New Version Planning
We are in the early stages of planning and developing a redesign of the downloaded desktop ESPlanner application for versions going into the future. The new version will be 9-12 months in development. We'll continue to support and develop the current version while the new one is in progress.
One of the major changes will be the dropping of our current support for older versions of Excel. Only newer versions which support XML (the "xlsx" file types) will be supported. Reports will be culled directly from the computation output. This should allow for the use of other spreadsheet applications such as Open Office.
The new ESPlanner will be developed in a multiplatform language, opening the possibility of a version on the Mac or Linux.
We'll continue to use a database for data storage but will be switching to a non -platform specific database (such as MySQL).
Please use this thread for discussion of ideas for the new version, if you have them.
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Hi Lowell,
This is a great development. Since I'm a Mac user, I'd be honored, and I think very useful, to continue being on the Beta test team.
Regards,
James Mavrogenis
Lowell, one last thought, How should we submit suggestions for improvements to the new version?
Hi James,
Let's do the dialogue right here so everyone can see and participate
I'm not sure if others use the Notes tool much, but I find myself using it more often as I tweak a profile, think of future improvements, remember what I did in the last update, etc.
While I do keep a huge amount of notes elsewhere (e.g. Excel / PowerPoint / Word), these are not integrated with the tool.
However, the Notes functionality is basic only. I'd like to customize notes within each profile and make it easier/more powerful to use. This is a "nice to have" item, but if you are making the other core changes, perhaps one that could be included.
Best regards,
Brian Vezza
I second Brian's input; I'm about 8 to 10 years from retirement (God willing). After updating my 2011 information I prepared 4 profiles to illustrate the impact of my non-working spouse taking substantially equal withdrawals from her IRA at 54 versus waiting until 62 and whether I take monthly pension payments for life versus a lump sum distribution. It would be nice to tie notes to profiles.
With best regards,
Neil Pedersen
As I see it, a major benefit of using ESPlanner is the ability to run multiple profiles to see the effect of different variables on "discretionary spending". This requires keeping track of what variables were changed for each report. My suggestions are aimed at making this task easier to do.
Suggestions for the new version:
1. I like Brian's idea of making the Notes tool more useful by linking it to a profile. Adding the ability to print the contents of the Notes tool in a report would be helpful.
Adding Notes was a great improvement but adding comments to the cover page was really helpful. A BIG improvement to this feature would be to double the number of characters and add the ability to display symbols ($,%,...) to the cover page note. If there isn't room on the cover page how about adding a separate note page.
Suggestions for the report's Inputs & Assumptions page:
2. The special Expenditure/Receipts data is sorted by year but it also needs to be sorted by description within each year so that these pages can be compared side by side for multiple reports. With many special expenditures, it's difficult to compare these between different reports because the Description list output is not consistent between reports within each year. In fact running two identical profile reports results in the Special Expenditure Descriptions sorted differently within each year.
3. Add a column that shows the percent growth for each special expenditure/receipts where growth has been applied. Currently this information can only be identified in the cover page Notes.
The following suggestions apply to the program inputs:
1. For every user inputted variable, allow the input to be varied by 0.05% increments.
2. Allow the user to input the actual social security and medicare premium B inflation % for the current year. Currently, the program adds the user's selected inflation value to both these amounts for the current year resulting in erroneous inputs. Any programming approach that would result in accurate SS benefit amounts and Medicare part B premiums would be a big improvement. Currently, I have to "fudge" the SS benefit output by entering a negative % "percent change in benefits" for SS for the current year equal to the inflation % I've inputted. While not mathematically correct it's the closest I can come because of the input limitations mentioned in #1 above.
Regards & Thank you,
James Mavrogenis
Lowell, If you do develop a Mac version will it be possible to easily convert our .mdb files to the new dbase? Would hate to reenter all that data
Regards,
James Mavrogenis
Yeah, we'll deal with the export/import problem because we have to do that in any event for the transition to the new implementation.
