Nous avons apporté plusieurs améliorations aux rapports de résultats du TIME MACHINE afin de les rendre plus faciles à explorer, comparer, sauvegarder et imprimer.

Choisissez votre vue TIME MACHINE par défaut

Dans vos PRÉFÉRENCES, vous pouvez maintenant choisir la vue de rapport TIME MACHINE que vous voulez voir par défaut.

Il y a trois vues, selon le niveau de détail que vous souhaitez :

Résumé des flux de trésorerie

Il s’agit du rapport le plus résumé. Pour chaque année, il présente le total des entrées de fonds, le total des sorties de fonds et maintenant aussi la valeur nette, y compris les soldes des comptes regroupés par type de compte. Il s’agit maintenant d’un rapport financier sommaire complet, et c’est la nouvelle vue par défaut pour les nouveaux utilisateurs.

Vue TimeTable

Il s’agit d’une vue plus détaillée qui présente le revenu de pensions publiques pour chaque conjoint, les totaux des impôts payés, des dépenses et de l’épargne nette, ainsi que la valeur nette et, pour chaque compte, le solde, les dépôts nets et la croissance. C’était auparavant la vue TIME MACHINE par défaut.

Vue détaillée des flux de trésorerie

Il s’agit du rapport le plus complet. Il comprend des tableaux détaillés pour les flux de trésorerie, les impôts, le bilan, les gains des comptes et les valeurs successorales. La vue détaillée présente notamment :

chaque source de revenu et de dépense
le revenu imposable par type
les impôts payés et les taux d’imposition
la valeur nette de chaque conjoint
les soldes des comptes, des prêts et des biens immobiliers
la croissance des placements par compte et par type de croissance
les impôts finaux, les frais d’homologation et les montants à hériter

Toutes les vues incluent maintenant tous les graphiques

Auparavant, plusieurs graphiques étaient seulement disponibles dans la vue TimeTable.

Maintenant, les trois vues affichent tous les graphiques.

Vous pouvez aussi cliquer sur 📊 dans les en-têtes des tableaux pour voir des graphiques additionnels pour ces données. Les graphiques permettent de visualiser plus facilement l’information contenue dans les tableaux et de mieux comprendre ce qui se passe dans les résultats.

Comme auparavant, vous pouvez aussi cliquer sur n’importe quelle année pour ouvrir un rapport détaillé pour cette année, y compris des diagrammes Sankey des flux de trésorerie.

Passez facilement d’une vue à l’autre

Quelle que soit la vue que vous préférez, vous pouvez passer de la vue Résumé à la vue TimeTable ou à la vue détaillée à partir de la barre de navigation au bas des rapports.

À partir de cette même zone de navigation, vous pouvez aussi :

    sauvegarder votre exécution et votre scénario
    télécharger les tableaux vers Excel
    ouvrir le rapport complet et tout télécharger en PDF

Rapport complet et PDF personnalisables

Le rapport complet est maintenant personnalisable. Cette fonctionnalité devrait être particulièrement utile aux conseillers qui souhaitent fournir un rapport PDF à leurs clients.

La table des matières à gauche vous permet de naviguer dans le rapport, de choisir ce qui sera inclus dans le PDF et de réordonner les sections du rapport par glisser-déposer.

Vous pouvez aussi sauvegarder votre mise en page. Cela signifie que si vous masquez, affichez ou réordonnez certains éléments du rapport, le rapport peut se souvenir de votre mise en page préférée.

Vous pouvez même sauvegarder une mise en page comme valeur par défaut, afin que les futurs rapports s’ouvrent avec la même structure dans la mesure du possible. Les changements aux comptes, aux prêts ou à d’autres détails du plan peuvent quand même avoir une incidence sur l’ordre et la visibilité, mais le rapport fera de son mieux pour conserver votre mise en page sauvegardée.

Nous espérons que ces changements rendent les résultats du TIME MACHINE plus faciles à lire, à explorer et à sauvegarder. Dites-nous si vous avez des suggestions de choses que vous aimeriez voir dans les rapports.

