Start the New Year off with a Plan

There is no better time to reexamine where you are financially than the new year!  Along with the more common goals to lose weight, work out more and take up some new hobby, planning for your financial future (or at least reviewing that plan) should be on everyone's list of the goals or priorities for the new year. 

Strangely, it is not all that common for Americans to have such planning.  According to the website Spendmnot, only 1 in 3 Americans have some kind of long-term financial plan.  According to the same site, 70% of Americans say their financial planning needs work.

Here at InTrust Advisors, we recently updated our financial planning software to RightCapital from another provider.  The switch was quite frankly about lowering our annual software cost, but RightCapital has won us (and the clients that we have worked with it so far) over.  It is simple to use and highly visual/intuitive.
 
The software provides clients with a clean looking dashboard/snapshot outlining important KPIs related to their finances including:

• The probability of success for the proposed plan.
• Their net worth.
• Their effective tax rate.
• A balance sheet of their assets.
• An asset simulation of their proposed plan.
• A tax allocation summary.
• Their current investment allocation.
• To dos/notes.

 
All in a clear one-page snapshot or dashboard.
 
Either with our help or in some cases on their own, you/we can then dig into each of these areas, make changes as appropriate for changing goals or circumstances, come up with action plans and more.    Here is what those Snapshot looks like for a sample client:

​Once the software profile information is updated for asset values, expected income, savings, financial goals and expenses, it gives the user a clear understanding of the probability of achieving those goals seen above at the Probability of Success or below as the Retirement Analysis (Current Plan).

In this sample case for a pre-retirement client, the current plan has a lower than acceptable probability of success than one would like at just 46%.
 
However, we made a few changes to the plan and, just like that, the probability of success rose to a more acceptable level of 84%.  
 
The action items tab above pulls down and here is where those changes are made in real-time while sharing information back and forth between the client and the advisor.  These changes are shown as the Proposed Plan below.

​In this sample case, the following changes were made to the base case:

• The monthly retirement expenses were cut from $8,000 to $7,000 on the back of less travel or maybe consolidating autos or any number of reasons.
• Pre-Retirement taxable savings assumptions were raised by $10,000 per annum. 
• Retirement ages were raised from 62 to age 67.
• The investment allocation was adjusted to a balanced approach. 
• Social security was optimized for the maximum benefit.
• A customized tax strategy was implemented.
• An updated Education strategy was also implemented.

 
The result was a clear plan and peace of mind for this client, and this is just a small subset of the capabilities of the software as we can dig deeper into such strategies as:

• Roth IRA conversion strategies
• Distribution strategies
• Social Security claiming strategies
• Insurance coverages and the adequacy of such coverages
• Savings strategies
• Spending strategies in retirement
• Investment allocations
• Estate planning
• and more.

Maybe we can help you gain the same peace of mind that a clear plan brings?

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