Best,
Dick Munroe
Two more ideas:
1. An Excel tab with all input values would be very useful. This was captured in your "Using Excel" post from October 2010.
2. After spending a huge amount of time optimizing ESPlanner profiles, there is one more step that ESPlanner's software could take which would be very helpful for me although it is probably out of scope.
It makes sense to use a "safety factor" in our actual spending just in case reality is tougher than we've forecast. I've seen a few comments from Dick about using ESPlanner's recommendations as a "ceiling" along these lines.
I would love to be able to input "X% safety factor" into an ESPlanner field. This would reduce my annual consumption by X% for every year until end of life. This would cause withdrawals to be lower, assets to be higher, taxes would be changed (less income, but higher assets), etc. I have done this manually for seven years and it takes a lot of manual effort.
Consumption smoothing is extremely helpful. I'm focused here on taking one more step to show the impact of spending a bit less than ESPlanner recommends and how it would adjust income streams, amounts, assets, taxes, etc. when we use a safety factor in our planning.
Best regards,
Brian Vezza
Brian, I endorse your idea of adding a "safety factor" capability into ESPlanner. Ideally, the "safety factor" could be specified (a) on a relative basis as an X% reduction in the annual recommended discretionary spending amount or (b) on an absolute basis as an upper dollar limit ($X).
I have used the various excel reports to cut and paste columns to create a BASIC summary page. Using both the Basic and Detailed output reports I show the "big picture", i.e Income, Spending and Net Worth.
I know that this works for a nearing retirement age couple, but perhaps not all users - but for me it sure helps. This may be an easy option to add to the next update.
The columns include:the Year on the left column and then
Income: Pension, SSI me, SSI wife, my Retirement Acct withdrawals, wife's Ret Acct WD, regular asset Income, Real Estate cash flow = Total
Spending: Consumption,Special spending,total housing, contributions to retirement accts,Medicare Part B = total spending + total taxes = total spending imcluding taxes. I add a calculated column of "tax rate" (taxes/total spending)
Net Worth columns include: additions & withdrawals from regular assets, Reg Asst Account balance, my Retirement Acct income, savings and balance, wife's Retirement Acct income, savings and balance, Home Equity = Net Worth
I add calculated columns for rate of return on regular accounts and retirement accounts (acct income/acct balance) which shows returne without inflation. I also have a column of net worth - home equity = total investments
Believe it or not this will fit on a legal size page using Arial 10 pt.
FYI: Concerning the notes functionality in ESPlanner, one solution to circumvent the current limitations is to: (a) create a Microsoft Word document in which you enter your notes for each profile, (b) save the .DOC/.DOCX file to a .PDF from within Microsoft Word, and (c) insert that .PDF into the report output using Adobe Acrobat (i.e., the paid product, not the free Acrobat Reader). In this way, you have a ‘documentation page’ of your own notes in the PDF report output.
Additionally, Adobe Acrobat can be used to highlight content in the report output and to insert “comments” (similar to ‘Post-It Notes’).
This approach does work. I've been using Adobe "comments" to add the information that I would like to see added to the reports. It works but is not as easy to use and requires the user to buy an expensive program Adobe Acrobat. I was fortunate in that a copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional was bundled with my Fujitsu ScanSnap sheet scanner.
James Mavrogenis
Concerning the concept of adding a "safety factor" capability into ESPlanner, one approach to circumvent the current limitation is to enter an amount for a Special Expenditure for one year at the maximum age of life, with the understanding that this expense will not actually be incurred in the real world. Although not perfect, this technique simulates withholding assets (the “safety factor” amount) from consideration in the computation of the living standard.
Can anyone suggest a better approach to incorporating a "safety factor"?
Thank you.
Another "safety factor" is to specify some amount as bequest, which remains at the end (or funeral would work, too).
