If you're experienced with other retirement spreadsheets, you'll see that this solves most of the problems and limitations that other retirement planners are infamous for.

If you're not a professional retirement planner, then when you read client or spouse, think you or your spouse.

· Both client and spouse can have up to five assets each (ten total). Retirement savings are treated as stand-alone entities (meaning that what's going on with one won't affect the others, except for the calculation of retirement withdrawal).

· You can control most any number, and you can print and see, most every number in all 70 years.

· Most other retirement planning calculators are written in some arcane programming language where you can't even see how the numbers are generated, let alone being able to change them. With RP being written in Excel, you can see the flow of each calculation, so you can trace and solve all mysteries back to your input.

· Both client and spouse income goals can start separately, and at any year. In other words, the husband (or wife) can retire at age 60, and the wife (or husband) can keep working until they want to stop. In other words again, both clients do not have to retire in the same year, like other retirement plans force them to.

An income goal is how much money you needs, or wants, to have to spend when they retire.

· Both client and spouse can have their own separate income goals. As a corollary to the above feature, since clients can retire separately at any age, it's only logical that they have their own separate income goals too.

For example, assume husband and wife are both age 60. The husband can retire at his age 60 with a goal of $75,000 a year, while the wife keeps working five more years after the husband retires, and then she retires on $25,000 a year. Other retirement calculators don't handle this Real World scenario the way RP does because most of them force the husband and wife to retire in the same year, with only one amount of annual income goal.

· For financial professionals, there is a custom Fact Finder already made to work with the retirement calculator. It's a Word document that you just print, send, they fill it out and send it back, and you input the data into the retirement planner.

· Both client and spouse can each have two separate post-retirement earned incomes that can start and stop at any year, can be inflated, and can be manually overridden at each year.

Say someone wants to retire at 60, but has a side business they want to do from ages 66 to 75. You can account for two of these items each (total of four independent earned incomes).

You can enter this amount starting and stopping in any year, for just one client or both clients separately. Most retirement tools don't let you have any earned incomes at all.

· Both client and spouse can also each have up to two miscellaneous income or expenses that can start and stop at any year (but only once unless you use the manual override).

This is great for adding childcare expenses, debt payments, or recommended Long Term Care premiums in the proposed version.

You can enter this starting and stopping in any year, for both clients separately; and it can be inflated.

· Both client and spouse can each have up to three totally manual input items for expenses or income sources (without market values, rate of return, or regular cash flows). There is no automatic inflator or rate of return.

RP is the only retirement planner that does this for so many unique incomes and expenses (ten total), while giving you complete control over every income or expense number in the 70-year window.

· You can specify a client age (e.g., life expectancy) where the calculations stop, and separately, where the presentations stop. Most retirement calculators just keep on cranking out numbers way past the point of futility - after running out of money, or way past someone's life expectancy.

This is annoying because it's usually just a long list of meaningless negative numbers. So you just enter the age at which the oldest client will assume to pass away, and the age when the annual numbers on the presentation page just disappear.

This way if someone only expects to live until age 85, you can stop the whole thing from printing numbers at age 86, and you can use any age (it doesn't have to be the same year the presentations numbers stop - 85 in this example) as their life expectancy.

For example, you can tell the retirement spreadsheet to calculate numbers assuming life expectancy is 95, and at the same time tell it to stop printing numbers (on Presentation Pages 3 & 4) after age 90. This is useful in estate planning when you have this scenario, "I plan to croak at age 85, and I want there to be $500,000 left over to give to my kids. How much money can I have to retire on?" It's rare that a retirement spreadsheet will do all of these things easily and correctly without showing pages of meaningless negative numbers.

· You can change the titling on the presentation pages from Current to Proposed with one keystroke. When you choose "Current,"  the titles on all of the presentation pages say, "Current Illustration, before recommendations." Choose "Proposed" and the titles change to "Proposed Illustration." Choose "Neither" and all of this text goes away.

This is another feature that sets RP apart from all other retirement calculators that make you actually type these words in every time. The user can change the wording if they want on a client-by-client basis, or on a template basis. Or, you can change it display any text you like that will automatically toggle from this input area.

· You can change the wording on the results pages on a client-by-client basis, or on a template basis. Or, you can add anything you like, like more charts, which will automatically get data from anywhere else in the workbook.

· There are three layers of income goal inflation: Average over next 1-5, 1-10, & 1-20 + years. Actually there are five, and it's explained in the manual.

These averages are all "implied" meaning when you specify a 2.5% rate over the next 1-5 years, and 3.5% over the next 1-10 years, these are the true rates for each separate period. In other words, changing the first 1-10 year's rate does not affect the other rates. It asks you to fill out these three ranges in the fact finder.

