Collaborative Version

Question:

I recently purchased your software and understand I could share it with my clients ( I bought the professional collaborative version with up to 200 files).

How can I do this and how does the client login?

Answer:

When you create a new file on the first tab of the File Manager (the landing page after logging in), you can enter your client's email address and send an automated invitation.

The invitation has a link where the user can choose a password to access their account. Once this is completed, the user can login and access a simplified version and work on or review their retirement plan.

I suggest you use a personal email to try and see the experience from the user's perspective. This will help in understanding how it works.

If you need further information, there are a few You Tube videos at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/user/retireware

The videos can also be a helpful reference to your clients trying to get familiar with the user interface.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:28 AM

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Rental Properties

Question:

We have several rental properties.  I have entered this amount in Other Assets - Investment in Other Properties.  Is there a way to enter these properties separately, so that properties could be sold individually when needed?

Answer:

No, there is allowance for only one property other than your personal residence.

Please note that you can enter up to four assets on the 'Other Assets' tab on the 'Financial Information' page, with disposition in four separate years.

So if you can group your sales around five separate years, this may work. However, note that you should include the after-tax proceeds in 'Other Assets' and their value will only be reflected in the year of disposition. It may be best to create an alternative file for this and use it just to see the impact of selling the properties in a staggered way.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:26 AM

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Eliminating a Retirement Shortfall

Question:

I ran a plan which advised me that assets were not sufficient and that clients needed $19,500 more in savings each year until retirement.

I input $20,000 more into savings and revised plan came back with:

• Current annual savings: $20,000
• Total required savings: $32,500
• Additional required savings: $12,500

 Can you explain this please and how to get rid of shortfall.

Answer:

On the Forecast page on the Savings tab, you have set maximum savings at 50% of earnings.

That's why the program comes up with $32,500 total annual savings.

Nevertheless, your client, who is 1.5 years away from retirement, and with his spouse already retired, need to fund nearly a $1 million gap.

So no reasonable contributions can help, other disposing of existing assets, for example selling the personal residence at a later point in time.

Note that you have based the projections on their current asset mix on all cash investments for the registered funds and locked-in assets.

Investing in a more diversified mix will generate higher returns for the projections, but they will still significantly fall short.

Maybe you can look at adjusting the income goals and retirement dates, in addition to using a better asset mix or finding other funds for retirement.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:25 AM

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If You Are Retired

Question:

What use is RetireWare for those people already retired?

Answer:

As a retired person, you use RetireWare to set and monitor your spending levels such that it will last a lifetime. Also, if you have poor or excellent investment returns can impact future expenses, and when unforeseen expenses or life changes occur, you revisit your plan and adjust your goals.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:23 AM

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Printing a Report

Question:

Where do we generate a PDF report of the results of the analysis?

Answer:

Click the 'Review' button on the toolbar, and go to the 'Report' tab. You will see an icon that you can click to generate a PDF report.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:22 AM

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Multiple Rental Properties

Question:

I own several rental properties, each with a market value, purchase price, and mortgage. Is it possible to control the timing of sale of each property?

Answer:

There are two things you can do.

Combine the value of the properties into one and enter the average year of disposition. This will work if the disposition of the properties will occur over a few years in the future. For example of you plan to dispose of the properties within a 5 year window, say 2020 to 2024, you can use 2022 as the average year of disposition. This will not make a material difference in your retirement plan.

The other way is to enter the after-tax disposition of each property as 'Other Assets' on the Financial Information page. The disadvantage is that you won't see the full value of these assets in the net worth until the years of disposition.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:20 AM

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Asset Projections

Question:

Why is the amount shown on the summary for poor returns is less than that shown for normal returns?

Answer:

If you use a custom forecast that's very conservative, it may result in the main projection having lower values than the poor returns.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:19 AM

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Investor Profiles

Question:

Where can I view the asset mixes for the various Profile portfolios?

Answer:

it's in the help files under 'Investor Profile':

https://secure.retireware.com/web/mc_help.aspx?language=en-CA&node=102&id=view_asset.htm 

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:18 AM

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Use of Various Sources of Income

Question:

Does RetireWare optimize the various streams of income in retirement, i.e. non-registered, registered, etc. for each year to provide the most tax efficient outflows?

Does the software provide cash flow results in after-tax dollars?

Answer:

The program does not do a year-by year optimization. Rather, the procedure for the use of funds followed by RetireWare is to determine whether existing pensions, such as company pensions,
Canada or Quebec Pensions and Old Age Security are sufficient to meet the retirement income objective. If not, RetireWare uses non-registered investment income (and capital until exhausted, if you select that option), then Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSA), locked-in RRSPs (including funds from a defined contribution pension plan), and RRSP/RRIFs last. This has the advantage of achieving tax-free compounding of registered investments for as long as possible. RetireWare uses locked-in RRSPs before non-locked-in RRSPs.

The software shows detailed cash flow charts and tables, showing each source of income, income tax payable each year and net income.

By: RetireWare / Equisoft On 11:17 AM

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