We'd probably switch to mySQL which has a conversion tool from Access and can be built in to a desktop application on most platforms. However, this may be an ideal time to fix some of the problems with the database design (some tables should be split, for example). On the other hand, the database was not intended to handle a huge amount of data - that's one of the reasons we have suggested using multiple data files. I'll probably have some "import" feature to add data from prior databases somehow, which will likely be a two-step process (switch to the new format and then import).
I think it may add flexibility to notes to use that as link to an outside file rather than the simple text it is now. It would reduce the ability to combine outputs into a report but you could link various things (such as a spreadsheet). You could have multiple files this way, too.
Adding more space/characters to comments probably would require a new page.
Adding the input to Excel is problematic. For example, dumping into Excel x-hundred special expenditures or other "serial" data. It's not clear what a good way to represent that is. Multiple tabs, I suppose, but it could get "ugly" very quickly.
Lowell,
Thank you for your comments/clarification.
Regarding the "safety factor", I have tried special expenditures, bequests/funeral, using "Conventional Planning" with the safety factor manually calculated, etc. All have drawbacks which can defeat the purpose of the "safety factor".
For example, using one of my profiles, if I input a bequest equivalent to a 6% "safety factor" (meaning reduced consumption by 6%), that causes an additional ~$147,000 in life insurance premiums to be included in the results (compared to the same profile without this bequest). The extra $147K in spending skews assets, taxes, etc. By experimenting with the inputs, I can improve the results a bit.
I know the "safety factor" probably isn't going to happen, but it would be a great feature if it was available. BTW, I imagine the default SF = 0% (or $0), meaning we get the same results as today.
Regarding Excel inputs, here's my suggestion:
Tab 1 - All ESPlanner inputs except for "special" items. Start at row 1 with s/w version, then family inputs, earnings, etc. If it goes down to row 1000, that's no problem. If all you can do for this version is "Tab 1", that's still okay with me.
Tab 2 - All "special" items and years. Start with regular (not contingent) inputs, then expeditures, then contingent inputs, etc. along with year, type of input, tax status, etc. Again, if it goes to row 1000, that's okay. If necessary, once the information is available in Excel, we can sort the data by year, special expenditure, special receipt, type, tax status, etc.
Perhaps after we had the data available, then we could come up with some better sorting/displaying methods if this is too tough to handle for this new version.
Best regards,
Brian Vezza
I thought of one other way that "may" be good enough, although I've only tried it a few times so it may not work for every profile. It seems to avoid most of the major gotchas I've found using the other methods mentioned above.
1. Set up and run normal profile
2. Write down annual consumption
3. Manually calculate desired consumption amount (after Safety Factor)
4. Set up new "Safety Factor" (SF) profile by copying regular profile
5. Go to "Assumptions" tab, then "Std of Living" tab
6. Set "Living Standard Index" to "100" for many years. I've tried this with 15, 10, 5, and 1 year remaining in maximum age of life.
7. Experiment with various higher "Living Standard Index" for the last few years of life. For example, if you set "Living Standard Index" to 100 up to age 99, then you will need a much higher value for age 100.
8. Run new "Safety Factor" profile and write down annual consumption.
9. Calculate your effective "Safety Factor" % or $ between your normal profile and SF profile.
10. After experimenting, you may be able to force a lower consumption level for many years that matches your desired "Safety Factor". In my tests so far, this has not added unnecessary life insurance premiums or other "phantom" expenses like bequests or special expenditures.
Good luck!
Brian Vezza
I understand the drawbacks on the safety factor idea as a bequest, etc. I'm sure Dick could implement something that would be an amount "saved" that would not result in increased life insurance.
We are thinking about the safety factor as an end-of-life amount, too, which I assume isn't what you want. The reserve fund page may be more like what you want? This is a safety factor that builds over time that you can flatten out once it reaches a certain value. Where as the bequest is an amount that needs to be covered, the reserve fund represents savings. Have you looked at that?