Income goal inflation also can be manually overridden each year as explained below. For example, assume inflation is expected to be 6% for the next year instead of 3%, and then back to 3% the next year. You can do that.

The income goal inflation number on the presentation page is the average over the next 30 years. This is just about the only retirement calculator that allows this much control over assumed income goal inflation over three time periods (five really), and on a year-to-year basis.

· You can specify ages that both client and spouse start to collect Social Security separately, and at any year (not just 60 to 70).

You can specify how much both client and spouse get in Social Security separately. If someone wants to work past age 65 to get the maximum benefit, they can do that, regardless of when the other spouse started collecting theirs.

If someone is disabled at age 50 and is already getting their lifetime PIA, you can do that too. Most retirement savings calculators make both clients collect at the same time, or are limited to ages 62 and 65. This retirement planner gives much more control over Social Security.

Analysis of when it's optimal to start collecting Social Security benefits

· There is a "number rounder" that allows control of the amount of trailing zeros on the presentation pages. This allows you to round everything to the nearest $1, $10, $100 or $1,000.

Other retirement tools just calculate numbers and show them all down to the nearest dollar. RP will do that too, but most people don't want to convey this much accuracy. You have the option of controlling how many trailing zeros are in all of the numbers on all of the presentation pages. RP is the only retirement savings calculator that can do this with one keystroke.

· Both client and spouse can have their income goals overridden on a year-by-year basis. With other retirement planners, you input an income goal in today's dollars, and an inflation rate. The income goal then increases every year by the inflation rate, both before retirement, and after.

This is the normal thing, and of course that's how RP does it too. But, with RP, both the inflation rate and the annual income goals can be manually overridden on every year.

Say someone wants $4,000 a month in today's dollars inflated at 3%, but they also want it to go to $5,000 per month starting at age 70 (for any reason), inflating at 4%. You can do all of that, change it year-by-year, and more. No other retirement spreadsheet handles this real life scenario the way this retirement income calculator does.

· Our Cash Flow Projector is by far the best tool for projecting and using monthly budget amounts as a retirement income goal. After calculating how much money you're projected to need in the year you retire, you link/integrate them into RP for maximum accuracy. Then in every year, it will use the most accurate annual income need numbers possible.

You can use annual cash flow numbers from comprehensive and/or integrated planning software that doesn't do retirement plans very well, and enter these numbers into the retirement spreadsheet to complement these plans (that's how this whole thing got started!).

· Each of the ten assets can have its own unique effective date. This allows you to start an asset's life at any year - before anyone's year of retirement, the same year, or any year after retirement has begun for anyone.

For example, if you're expecting an inheritance at 70 (and you're 50 now and expect to be retired at 65), you can start this asset's life in the year you're 70.

This is extremely powerful. The vast majority of retirement tools will only let you start an asset in the current or retirement year. Some will let you start an asset in a future year, but it's rare that you can start an asset after retirement has begun. This allows analysis of more retirement strategies.

· Each asset has its own year when the retirement withdrawal becomes effective. You can tell the retirement income calculator what year the asset's income stream will kick in. This can be any year, even after retirement has started.

Until retirement withdrawal begins, it grows like you didn't retire, even if you retired ten years ago. This is very powerful because it simulates real life as closely as possible. Most retirement planners make retirement savings pay out only at globally specified retirement ages, some of the time only at age 65. This retirement strategy lets you control when assets pay out on an asset-by-asset basis. Then you can take out only the amount you want to.

· Each asset has its own rate of return (compounded annually) and it can be manually overridden each year. If you think an asset will have different rates of return in different years, or even a loss in some years, you can do this.

This is great for limited partnerships or laddered bond portfolios that have staggered maturities (see demo). There is a step-by-step example on how to do this in the manual.

· Each asset has a starting year when monthly contributions will start and stop. This can be any year, even a year after retirement has begun. It can be any number of years too, even just one.

You can also manually override every contribution at every year. For example, you can specify $100 monthly contributions to a 401(k) plan (that even currently doesn't exist because you haven't worked there long enough yet), inflating at 2% annually, with no contributions in the 4th year, a $50 contribution the 6th year, and a $200 withdrawal (or loan) in the 12th year. Years before (or after) the manual income withdrawals, it will use the $100 + 2% number as if nothing unusual happens in previous or future years.

This is great when someone says they will be eligible for their company 401(k) plan next year (or any future year), and they will start contributing to it then (and even better when they contribute in unequal cash flow amounts over any number of years).

So in this case, you basically have an asset with $0 as a beginning value this year, and the asset is then brought to life by making contributions in any future year.

Other retirement calculators do this, but RP is the only one that lets you make contributions after retirement has begun, allows you to start and stop contributions at any year (even after the asset has been alive for years already, or has depleted). You can manually override all of the contributions at any year, and also allows you to manually override each year's growth rate at any year.