We’ve made several improvements to the TIME MACHINE result reports to make them easier to explore, compare, save, and print.

Choose your default TIME MACHINE view

In PREFERENCES, you can now choose which TIME MACHINE report view you want to see by default.

There are three views, depending on how much detail you want:

Summary cash flow
This is the most summarized report. For each year, it shows total cash coming in, total cash going out, and now also Net Worth, including account balances totalled by account type. This is now a complete summary financial report, and it is the new default view for new users.

TimeTable view
This is a more detailed view showing public pension income for each spouse, totals for taxes paid, spending, net savings, along with net worth, and each account's balance, net deposits, and growth. This was previously the default TIME MACHINE view.

Detailed cash flow view
This is the most comprehensive report. It includes detailed tables for Cash flow, Taxes, Balance sheet, Account Gains, and Legacy values. The detailed view breaks out items such as:

• • • each source of income and expense
    • taxable income by type
    • taxes paid and tax rates
    • net worth by spouse
    • balances for accounts, loans, and real estate
    • investment growth by account and growth type
    • final taxes, probate, and amounts to be inherited

All views now include all charts

Previously, many charts were only available in the TimeTable view.

Now, all three views show all the charts.

You can now also click on 📊 in the table headers to see additional charts for those numbers in the table. Charts make it easy to see the info in the tables. and to understand what is happening in the results.

And as before, you can click on any year to open a detailed report for that year, including Sankey cash flow diagrams.

Switch views easily

Whichever view you prefer, you can switch between the Summary, TimeTable, and Detailed views from the bottom navigation bar in the reports.

From that same navigation area, you can also:

• • save your run and scenario
  • download tables to Excel
  • open the full Report download everything to PDF

Customizable full Report and PDF

The full Report is now customizable. This feature should be most useful to Advisors who want to provide a PDF report to their clients.

The table of contents on the left lets you navigate the report, choose what will be included in the PDF, and reorder report sections by drag and drop.

You can also save your layout. That means if you hide, show, or reorder report elements, the Report can remember your preferred layout.

You can even save a layout as your default, so future reports open with the same structure whenever possible. Changes to accounts, loans, or other plan details may still affect ordering and visibility, but the Report will do its best to preserve your saved layout. 

We hope these changes make the TIME MACHINE results easier to read, explore, and save. Let me know if you have any suggestions for things you want in the reports.

We worked on making reports more dynamic this past month:

More charts:

📊 Any column or row headers of tables with amounts over years in the TIME MACHINE can be clicked to see a chart of those values. Much easier than looking at numbers in the tables.

The extensive REPORT is now customizable:

A table of contents on the left lets you easily navigate the full HTML report. You use it to select what is visible and will be printed in the PDF, and you can reorder elements by drag and drop. You can save your custom layout as the default.

Le mois dernier, on a travaillé à rendre les rapports plus dynamiques :

Plus de graphiques :

📊 Il est maintenant possible de cliquer sur les en-têtes de colonnes ou de lignes des tableaux présentant des montants sur plusieurs années dans la TIME MACHINE pour afficher un graphique correspondant. C'est beaucoup plus facile que de regarder les chiffres dans les tableaux.

Le RAPPORT complet est maintenant personnalisable :

Une table des matières située à gauche permet de naviguer facilement dans le rapport HTML complet. Vous pouvez l’utiliser pour sélectionner les éléments visibles et ceux qui seront imprimés dans le PDF, et réorganiser ces éléments par glisser-déposer. Vous pouvez sauvegarder votre mise en page personnalisée comme disposition par défaut.

L’application MoneyReady est enfin offerte en français! Vous pouvez choisir votre langue de préférence dans PRÉFÉRENCES.

Toutes les pages du site Web ont maintenant été traduites, y compris les pages d’aide. Nous travaillons encore sur les versions françaises du livre électronique PDF et des articles de blogue.

The MoneyReady App is finally available in French! You can set your language preference in PREFERENCES.

All pages on the website have now been translated, including the help pages. We are still working on the French versions of the PDF eBook and our blog posts.

