Avoiding Retirement Setbacks

Ignorance or bad luck? There are many things that can derail retirement dreams. We all make mistakes when it comes to investing, but with retirement all our chips are on the table. There are no more chances to recover what we lost. Whether caused by bad luck or...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 3:54 PM

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Retirement Savings Marathon

The magic bullet We try to learn about investing and become better at it, but too many of us cannot overcome being financially challenged, or more precisely being comfortable making investing decisions. To boot many have no time or interest in the topic. To alleviate this state of...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:40 PM

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What Makes RetireWare Different from Other Products

Question: I am looking at getting a planning software that helps calculate retirement but also shows clients their net worth. Why would I use RetireWare rather than other products? Which version would you suggest I use? Answer: RetireWare is unique in the following ways: Focus on long-term planning:...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:45 PM

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If You Want to Learn About Products from Competitors

There are very few retirement planning software products for individuals, but there are a few for financial advisors. AdvisorTek maintains a comprehensive directory for the latter. The directory lists software and technology providers for corporations and advisors in the financial services industry. Note that some products are for...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:22 PM

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Activity Report for Professional Collaborative Version

Question: Just curious if there is any way to see if a client has logged into their file or are using it at all ? Answer: After logging in, click 'Network' on the left toolbar, then click 'My Network'. At the bottom there is a user list with...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:19 PM

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Canada Pension Plan Estimate

Question: I am getting a CPP payout of $0 in my detailed cash flow forecast. I suspect it may be because I am already (early) retired (my spouse is still working) and I have not entered any employment income in the setup data. But I have paid in...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:19 PM

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Assets and Future Income

Question: I do not plan to retire for another 10 years. Does the software allow me to input my current income details (indexed for inflation) and asset (residence, RRSPs, investment portfolio) and liability balances as well as current expense budget (indexed for inflation) to see how I am...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:17 PM

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Lifestyle Needs

Questions: Does RetireWare allow you to enter your lifestyle needs item by item. e.g. housing expenses, living expenses Including food, entertainment etc etc), travel expenses, transportation expenses. Then does it allow you to enter RRSP and TFSA balances and unregistered investment accounts separately for myself and my spouse...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:16 PM

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Income Goals and Rates of Returns

Questions: I just have a couple of questions before I start rolling it out to  my clients. 1. When it asks for Annual retirement objective … choice # 2 – total dollar amount:   Will this include all sources such as CPP , OAS , and then net...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:15 PM

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MonteCarlo Calculation

Question: I have a dilemma. Hopefully you can help. My investment advisor recently provided me with a retirement plan using Naviplan. Income, future assets etc were comparable to what I calculate using RetireWare. However, for same scenario Retireware is indicating 100% prob of success. He is indicating 14%...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:12 PM

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Mac Compatibility

Question:  Please confirm that your software will run on a Mac book Pro laptop Space running the latest Apple software. Answer: This is a Web-based application that runs from any of the main Internet browsers, including Safari running on a Mac. ...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:11 PM

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Cash Flow Forecast

Question: In the Cash Flow Forecast Detailed Data Table, there is a column of data called "Retirement Objective Net". From what I can see it includes the Post retirement expenses that I setup along with special expenses according to the parameters that I setup in the "Retirement Income...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:10 PM

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Asset Allocation Used for the Calculations

Question: Under Asset Allocation it states “The Investor Profile Questionnaire established that the following portfolio: Security might be the most …” Do I assume that RetireWare used a “Security” mix for my investments? Answer: The calculations use the asset allocation basis selected on the Asset Mix for Projections tab...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:09 PM

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Use of Personal Residence for Retirement Income

Question: Under Sources of Retirement Income it has “yes” next to Personal Residence even though I indicated for both my wife and me “Never” under “Financial Information – Principal Residence – Sell Principal Residence.”  Are the income projections using the value of our personal residence or not? Answer:...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:07 PM

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Collaborative vs. Professional Version

Questions: My understanding of RetireWare is that the Professional Version is used by the financial professional to prepare a retirement plan for the client. The client is then not able to access the plan to update its progress. Is that correct? My understanding of the Collaborative Professional Version...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:05 PM

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Education Savings

Question: I'm not sure where I enter my RESP contributions.. Can you please help? Answer: You can enter RESP contributions on the Budget Information tab on the Pre-retirement Budget page. There is also a stand-alone RESP planning tool on the Applications tab on the main page. ...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 8:02 PM

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Government Pensions

Question: If I take my CPP at the age of 61 and OAS at 65 does the software automatically do the calculation or do I enter it in as other income? Answer: The software will estimate the CPP based on your annual earnings (provided in the Financial Information...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 4:32 PM

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Differences Between Professional and Collaborative Versions