· You can use Excel's built-in "Goal Seek" function to do more "What-if" scenarios than any other retirement calculator.

For example, just click on cell B35 of the Presentation Pages 1 & 2 sheet, then go to Tools, Goal Seek, Change the "To value:" field to zero, then click on the bottom field, then on any other input cell that will help make the retirement plan reach the goals better (like a rate of return input field of an asset sheet). Click OK, and Excel will automatically increase the rate of return until the amount of more money needed shown in cell B35 goes to zero.

Then you'll know the rate of return you'd need to get to reach your retirement goals, assuming all other input stayed the same.

With this feature, you can do all of the "What If?" and "Goal Seeking" functions that any other retirement software can do, plus dozens more retirement strategies that they can't do (because it's not written in MS Excel).

· The retirement spreadsheet illustrates a true 70-year window. In other words, it's so comprehensive that it will take a 25-year-old person up to age 95. Some other retirement calculators do this too, but it's rare.

· You can do an unlimited number of current and proposed scenario versions.

· Both client and spouse can each have a pension (or retirement savings with life incomes and no market values like annuities that have already been annuitized), and this income can be inflated.

Other retirement planner spreadsheets do pensions too, but this retirement income calculator only has four input fields, so it's easier to use than other retirement saving calculators, and it doesn't use an asset slot.

· The retirement planner is written in Excel, so you can change or customize most anything they want to on the presentation pages (a presentation page is a page that a financial planner would normally present results to you).

You can make new columns of data, new graphs, etc.

Presentation Pages (3 & 4) show the total end-of-year balance of all retirement saving assets combined, and a weighted rate of return on all assets combined at the end of every year.

In other words, it answers the question, "What's the rate of return on my whole retirement saving expected to be in every year from now, through retirement, and until I'm 100?"

This also tells you what the average rate of return on all retirement savings combined needs to be to reach retirement goals. It basically figures out the rate of return on all of the assets every year, weights them according to size, and gives an average.

For example: If there are only two assets- a $100,000 stock fund input at 10%, and a $100,000 money market input at 5%, the average weighted rate of return would be 7.5% (as long as the ending market values were equal at year end).

· The retirement calculator tells you the minimum rate of return on retirement savings needed to reach the goal (funding retirement through the maximum age input without running out of money).

· RP displays life expectancy, using IRS Unisex Mortality Tables, of both people when you input their year of birth. This shows on both the input and presentation pages.

· The retirement planner figures out how much more you need to invest, at a rate of return you specify, to make up for income goal deficits. This is given as a lump sum needed to be made today, or a monthly amount needed to fund the deficits paying from now to the year before retirement.

This is similar to other retirement planners, except the RP retirement savings calculator allows you to input an assumed discount rate needed to fund the deficits from now until retirement.

The lower and more conservative this rate of return, the higher the additional lump sum or monthly payments would be, and vice versa.

· RP has a disclaimer on the first presentation page that disclaims everything to keep everyone out of trouble, which can be changed.

· You can specify a Social Security inflation rate.

· Each individual asset has its own end-of-year balance column to show each asset's end-of-year balance after contributions and/or withdrawals are considered. Then they're all added up on the results page.

· Each asset sheet also shows all of the asset's cash flows over the 70 years. These sheets can also be printed individually showing every number in all 70 years.

· Retirement savings are segregated by oldest and youngest client to simulate Real World scenarios as closely as possible.

· Client and spouse names, all asset names, Current or Proposed Illustration, current ages, retirement ages, and calendar years are automatically filled in everywhere throughout the program (the main input page, every asset page, presentation pages, everywhere) for user friendliness.

When there is no spouse, all of the spouse data disappears everywhere for ease of input, use, and maximum white space.

Most retirement planners do this, but RP does it the best because it's all automatic. This is important because you won't lose your train of thought by having to look for this information in other parts of the spreadsheet all of the time.

· RP is the most flexible retirement calculating program when dealing with client names. Most retirement calculators simply can't handle some client names (e.g., Dr. John A. Smith and Mary Jones-Smith). RP easily does just about every combination imaginable.

· There are a substantial number of error messages that tell you about input errors made, and how to correct them (by telling exactly which cell needs to be changed and how).

· There is a 35-page "how to" user's manual that gives step-by-step instructions on how to use the retirement planner. Just about everything is covered in great detail. It's an MS Word document, so you can print it, easily search to find things, add notes, etc.

· All input cells are color coded to make it faster and easier to use. If it's not green then it's not an input cell. They change from green to gray after data is input, so you can quickly see if you missed anything.

· All non-input cells are protected to prevent user errors from destroying the program.