As for inputs displayed in Excel today: there are two files that are in XML format, which Excel can read, already being written. One is called ESPLastInputs.xml and the other is summary.xml. ESPLastInputs.xml is the actual file read by the computation engine. The summary.xml is used by the report writer. Either could be "transformed" and displayed in Excel. I'll certainly look at that going forward.
New Topic:
There have often been observations that the user interface for ESPlanner is lousy, clumsy, poor, pick two. There are reasons it is what it is, one of the biggest ones is that it's ten years old.
ESPlanner collects a lot of information from obvious to detailed. One of the things that may not be obvious is that the computation engine can run on nothing but default information. Building from there, you can get results "step-by-step" for lack of a better description. As you build detail in the input, you build detail in output.
So, it occurs to me for this new U.I. that simplicity should be better taken advantage of.
There are two types of inputs in ESPlanner. The first is a simple number, either as an integer or a decimal fraction. The second is a series of integers, such as earnings per year. Collecting the numbers in the second category it's best to understand two properties: (a) there should be an easy way to replicate the contents of this years value by using last years value, and (b) there should be easy ways to limit the time those numbers occur in (earnings going forward in time).
So, in thinking about a new, simpler strategy for collecting information, it seems to me that collecting types of information should be easily found as a group: Income related, Expense related, then broken down keeping the group for each one as large as possible (all housing together, all retirement together, etc). This is still along the lines of what's done in the current version.
In any page, the collection of that data would be identical depending on what is being collected: a serial input or a individual value. In essence, all the pages would look the same, depending on what's being collected.
FYI, another factor that will be in the new version is the ability to scale the pages for larger or smaller fonts.
So, if you have some thoughts on ease of use, please pass them on.
Lowell,
Here are the SF questions that I'm trying to answer:
1. With X% SF, how much of a buffer will I have by end of life?
2. Once a SF is implemented, how does this impact ESPlanner values year by year? E.g. Annual asset values, income streams, taxes, etc. (especially over the next ~5-10 years), so I can see details that will, hopefully, be close to my actual experience.
I am looking at a 2 tier approach. E.g. Reduce consumption by 10% for a couple of years, then 5% for all later years. With Excel, I can estimate the answer to #1, but #2 seemed really hard and basically required attempting to recreate ESPlanner results through manual calculations.
However, the method I described above by adjusting the Standard of Living Index has worked beautifully for me. I've played around with this a lot now and have it exactly how I want it. The last couple of years show huge consumption, but that's okay as I want a buffer and this could cover living longer, excess healthcare, long-term care, or other unknown expenses.
I haven't tested this SF approach with a wide range of profiles so it may not fit everyone although I think it should be okay because it should only decrease (or leave the same) life insurance premiums and doesn't have the "phantom" expense issue. I will play around with the reserve fund approach as well which sounds promising.
If a new SF approach was super simple, that would still be great (e.g. input X% or $Y into an ESPlanner field). However, now that I know how to do this another way (even though it requires 2 profiles and some trial and error hassles), it is less of an issue.
Re: Excel - Thanks!
Regarding UI simplicity, I will pull together my thoughts and reply separately.
Best regards,
Brian Vezza
Concerning the “safety factor,” the primary questions of interest are:
With the intent to spend an annual amount that is X% (or $Y) below the recommended consumption level...
Using a “reserve fund” as a “safety factor” does not assist in addressing these questions, unfortunately.
Thank you.
I guess using the reduced living STD page in assumptions is the best way to address this idea currently
Using the Reserve Fund worked fairly well for me. Much better than bequests/special expenditures, but not as good as the approach I described above.
From previous safety factor side calculations in Excel, I knew roughly how much money would be available at end of life assuming everything turned out exactly as planned in ESPlanner. I input this figure in the second to last year shown as my reserve fund (it wouldn't let me input it into the last year). This reduced my consumption as expected without adding extra life insurance or other expenses.
It's still not ideal, but again a step better than what I was trying before this week. As Pleonasm writes, a better approach would defintely be a good thing.
