Release Notes Release Notes A summary of all the cool features and improvements our team has been hard at work on. April 2023 A huge month for the Planner 🎉 We built a new algorithm in the Roth Conversion Explorer that optimizes for minimizing taxes paid during your lifetime. Crafted a robust IRMAA report to explain what IRMAA is, how it affects your plan, and how you can reduce it. Introduced Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) so you can help secure your financial data, which can be turned on in your redesigned settings page. View complete API product release notes March 2023 Released the new Roth Conversion Explorer after making adjustments based on feedback from users like you. View complete API product release notes February 2023 Soft-launched a revamped Roth Conversion Explorer. You now have new solving options and controls over suggested conversions, such as converting up to a tax bracket. We are continuing to expand and refine the new tool as we receive feedback. Gave a facelift to the Social Security Explorer and Budget Explorer. View complete API product release notes January 2023 Updated our RMD calculations to reflect the new SECURE 2.0 act rules that increased the start of RMDs to ages 73 or 75, depending on when you were born. View complete API product release notes December 2022 A brand new Scenario Comparisons tool is live that allows you to not only compare the optimistic, average, and pessimistic projections of one scenario but compare up to 3 different scenarios. Let’s dive in Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 View complete API product release notes November 2022 Shipped a new Scenarios page to make it easier to manage scenarios, make new ones, and designate any scenario as your baseline. We now store account balances so that, in the future, we can produce historical account balance charts. View complete API product release notes October 2022 Launched a learning management system so that members can easily attend all of their financial literacy classes. Increased the maximum number of scenarios per plan to 10. View complete API product release notes September 2022 New First-Time User Experience (FTUE) that offers instant value to new members as soon as they finish onboarding. Introduced a Social Security Summary in My Plan that gives bite-sized insights into your Social Security benefits, including your estimated monthly benefit, survivor benefit, and total benefit across your lifetime. View complete API product release notes August 2022 Refreshed the onboarding experience for new members. Upgraded our account linking product with Plaid so that accounts update daily. Redesigned login, signup, and newsletter pages. Released a new standalone annuity calc that will also be part of our API product. Added Digital Coach Suggestions to let members know if they have expenses, disbursements, or Roth conversions that lack sufficient funding. The Roth Conversion Explorer no longer recommends 1st-year conversions. Several modeling changes to improve data accuracy, including changing the default account turnover rate for new investment accounts to 0% and changing the growth rate of the default account to 0% so that it acts as cash. View complete API product release notes July 2022 Released a current-year Roth conversion widget that will also be part of our API product. Gave the Overview page a facelift. View complete API product release notes June 2022 Shipped a toggle to see the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) sunset that is slated for the end of 2025. Tuned up the Roth Conversion Explorer algorithm to recommend more realistic conversion strategies while maintaining performance. Changed the tax treatment of the default account to be taxed as ordinary income instead of at long-term capital gains rates. View complete API product release notes May 2022 Several quality-of-life improvements, such as clarifying to whom tax-advantaged accounts belong, making it harder to enter nonsensical dates, and showing a mortgage payoff date that reflects all payments (including lump-sum transfers) in the milestones report. View complete API product release notes April 2022 Complete overhaul of the income-linked contribution UX Rebuilt the Roth Conversion Explorer algorithm to produce better optimizations using half as many lines of code. It now runs twice as fast and has a “quick check” side functionality that can very quickly decide if any sort of optimization is possible. Improved account linking capabilities by supporting Plaid’s Account Select v2 View complete API product release notes March 2022 Upgraded the customer journey and coach suggestions via new displays on the dashboard, a new “Your Progress” page, and added filters (and a modified UI) to the suggestions page Added and improved white-label features on the core planner app for our enterprise partners Modified several tax-related assumptions applying to social security and RMDs Bug fixes: windfalls and one-time expenses after primary longevity age date are now properly modeled, several charting display issues are improved, and a minor corner case with future relocations is no longer happening Added TCJA modeling capability to the API product View complete API product release notes February 2022 Extended retirement age variable to be used across all relevant payment streams Shipped a new plan progress section to more easily see and navigate to plan completion items View complete API product release notes January 2022 Planner users can now link savings contributions to income streams, making their plan more accurate and easier to maintain Planner users also have the option to add employer matching savings