their financial literacy. In this challenge students compete online for more than $50,000 in college scholarships. In addition, the top four teams will receive a $1,000 classroom grant. And, H&R Block will also help subsidize travel cost to the ICDC for all finalist teams.
The H&R Block National Challenge is based on Virtual Business - Personal Finance. If your school does not own Virtual Business - Personal Finance, a free competition version of the software is available for download following registration.
How To Participate
HOW DO I COMPETE?
- Register a Team (more)
- Download Software (more)
- Compete in a Qualifying Round (more)
- Upload Your Score (more)
1) Register a Team
REGISTER NOW
IMPORTANT: A team will NOT be confirmed until activated by the chapter advisor by visiting the advisor login area. Chapter advisors must register for a new password each school year. Passwords from previous years are no longer valid.
To participate, DECA members must first register a team of one to three members. Prizes are awarded per team member rather than per team. There is no limit on the number of teams that may register from one chapter. A DECA member may be registered on no more than one team each from the H&R Block Dollars & Sense National Challenge, one team from the DECA VBC Sports track, and one team from the DECA VBC Retailing track but may participate in all three competitions simultaneously.
Teams may register starting at 10AM EST on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 and may continue registering throughout the last day of Round Two (Friday, January 27, 2012). Once registered, the team's chapter advisor must log in to the advisor area to approve the team. Once approveded, the team and the advisor will receive an email containing the team code. The same team code may be used for both the first and the second qualifying round; students should not register for a new team for each round.
The team code is used to identify teams when scores are uploaded. The team code does not identify the team when competition software or files are downloaded. You will need a valid email address to register a team. The email address you enter will be used to email you the team code as well as for any correspondence that may take place during the competition including critical updates.
After participants register and their advisor approves the team, the next step is to determine software needs for the competition. If a school does not own licensing to the Virtual Business - Personal Finance software, a free competition version will be made available. However, this software will not be made available until the first day of team registration (Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 10AM EST).
2) Download Software
DOWNLOAD NOW
To participate in the H&R Block Dollars & Sense Challenge, students utilize the Virtual Business - Personal Finance simulation software. Schools that already own the school edition of the software must have Version 1.0.4 of Virtual Business - Personal Finance installed for competition purposes. If you are not currently running Version 1.0.4, please visit our Support page to download and install the new version. After completing the download, proceed to Step 3.
Schools that do not own the full version of the software must download a competition version. You may download this software on as many computers as you wish (at school and at home). If you are downloading this software at home, please answer "NO" when asked if your school owns licensing to Virtual Business - Personal Finance.
Please see the system requirements for this software product by clicking on our Products link. Because of the wide variation in computer systems, Knowledge Matters assumes no responsibility for the installation of the software on participants' computers.
3) Compete in a Challenge
DOWNLOAD THE CHALLENGE
The H&R Block Dollars & Sense Challenge contains two qualifying opportunities - Round 1 (October 24, 2011 at 10AM EST - November 18, 2011 at 5PM EST) and Round 2 (January 2, 2012 at 10AM EST - January 27, 2012 at 5PM EST). During Rounds 1 and 2, students will manage a wide array of actions within the simulation such as: Transportation, Schedule, Work, Education, Taxes, and Pay Bills to name a few. For each qualifying round there is a different competition file. The competition file may be run on the school edition version of the software (if you own licensing to the program) or on the competition version (which you can download in Step 2) of the software.
NOTE: The file for Round 1 will not be available on the Knowledge Matters website until 10AM EST on Monday, October 24, 2011. It will remain available on the site until 5PM EST on Friday, November 18, 2011. The file for Round 2 will not be available on the Knowledge Matters website until 10AM EST on Monday, January 2, 2012. It will remain available on the site until 5PM EST on Friday, January 27, 2012.
Each Round requires participants to manage different aspects of personal financial wealth. Participants will only be able to control the functions being covered during the given Round; everything else will be controlled automatically.
NOTE: All of the actions found under the Actions menu will be intentionally grayed out except for the actions you are focusing on in that particular Round.
Each Round has an assignment to view before beginning the competition. Please read the assignment carefully before starting. You may reopen and run the current Round file as many times as you wish within the Round period.
4) Upload your Score
When the competition file is complete, teams will be notified with an automatic stop message that asks if they would like to upload their score. A message window will walk them through the process and they will need their team code to upload their score from within the simulation. Teams will be ranked based on their personal net worth once they reach the conclusion of the competition file. The net worth may be found on the Wealth report or by looking in the bottom right corner of your simulation window.
You must be connected to the Internet to upload your score. If you are working on a computer that does not have an Internet connection, you may save your file and open it at a later time. If you have to open your file at a later time, click the "Go" button within the program so the upload window will reappear. If you have trouble uploading your score, we do provide an alternate email method which will also be described in the upload window.
You may upload scores as often as you would like during the competition because the website will always rank teams based on their best uploaded score. After uploading your score, visit our ranking page to see how you rank nationally, regionally and by state.
Scores will be accepted from 10AM EST on the first day of a qualifying round until 5PM EST on the last day of the qualifying round.
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