Dob setting circles

Hi all, I recently made a set of manual setting circles for my XT8 dob, I
used a program called Setcirc. to plot everything out. I installed the
setting circles last night and did a test drive, I don't know whats wrong
except that either I screwed up somewhere or the alt/az program I have
loaded on my laptop is misconfigured. When I point the scope going by the
circles I get the correct alt. but the az. is off by -18 degrees, IE: if
something I want to see is at 218deg. I find it at 200deg. except for
Polaris but that would be a given since I polar aligned the scope. I know
that my az setting circle is correctly degreed but one question, When I
degreed the az setting circle I ran the numbers ascending from 0-359 deg. in
a clockwise direction. Is this correct? Or did I mistakenly go backwards???
I did a polar alignment before starting out setting the az to 359.7 deg.
which is what my software said is correct for my area. There is one thing I
failed to do, I didn't insure that the platform was level. Could that be a
problem? I don't see how that would affect az. but then I do have a lot to
learn.

Thank You and Clear Skies,

Tom Wales