New Year checklist:
  My favourite time to run the TIME MACHINE is early January. This is because the current year then acts very much like a future year in the TIME MACHINE. There is no need to consider what contributions have already been made, what taxes have already been paid, and no need to prorate any amounts for incomes, expenses and savings. Here is a list of things that need to be updated at the start of the year, and sometimes throughout the year, to keep the current year calculation as accurate as possible.

  1. CPP/QPP table(s). An entry for pensionable earnings for last year will appear. You will need to estimate what those were until the actual amount is updated at the CRA or Retraite Québec later in the year.
  2. RRIFs and LIFs.  For each of these, within 'Edit Account properties', enter the balance of the account at the end of last year. If you make any withdrawals during the year, update the total withdrawn this year.
  3. RDSPs. 'Edit Account properties' for these, and update the table of previous contributions if one appears. If you make a contribution this year, enter the amount once made, and you will need to come back and check the box once the grants/bonds have been received so that they are not double-counted in the TIME MACHINE.
 4. TIME MACHINE. There are up to 3 screens that capture current year tax information before running the TIME MACHINE: one for yourself, one for your spouse and one for your CCPC when applicable. Please update the amounts asked for the current year, and keep them updated throughout the year.
  5. Tax owing or refund. If you expect a tax refund from the previous year's taxes, you can enter it as an Income (Other, not taxable) with start and end dates on the date you expect to receive it. Similarly, for tax owing, enter it as an Expense for the date you expect to pay it.

Happy New Year!

The program is not indexing the CPP and OAS to inflation, it's the same amount all the way down.

My last announcements have been all about Building a Resilient Financial Plan, using Monte Carlo simulations and SCANS.
These address the risks to your financial plan stemming from market volatility and the uncertainty in the timing of various life events like retirement and death.

There is yet another risk to financial plans: policy risk,  as governments can change tax and pension policies. 
A recent federal budget and a climbing budget deficit have got people anxious and speculating about what changes the government will make. They ask me how those changes would affect their financial plan.

We do not know what changes governments will make, nor when a change would apply, but the MoneyReady App was always meant to be an exploratory tool. We've set up some canned scans that can modify internal parameters of the app to address a selection of users' fears or expectations of particular policy changes:

1: Reduce the OAS Minimum income recovery threshold:
This scan reduces the current OAS Minimum income recovery threshold by a factor of 0.9 (a 10% reduction) to 0 (no minimum income for clawback).
2: Reduce capital gains exemption on sale of principal residence:
This scan reduces the current capital gains exemption on the sale of principal residence by a factor of 0.9 (a 10% reduction) to 0 (no exemption).
3: Reduce RRIF/LIF required minimum withdrawals.
This scan reduces the current RRIF and LIF required minimum withdrawals by a factor of 0.9 (a 10% reduction) to 0 (no minimum withdrawals required).
4: Capital gains inclusion rate.
This scan changes the current (50%) realised capital gains inclusion rate into taxable income from 0% (no tax on capital gains) to 100% (capital gains fully taxed as regular income). 
This only applies to non-registered investments (personal or business).

The scan applies the changed parameters from today. 

Obviously, this is only a small selection of potential policy changes. We could imagine changes in tax brackets and rates, caps on tax-advantaged accounts, etc.

I don't want to scare you. These are not predictions; they are just for fun.

Let us know if there's another policy change you'd like to explore.

Other announcements:

• Once an account has converted to an RRIF or LIF, this is now indicated in the Warning/Info column of the Timetable.
• The year reports and detailed reports of the TIME MACHINE now break down the total of TDA withdrawals by required minimum withdrawals and voluntary withdrawals. 
• You can now set the age at which to stop CPP or QPP contributions if you work past 65.
• You can now set GIS to be ignored in the TIME MACHINE.
• We've added support for BC and AB property tax deferral loans for users from those provinces.

Last week, we introduced Guardrails—automatic, dynamic spending adjustments that help reduce sequence-of-returns risk.