streams alongside their income-linked contributions Upgraded our simple retirement calculator mini-tool so that enterprise and content partners are now able to easily embed the tool into articles, blog posts, and other websites View complete API product release notes December 2021 Launched the new Classroom offering Various bug fixes including improvements to our net worth calculation, social security benefits logic, and optimizers November 2021 Launched a new feature enabling retirement age to be a variable input that can be utilized to update multiple payment streams at once Launched in Planner app the ability to change an account’s rate of return over time (for example, reduce the risk/return profile of an account once a user reaches retirement) October 2021 Enhanced accounts to allow changing rates of return over time in our API product, with month-year granularity Enhanced income-linked user contributions in our API product to allow for annual % or $ increases to contribution amount September 2021 Added the ability to exclude specific accounts from the standard withdrawal order. Added the ability to update key info in multiple accounts in one screen. Upgraded our age/date pickers in key places (full roll-out across the planner coming next month). Updated our tax treatment for deductible disbursements. Added a spending power metric to supplement our API analytics product offering for enterprise clients. August 2021 Launched a brand-new UIUX for My Plan – big changes, take a look if you haven’t yet! The new design is a beautiful, modern, mobile-friendly app that makes it simpler to find and input data and much easier to view the forecasted results and impact of changes to your plan. Launched an enterprise-facing API toolkit that allows any organization to build best-in-breed financial planning and forecasting tools. Contact us to learn more. Built a number of powerful features into the API which will be included in the consumer-facing app over the next few weeks. These include income-linked contributions with optional employer-matched contributions, varied account returns over time, variable start times on pension and annuity COLAs, and more. Updated payments infrastructure to utilize Stripe. June 2021 Improved the free Retirement Calculator Enhanced the Monte Carlo calculation to more accurately capture the range of plan outcomes Multiple back-end enhancements in anticipation of upcoming app improvements April 2021 Launched a partnership with Marketwatch with a dedicated site for MW users Added the option to review your ‘average’ plan assumptions in addition to optimistic and pessimistic New Insights Library to highlight the various graphs, charts, and explorers available Improved our Monte Carlo modeling and data visualization, and applied Monte Carlo analysis to optimistic and pessimistic assumptions (in addition to average assumptions, which was already happening) February 2021 Multi-year scheduled withdrawals now available Social security claiming is now done by month (previously, it was limited to a given year) Updated lifetime income projection chart with net savings drawdowns January 2021 New Coach page Expanded access to the Beta Roth Conversion Explorer Bug fixes for capital gains/estimated tax reporting and a few other small items December 2020 Customizable labels across multiple accounts, expenses, and other items Updated Onboarding flow for new users November 2020 Beta Release of new Roth Conversion Explorer Added new Communities and Live Events sections October 2020 Launched new retirement calculator Updated new dashboard design September 2020 Launched new dashboard beta Centralized accounts such that balances and other permanent data fields stay in sync across scenarios Updated the blog in a few places, including new hub pages and more August 2020 HSA / 529 Account support added along with related tax forecasting improvements. Services API architecture updated and moved to Rails – 30% faster, more maintainable and scale-able. Better instrumentation across our customer life cycle. Fixes & improvements across Financial Projections, Account Linking and Monte Carlo. Initial help section with “how to” articles & videos. (see the magnifying glass in the Planner header) July 2020 Monte Carlo (Beta) – 1,000 simulations – running on AWS Lambda so we can scale this Social Security – automatically adjust benefit based on claiming date We started making Product Tours – still in progress and we’re adding videos June 2020 Account Aggregation – you can now link your accounts so that your plan will be kept up to date. Assets (Bank, Brokerage, 401K, etc) and Debts (Mortgage, Credit Cards, etc) May 2020 PlannerPlus Live – aka dedicated coaching support for your Plan April 2020 Google Authentication for Login (including underlying data/authentication model) Migrated to modern WordPress & updated theme. Site speed improvements Improved one time financial event handling for RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions) and Charting March 2020 Completed porting the entire Planner to React. Improved tax modeling for one time taxable events. Tax modeling improvements – cap gains, investment income, inherited IRAs, state tax tuning. Implemented state specific income tax rules. RMD modeling updated for spouses > 10 years younger. Add Federal tax only for pensions & annuities. Add FICA and Medicare/SDI tax modeling. February 2020 Optimize Withdrawals 1.0 – new disbursement controls for Inherited IRAs, charitable giving, etc, Improve home equity modeling Improve navigation January 2020 Withdrawals 1.0 Allow users to specify tax treatment on investment accounts Cloud migration – all on AWS (Amazon Web Services)
