sorry for the delay in my reply ... i have been away for several days.

I have experimented more with this and was unable to have the dollar sign $ display correctly when the number filled all of the available digits.

Example:
FORMAT="$K"
INPUTMASK="999,999.99"

VALUE=123.45 displays as $123.45
VALUE=12,345.67 displays as $12,345,67
VALUE=123,456.78 dislays as 123,456.78

I was unable to obtain the correct results you are looking for with numbers using the maximum digits.

Sorry!