But markets aren’t the only risk. Retiring too soon, living longer than expected, inflation surprises, or simply overspending can all derail a plan.

That’s where SCANS come in. Scans let you sweep key scenario parameters (amounts, dates, life events) to test many “what-ifs” quickly to see how robust your plan is.  It’s one of MoneyReady App’s most powerful features—and now even easier to use.

We’ve added Canned Scans for common risks (longevity, survivorship, early retirement timing, and inflation). One click runs a full set of Time Machine scenarios. You can edit any canned Scan to fit your situation, then save your own for instant re-runs as your numbers change.

👉 Blog post for the details: Building a Resilient Financial Plan

Got ideas for additional canned Scans you think would help others? Post them here!
We’d also love to hear about the custom Scans you’ve built and how they helped your planning.

Hi Everyone,

Several announcements for the beginning of October.

1. Guardrails.
To stress-test your scenario, the 100 Monte Carlo simulation results show you the percentage of runs that did not have a cash-flow problem. 
You want that success rate to be high. If it is low, then your plan is at risk, and a common strategy to mitigate that risk is to reduce spending. Of course, you can adjust your EXPENSES entries to modify the amounts or the dates they apply. 

The new Guardrails feature allows you to explore, without changing your EXPENSE entries yourself, if a dynamic strategy to adapt your account withdrawals in years following years where the market returns have been lower than your expected returns, will help to not run out of money and thus your success rate in the simulations.

It works this way:
After 100 simulations, the success rate is calculated. If it is less than 90% then another 100 simulations are run, but these also reduce your EXPENSE entries by 10% for any years following a year where market returns were lower than the expected return of your entire portfolio at that time. 
Reducing expenses will reduce the required income from your accounts, thus reducing withdrawals, and that will lead to a higher success rate. 
If still not over 90%, it runs another 100 simulations the same way, this time reducing the expenses by 20%, then again by 30% if it has to.

Be patient, as although the 100 simulations are parallelised so that they complete faster, each set of 100 must be run sequentially, so it might take some time to run up to 4 sets. You’ll be able to see the results of each of the sets. 

What this analysis shows is that you may need to be vigilant with your spending, and you may need to monitor your actual returns in the market and adapt your spending to it.

2. New Chart in the TIME MACHINE results

The guardrails feature requires the calculation of your overall average expected returns in every year of the TIME MACHINE.
I thought this would be useful information, and it has been added as a new Chart in the TIME MACHINE results (new runs only).
You might be surprised at first that your overall average expected return can vary over time. This will happen when you have different expected rates of return for different accounts. 
The overall rate will change as some accounts are depleted or others increase in value. 
The new chart is right above the overall asset allocation charts, as that also varies with time for the same reason.

3. Last resort withdrawals.

The simulations showed us an issue if you set some Withdrawal Priorities limits to 0%. 
The TIME MACHINE follows your orders and refuses to withdraw from those accounts.
That is fine in cases you actually want to make sure those accounts are never withdrawn from, but often in simulations, where the market can go really bad on you, you may need to access that money or run into a cash-flow problem.
For that reason, in years there is a cash-flow problem the TIME MACHINE could not resolve (even if there's a spouse it can try to get money from), the TIME MACHINE will go through another round of your Withdrawal Priorities, ignoring any limits on withdrawals (except for CRA-imposed ones that are never ignored).
So as a last resort, you can always access all of your accounts. When that happens, a Warning is shown in the Timetable for the years it did so you know that happened.

4. Lots of styling changes on the web pages. 
The left menu is now collapsible, which gives you more room to see things on smaller screens. 
A new bottom menu is now visible on all the various reports of the TIME MACHINE, so you can navigate within and between the reports quickly and easily. 
In comparison reports, the scrolling of side-by-side TIME TABLE comparisons is synced both horizontally and vertically. 

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions,
Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a great summer. Mine was spent mostly on back-end improvements. We were getting close to outgrowing our cloud provider in terms of capacity for running simultaneous TIME MACHINES  as the MoneyReady App user-base has increased dramatically in the last few of years, a good problem to have. Growing pains were expected as the MoneyReady App turned 6 years old this summer! After considering several options, we finally moved the entire site to Amazon AWS in Montréal. It went quite smoothly with no disruptions for our users, and I'm very happy with that service.

