Hello everyone,
Today I’m excited to introduce the MoneyReady Year Check-in, created in response to years of requests for a complete first-year report.
A financial projection created in September should not pretend that September 1 was January 1.
The MoneyReady App TIME MACHINE normally begins on the day it is run. This anchors every projection in the most reliable starting point available: what you own, what you owe and the financial plan in place today.
Its primary purpose is to project forward from today, rather than reconstruct the part of the year that has already happened. Consequently, the current calendar year in a regular TIME MACHINE report is necessarily partial.
Many simpler calculators produce a complete first year by treating today as though it were January 1, or by moving the tax year-end to 12 months from today. That approach is simple and requires no additional information.
The resulting report may look complete, but it does not describe the actual calendar tax year. It is therefore of limited use, particularly for current-year financial and tax planning.
The MoneyReady Year Check-in takes a different, reality-based approach. It provides the most accurate full-year picture possible from the information available for current-year financial and tax planning.
It divides the current year into two clearly identified periods:
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- Year-to-date (YTD): January 1 through today.
- Rest of the year: Today through December 31.
The elapsed portion is initially estimated using the income, expenses, taxes and other information already in the plan.
These estimates provide a useful starting point, but information about what actually took place will normally be more accurate.
Known year-to-date amounts can therefore be entered to improve the report.
The remainder comes from the normal TIME MACHINE projection. The two periods are then combined to produce a full-year report.
Are you on track?
The central result is a comparison between the plan and what appears to have happened. Based on planned income, expenses and taxes, the Check-in calculates the household’s expected net account and debt activity by today. In other words, did the plan expect money to be contributed to accounts and used to repay debt, or did it expect withdrawals and borrowing to help fund spending? It then compares that result with the account and loan activity entered in the Check-in.
For example: The elapsed-year plan expected a net $12,000 to be directed toward accounts and debt. Entered account and loan activity shows $10,000, a $2,000 difference. That difference does not automatically identify its cause. It could reflect spending that differed from the plan, unexpected income, investment activity, transfers, missing information or some combination of these. It does, however, provide something valuable: a practical indication of whether the plan and the year that is actually unfolding still resemble each other.
How much information is required?
The Year Check-in is optional, and it can initially be viewed without entering any additional information. The first result estimates what it reasonably can from the existing plan and shows which values could be improved.
You do not need to enter every transaction. The form asks for summary balances and year-to-date totals.
For a more complete comparison, you can provide:
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- account balances at the end of last year;
- account-owner contributions and withdrawals so far this year;
- loan balances at the end of last year;
- additional amounts borrowed and loan payments made so far this year
- taxes paid or withheld;
- any RRSP deductions to be claimed for the year;
- taxable investment income and realized capital gains or losses.
Blank values remain unknown or are reasonably estimated where possible. The report can therefore be improved gradually, without reconstructing every transaction before seeing any results. You can then update entries throughout the year.
The historical account and loan information is used for the Check-in reports. It does not replace the current balances recorded in the plan.
Tax-related information, such as taxable RRSP withdrawals and the RRSP deduction claimed, can affect the current-year tax calculation.
Help from Wealthica
If accounts or loans are linked to Wealthica, available historical balances and transactions may be used to prefill some Check-in values.
The amount of usable history varies by financial institution and by when an account was connected. Wealthica may provide year-to-date transactions without a previous year-end balance, and some deposits, withdrawals, transfers or distributions may not be identifiable with certainty.
Values obtained through Wealthica should therefore be reviewed. They can reduce the work required, but they may not provide a complete Check-in on their own.
Understanding what happened inside the accounts
For accounts with complete information, the Check-in performs the following reconciliation:
Previous year-end balance + account owner deposits − withdrawals + implied growth or other activity = current balance
Implied growth or other activity can thus be estimated. It is deliberately broader than investment return, as it may also include employer or government contributions, contributions made by someone else, fees, transfers, currency movements and differences in the information entered.
The report does not claim to know more than the available data supports. Instead, it makes the unexplained portion visible.
What happens next?
A useful annual review should not stop at today.
After presenting the elapsed-year results, the Check-in shows the TIME MACHINE plan for the rest of the year, including planned account deposits, withdrawals, borrowing and loan payments.
It then combines both periods into a full-year report containing:
- full-year income, expenses and taxes;
- account and loan reconciliations;
- projected December 31 balances; and
- cash-flow diagrams showing where money came from and where it went.
The Year Check-in is therefore both a review and a planning tool. It asks two connected questions:
How has the year gone so far?
Given the situation today, what does the plan call for next?
How to access the Year Check-in
Paid subscribers can launch the Year Check-in directly from the Run TIME MACHINE page.
During the free trial, a regular TIME MACHINE run comes first so that the plan from today onward and its standard reports can be explored before adding the optional and more advanced elapsed-year analysis. The Year Check-in then becomes available for that plan at no cost.
A more honest complete first year
The Year Check-in does not rewrite history or assume that today is January 1. Nor does it require perfect records before it can be useful.
It starts with what the MoneyReady App already knows, estimates what it reasonably can, and improves as more information is supplied.
The result is a complete framework for the current calendar year that remains anchored to today’s real financial position—and a clearer answer to the questions that matter most:
Am I still on track this year, and what should happen between now and the end of the year?
