FI Toolkit +4

Cannot do any projections with a salary above $200k. Cannot contact developer. Useless if your income exceeds$200,000/yr

Thanks for your review. You can indeed set a salary above the $200k that the slider allows. Just press the the information icon "i" to the left of the slider. You can then set the parameter to any value you wish. The slider is meant to be a simple convenient way to set parameters for the program within a typical though arbitrarily defined range. For future reference, you can contact me for questions by email at fitoolkit@databaseconstructs.com

I'm a pretty savvy financial person with impeccable records and knowledge of using all sorts of different retirement planners. Entry is easy with your app...but the calculations seem wacky.

For example, in your Example Portfolio, you have $5,000 in Cash Savings Account entered on the left side. Yet your spreadsheet for the current year shows $20,000. Where in the world does this number come from? Where does the other $15,000 come from? Shouldn't all current entries in the left side then show in the current year on the spreadsheet?

Other amounts entered in the Savings Accounts areas (Portfolio, Tax Deferred and Tax Free) also have inaccurate amounts in the current year.

Even taking into account the rate of inflation and/or the Growth or Rate of Return does not give me numbers even close to whats displayed in the app.

Isn't your app supposed to calculate from TODAY and then into the future? Or does it mysteriously start at some strange unknown previous year? There's no explanation available.

These miscalculations throw off my complete retirement analysis and the accompanying graph.

Additionally, it would be nice if your "App Support" actually had a way to communicate directly with you or through your lame website so questions about this app could be explained and/or resolved.

So...oh wise app creator. Why do my all Savings Accounts amounts differ in what I have entered and what is displayed in the current spreadsheet year and thus calulated into the future?

If this is explained properly (ie I'm missing something) or if you correct the spreadsheet and graph due to this inaccuray, then I'll amend my review to a more favorable one.

Until them, I'm baffled where you get your basis for your calculations from.

Thanks for your review. Yes, I agree that the "initial" values in the first column is different than the inputs and does seem wacky. Firstly, the column values reflect the end-of-year calculations with a number of assumptions and simplifications taking place. And, regarding the "cash" account, one assumption/requirement is the strong suggestion to have funds available as an "Emergency Fund", but perhaps the app takes too much liberty at enforcing this idea. As such there is a minimum cash amount set up in the calculation with considerations for the number of months the emergency fund would cover and the app fills it up first. I should revisit this issue per your points made as I do agree it is not clear what is happening with "Cash" and the concept of filling it first to obtain an adequate emergency fund.  

In regards to the assumptions and simplifications I mentioned earlier, the calculations start with the values you input (albeit without showing these in the spreadsheet) and calculates a full year and then shows these results in the first column. However, the "Nest egg at Beginning of Year" value does reflect the total initial starting point entries, and the other cash flow items summarize the calculations for that year. For more information about the assumptions and simplifications, there is an article in the app that explains this further.

For additional support, you can contact me at steve@fitoolkit.com. Also, I will try to improve my website to offer more support options and information.

Regards, Steve Welch