Best regards,
Brian Vezza
If ESPlanner is to gain a significantly larger customer base I believe it needs the look and feel of a standard mainstream Windows application. This would make it more intuitive and easier to learn for typical retail computer users.
To that end, I suggest you completely redesign the user interface to use only standard Windows user interface components and laid out to have the same flow and features of widespread Windows applications.
I know this is a tall order (i.e., expensive) for a small company, but I'm afraid ESP will remain somewhat unapproachable if it does not present itself as a mainstream program. Hiring an outside consulting/marketing firm that specializes in computer application design for mass audiences might be beneficial.
Mind you, I am aware of ESPlanner's roots. Please do not take my remarks as being critical of a terrific product. But now may be the time to leap forward to the next generation of ESP and expand its market appeal.
Sincerely,
Mark Henning
Mainstream according to who? Do you emulate MS Office design? Intuit? Adobe ?
Unlike Apple, there really is no such thing as a mainstream design when it comes to Windows. Other than the Menu bar etc. Windows certificatiion makes few demands on homogenizing the "experience" so that one app works the same as another. Apple goes to great lengths to encourage that.
This all relates to ease of use. The UI needs to make the task easy v. trying to hit some impractical target of being "mainstream.". That said, UI "standards" like a task bar aren't likely to go away in a new version of ESPlanner. But, we do have quite a bit of use experience in data collection to draw on to make ease of use the primary goal.
Concerning the need to make the interface of ESPlanner “mainstream,” it is true that the details of the interface for different applications in Windows vary, and that there exists no firm “standard.” While the current interface for ESPlanner is solid and functional, it seems dated. Hopefully, in the next major release of ESPlanner, the visual appearance will be directionally closer ‘in spirit’ to commonly used applications such as Microsoft Office 2010 or Quicken 2011.
Two additions to functionality that I would like to see:
Reverse Mortgages
Rental Real Estate held within an IRA
Here's my list of adds:
- more comprehensive tutorial/case studies. I'm probably using less than half of the power because I can't figure out how to enter the data. I read all of the case studies but they don't walk you through the mechanics. For example, this could be delivered as a scenario download feature so the online articles are kept short while allowing product owners a means to reproduce them and learn the "tricks"
- review forums and implement as many cases as possible where the answer to situation is "calculate the xx and enter it under special" - especially taxes.
- provide a mechanism to compare the output between run. There's so much output that it is difficult to spot all of the differences. Enabling XML output would allow me to use existing tools to compare the results
- when you are forced to calculate a value, provide a way to tag the field so you get reminded to recalculate the value when running a different scenario. I'm currently using naming conventions - fairly effective but a TurboTax "F8" is much nicer because you get a reminder before the final run.
- Nice to have: ability to specify percent of gross for special expenses/receipts. For example, our charitable giving is 10% gross, retirement funding 15% gross. I have to run a given scenario twice to enter the right numbers.
All good ideas. The Excel comparison is possible today using a comparison-tool (many freeware ones available) but we'll look into doing it, too.
In a new version, could you give consideration to allowing asset values to be entered based on a current date within the year, rather than the January 1 values? By allowing a "current values" check box, the program could apply the projected annual increase in the first year on a prorated basis to provide the earnings from that date to the end of the current year and then apply the year to year projections out to the end date. (If not checked, then the program could do what it does now.)
It would avoid having to record the starting values for the year and would reflect the actual development of the asset values to date for a more accurate basis going forward.
Thanks,
Joe DeMonte
Unfortunately that's probably never going to happen. The internal "clock" in ESPlanner ticks on a year by year basis, so everything has to be adjusted to that clock. Some timings are beginning of the year, others are the end of the year, but everything is year based.
Best,
Dick Munroe
I don't know why you haven't incorporated functionality into ESP that will enable easy evaluation of Roth IRA conversions. I am aware of the current workaround for that purpose and its limitations. ESP already has the information necessary to run conversion scenarios. The inputs should be as simple as "convert 50% between age 62 and 70."
