Help center
How to set up your plan, what each screen shows, how the calculations work, and fixes for common problems.
Getting started
The screens
- The DashboardWhat safe to spend means, how the comfort level setting changes it, and what each tile on the Dashboard shows.
- The plan editorThe sections of your plan, what each one controls, and how saving, undo and the completeness check work.
- Cash flowHow to read the year-by-year cash flow table, switch between today's and future dollars, and open any year to see every transaction behind it.
- OutlookHow Outlook tests your plan against simulated markets, what each result card means, and how to change the simulation settings.
- Spending guardrailsHow to read your guardrail table, the chance of a spending change, your set-aside and ceiling, stress tests and alerts.
- What if, and ways to improve your chancesHow the What if tools let you try changes without touching your plan, and how the improvements screen tests and ranks changes on your own simulated markets.
- Scenarios and spending strategiesHow scenarios store only what you change, how to compare up to four side by side, and how the spending strategies comparison works.
- Accounts and asset allocationHow to add and organize accounts, enter holdings, and read the asset allocation, look-through, target and location views.
- TaxesThe four views on the Taxes screen, from year-by-year taxes and brackets to the Roth conversion explorer, withdrawal order comparison and what the tax engine models.
- Social Security explorerHow the Social Security explorer compares every claiming age from 62 to 70, for one person or a couple, and what it doesn't model.
- Insurance, estate and deferred compensationWhat the Insurance, Estate and Deferred compensation screens show, and the limits of each.
- Rules and the contingency playbookHow to set if-this-then-that rules that are tested in every simulated future, and how to print them as a playbook.
- Tools and the plan summaryThe Can I afford it, debt payoff and emergency fund tools, and the two-minute plan summary you can print or share.
- Settings, sign-in and sharingSign-in methods, passkeys and two-step verification, inviting a partner, read-only share links, appearance, account activity and deleting your account.
- Working with an advisorHow the Advisor plan works, how advisors invite clients or set up plans for them, and how clients keep control of their data.
How calculations work
- How the projection engine worksThe monthly projection behind every result, including the order of each month's cash flows, withdrawals, required distributions, Roth conversions, inflation, cost basis and tax payments.
- How taxes are calculatedWhich federal, state and local taxes the engine computes, where the figures come from, how future years are projected, and what isn't modeled.
- How Social Security is calculatedHow the engine works out each person's benefit, adjusts it for claiming age, adds spousal and survivor benefits and cost-of-living increases, and what it leaves out.
- How simulations workHow the app builds simulated futures from actual historical market returns and inflation, the other simulation methods, how success is defined, and how results stay consistent between runs.
- How spending guardrails are calculatedThe rule behind the guardrails, how the risk surface makes them fast enough to recompute, the set-aside and ceiling, and how accurate the shortcuts are.
- How safe to spend is calculatedWhat the monthly safe-to-spend figure means for retirees and for working households, the inputs it uses, and how it relates to your guardrails.
- How improvements are testedWhich changes the improvements screen tests, how each is compared with your plan on the same simulated markets, and how results are ranked.
- How the allocation look-through worksHow holdings are classified into eight asset classes, how funds are looked through to their underlying mix, and how targets, bands and rebalancing moves are calculated.