But today I want to announce a new feature and front-end improvements that you will notice:

For maximum accuracy, the TIME MACHINE uses calendar dates for its calculations, so it needs actual dates. However dates that are far in future are hard to grasp, and we naturally tend to want to convert that date to the age we will be at that date. For this reason, in most forms where a date is required, you can now enter a date, or an age (less accurate), or the life event you want the date tied to. In all cases it is the date that will be used in the TIME MACHINE, and you will see below the entry what date that is, and what age that corresponds to (in years and months).

The new LIFE EVENTS table stores the important dates.  We pre-filled it with what you’ve entered in your Quick Entry Form or later edits, for your retirement date, for the age of the start of taking CPP/QPP and OAS, and the year of death. We also added some convenience dates when you have a spouse, like first and last to retire, and first and last to die. All the life event in this table can be used to link most of your subsequent entries for the start or end of INCOMES, EXPENSES, AUTOMATIC SAVINGS/WITHDRAWALS etc. to that life event. 

This new feature is entirely backwards compatible with what you previously entered, as we've always provided the ability to linking entries to your retirement date (or spouse's). You will find them still linked in that case. The difference is that the retirement dates will now be found under LIFE EVENTS in the left menu, and no longer under PROFILE.

You can edit these life events, and when you change the date, all dates linked to that life event will be changed automatically. For example, the default pre-retirement EXPENSES entry that was automatically added for you will have its start linked to "Previous to this year" and end linked to your retirement date. The post-retirement EXPENSES has its start date linked to retirement and end linked to the date of death.

This LIFE EVENTS table also shows you the entries that are linked to the life event.

You can add your own life-events that you may want to link entries to. For example: "start family", "inheritance", "buy house", "empty nester", "downsize", you get the idea. This is great to do if there is a  life event that you want to tie to changes to in your INCOMES,  EXPENSES, SAVINGS, REAL ESTATE, and other entries. You will also be able to run SCANS on that life event to explore a range of dates for that life events automatically, and all entries linked to it will automatically use that new date.

I hope you have as much fun playing with it as I had implementing it. It's a powerful new feature for easily exploring and comparing different scenarios. As always your feedback, questions, and suggestions are always welcome.

Elisabeth

The big news today is that the house of commons approved the proposed tax cut for the lowest income tax bracket. It still has to pass legislation, but that looks like a done deal, so we've implemented it in the MoneyReadyApp. It will go from 15% to 14.5% in 2025 and 14% in 2026. This will help everybody as it reduces the taxes paid on the first $57.375 of earnings. However, that lowest tax rate is also used to calculate non-refundable tax credits, so the overall tax savings may be a little lower than advertised

Other recent changes:

You can now link an EXPENSE to a real estate property. This makes sure the expense does not occur before the property is bought or after the property is sold.

I've been asked too often (including on this forum) how to enter an inheritance. A new `Inheritance' INCOME type makes it easier.

With the current volatility in markets around the world, this announcement of new features to make updating all investments' properties easier is either timely or untimely. That depends on whether you closely monitor your investments or ignore them in such times.

Mock investments. You can now set any investment (except 'Cash' investments) to be ignored in the TIME MACHINE and in net worth calculations. This is useful to run scenarios with portfolios of different investments you are considering. Ignored investments will still have their values automatically updated with FUNData market data or Wealthica when applicable, so it's also useful to just follow these investments you are considering but may not own yet.

View/Edit all Investments in all Accounts now allows you to edit most properties of all investments entered all on one page. Besides price, shares, market value, and book value, you can now change the risk value, default current expected returns, fees, and whether to ignore the investment or not.

