•Update log for 2025.2.1
oBug Fixes / Tweaks
▪Roth option added to annuity accounts in the Compare Account Types storyboard.
▪Compounding vs. Speculation now includes an option to print/export the displayed values.
▪Spending Game annuity accounts now apply the surrender factor (if any) to withdrawals and reallocations.
▪Bugfix: Spending Game could display insufficient funds warning during cash flow reconciliation calculation under certain conditions.
▪Bugfix: Canadian version did not reflect the recent changes to Major Capital Purchases 101.
•Update log for 2025.1.25
oNew/Updated Features
•Major Capital Purchases 101 presentation flow updated. Storyboard begins with a definition, then discusses the two ways to pay for major purchases using the Financing 101 story.
•Spender, Saver, Wealth Creator, Legacy Provider presentation updated to convey these concepts as financial life stages. Each stage includes relevant talking points to seed potential discussion.
•3 Types of Money - This new screen provides a flexible way to discuss the 3 types of money and to make it more personal/relatable to the prospect by allowing you to ‘dial in’ the percentages associated with each type. Power Tip: discuss/modify Transferred money first. Then, you’ll see that Accumulated & Lifestyle money will adjust/pull from each other - which beautifully illustrates the struggle between current and future lifestyle spending - while also expressing that minimizing transferred money gives you more to work with today and in the future.
•Private Reserve Strategy received multiple storyboard updates to help communicate the important concepts. Screen 1 added ‘Account Requirements’ heading. Screen 3 minor text change. Screen 4 all benefits appear at once plus text change to bottom statement. Screen 5 heading change plus account list drops down immediately.
•Market History now provides the ability to display the return on any arbitrary investment amount. It defaults to one dollar, but you can then change that value to anything you desire.
•Market History includes a new multi-year return limit option. Using this feature you can simulate the results of multi-year point-to-point market return strategies.
•Allocation Mix storyboard now only displays tops on tanks in the low risk category.
•PEM - When the future lifestyle tanks are hidden, the after-tax cash flow automatically changes to 100%. If you later decide to show the future lifestyle tanks, the cash flow will revert to is former amount.
•Ten Step Launchpad - added WDYD? to Step 1 as a reminder to memorize and be prepared to answer your prospects' initial question: What Do You Do? Changed the link on Step 1 to display the 4 questions flyer (however, when in documentation mode, it will still display the door opener's script to help you learn the step.) Added Communication Profile documentation link to Step 5. Added Annuities 101 to Step 9, Added Review GPS (Financial GPS without 4 questions screen) and Spending Game to Step 10. Relabeled Step 10 to "Validate & Take Action"
•New & Improved Communication Profile - the client communication profile has been redesigned as a concise single-page deliverable - making it much easier for you and your client to consume. This feature will be available to everyone with the official software release in February.
•New Medicare Premium / Medicare Income Means Test calculator. This calculator is similar to the income tax calculator, but provides the ability to add tax exempt interest and breaks out expected Part B & Part D amounts as well as income headroom until the next bracket is reached.
•PEM Improved cash flow communication. To make the math easier to follow in Financial GPS & SG, when there are pre-tax contributions, they are netted out of spendable income. Consequently, gross inflow is repositioned to the top of the inflow tank so clients can visually follow the money flow. Additionally, a source indicator bar appears above the withdrawal amount when withdrawals are taken from the Risk & Safe tanks. This bar visually represents how much of the withdrawal is sourced from each tank. A tooltip will appear that includes both the dollar amount and withdrawal percentage when you hover your mouse over the yellow or green portions of the indicator bar.
•Financial GPS now considers life expectancy to be the age that the person dies. Consequently the calculations will take appropriate actions such as death benefits/estates being disbursed, contributions cease, and (most) inflows stop. Specifically:
oOrdinary inflow accounts owned by deceased will stop.
oInflow accounts (marked as having survivor benefits) could provide a % survivor benefit. Inflow accounts (marked as SS) will allow the SS account with a survivor benefit to continue and ignore any remaining SS inflows.
oAnnuity accounts with income rider & survivor benefit (so marked) could provide a continued income stream until last to die. Otherwise, if no survivor benefit, income rider guarantee stops at owner death and survivor assumes policy with existing balance in place.
oAt owner death, TDBT & Qualified Annuity account RMDs are based on spouse age (assumption is that spouse assumes qualified plan account/or rolls over to similar spouse owned account.)
oWe added a “Survivor Lifestyle” % option to step 7 button to provide an opportunity to adjust expected widow(er) lifestyle needs. Assuming we would default to 100%, but those that want to have the conversation can change it to 80% or whatever they believe realistic assumption to be.
oWhen both client and spouse reach LE, remainder is assumed to be estate and lifestyle needs end.
oJoint ownership accounts trigger ‘death’ functionality at last to die age.
oAssuming LE age essentially triggers ‘death’; The Premature Death hazard would basically override the LE age and respond accordingly.
oOption for Loan payoff @ death of owner. (use case: policy loan simulation, etc.)
•Financial GPS now provides the ability to make a desired lifestyle adjustment at some predetermined age. An example use case for this feature is to simulate diminished cash flow needs in one’s twilight years. Conversely, it could simulate increased medical expenses over that same time frame.
•Financial GPS now supports the following desired lifestyle situation. Client wants to maintain current lifestyle, but does not save excess funds (e.g. they are saving a set amount and the excess income increases their lifestyle.) In this scenario, Financial GPS can now calculate the retirement age desired lifestyle to be the same as the prior year lifestyle adjusted for inflation. Thus better reflecting the actual lifestyle they have been enjoying. This new functionality can be toggled on/off with the Recalc Lifestyle switch.