Now that conversion eligibility restrictions have been lifted there is a need for this functionality in consumer-level software. As far as I can determine no competitor's product offers it.
Supporting other platforms or versions of Excel doesn't add any usable functionality for your existing customers. There have been no major increases of functionality in ESP for years.
There are some great ideas listed above. Sure hope you're able to incorporate most of them into the next generation of ESP.
Two more suggestions to throw in the hopper.
1. For Partnered & Married families, be able to specify what percentage of each person's IRA goes to the other person with the remainder being part of the end-of-life estate value. Currently in both these situations, the survivor gets it all. Setting a $ amount as a bequest doesn't work. It results in life insurance being recommended to cover the bequest amount while the remaining IRA goes to the other person. I haven't found a way to accomplish this with the current program.
2. "Spend till the end" is great in concept but I'd like to have the ability to tell ESP that I want a certain percentage or dollar amount of my estate value to remain at end-of-life. This may be what will occur if the Safety Factor discussed above is implemented.
Thanks
James Mavrogenis
I would like the new version to know specifically about military pensions. My pension is federally taxed but not by certain states. The COLA for military pensions is the same calculation as used by Social Security's COLA, but whereas my Social Security benefits show the same amount every year, my military pension shows a decreasing amount year by year.
You should be able to index your military pension for inflation (which is basically what the COLA does, but not quite). Tell the UI that your pension is 100% indexed for inflation and you'll retain the real value.
What we would be likely to do is to allow you to say if your pension is taxable at either the state or federal level rather than say it's a "military" pension, since these issues come up with other pensions, e.g., railroad.
Best,
Dick Munroe
Could you add capability to do city taxes? I know there are workarounds, but that could be good to have.
Nope. That's not going to happen. ESPlanner is not, primarily, a tax calculator and that level of detail would open up a can of worms we flat out can't deal with.
Best,
Dick Munroe
What is the prognosis for the new version? Are you likely to roll it out in 2011? Thanks
We have to put out an update 01-Feb-2012 to catch the tax updates for 2011. I'm hoping to put in no new CE functionality (other than bug fixes), nor will the port of the UI have much, if any, in the way of new stuff unless we get blindingly lucky in the porting process. So that's the logical time for getting the new UI out.
However, this is not a commitment to any type of schedule. The port will take as long as it takes and while we hope to have it out sooner rather than later it's an issue of quality rather than speed.
Old saw in my business:
You can have good, fast or cheap. Pick two.
Given our cash and quality constraints, the only variable we have to work with is time. So be patient. The new stuff will probably show up starting next year although we'll probably start doing prep work in the CE much earlier than that.
Lowell has been in the loop for the port, so hopefully he'll chime in.
Best,
Dick Munroe
The porting work is going well. No new functionality - just a straight port to get on to the new platform with minimum fuss. Probably not to be released before the end of the year. The Mac version will follow (for those of you anxious for that).
Some issues to work out in functionality that has to be reworked but it will be more or less identical to what we have now with improvements of the "low hanging fruit" variety.
Suggest that the dialog boxes in which users enter data be "full screen" for ease of reading
A couple of thoughts:
In most areas there are solid ways to model future unknowns using ESPlanner. For instance, with inflation, returns, taxes, SS benefits, etc. you can do sensitivity testing, "what if" scenarios, use conservative inputs, etc....just in case. With the massive financial uncertainty today, this helps with peace of mind. That's partly why I now use the "safety factor" method mentioned above.
Another has been adding in special expeditures (and/or receipts) to try and capture the impact of future healthcare and long-term care expenses. The fairly recent improvement to categorize some special expenditures as "medical" from a tax perspective was a really nice change making the results more accurate. If there was a mechanism for including LTC, that would be a nice improvement. This is a challenge with higher inflation than even healthcare overall for the past decade. If you purchase LTC insurance, accounting for both the premiums and benefits isn't easy, but a rough approach would be still be better than not including it as these expenses could be quite large.