Update from a spreadsheet. If you have many investments that need to be entered or updated manually, you may want to update from a spreadsheet (particularly if you do not use Wealthica). Most financial institutions allow you to download your investment values into a comma-separated (csv) or other file format that you can then get into a spreadsheet program to view it. Once you have your data in a spreadsheet program like Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers, you can now import those data to update your investments in the MoneyReady App.  For adding new accounts and their investments, first add the Account in the app, then the spreadsheet can be used to add the investments into it. I refer you to the eBook to learn how to set up the spreadsheet for import. It's easy to get a template by simply downloading your current list of investments from the View/Edit all Investments in all Accounts page.

Many are asking me how to deal with the current market volatility. Do not panic. Keep a long-term view for long-term investments. Make sure the money that is needed short-term is there for you by not having it tied up in the market.

Remember, we provide the tools for you to determine how resilient your portfolio is and thus be prepared for market volatility: https://www.moneyreadyapp.ca/blog/post/14

All the Best to all my fellow Canadians,
Elisabeth

In my last Announcement, I mentioned users wanted more and more detailed reporting.

• We've added a new GAINS table in the year reports. 
  • This table breaks down the total investment gains by type (interest, foreign dividends, eligible dividends, capital growth), by account type and for each account. It also shows the total fees (account maintenance fees, trading fees, and MER fees) paid, and any foreign taxes withheld. Additionally, realised capital gains and losses are shown.
• A new Sankey diagram right above the GAINS table shows the cash-flows in and out for the different account types types. 
• To accurately report the MER fees, we need to capture these for your ETF and mutual fund investments (optional).
  • The Management Expense Ratio (MER) corresponds to the total cost of managing and operating the fund, expressed as a percentage of the fund's assets. It is charged indirectly to the investor by reducing the returns. Fund returns are always reported by the fund after deducting the MER. We ask if the expected rates of return have not already been reduced by the MER. If you check the box, then the MER entered will reduce the expected yields you entered in the TIME MACHINE. Leave the box unchecked if you do not want the returns to be reduced by the MER. In either case, you will see an estimate of the fees paid in total for each account in the GAINS table. 
  • We will be adding the current MER fees as defaults for the most commonly-held ETFs eventually, but you may need to look up up the MER fees for your fund.
• You can now run 100 market-model simulations on Optimized scenarios. 
  • When you run the Withdrawal Optimizer or the CPP/QPP and Withdrawal Optimizer, there will be a button to run 100 market simulations on the results of that run (under Tools). For these simulation runs, the market model is used, but also your scenario will be modified (in the background) with the changes made to your scenario to reflect the results of the optimization. This means each simulation run will use the withdrawal strategy of the optimized run, and the optimal CPP/QPP start age(s) it calculated in the case of the CPP/QPP and Withdrawal Optimizer.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

PRIORITIES determine the order of accounts to deposit money in years you have a surplus, or to withdraw from accounts in years you have a deficit.  It is a great strength of the MoneyReady App that you can control that, but I've noticed that sometimes users get stuck on this.

PRIORITIES tables no longer intermingle your accounts with your spouse’s accounts and your CCPC accounts. 
Each of those now require separate tables. This sounds like it would be more complicated, but it actually makes things a lot clearer.

The entire PRIORITIES section of the eBook has been rewritten, and for visual learners, we have created a new video explaining how PRIORITIES work in detail.

It was a good time to make this change as you will be required to review your PRIORITIES with the New Year (see below).

I'm a bit sad to see 2024 go, as it was an amazing standout year for the MoneyReady App. We celebrated it turning 5 years old, and though you'd think we'd run out of features to add, far from it! Here's a brief summary of the upgrades we made and announced in 2024:

Reporting.

• The summary cash-flow report has been a big hit. So much so that I've been considering showing it instead of the TIME TABLE as the default report you see at first.  What do you think?
• The Table of Contents of the full Report has also been appreciated. However, someone made the comment on social media that our reports are too extensive. Given that my actual users most often request more and more detailed reporting, I do find that an odd comment.
  
• We've recently added a new graph breaking down the source of investment growth over all your accounts, and we are planning more detailed reporting of growth.

SCANS.