•The Financial GPS model can automatically calculate estimated ordinary and capital gains tax rate across the portfolio based on filing status (province), deductions and cash flows. Withholding thresholds are indexed annually based upon the assumed inflation rate.
•Inflow accounts in both Financial GPS and Spending Game can now be flagged as 'Wages', which will calculate and apply Social Security, and Medicare Taxes (CPP/EI in Canada) at the appropriate percentages based on thresholds reached. If the account is marked as wages, a new "Self-Employed" option appears that charges both the employee and employer taxes against the income.
•Insurance accounts now include an "inflate @" option to support increasing premiums.
•Annuity accounts have a "WD as Inflow" option to display annuity withdrawals as inflows in the PEM model (just like the Spending Game option.)
•Credit Card accounts in both SG & Financial GPS provide a visual warning of a potential data entry error when the account balance exceeds 1 million dollars.
•Financial GPS Screen 3 Net Worth column calculation now matches the equivalent Spending Game calculation. There is also a new option to display the present value of the net worth (and available funds) values by clicking on the column header. This is similar to how Lifestyle Spending already toggles its value.
•Financial GPS Screen 3 [Save More] result now appears as a clickable toggle. When clicked, you will see what initial lump sum starting balance would be necessary to satisfy their desired lifestyle. Click/toggle it again to redisplay the annual savings need.
•Financial GPS has a new "Inflation" hazard. You can set an alternative inflation rate over a specified time period and it will affect the associated desired lifestyle needs calculation.
•Multi-Generation Support:
oExpands account ownership to include “Other” names to represent children, relatives, trusts, charities, or other entities.
oProvides a global scenario filter based on account ownership. That way the summaries can be compiled for any desired grouping.
•Gifting:
oProvides a way to express & report gifts to others. (Implemented as a specified reallocation. Gift is an option if the receiving account does not belong to Client or Spouse)
oScenario assumptions allow you to set a Unified Credit starting value.
oProvides a way to collect and report on Unified Credit usage.
oProvides easy reporting of annual gifting per person/entity.
•Estate Transfer:
oAccounts include a list of beneficiaries to indicate where estate funds is directed. (This feature uses the same list of names associated with account ownership, as there is obvious potential overlap.)
oThere is a new account type called "Trust" which is intended to model CRUT, GRAT, and IDGT trusts (each of which have various idiosyncrasies regarding ownership, beneficiary, income, and taxation features.)
▪CRUT (Charitable Remainder Unitrust): Estate proceeds flow to the Account Owner (which is the charity). Potentially provides inflow for the Account Beneficiaries.
▪GRAT (Grantor Retained Annuity Trust): Estate proceeds remain with Grantor until the GRAT expires, then proceeds go to the Account Beneficiaries. Potentially provides an inflow for the Grantor.
▪IDGT (Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust): Estate proceeds go to the Account Beneficiaries. Potentially provides an inflow for the Grantor.
oWe've added a new Estate Transfer report that provides a year-by-year summary of potential asset distributions and estate taxation (assuming the client/spouse pass in any given year.) There is also a new Estate Transfer visualization that can compare estate transfer results between scenarios - providing an easy way to present the difference between strategies.
•Effective Tax Rate Estimation & Tax Projection Reporting (U.S.A. and Canada)
oThe model can automatically calculate estimated ordinary and capital gains tax rates across the portfolio based on filing status (province), deductions and cash flows.
oNew Tax Projection report that includes: Taxable Income, Deductions, AGI, Taxes Paid, Federal & State tax breakout, Marginal Rate, Margin headroom, Tax Exempt interest, MAGI, and Medicare cost estimations (all based on current tax formulas adjusted for inflation.)
oImportant Note/Caveat: If you use this feature and reallocate between accounts, you must select 'Pay Tax From Lifestyle' on the reallocation. Otherwise reallocation tax offsets are sure to get out of sync with the dynamically calculated tax rate adjustments. (Because reallocation tax offsets are only calculated once - when the reallocation is created. However, taxes paid from lifestyle are assessed using the dynamically calculated rate.)
•Pay Tax From Lifestyle is now an available option when reallocating out of Taxable, TDBT, TDAT, and Annuity accounts. Doing so will collect any taxes due on the reallocation withdrawal and pass them on as required taxes due. TDBT account PTFL functionality was updated to express taxes paid from lifestyle directly from within the account (as opposed to using an expense account to present the tax liability) in order to express the remaining taxes due in the same way on all relevant account types.
•TCJA Sunset is a new scenario-level option that will modify the following assumptions when activated. Unified Credit and Standard Deduction will be cut in half, Tax Thresholds will be revised to projected levels, and tax rates will revert to their pre-TCJA rates. These effects will be seen in estate transfer and gifting reporting as well as in the calculated effective tax rate estimations (if activated.)
•Spending Game now has an account ‘copy to clipboard’ option which gives you the ability to copy an account and paste it into another scenario (or scenarios.)
•Annuity accounts support illustration importing (and adjusts column calculations accordingly.)
•Inflow accounts in both Financial GPS and Spending Game can now be flagged as 'Wages', which will calculate and apply Social Security, and Medicare Taxes at the appropriate percentages based on thresholds reached. If the account is marked as wages, a new "Self-Employed" option appears that charges both the employee and employer taxes against the income.
•Credit Card accounts in both SG & Financial GPS provide a visual warning of a potential data entry error when the account balance exceeds 1 million dollars.
oTweaks
▪Miscellaneous bug fixes, typo corrections, wording updates, and data entry safeguards added to address issues reported by our members or discovered by our team.
▪Market history updates for FY2024