Then I added in contingent fields which made a bigger difference in my results than I was expecting. Here I'd really like to see two changes. First, contingent special expenditures should also have the same "medical" option as normal special expeditures. When modeling end of life healthcare/LTC expenditures these can be quite large and would have tax implications. Second, for contingent housing, very late in life if/when both spouses are in LTC or no longer living at home for whatever reason, it would be useful to have a second change of home option. This could free up housing equity to pay for end of life healthcare and/or LTC expenditures.
Best regards,
Brian
In an effort to keep the change-over from the old programming language to the new one (visual basic to Real Basic) we're working on a feature for feature port. Which means that only what's in the current 2.19 version is getting redone. We'll take advantage of features of the new development tools where we can, but don't expect too much in the terms of UI features/changes.
What you're describing here is really more about computation than User Interface planning, anyway. Each item in the UI has to have a "slot" or entry area in the computation engine (CE) so it knows what it is and how to handle it. So, if there is no entry point for the CE, it will not have a UI component. That sort of (advanced) design change will be much further out
Thanks Lowell. Maybe next year :-)
Brian
I would like to see some of the reports modified a bit. For example, the "Total Spending" report is a little confusing for my clients because it includes retirement account savings and 529 Plan contributions (neither of which they see as spending). And they always want to know if discretionary spending includes taxes.
It might be helpful to have a report that summarizes all OUTFLOWS (discretionary spending + special expenditures + contributions to reserve fund + housing + retirement plan contributions + taxes + contributions to 529 plans +life insurance premium payments + Medicare + Funerals and Bequests). And then have a separate report that summarizes only actual SPENDING (discretionary spending + special expenditures + housing + Life Insurance premiums + Medicare).
With regards to 529 Plans, I understand why the special expenditures column on the Total Spending page = income + contributions + withdrawals, and why the special receipts column on the Total Income page = income + withdrawals. But this requires some tweaking of the numbers on these two pages in order to explain actual income and expense numbers to clients. So perhaps there is a better way to present the 529 Plan results.
Rick
Actually we're heading towards putting all extraneous cash flows into the special pots because that's the simplest treatment for handling the cash flows and the reporting. The reports are becoming cumbersome and were we to follow the "old" way of doing things, there would have to be columns for each category of expense. Over time, that's a big looser in terms of clarity.
Best,
Dick Munroe
I'd like to suggest 1 more improvement to throw in the hopper.
For partnered families, I would like to see the "Regular Assets" and "Current Savings" assigned to each partner be used to fund the "Special Expenditures" of each partner.
In the "Assumptions/Taxes" page, I can enter, the % of "Regular Assets" owned by Partner #2. However, this data is only used in calculating each partner's tax liability.
Currently in "Special Receipts and Expenditures" each partner's ownership is entered for each line item. But, again this appears to only be used for calculating each partner's tax liability.
The improvement I'm suggesting is for ESPlanner to "use" the regular assets from each partner for the Special Expenditures of that partner.
The way the program is currently structured, If partner #2 has all, or most of the "Regular Assets" but partner #1 has a large special expense, e.g., a new car, the "Regular Assets" belonging mostly to partner #2, are drawn down to cover the expense. There is no way, I can determine, to have the program cover partner #1's expenses by drawing from partner #1's IRA. Currently this is a trial and error approach using the "Special Withdrawals" feature - thanks for adding this - in "Retirement Accounts"
One reason I believe that older couples do not marry has to do with our crazy tax code and the legal nightmare and costs they would incur, if married, to ensuring their estates are distributed as they each wish. They chose to remaining single in the legal sense but live together and share common expenses. Except for the changes I've suggested, ESPlanner accurately deals with the financial realities of a partnered family. Thank you for that.
Regards,
James Mavrogenis
James,
Probably not in the near future. I suspect it would be quite complicated to implement something like this. But, I'll leave it to Dick & Larry