• The ability to do parameter scans was added at the end of March. It's a powerful feature, I'm surprised it's not used more.
• We recently added the ability to run SCANs with the Withdrawal Optimizer, and that should help its popularity. Particularly if you have investments held in your corporation (see below).

Taxes.

• The Federal government kind of forced our hand here with the changes in the Capital Gains, and the Alternative Minimum Tax. We ended up implementing the AMT. I expect more changes to come.
• Québec likes to do things differently, and we worked on implementing more of its particularities for improved Québec tax calculations and our reporting of them.  We now include RAMQ premiums and contributions to the Health Services Fund when payable. We've added the Senior Assistance tax credit, the Solidarity tax credit, and the Family Allowance. 

Permanent life insurance.

• This had been often requested but was very difficult to add. It's difficult because only the insurance company has all the information necessary to do all the calculations. The workaround requires you to get an "illustration" from your insurance advisor, that we can now incorporate into the MoneyReady App.

CCPCs.

• We greatly improved the reporting for CCPCs. They now have their own detailed year reports, complete with Sankey cash-flow diagrams.
• What I'm most proud of is the ability to automatically direct the tax-optimal withdrawals of the different types of dividends from the CCPC.
• Combined with the ability to perform SCANS on the amount of income required, you can find the optimal mix of salary and dividends to withdraw from your CCPC before retirement.
• For after retirement, you can run a SCAN with the Withdrawal Optimizer of the dividend income required to determine the best withdrawal strategy in retirement considering both the CCPC investment accounts and your own personal accounts.

All this hard work paid off as we got attention from the Press this year. Both Bruce Sellery and Rob Carrick told me it was MoneyReady App users who recommended the app to them and urged them to make it widely known. And they did, big time.  Many of you now are new users, so welcome! 

You know where to find me if you have questions, comments, or suggestions.
Thank you for spreading the word.

Happy New Year everyone!

Elisabeth

New Year Checklist:
Here is a list of things that need to be updated at the start of the year, and sometimes throughout the year to keep the TIME MACHINE calculation as accurate as possible.

• CPP/QPP table(s). An entry for pensionable earnings for last year will appear. You will need to estimate what those were until the actual amount is updated at the CRA or Retraite Québec later in the year. 
• Changes in ACCOUNTS. For the accounts listed below, you’ll need to ’Edit Account Properties’. Review each account, and click ’Save and continue’ on every form, as some of the information required may appear on subsequent forms.
  • RRIFs and LIFs. For each of these, enter the balance of the account at the end of last year. If you make any withdrawals during the year, update the total withdrawn this current year.
  • FHSAs. You must also ’Edit Account properties’ for any FHSAs to reflect the cumulative amount contributed to date.
  • RDSPs. Update the table of previous contributions if one appears. If you make a contribution this year, enter the amount once made, and you will need to come back and check the box once the grants/bonds have been received so that they are not double counted in the TIME MACHINE.
  • RESPs. Make sure the table of previous contributions and withdrawals is kept up to date.

• PRIORITIES. Just review the PRIORITIES once you've updated the accounts. A new entry for this year will be created automatically from last year if you haven’t created one for the new year previously.
• TIME MACHINE. There are up to 3 screens that capture current year tax information before running the TIME MACHINE: one for yourself, one for your spouse, and one for your CCPC when applicable. Please update the amounts asked for the current year, and keep them updated throughout the year.
• Tax owing or refund. If you expect a tax refund from the previous year’s taxes, you can enter it as an Income (Other, not taxable) with start and end dates on the date you expect to receive it. Similarly for tax owing, enter it as an Expense for the date you expect to pay it.

Hi everyone,

The response to the press attention mentioned in my last two announcements has been phenomenal and has kept me very busy answering questions from new users. But I've also made improvements to the MoneyReadyApp over the last couple of months that I'd like to share with you today.

