Not specifically a comment on the manual... but a suggestion to consider is making some high Quality Youtube videos or videos on this website (probably even better) with examples. I watched the Bogleheads conference with Pralana on YouTube. I watched it several times actually and even though the quality of the video was not high I learned something from it by just watching and listening as the author (yourself) used the program, I learned how it operates better.
That video had people asking questions which seemed to interrupt the flow of the presentation, some clean high quality screens with you going through the use of the program I think would be very helpful for new or even experienced users of the program. While a written manual is good, I do not think people will learn as quickly as watching an experienced user put the program through its paces and point out features as you go, that narrative really helps learning, and helps people understand the logic of how the programs flows. These could be of particular value in teaching advanced topics like the withdrawal order, the Roth conversions, IRMAA impacts etc.
A few higher level personal preference thoughts for UM et al.
- Prefer stand-alone documentation file representing properly formatted UM for printing, offline viewing and markup.
- Comprehensive index would be extremely useful and general technical documentation best practice.
- Include clear software update details - Any, all documentation should contain explicit indication of version and correlation to current software. To include meaningful change log or release notes addendum. Functionality changes cross referenced to UM sections/detail.
- Appendix Reference citations to foundational concepts, theory.
This comment is not specific to the manual either, but would like the new release to cover withdrawal strategies, specifically sequence withdrawal selections - what level of tax, and what source of funds and actions that go along with the exchange (rebalancing etc.). 'Dreaming' of a nice UI that allows sliders and graphics which displays / communicates each of these sources of funds and actions.
I found an interesting article on Morningstar.com (url provided below) which is an interview with Michael Kitces on this topic and methodology.
https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/how-sequence-withdrawals-retirement
I'll cover some of the common (and very uncommon, but interesting, such as "I don't want to pay any taxes") use cases I've developed with my clients over the years in the Pralana book I'll put out. Hopefully it will coincide with the release of the web version, and I'll coordinate with Stuart to include things suggested here that might not be in the online help.
@hines202 The answer to "I don't want to pay any taxes" is...consider a different country
Would be nice if the app had the ability to "flag" entries that fall outside normal ranges or limits. There may be some subjectivity to this feature, but it would be a safeguard against mistyped or other "odd" entries that could really help save some people from making some bad decisions about their finances as a "second set of eyes" or guardrails.
@nc-cpl You mean like mistakenly putting in the monthly Social Security amount instead of the annual, and having a heart attack when the analysis graph shows a nose-dive and low success? Or monthly amounts instead of annual in the expenses and getting a false positive success rate? 🙂
@hines202 In a word...yes? I was thinking of how TurboTax flags certain entries as you go along. If something stand s out it will ask you if that really applies or is correct. You can always choose to go with it if it is but at least it stops you momentarily and rethink if its accurate. That kind of feature.
Because the challenge with PRC is it relies solely on the user to always enter everything correctly/ accurately. People's knowledge about taxes, ROR, etc. varies. If you spend 5-7 hours entering data and then something doesn't look right, you may have no clue where to trace the problem back to, and because a bad entry in one place can impact something in another place, it's even harder to troubleshoot. This was my biggest challenge as I was learning it.
Even a small error, taken out over a retirement planning timeframe can result in a big error 20 years later, and that resulting error can change decisions you make today (i.e., overspend or underspend in retirement, go too risky on assets, etc.)!
Kind of like this real-world example of a planning trajectory gone horribly wrong...
NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched. A navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory used the metric system of millimeters and meters in its calculations, while Lockheed Martin provided crucial acceleration data in the English system of inches, feet and pounds. As a result, JPL engineers mistook acceleration readings measured in English units of pound-seconds for a metric measure of force called newton-seconds.
None of JPL’s rigorous quality control procedures caught the error in the nine months it took the spacecraft to make its 461-million-mile flight to Mars. Over the course of the journey, the miscalculations were enough to throw the spacecraft so far off track that it flew too deeply into the Martian atmosphere and was destroyed when it entered its initial orbit around Mars last week.
Oopsy!
