6 Problems with Retirement Planning Software

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The just released retirement planning program MoneyView includes everything you talk about in your article and much more. Check it out at http://www.cadontechnologies.com.

Donald Hofferber of WA 3:44PM June 30, 2011

Jet to find a financial planning guru or software that includes the affects of the Minimum Required Distributions on traditional IRAs, 401Ks, 403bs, etc. The MRDs take an increasing percentage from an individual's portofilo every year: i.e., 3.65% at age 70, 3.77 % at age 71, 3.9 % at age 72, etc. The MRD exceeds 5% at age 79, exceed 6% at age 83, and then keeps on increasing. The percentage creep from 3.65 % to 3.77 % at age 70 to 71 is 3.28% (.0012 divided by 3.65%). At age 72 the creep is 3.4%). At age 79 to 8o the creep is 4.28%.
The best financial planning guru seem to do is ask how long a person thinks he will live in retirement, and then dividing that number into 100--which supposedly/somehow estimates, guesses the percentage that a retiree can draw from his portofilo every year until they are supposedly to die.
Why does not some math person with software programming writ a sismple program wherein all the variable---or givens such the MRDs-can be manipulated buy an everyday person planning for his retirement future. I contacted a software firm whose $10 EXCELL based financial planning software included all the user input variable I wanted, except for the MRDs. They said the MRDs would be included in their next relaease, but the could not say when the next release is due out.

William Mason of KS 2:52PM January 19, 2011

Thank you for the information regarding retirement planning software. It is helpful to know what to watch for even when using a guide to help plan for the future. http://www.financialprose.com

Reggie Retirement of CA 11:54AM January 18, 2011

As software providers for the professional financial planner for the past 30 years with a focus on advisors working with the most effluent clients,

John Dwyer of CT 3:40PM February 12, 2010

For the record, the software mentioned in the previous comment from Sawhney Sytems was not reviewed as part of the research effort.
Steven Siegel
Society of Actuaries Research Actuary

Steven Siegel of IL 12:53PM January 27, 2010

I work for one of the financial planning software packages reviewed in this report (ExecPlan v5 tax and financial planning software). Though the undertaking by the publishers of this report required extensive time and effort, we were unaware of their review of our product or the objective of the review. Had we known, we would have directed them to our recently developed ExecPlan Express retirement planning software which appears to be a product more suited to the parameters of their review.
As software providers for the professional financial planner for the past 30 years with a focus on advisors working with the most effluent clients, we began to see an increasing demand by professional seeking a return to basic planning principles as well as consumers looking to manage more of their own finances.
ExecPlan Express was created with a focus on financial planning fundamentals by provides most of the features found in the high end professional oriented software such as an actual year by year federal tax return (including AMT), the ability to buy or sell assets or liabilities at any point in the planning horizon, user defined growth rates of each asset, expense, or source of income, the ability to evaluated life insurance needs, and the ability to evaluate estate tax exposure. At the same time we removed more complex asset such A ISOs or limited partnerships as well as complex reports so as to allow the user the ability to quickly learn and use the product to create easy to understand reports and graphical illustrations.
I believe if they had reviewed our other product they would have discovered that we have already addressed many of the short comings they found in their report on today's retirement planning software
Robert Fourman
Sales and Marketing Manager
Sawhney Systems
(800) 850-8444

Robert Fourman of NJ 11:53AM January 15, 2010