1. SCANs can now be run with the Withdrawal Optimizer. This makes it possible to make sure your after-retirement withdrawal strategy is optimal for any value of the parameters being scanned.
2. It also makes it possible to determine the best withdrawal strategy that also considers the depletion from CCPC investment accounts by performing a SCAN on the Optimized Dividend INCOME from the CCPC. This is a feature I've gotten a lot of requests for from business owners. 
3. If you have a CCPC, the value of the CCPC at death is now shown in your list of saved runs so you can easily consider the value of both your CCPC and personal estate when comparing runs.
4. Using a younger spouse’s age to calculate the minimum required RRIF/LIF withdrawals is usually beneficial so we had made it the default behavior, but it is now optional. For accounts where that may be applicable, Edit the Account Properties until it asks you whether to use the younger spouse’s age. Uncheck the box if you want the account’s owner age used to determine the minimum withdrawal.
5. The 100 Monte Carlo simulation results now display how many of the samples did not have a cash-flow problem.
6. We now consider Preferred shares as having their own separate asset allocation separate from Equities (common shares). With the rise of Crypto ETFs, we also allow an asset allocation to Crypto (previously "Other") for these. Default rates for these asset classes have been added.
7. We are getting ready to capture Second Additional Contributions to CPP and QPP which started in 2024. The TIME MACHINE has always calculated those in the future, but as of 2025, we will need to capture the past contributions (from 2024 on). You will see some changes to your CPP and QPP contribution tables.

As always, the details are in the MoneyReady App eBook and appropriate Help pages. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

And I want to extend a warm welcome to all our new users!

The MoneyReady App is a web app. It works with any modern browser on any device.

A laptop or a large tablet is preferable.

Note that some versions of the Safari browser have a bug that can cause you to get logged out or send you back to the dashboard. If you have any problems with it, please use a different browser.

Unfortunately, it's pay-walled

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/retirement/article-a-scientist-built-this-diy-retirement-planning-app-and-theres-a-free/

Please see this blog post for a brief overview. More details are on the homepage, and even more in the MoneyReady App ebook you can download once logged in.

We've made substantial changes that apply to CCPCs to improve accuracy, clarity, and optimisation. If you have an incorporated small business, read on. 

• The first changes you will see are in the CCPC PROFILE. There you will enter the CCPC Owner (you or your spouse). For each of you, and any DEPENDENTS entered, we require their percentage ownership of the company, and if they are allowed to receive dividends before the CCPC owner turns 65 (usually not the case for non-voting shareholders of professional corporations).
• You can also set a date when you want to wind down your CCPC. On that date, CCPC accounts will be liquidated and its loans paid off. Any remaining cash value of any life insurance contracts owned by the CCPC will be received. After the corporate taxes are paid, the CCPC will distribute the remaining cash as dividends in a tax-efficient manner to the shareholders in accordance with their percentage ownership.
• In INCOMEs, you will see 2 additional income types you can add for incomes coming from the CCPC (Optimised Dividends, and Salary and Optimised Dividends). For these, the amount of income from dividends issued by the corporation will be divided into capital dividends, eligible dividends, and non-eligible dividends in a tax-optimized manner to maximize the depletion of notional accounts. If income is still needed after that, for the first option, non-eligible dividends are paid, whereas in the second option, a salary to the CCPC owner will be paid.
• These 2 new income entries can also be Joint with a spouse, and in that case, the dividends paid will be shared equally between the spouses, if the spouse can receive dividends.
• We describe in the eBook how to set up a SCAN to find the level of salary versus dividends to apply that maximizes the estate (including the value of the CCPC) at the death of owner, 
• For better accuracy of the current year's calculations, there are additional inputs in the CCPC tax input form to capture the year-to-date gains in your CCPC investment accounts.
• We have clarified the CCPC table headers, and there are now detailed year reports for the CCPC that also include a Sankey cash-flow diagram for each year (just click on the year in the CCPC Time Table). There is also a detailed cash-flow report for all years.

As always, lots of explanations in the eBook and Help pages. If this sounds complicated, well it is. CCPCs are very complicated and you should always consult with professional advisors (accountants and lawyers) that are specialised in this area.

I had a nice chat with Bruce Sellery last week for his podcast:

Moolala: Money Made Simple with Bruce Sellery