Can you give us a hint about functionality differences with the proposed web based system?
@plumber1412 Hi Jack, I'll try to get a newsletter out in November with more details but here's a quick summary:
Much more flexibility in the quantity of things such as income streams, expense items, accounts, etc., and most fixed-size inputs tables have been eliminated
Ability to specify ROR in terms of real or nominal values
Ability to use more than just stocks and bonds asset classes when using global asset allocation mode
Ability to specify annual increase of income streams in terms of real or nominal values, thus allowing them to be tied to inflation if desired (thus improving historic analysis)
Ability to automatically adjust the value of a pension (annuity or lump sum) based on your retirement date
One-month granularity in specifying Social Security start age
Improved ability to compute your earliest safe retirement date by doing better modeling of income and expense streams as a function of your retirement date
Improved optimization of Roth conversions
No more circular reference issues relative to computing taxes on unscheduled withdrawals in the year they occur
Faster Monte Carlo and historical analyses
Robust canned tabular projections rather than the flexible tabular projections of the Excel model
PDF reports can be wider than one page
User manual will be integrated with the operational tool
You’ll always be running the most current version with no more requirement to do downloads, imports and exports
Stuart
Thanks for the update. I look forward to the final product.
The right time to do financial planning is always "now," so given all factors, there's no real penalty to buying Pralana today and getting started. Doing that will allow you to become organized in your accounts/data/plans and also with the many interwoven factors in planning (taxes, health insurance, etc). You'll get the next version at a discount and you always need to upgrade anyway, due to the ever-changing (especially recent years!) tax law around personal finance and retirement.
Regarding being in the cloud vs locally on Excel, remember that Pralana never asks for sensitive info like account numbers, SSNs, etc. I'm a former ethical hacker, so this kind of data isn't really attractive to the black hats out there. It's just a bunch of numbers. There's nothing of use, and could just be sample or test case info. Just always use strong passwords and good personal finance hygiene - make sure your credit is frozen at all three major credit bureaus, don't click links in emails or texts, etc. You could create a new email address just for the use of Pralana, if you want to separate it from the rest of your life and identity.
I always reiterate that I've used the "big three" planning tools that are only available to licensed, registered financial planners like me(eMoney, Money Guide Pro, Right Capital). Those cost thousands of dollars a year to use, hundreds per month. Pralana is better than them, and ridiculously inexpensive given the benefit and savings, if used properly.
If you decide to discontinue using it, you have your plan, you have your reports, you should have your roadmap all laid out. You just won't get the benefit of the software reflecting new tax law and so forth. You won't get that with a static Excel version either, or any software.
@hines202 Agree with everything you say Bill with one exception, purchasing PRC a few months before a new release comes out (Excel version). Why do that when you could wait a few months and get the fresh version? I wouldn't buy a copy of any software or tool if I knew an updated version was right around the corner. But that seems a moot point now, because the online, 365 day subscription model is a better deal if you subscribe at a point where you can use it for the current year AND capture next years update when it comes out.
Thanks Stuart for the sneak peak at the web version features, it sounds great! While I'm sure it's a ton of work to get it all going, leaving Excel's limitations behind will make Pralana even better. A complicated Excel program like Pralana is also fiendishly hard to maintain, a modern language will be way easier to add features to, adjust when tax laws change, debug, etc.
Looking forward to seeing the new product.
@ricke Hi Rick, thanks for your comments! You're absolutely right that getting away from Excel is going to greatly improve the maintainability of the product, and I'm confident that it will be much better for the users, too!
Stuart
@ricke Not to mention the ability to add better visualizations of data and results, charts, graphs, etc. Making them interactive too.
Not sure I see the security risk. It's not like your giving PRC (online) direct access to your accounts (like Personal Capital), or even entering account numbers (or where the accounts are located). Just numerical values. Go a step further and use a different email address (minus personal info) and there's no way for anyone to link the data back you. Even then, there's nothing of value in the data itself. - without a location, account #, password and 2FA, a thief will have nothing to work from.
Contrast that with having everything stored on your local PC and it gets stolen. There's a trove of data to inform a crook where to go to hack accounts (unless of course you are good at securing your laptop - which you should be doing already).
BTW - using PRC from prior years seems pointless and ill-advised. Tax rules, tables, etc. will be outdated and throw off results.
Stuart - will you be utilizing some form of 2FA on the site? Passkey?