Question: My understanding of the RetireWare software is that the Professional Version is used by the financial professional to prepare a retirement plan for the client.  The client is then not able to access the plan to update its progress. Is that correct? My understanding of the RetireWare...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 4:31 PM

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RetireWare Versions and Calculations

Questions: 1. What is the difference in the level of detail and complexity of analysis in the retirement plans between an individual user and an advisor user besides the number of different plans that can be created? 2. What do you do for tax rates? 3. Can I...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 4:31 PM

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Sources of Retirement Income

Question: Under the “Sources of Retirement Income” it has “yes” next to Personal Residence even though I indicated for both my wife and me “Never” under “Financial Information – Principal Residence – Sell Principal Residence.”  Are the income projections using the value of our personal residence or not?...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 4:30 PM

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Asset Allocation

Question: Under Asset Allocation it states “The Investor Profile Questionnaire established that the following portfolio: Security might be the most appropriate etc…” Do I assume that the RetireWare used a “Security” mix for my investments listed under Finances or will it use the “Selection of Rates in Economic...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 4:29 PM

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Copy Functionality

A new feature has been added today! Now you can copy an existing file to do what if scenarios or try different retirement strategies and evaluate their financial impact. For example, you can copy an existing file and try a different retirement age, life expectancy or income goal with...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 12:56 PM

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Common Settings

Features Update Data entry is made to be as uniform as possible for each spouse to make it easier to find all settings. We have a new release in which we apply changes to both spouses to avoid the need to enter the same information twice in the...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 12:55 PM

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What Are the Odds Telling You?

How much is enough? A big concern when starting retirement is knowing if the income goals are sustainable. This question largely depends on two factors: longevity and the amount of money available for retirement. Assuming your planning horizon is long enough, say age 95, market returns are then...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 9:10 PM

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What are the Risks of Leveraged Investing?

An age old strategy Borrowing to invest has been around for a long time. The hope is to leverage profits and the risk is leveraging losses. Taking out a loan to invest means investing other people's money, typically the bank's money. Being risk averse, the bank will want...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 3:35 PM

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RetireWare Not Affected by "Heartbleed" Vulnerability

There has been extensive media coverage recently on the vulnerability dubbed “Heartbleed”, which is a security concern for secure communications using OpenSSL, a widely-used open source cryptographic software library. It can allow attackers to read the memory of the systems using vulnerable versions of OpenSSL library. The RetireWare Website...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 4:52 PM

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Making Decisions when Facing Uncertainty

A way to think about risk Using an example, I'd like to show how risk theory can help us manage our uncertain future. Risk theory is a branch of mathematics that provides a framework for making decisions with uncertain outcomes. When it comes to retirement, we are facing...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:08 AM

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Monte Carlo Details

Question: How are the economic scenarios used in the Monte Carlo simulations generated? Are they generated within the software, or does the software contain a set of hundreds of scenarios that are used when necessary? I am trying to understand the stochastic projection component of this software better....

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:42 AM

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Special Expenses

Question: I have been using RetireWare to elaborate several files to plan our retirement. I have been trying to include the sale of our actual house in two years, for example, and buy a new one at a higher price in the same year. I cannot find any...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:41 AM

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Pre-retirement Budget

Question: When doing a pre-retirement budget for a couple I enter the budget under one of the individuals and it still shows a budget for the other spouse. Why? Answer: For pre-retirement, each spouse has their own budget relative to income. In your case, you put the budget...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:40 AM

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Dividend Stream

Question: Is there a way to create another post retirement income stream of dividends from a holding company and are they treated as eligible or non-eligible for tax purposes? Answer: There is only one stream of dividends and they are taxed as eligible dividends. Other temporary streams of...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:40 AM

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Update Wizard

Question: One question on the “Update” feature.  I haven’t used it yet but just trying to figure out what happens when you use it.  So say you update all the financial information and any changes that might need to be done with assumptions, etc.,  does the program then...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:39 AM

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Summary Tables

Question: Why TFSA’s do not show under the future assets table? They are definitely being saved as per the detailed income statements. Answer: Because of space constraints the tables showing on the page (and in the report) can only display a limited number of columns. Accordingly, we've combined...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:36 AM

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'What If' Scenarios

Question: My spouse and I are recently retired with DB pension, SERP payouts, CPP and RSP's. I need to know when to draw down RSP's in order to minimize tax and minimize OAS claw-back. Does this function exist in RetireWare? Answer: You can try various scenarios for the...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 10:35 AM

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Any Other Risks?

Going for a ride I never commented on the pictures at the beginning of my posts. This one is taken on the Pacific Coastal Highway 1, somewhere between Carmel and Big Sur, California. I cycled this road twice, the first time in 1995, and a few years ago...

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 6:02 PM

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