Recommendations

Once you've entered your clients financial information (e.g., incomes, account balances, debt) Snap can automate calculations to help you answer questions including:

• How much can I spend without running out of money in retirement?
• Am I on track for my goals? If not, how much more do I need to save?
• When should I take my CPP/QPP and OAS benefits?
• Where should I withdraw from first when I retire?

Once you've completed the Scenario Setup data entry and your initial Planning Page adjustments (e.g., entering contributions to investment accounts), you can click Recommendations just above the projections table in the center of the Planning Page.

There are two categories of Recommendations in Snap.

1. Lifestyle Recommendations are related to decisions the client can make that impact their lifestyle. These decisions include how much to save while working, when to retire, and how much to spend in retirement. The goal of the feature is to find the best lifestyle outcome (e.g., earliest retirement age, highest spending level) while keeping the projection fully funded.
2. Financial Recommendations are related to decisions the client can make without impacting their lifestyle. These decisions include when to take CPP/QPP and OAS and where to contribute and withdraw money over time. The goal of the feature is to find the highest Estate After Tax in your target year while achieving the same lifestyle as before.

If your Planning Page has a lower resolution, or your window is smaller, the buttons will be displayed as icons. Click the button with the Recommendations symbol in the same location.

Your clients will sometimes have a goal (e.g., a target retirement age, a target retirement budget) and wonder whether they're on track. If they're not on track, they'll want to know what they can do to get there (e.g., save more, delay retirement). Other times, they'll know what they're doing today (e.g., total savings), but not what it will get them in the future.

The Lifestyle Recommendations feature helps you to calculate what a client needs to do to be on track for their goals, or calculate what goals (e.g., spending, retirement age) are realistic given their circumstances.

In this example, the client's current savings are more than enough to reach their target Retirement Spending goal of $100,000 (in real dollars) per year. They have an initial surplus Goal Balance (personal net liquid assets at the end of the projection) of $2,397,131. The Sustainable Spending calculates that they could increase their spending by $15,717 per year to deplete their personal net liquid assets by the end of the projection. The Retirement Age calculates that they could retire 3 years earlier while remaining on track for their $100,000 target.

You can then choose which individual adjustment (e.g., Sustainable Spending, Retirement Age) the client is interested in and Apply & Run the change on your current scenario, or create a copied version with the recommended change applied.

When you open the Lifestyle Recommendations modal, the Sustainable Spending option is selected by default. This is the most common calculation advisors run. If you want to update your projection to the Sustainable Spending level you can simply click Calculate and then Apply & Run. Similar to other tools in Snap, while it's designed to be easy to use, it offers many customizable options to best meet your needs. You can:

• Adjust the period that the Sustainable Spending calculation applies to.
• Select the age that you want to deplete the Goal Balance as of.
• Calculate values without applying them to the projection, which automatically includes them in the Goal Status page in the Client Report.

Our dedicated Lifestyle Recommendations article outlines how to use this tool to its full potential.

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Your clients must make many decisions that will impact their financial outcomes. When to take CPP/QPP and OAS, what accounts to withdraw from, etc. The combination of these decisions creates many possible paths with different pros and cons for the client. The Financial Recommendations feature automatically tests a range of possible strategies to help improve your client's outcomes.

In this example, by deferring CPP and OAS to age 70, realizing personal Taxable Income of ~$58,523 (real dollars) each per year, and toping up their TFSAs from non-registered accounts, the client can increase their expected Estate After Tax at the end of the projection by 32% ($1,160,246).

You can then choose to Apply & Run the changes on your current scenario, or create a copied version with the recommended strategies for comparison.

When you open the Financial Recommendations modal, the standard approach is to simply click Calculate and then Apply & Run (while leaving the box checked to Copy scenario before applying). Similar to other tools in Snap, while it's designed to be easy to use, there are lots of customizable options to best meet your needs. You can:

• Deselect settings (e.g., CPP Start Age) if you don't want them considered in the optimization.
• Select the age that you want to maximize the Estate After Tax as of.

Our dedicated Financial Recommendations article outlines how to use this tool to its full potential.

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